Hello All

**mikkyle** · Feb 13, 2016, 12:57 PM

My name is Mike and I am a long time amateur woodworker with the basic tools for that being table saw, medium band saw, small bench band saw, bench top router table, and many small hand held power tools for woodworking. I now work from home and run a small vegetable market garden with a couple of good sized hoophouses, and 30 or so chickens. I sell to local markets eggs, and vegetables. This opens up some free time, (in the winter mostly), for me to pursue a lifelong desire to repair and restore old trucks and cars. This has also made it necessary for me to try to acquire some metal working tools on the cheap. I am not above making my own, but don't have much experience in doing so. I'm lucky enough to have some of the building blocks like an old miller thunderbolt AC stick, a cheap oxy/acetylene torch, and recently purchased a harbor freight 170 amp mig, but haven't had the money to buy the argon bottle, but am trying to teach myself flux wire welding with mixed results.

Getting better tho. I also have some experience spraying paint through an HVLP china gun, and have painted my son's 1980 K5 Blazer with pretty good results. Some tools I would be interested in building are a full sized wood band saw, a metal cutting band saw, tubing bender, sheet metal brake, shear, and roller, and outfitting my small shop with storage cabinets for hardware and tools, and welding carts for my mig and arc, and torch. I've been accessing this site for a year and getting so many great ideas, I had to finally introduce myself and express my gratitude for this site. Last year we needed a closed in space to paint his blazer, so my son and I built a 12 ft x 24 ft hoop structure with a concrete floor we mixed and placed ourselves. We have outgrown that and have started and expansion to that shop with more hoops off the backside for another 36 ft. I have the foundation forms in place and the hoops attached, and am hoping to get the end wall finished today so I can attach the poly cover to dry it in prior to pouring more concrete in the floor.

**Jon** · Feb 13, 2016, 06:35 PM

Hi mikkyle - welcome to HomemadeTools.net

Sounds like you're working on a lot! How is the shop expansion going? Post some pics of the Blazer if you have any, I know people would like to take a look.