Monday, June 16, 2008

More Power To Ya!

Did you all enjoy your Father’s Day? We did. Especially JW...he got nailed!

My dear, sweet hubby has an uncontrollable lust for power tools. He ogles at them, looking at them in stores and on the internet. If you listen closely enough, you can hear his inner “Tim The Tool Man Taylor” groaning that infamous grunt and screaming “MORE POWER!” Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.

Once he sees a tool that he wants, he is insatiable until it belongs to him and he can fondle and admire it. Which is fine except that then it sits in our garage...doing little to nothing, of course, because neither JW nor I really know how to fix or build anything. We could if we did. We have the technology.

When my friend The Big BaHuna brought a framing nailer operated by a very loud air compressor to our house to install the front porch and asked JW to fire a couple of nails for him, he inadvertently fired up some sort of leftover testosterone driven “man has to build” thing. I wanted to scream "NO! Don't let him touch it!", but it was too late and I’ve been hearing little except my husband’s almost caveman desire for this frightening tool/lethal weapon since.

Me want that, woman! Pound chest. Argh.

UGH!

JW”, I said, “those are expensive and well, we don’t nail anything.”

He countered with a “well, we could if we had one of those!”.

It is hard to argue with that kind of primitive logic and well, JW is just so darn cute, I knew I had to get it for him.

I did say no, initially,just to throw him off track. I told him that I don’t even think The BahUna owns one of those and he actually builds things. JW seemed a little disappointed, but he semi-agreed with me. I decided it would be a great Father’s Day present. What’s one more unused tool in the garage if it makes my hubby happy?

Last week, while JW attended his conference in Orlando, I researched all about framing nail guns and compressors and while at Big Lots one day getting gardening stuff I saw a 2.5 hp compressor on closeout. It was a steal so I (pulled a muscle in my back) loaded it into the car and brought it home.

The next day I went to the tool section at Sears and purchased a Craftsman framing nail gun, nails and of course, the necessary hose on a little reel thing. The kids and I surprised him with it for Father’s Day and he was ecstatic!

You’re very welcome and more power to ya, JW!

I also got some plans for this planter bench he can build for our yard. I’m pretty certain you don’t need that particular nail gun weapon to build this bench, but I’ll be damned if that thing doesn’t get used at least once.

First things first, though. We had to get all of this assembled and operating. It only took the two of us 4 hours and another trip to the store for an adapter kit to get the thing working. (Why can't they just put all the parts you need in the box with the tool?) That’s only because neither of us could figure out how to actually attach the nail gun to the compressor. Once we nailed it, though, were we ready for materials.

I then went back and forth to Home Depot three times to get the wood. I did learn that just because there is a sign hanging over the wood, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the wood underneath it is that size. I learned to read the little tags stapled into the boards and to write down the sizes I need correctly.

Knowledge is more my kind of power tool.

Right now, my bench looks like this. Not too comfy and inviting, right?


JW doesn’t have to work today so hopefully, but the end of the day that pile of wood will somewhat resemble this...


Only not so cartoonish, I hope :)


Apologizing ahead of time to Hysteria Lane for the noise, JW is now to be considered armed and probably very dangerous. Wood you please forgive me?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

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Unknown said...

Oh Allen would be in 7th heaven with such a toy...he is a grunter when he sees power tools too, and so is my son. Go figure. Can't wait to see the finished bench.

Crystal said...

Oooh cool gift! I love power tools too, and I have one that I use almost every day for my jewelry. It's a rotary tool (with a flexible shaft) on steroids.

We were talking the other day about renting a nail gun for our flooring project.

I love that bench. Where did you get the plans? I'd love to have something cute in my back yard.

Dustin said...

Anything that can plunge sharp objects through wood by using AIR is AWESOME.

Forget building benches, it's time to tape a bunch of balloons on particle board and pretend you're at the fair!

Careful where you aim that thing tho...*insert appropriate "Christmas Story" dialog here*