{"id":3696,"date":"2012-08-05T02:04:25","date_gmt":"2012-08-05T09:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/?p=3696"},"modified":"2015-05-26T16:41:16","modified_gmt":"2015-05-26T23:41:16","slug":"where-dreams-are-built","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/2012\/08\/where-dreams-are-built\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Dreams are Built"},"content":{"rendered":"
I turned my first bolts on a car when I was an over zealous, pimple-faced High School kid – many eons ago. As an up-and-coming amateur mechanic, I learned by doing and trial & error. I was not blessed with state of the art equipment nor facilities. I remember making use of whatever I could from random tools lying around the house and a cheap Husky socket set. When I was tinkering with my first car, I lived in a townhouse and then later moved into an archaic rented house with a cramped garage. Less than ideal, but we all have to start somewhere.<\/p>\n
Slowly, as I began to delve deeper and deeper into the car world, I amassed my collection of tools. I was eventually able to obtain a level of quality and cohesion in my garage set up to allow for comfortable workflow. A far cry from my humble beginnings, but nothing impressive or out of the ordinary.<\/p>\n
Which is why I decided to step it up a notch this time around. Prior to the moving date, I filtered through my inventory of tools and threw away the junk while adding in some upgrades. With the star of the new additions being the pair of Snap-on Dual80 ratchets. The longer one with the comfort handle is a locking flex-head type. Both ratchets are 3\/8″ drive, which I feel is the most useful size; it’s strong enough to handle high torque and small enough to be versatile. You shouldn’t need 1\/2″ until you’re in the 20mm+ range, in my opinion. I can’t wait to put them to work, the Dual80 mechanism offers an incredible degree of ratchet arc… it makes standard ratchets seem sloppy.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n Although the generic, overhauled<\/a> Craftsman ratchet (left) has been my bread-and-butter tool for a few years, it will now serve as my backup. I’ll use it whenever I do not feel like abusing one of the Snap-ons and need more leverage by sleeving on a jack handle.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n It took me a solid weekend just to unpack everything, after the epoxy flooring<\/a> was finally done and ready. During the same time, I assembled my new Craftsman Professional 5ft workbench. Along with the pegboard attachment, the workbench is the centerpiece of the garage.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n I love it, all my frequently used tools are easily accessible and having a tabletop is a great improvement. Before, whenever I needed to work on a smaller part, I usually did it on the concrete floor. I also mounted on a vice (wish I had this a long time ago).<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The house came with nice, metal shelves installed in the garage, but I still needed a closable cabinet. I went with a more conservative approach here and picked up an el-cheapo Walmart special. It may be plastic, but functions more than adequately to hold all my cleaners and other liquids.<\/p>\n