Long Time

Wow. Has it been that long since I’ve posted?

I certainly haven’t been sitting on the couch, eating bon bons and watching Oprah. I moved to a new house (believe me, I have a lot of heavy crap – just ask my wife!). I set up a new workshop, did brake jobs on the Volvo and the Protege. Plus a few other projects.

Initial set up of the new workspace.

The old seats were toast.

I recovered the seats in the roadster. I had a set of the correct ‘67.5 seat covers in red that had been in a box for over 10 years, waiting for the restoration of my 2000. The seats in Scraps were really in bad shape. The webbing was stretched out and it was like sitting directly on the floor. With new webbing the seats were nice and bouncy – part of the the suspension system of the car, I suppose. Of course, this introduced a new problem – I sit in the car much higher now, and the roll bar came far too close to the back of my head for comfort. One good tap from an SUV and I was going to split my head open. So, out went the roll bar – hard to explain to people that the car was more dangerous with the bar than without.

Much better!

The biggest thing to happen was the aquisition of a new “mistress” which took over my time in the shop – yes, a table saw. I sold two of my favorite pieces of vintage furniture – my Heywood Wakefield whale bone dining table and a late 40’s green formica and chrome kitchen table – to buy it. Totally worth it. The types of projects I can now attempt are leaps and bounds of what I could barely even think about doing before.

My Heywood Wakefield Whale Bone table was converted into a table saw.

The new tablesaw

The main thing I like about the “old car” hobby is the wide range of projects and skills that are needed – electrical, mechanical, metalworking, paint, upholstery and more. I’d like to explore even more skills and so I am opening up the scope of this website. It will no longer be just a car project site. I’m going to add my woodworking, home repair/remodeling, electronics and who-knows-what-kind-of projects.

Here are some examples of the types of “wider” projects that I have in the cue to write-up.

Box One

Box One interior

Garden Planters – made from old fence boards. One of three.

The Test Mule

These last two images are my “Shift-Tone” radios. These are “table” radios based on car radios with custom cases and are upgraded with line-in and bluetooth inputs. I have built two so far – the Test Mule and the Volvo Deluxe. I have page after page of sketches and ideas for many more. They combine 12 volt electrics with woodworking, metalworking, paint and stain finishes and retro design – a mash-up of automobilia, mid-century modern, audio, electronics, technology, design and style. I think of it as “jet-punk”. Like steam punk, but based on the jet age rather than the Victorian era.

The Volvo Deluxe

More to come, in a much more timely manner, I hope!