That does sound bad ass!

That's probably what I would do. You can buy a commercial fan that moves a shitload of air for not too much money.

Yeah, I'm some distance removed from that kind of expensive.

A buddy of mine was working with some wood that was black and spalted with red so it looked like flame through the wood. This stuff was as pretty as anything I've ever seen...and it cost him about $200 to build a pen holder out of it.

Maybe on some one-off projects I'd use purple heart or something interesting like that, but I don't expect to be doing much like that; I'm simply not nearly good enough (and my patience is...uh...lacking).

If you do, just run a respirator.

How much problem you had with motors burning out?

In my experience on bigger projects, battery life is a much larger impediment.

Granted, I'm not a contract carpenter working day in, day out, but we have erected major structures over the years.

And, like others have said, if I'm moving away from 'weekend warrior' projects, I pull out the corded and paslode gear.

I've had a dewalt chipping hammer and right angle drill for 15+ years. I've changed the cord on both and the trigger on the chipping hammer. I've had a 18 volt cordless drill for 10 years and haven't even replaced a battery. Never had any issues with any of the motors on anything but the sawzall. It burned out after 5 years and since I didn't like the design, I went with a Bosch. I've had it for 8 years now and just replaced the blade locking mechanism for $30. I'm pretty rough on my tools, so anytime I can get 10 years out of a tool I'm happy

Dude I've got a couple new battery powered impacts in 1/2inch and they are absolutely bad ass.i hardly ever use my air impact anymore, only for really stubborn stuff.

Yeah, they're a lot handier than air, but I a lot of the time I'm not in a shop and I have a compressor in the back of my pickup.

I can't get my air impacts of any size to last at all. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but for what they cost, they all go crap way too fast.

Most of the local tire shops have gone to battery powered impacts and I think I'm about to do the same. It's either that or put an oiler on the portable compressor and see if I'm just not oiling them right or something.

Just buy some air tool oil and put it in before each use.

That and drain the water out o your compressor and lines. In the shop we put in a water trap and it catches more water than you think. And I live in the desert.

Maybe my oil is just cheap crap because I use quite a bit of oil and try to drain the moisture regularly, but very little comes out each time. Only time I notice moisture is when running the air wand non stop. Water just pours out of the shop compressor so I don't know why it would be different with the portable. :shrug:

It hasn't been bad on the my portable. I'd guess it is because it compresses a lot less air to 120 instead of 170. Maybe the air impact won't work over the long term but I've done the battery thing and it's never charged when I need it.

You. Could get a small water trap and attach it to the impact. I've seen that before. But you have to be careful so you don't bust it off.

Oh. The other thing we found with the shop compressor is that the air doesn't cool and condense the water until it gets into the pipes in the walls. Accordingly we have a water trap and essentially an air dump at the low spot in the pipes in the shop.

This time of year gets my handyman task list in motion.

I've got more going than I have time but have been chipping away. My to-do list includes finishing my shop, building a globe fire pit out of an lp tank, changes and repairs to my favorite truck...and getting my latest truck going....1966 international.

This is part of what I finished today. Need to finish the tailgate benches I'm going to build for here and a couple of stump tables for beer.

Lewdog wants to put out some low voltage landscape/path lights in the front yard. Everything I read asks if you have minor electrical experience. I do not. Something I can still tackle without a big problem? How hard is this? Any recommendations for an 8-10 light kit with a transformer?

If you've ever wired up a car stereo you have the necessary experience for that.