Project 1- First, the sailboat mast. I have been slowly restoring a sailboat besides the one I have in the water, and it is nearly finished. Lucky Girl is my current sailboat, and she needs a companion, so we are building a Southcoast 21, and it is turning out beautifully. However, when we painted the boat- I had my boating buddy Joe doe the fiberglass and paint work- we did not paint the mast or boom. Now, I have painted before, and used a paint gun with a compressor- but not very often and someone else set the machine and paint gun and mixed the paint for me while they supervised. This time, I did it myself. A friend of mine came in as a partner on this boat, and he has been pushing me to get it all done because he wants to take it out. So, I thought this would be good preparation for the painting episode. Dan, my flying buddy and owner of Tri-Star Aviation loaned me his spare compressor and a hose and his paint gun- so there I was, all alone and ready to paint. My partner on the boat was there but he did not know how any of this works, so there we were, the blind leading the blind. I mixed the paint- we used Awlgrip- a popular paint for boats. It is expensive, is a 2 part paint, and you cannot go to a normal paint store to buy it. “Professional Use Only” I think it says on the can. So, today we became professionals. I mixed the paint, put it through a paint filter, and put it in the sprayer. Gulp. Here we go. Mind you, I used the safety gear- especially a respirator and it went very well! I found that working with a proper spray gun is much easier then working with a spray can. Beside the fact that you finger gets sore holding the button down on the spray can, I think it is because the can has a very small nozzle, and you have to go over the area a million times and it is hard to get it to look right. By the time it looks right, you blink and the whole mess starts to run and drip. The 2 part paint seems to hang a flash off (start drying) before it drips- but also it doesn’t dry all the way, so it seems to level itself out. Let me see if I can get our paint supply company to get in here and give us a better explanation. Also, the paint gun is easy to paint with. Besides the trigger being easy to pull, the spry pattern is much bigger, so you can lay light coats on and build up the paint nicely with just enough dry time on between to make it dry enough to not drip, but not so much that the new coat can now merge with it making the surface smoother and glossier. It was really fun to see it come together. Good tools and paint made it so much easier than I expected, but I am not ready to go painting cars and airplanes- not just yet anyway! So, I feel much more comfortable taking on the painting of the DB tractor, and showing it to you on air. Not all went according to plan though. I did not put quite enough hardener in the paint, and it took about 4 days to dry enough to handle it. During those 4 days a few bugs and some dirt got into it- very frustrating. But is was not so much as to warrant a re-do, and a little polish will take care of that.

Project 2- Gardening! In Texas, it is time to start the vegetable garden. We may have a few frosts, so my brother  Miles the horticulturist says to start the seeds indoors now, and by the time they are ready to go outside it should be fine- any time after Feb 20 or so is good for us on the Gulf coast. Now, you may be thinking- Steve, the tractor is not ready, how are you going to plant? Very observant, Grasshopper. Well, 2 things- 1. I already planted a test plot of barley and rye grains on 1/1/12. I turned over  a small area with my shovel, about 6′ by 12′. They are growing very nicely. 2, I have a friend that wants a garden so I went to her house and helped her plan the garden, and get the seeds started. She borrowed a rototiller from a friend, and is going to try it that way. It is one of those weed whacker attachment jobbers we were not at all impressed with, but I will let her wrestle a little with it. (In reality, once she sees how hard it is to handle, I will probably be over there doing it for her, but don’t tell her just yet.) I hope we don’t wear the thing out trying to get the garden tilled. Ultimately, this is why we are doing the David Bradley garden tractor project. I better get it done and soon! Stay tuned and go through the whole process with us.

Project 3- My aunt gave me a wood lathe that belonged to my late uncle. It is a huge, heavy antique thing that is just wonderful and made in America. I am repainting it and tuning it up while the weather is cold and we are waiting for DB parts to come in.

Project 4- A friend of mine Monica was out riding bikes with her girlfriends and came across an abandoned derelict Glastron motor boat. She had visions of speeding around on the lake with her friends, water-skiing and fishing. She started to take pictures of it and one of her friends said ‘hey, call Steve and see if he will help you fix it up! He will know what to do.’ Fuel on the fire, folks- fuel on the fire. So, what do you think? Should we rebuild a motorboat on The American Garage? This past weekend, I went out there with her and looked it over. As any derelict, it is in rough shape. But, the fiberglass of the hull and deck are solid and have no blistering- a good sign. it is full of water, telling me that it does not leak, also a good sign. But everything else is gone. Inside floor ribs will have to be replaced, the floorboards too. upholstery, and all the hardware. Plus we will need a motor and a trailer. But, as I was telling her- the nice thing about it is that if you decide to go forward with it, you get to pick the colors, materials, and equipment that you want. In essence, we would be building a new boat. She is thinking it over, and I am trying to determine what it will take to get it  done. But folks, this is exactly the kind of can-do attitude we are looking for. I have been asking people to come up with project ideas, and this one has a lot of potential. Come on now, dear reader, get into the mix and put your comments in. What do you think?

Oh my goodness the year has start off with a bang! Today I thought I would let you  in on happenings in the Garage, and status of the project and related items. Where to begin?! I guess we will start with the project. The tractor is coming along, and we are getting close to painting. Some of the challenges that came along that slowed things down a little are 1. Christmas, 2. work the company had to do, 3. other projects that had to be done, and 4. searching for head gaskets for the engines and seals for the transmission.

So I located a company that can make new head gaskets for me from scratch, since our old Briggs & Stratton engines are hard to find parts for. Yes, we have 2 of them, although with the magic of movies you only see one. We have 2 whole DB tractors. The second one has considerable problems, but we are pushing forward. The transmission seals on the axles were bad, which means that oil leaks out of there and makes the tractor a oily dirty mess. I want to replace them before we paint, so we don’t mess up the paint job. Always try- if you can- to do all the repairs after you have cleaned everything, but before you paint. I put the primer on so I don’t have a rust problem while I am making the repairs.

Episode 4 is almost finished, and after  I finish this blog, I am on it, so be watching out! I will get it o  you ASAP. We will be covering metal repair. We used Alumaloy and Castaloy, and we got a lesson from Kino on professional welding. Good stuff!

Other projects- Tell you what let me just give you a teaser here, and make a new blog entry to tell you about those. but in short, I will highlight 3 things- gardening preparation, painting the mast on my sailboat, and restoring a motorboat. Look at New Projects February 2012!

In Episode 3, we will  remove  rust from all the pieces, now that we are organized and disassembled. Follow along as we cover some different techniques for handling rust.

As you have no doubt just enjoyed the first episode of TAG, I thought I would give you a little more info about the project we have acquired. There are a few little details that we did not make evident in the show. First of all, here is a picture of our project when we purchased it.
As you can see, it is not just one David Bradley, but two. They came with old Briggs & Stratton engines, and was received in a basket case condition. What is a basket case? Go take something apart, throw all the parts in a big basket, and all the nuts an bolts in a box, give them a big shake, hand to someone else and voila! Here is a funny side note about the purchase. I called the guy and asked him how much to purchase the DB’s. He said $150. I said ok. He said, “Well now you don’t have to be so hard nosed about it. Ok, $125.” I said ok. He said,” You really drive a hard bargain! Okay, $100, and that is my final offer!” I said ok, but you better stop before I get it for free. Ha! I never knew I had such fantastic negotiating skills. I did try to work this little story into the script but it just didn’t work. So, here it is. Now, we will get into detail on the different aspects of the restoration, so if you have any questions, drop me a note and I will answer your questions on the website as best I can.

Stephen

As of today, we have launched the first episode of The American Garage. I guess you could say this is our debut. As you can see, the first project is the restoration of a David Bradley garden tractor. You can find the first episode under Season 1. Here at the Garage, we are completely excited about the debut of the show, and we hope that you enjoy it- but not only that, but we hope that you feel inspired to pick up a project of your own. Look around you- there are potential projects everywhere!

So let’s talk a little more about project selection- personally, I want to do projects that I find exciting. But, if that were it then I think I would have missed the point. I wouldn’t want to pick projects solely on the basis of whether or not I find it exciting. I select projects that also have a high value. Things that better my life or the life of others. I don’t know about you, but when I build something for someone else it has much more value in the end and is much more gratifying. So, if I wanted to build- say- a hot rod, then it was so perfect that I didn’t want anyone to ride in it or even touch it, then I really did not better anyone- including myself. Contrast that with building a boat, and then taking all my friends for a ride and teaching them to drive the boat- now everyone gets to enjoy it, and others get inspired, and go get their own boat. Then we have incredible water balloon fights and we all get to be better friends.

So why a garden tractor? Well, as a kid growing up in Northern Illinois, we had a John Deere 110 tractor to mow the grass and tend the garden. We raised probably 80% of our food in the garden, and grew up healthy and strong. My family wasn’t trying to ‘make a statement’ or be ‘purist’ or anything like that. How do you feed 6 hungry kids on a teacher’s salary? You get inventive. So we all planted and weeded and hoed and watered and harvested. There was a great satisfaction in the whole process. Today, even the best choices in the grocery store are many times tainted by too many demands. Stuff gets picked too soon so it can make it to the store, or chemicals are used to make it ripen faster, or preserve it until we pick it off the shelf. Some things are hybridized to the point they no longer have the same nutritional value of their original ancestors, and other things are genetically modified to grow faster, or some other quality that the modifiers are looking for. Are all these things bad? Well, I don’t think so- but it is starting to look unrecognizable from what food used to be before we started handling and modifying it like we have in the last 50 years. The other reason for me is that I started observing what happened after Hurricane Ike in Houston a couple of years ago. The grocery store went completely bare in just a few short days. You know something? Not one bit of all that food was locally grown. Whatever happens or can happen to stop the flow of semi trucks to the grocers is the thing that can cripple us both individually and as a nation. So, growing a garden will reduce my dependency on infrastructures that may not always be there, and the food will more then likely be way better for me. Plus, the exercise of getting in the garden is good for my body as well. So, I chose to build a garden tractor. Raising food is not really a hobby for me- it is something I consider a part of life that just needs to happen- like brushing my teeth or cleaning the house. I would like to see an America where we all have some kind of garden again, sharing and trading our different produce. And when a hurricane or natural disaster comes along, we shrug our shoulders, look into the pantry at our reserves, and say- “Things will be alright. Let’s put everything back together.” Enjoy Episode 1, and join us for the entire process of restoring the David Bradley.

Stephen

This week, I took one good look around the garage, and decided it was time to de-clutter and organize. It is sooooo easy to collect so much stuff that you can’t hardly work. This is going to be an on-going project over the next couple of week, but I got a handle on it and got one section cleaned, organized and made operational. Once the show starts, you will see what I mean in the first couple of episodes. As the DB project continues,  you will see the garage get neater and more functional. As for the tractor itself, a second coat of primer went on most of the parts, and I talked with my buddy Dan about showing us how to paint using  a paint gun and compressor in a paint shop. We will go out to Tri-Star Aviation to get his wisdom and use his paint shop. If we painted the tractor in the garage, we would need a paint gun, compressor and all the tools that go with those machines. Otherwise, we would have to use spray paint. The problem is that you can’t get custom colors in spray cans. There are other solutions that we will discuss on the show, but since we have a willing friend who has the tools, we will go use his tools. And yes- we will find a way to leave them in better condition then we found them.

Stephen