Lizzie, I'm glad your BBQ was such a huge success and that you had so much fun doing it. 
'moanin everyone. The old grey mare ain't what he used to be. This working for money thing isn't what it's cracked up to be and I've got to got back and finish up today.
I thought you were a Bosch guy. I've used Makita tools and have had mixed results. Their battery drills were OK, but failed too soon if used heavily and the same with their skilsaw. On the other hand I have a Makita miter saw that is still going strong after almost 30 years of fairly heavy use. Skil and Black and Decker are consumer grade, same with Ryobi. I have mixed opinions on Milwaukee as well. I have a skilsaw that just keeps going, another 25 or 30 year old tool, but their batteries for their drills are crap. So far I've had two out of two crap out with minimal use. I have had one "rebuilt" and that one is far superior to even a new Milwaukee battery for half the price. Those batteries are fairly expensive so it kind of ticks me off that they only last under 50 cycles.
Fixing scratches in plastic body parts can be a pain. I did it for about five years. If you're lucky, a wet sand and buff will work wonders at times but be careful not to sand through the clear coat.
If the scratch is down into the plastic the only way to do it is with filler and treat it like actual body work. The filler has to be a flexible type since plastic flexes but that is readily available. After filling and sanding, prime, paint (have fun matching unless you mix yourself or have access to a commercial paint supplier), clear coat then add a blender to hide the new clear coat. It's a killer with high metallic paints since the metallic in the paint will probably not "lay" like the original paint did, but if you "feather" the edges it will not be real obvious.
Another trick, if the damage is a crack, is to use a hot tool, like a broad bladed screwdriver heated with a torch, to kind of "putty knife" the crack back together. I also have a plastic "welder", basically a hot glue gun that has variable temperature, changeable nozzles, and takes all dins of different plastic "welding rods. Sometimes you need to get behind the piece and use fiberglass fabric and fiberglass the part back together, then weld it back together on the front side. After it's back together, the regular body work gets done, fill, sand, prime, paint clearcoat, blend. It is a little work, but way cheaper than a new bumper for example.
Overall, without a good detail spray gun, 1.5mm nozzle, dried and filtered compressed air, a trusted source for paint and basically a full set of basic body repair stuff I wouldn't get involved. Too much can go wrong.
Oh yeah, I understand paints have changed since I was doing it and now are water based to be eco-friendly. According to the salesman, my wife's Honda is painted with a water based lacquer and is not clercoated. Beats me, I've been out of it for a while.

stairs. I would've been cussing out the tour guide.
Hey Folks
I'm so relieved to read that Cindy is okay. That had me really worried.
Hey Tritium!! Good to see you again! View attachment 368006
Beautiful autumn foliage shots, Sandy!! WOW!
Sure am glad that you had a good time at your BBQ, Lizzie; and that Rusty didn't knock anyone over.I wish that we all coulda been there too.
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I'm alive and well, but sore from my toenails to the roots of my hair. My adventure at Squire Boone Caverns was ... AMAZING! It also physically and psychologically pushed me to extremes. There were a few things that I simply hadn't thought of or known about. For one thing: There was a 73 step spiral staircase that takes one deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth - roughly 90' deep. That business of goin' round and round kinda got me a bit discombobulated. View attachment 368007 You are forced to look down to traverse the stairs. You can see beneath them because they are open weave metal. There's this whole fear of heights thang that I had to struggle with. Not to mention the simple fact that it was 73 freakin' stairs. Not so easy whilst using a cane either.
And then there were MORE stairs going yet deeper. At least they were straight. I couldn't sit down to take a break because we had to keep up with the guide and the rest of the group. There was really no taking a break until the tour was over 45 minutes later ...... after we had to go right back up those
73stairs!! 8-o
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It was so very worth it though. When you look all around at the natural formations it takes your breath away. Especially when you do the math. I don't do math (unless forced), but in this case, I simply had to. The guide told us that it takes roughly 100 years for a stalactite to grow 1/4". So it takes 400 years to grow an inch. Then you look at the delicate "soda straw formations in front of you and focus on one maybe 12" long. A simple touch could shatter it. But when you do the math, you realize that fragile formation has been growing for 4,800 years! Then you look at The Rock of Ages which is about 33 feet. 33 X 4800 = 158,400 years old. It's unfathomable to me. How can I even comprehend that many years? I'm a speck of dust in comparison. It's humbling and awe inspiring.
Please pardon the fact that so many of my photos are blurry. It's a minor miracle that any of them came out reasonably well because I was trembling violently. But, y'know what? We enjoyed it so much that we're probably going caving again this coming weekend.Sooo ... we're either a.) masochists b.) insane -or- c.) just too stubborn to let some stress and physical discomfort prevent us from having another really awesome adventure. I'm most comfortable believing that it's option c.
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Warning!! Mass Photo Barrage!!
OMG you must have a camera recording this stuff LOL! Were very lucky it disconnected itself.Unknown to me there was a 1/2" bolt in the way. When the bit hit the bolt the drill literally lifted me, bodily, up off the stool and I hit my head on the ceiling. As it spun down it unplugged itself from the extension cord. The bit was torqued so badly we had to use a sledge to hammer it out of the hole. Wish I had that drill now.





Gez, you have a right to be concerned. I wouldn't put my horse there.![]()
It'll soon be over, but I just wanted to complain to people who would understand. The place where I board Penny has become unsafe. The wire fences have all these pieces sticking out just waiting to get a horse. I didn't have to search far and wide for these examples, either. They were all within 50 feet of the barn, seen easily by anyone who cares to look and be concerned. I think the barn owner's teenage help has left for the most part. Just 2 girls left at home. My guess is she depended on some of the kids to take care of this kind of thing, and now those kids are gone, so nothing's being fixed. And recently she got a bunch of additional horses (boarders, except one she bought when she has more than she can ride now), so she has had to juggle fencing and which horses go in which pastures. This bad fencing is just one of my multiple complaints. I've mentioned others before, but the other day, I took pictures of the worst of the fencing fiascos.
It's my guess this is why Penny has been getting small cuts about once a week for the last month or so.
That is very worrisome, SandySu. A horse could really get hurt on that kind of pokey wire!


Hi Evie nice to meet you too. It's nice that YOU all are here.Hi Tritium, I'm Evie, it's nice to have you here and nice to meet you.![]()
Have no idea what the safety regarding this situations is, you probably can't do anything about it and just be prepared.Tritium, the drill shut off anyway when my hand came off the trigger when my head hit the ceiling. The motor was about a 1/3hp and it took that long to spin down that it would up about 10 meters of cord. Sorry, no video. That happened before Betamax was out.