peejman

That's a HUGE bullet! Reminds me of pics I've seen of some wildcat caliber where the bullet appears bigger than the brass. I'm curious to see how it works.

Looks great! Excellent use of a template to keep it square and straight. So many people make stuff like this that comes out distorted because they can't be bothered with the extra 10 minutes to make the template .

My understanding of LifeLock's $1M guarantee is that they'll spend up to $1M fixing things. They don't pay you because someone stole your credit card number.

The spray-on bedliner episode was amazing. I was really impressed.

Lucky 13!

The wood won't ruin the meat unless it's got fungus or mold in it. Some folks claim to tell a difference based on the type of wood, I really can't. Maybe if it's a wood fired smoker, but when just using it to smoke over charcoal... nah. I also have a charcoal smoker and have used hickory, oak, cherry, pecan, mesquite, apple, maple, and probably a few others. The biggest difference to me is how fast the wood burns up and hence how frequently I have to tend to it. So far, pecan is my favorite... smokes for hours. This is making me hungry. I've got a pork loin in the freezer and the weather is supposed to be decent this weekend. hmmmm....

Good to know. As I said, Big Brother has blocked the videos and I haven't remembered to watch them at home yet. Agreed... I like the above ground, inside the house version best... though planning for it in a new construction sure would make things easier than trying to install one later. As for being safe living on a ridge... a friend lived way up on the side of a hill. Several years ago a hurricane remnant passed through and we got several inches of rain in a day. The 8-12 ft high retaining wall around the side of his driveway collapsed and he ended up with 1-2 ft of mud in his garage. His insurance company called it flood damage and refused to cover it.

No sweat on cutting through the concrete to install it. There shouldn't be any structural load on the floor in the middle of the garage. The hole is far enough from walls that connect to the floor. My concern there would be back fill and drainage. They'll dig a hole for it, which necessarily will be bigger than the box. Then they've gotta back fill and around it with something and compact it, else the dirt will slowly fall down and fill it up, out from under the slab. Any decent contractor should know that... I'd assume these folks do as well. There may be some plumbing in the floor. If you've got a plumbing layout from the construction process, that will tell you. Assuming the plumber actually put the pipes where the drawing said to.

Depends on what kind of smoker you have.... charcoal, wood, gas, or electric? If it's charcoal or gas, it's ok to burn it green... it makes more smoke that way. If wood, I'd mix a couple green in with the dry. If electric... I've no idea. If you want to burn it in a wood stove (like for home heat), let it dry for at least 6 months. As for the best meat... anything... pork, beef, venison, chicken, turkey... whatever. The type of wood is a small factor, IMO.

Welcome!

Welcome!

I had another thought regarding the underground version.... what if it floods? Perhaps you don't live in a flood prone area, but I bet a lot of people in Nashville thought that before 2 years ago. A flash flood of couple inches of water in the garage would fill that shelter up real quick. I don't see any mention of that and the doors don't appear to have any sort of seal. No ventilation either. Perhaps I think too much.

http://www.tnstormshelters.com/ - appears to be exactly the same as what you posted above, just an east TN version. In my mind (I'm not a construction expert, though I am an engineer) reinforcing an existing room would involve gutting it, building a relatively heavy steel box to fit within the existing house structure, installing it, and then finishing around it to hide it. Basically, exactly what the link calls a "safe room". It'd effectively be a "stand alone" box, not really connected to the house, other than being bolted down. You'd lose or have to relocate your pantry. Since you're on a slab, bolting it down to the slab would be relatively easy. Don't let the "10,000 lb bolts" marketing hype fool you. The bolts will rip out of the concrete long before they'll break. Having thought a little about the garage version... That seems like it would be hard to get into in a hurry unless you've got a really big garage. My cars fill up my garage. To get into it I'd have to open the bay door, back the car out (and sacrifice it to the weather), close the bay door, then get the family into the shelter. Not exactly a fast process. If you knew that a storm was coming, I suppose you could leave the car out. They also seem rather small. Not a big deal for a raging thunderstorm where you're only in it for a few minutes, but for something like a hurricane that could take hours to pass by, it might get a little stuffy inside.

I had problems with mice in my garage. They were getting to the bird seed, dog food, and recycle bins. I got a few 5-gal buckets and a couple big plastic containers with snap on lids. That kept them out of the bird seed and dog food. Then I fussed at my wife for not rinsing out her coke cans before putting them into the recycling bin. No problems since. The good news: I discovered that the recycle bins do make good mouse traps. Apparently the mice couldn't climb back out. The bad news: I made that discovery after the bins had sat in my car in the hot sun all day. With 6 dead mice in the bottom of the containers. The weird news: Seems mice, when trapped, will turn cannibal. Several of the carcasses had been eaten on.

I'm in a similar situation, I have a crawl space. Our current "storm shelter" is the laundry room, which is the only room in the house (one level) with no exterior walls. I understand your concern about basements and mold. I really wanted a basement (for storm shelter and general man-cave reasons), but it seemed like 9 of 10 houses had some sort of moisture problem. And no one but me seemed to think it was a big deal. If I were building a house, I'd definitely put in some sort of storm shelter/panic room. If the expense of installing one isn't a big deal, devaluing the house would be of very little concern. I'm a bit leery of the under garage, post-construction version. Big brother has blocked the installation video in the link you posted, but the "one day install" comment has me really suspicious. I think a coworker's wife sells storm shelter type rooms. I'm waiting for a response from him at the moment.

Welcome!

That's a huge rat! They're likely coming in to build a nest and/or eat stuff. Find out what they're eating and get rid of it.

Amen to that. Holler if you need some help.

Definitely the DB9....

I don't carry mine every day. I carry it when I'm out somewhere with my kids, at an amusement park, etc. It also doubles as a "get home bag" so it stays in the car most of the time.

Sounds like a lot of work, but the results are quite good. You might consider bringing a caliper/depth mic next time for better accuracy when moving the base.

I attended UTC for a few years and lived on campus. Coming across a beggar on campus was not uncommon, particularly on weekends. We quickly learned to travel in groups, safety in numbers. After a few encounters, our standard answer became... "we don't have any money (college students... duh), but we'll gladly get you something to eat from the cafeteria with our meal card if you're hungry." My roommate and I were on our way back from lunch on a sunday and a guy actually took us up on the offer. I recall him being somewhat scruffy looking, but neither of us got any sort of bad vibe about the situation. He walked about a block with us back to the cafeteria. He sat on a bench outside, we went in and got him a big tray of food... burger, salad, fruit, pie, etc. We handed it to him, he thanked us and ate it right there.

I just feel sorry for the child.

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/unlicensed-persons.html