Today was a very productive day, but god damn it, if it wasn’t super frustrating, too. Well, the second half of the day, anyway. The first half of the day went smoothly. I finished the projects that I had started yesterday. I built a cabinet to hold six drawers that I bought at a yard sale many years ago. The cabinets that the drawers came in were made of particle board, which wasn’t great to begin with, but after so many years, they were falling apart. So, I built a new cabinet for the six drawers yesterday. I left it overnight for the glue to dry, and then I assembled it today.

I also built a little box to hold another drawer that I had that never had any sort of cabinet or enclosure.

After lunch, I moved on to the big project. I have a rolling cabinet with 25 drawers in it. It was too tall the way it was, so I wanted to make it shorter. I also wanted to build a stationary base for it since it never gets moved. By taking the wheels and top tray off, I was able to buy myself over 5 inches. That meant that I could add two drawers to the top. So, I started by building the base, and that’s where things went south.

I Fucking Hate Welding!

Welding can be so gratifying…when it goes well. The problem is that it seldom ever goes well. That’s mainly because I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing because I weld so infrequently that I forget what I learned the last time. Tonight was a particularly spectacular cluster fuck of welding ineptitude. My welds were shit, they were splattering everywhere, and I was blowing holes in the metal. I adjusted the settings, but it didn’t help.

I changed the wire from .35 to .25, and I also changed the tip. It was a totally different experience after that. The metal flowed like warm butter, but only for one joint. The other three were much like before I changed the wire. I was well and truly pissed off by the time I was done. Fortunately, I’ll never have to see my abhorrent welds again because they are hidden away from sight underneath a cabinet. When I’m dead and my belongings are scavenged by pickers at my estate sale, someone will get a good laugh when they see what I did.

This garage makeover is getting excitingly close to the end. Once I build the box for the two drawers, I can start painting everything, and then I can finally put everything away and clean up the garage! It’s still a long way from over, but I can see the finish line. It’s a thin line way off in the distance, but it’s there!