Projects – The Garage Journal

I’m guessing this little hack won’t apply to about 90% of you – or at least you’ll think it doesn’t. But if you’re even mildly obsessed with organization like I am, buckle up. This one’s a sleeper. The story starts about ten years ago on a photoshoot. Another photographer was managing all his cable runs with these little bungees from ThinkTank called Red Whips. Basically, short pieces of shock cord with a cord lock… simple, clever, and stupidly useful. I stole the idea immediately. But after a while, I noticed two problems. One, Red Whips are just too big. Great for extension cords, but …

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About five years ago, I cobbled together a little shop setup on the island of Kauai. One of my biggest concerns back then was the salt air – how it creeps into everything and turns tools into rust sculptures. To fight back, I built a system using Milwaukee Packouts paired with desiccant packs. Five years later, here’s how that strategy has held up. To see how I put these together, check out this video. To see how I assembled the ”Packout Work Bench,” peep this.

I’ve got a mountain of shit to do today—doctor’s appointment, content deadlines, kid logistics, bills stacked like bad decisions—but all I can think about is wrenching on the hot rod. I’m this close to having it dialed in just right, and every minute spent doing anything else feels like a waste of oxygen and caffeine. The pull of flathead glory is real, and it’s making me about as productive as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. So in the spirit of multitasking and half-assing, I slapped together a quick and dirty video about a case I built for storing Stromberg 97 …

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Another day, another application for the new shop laser… My little hot rod is running a generic Mallory coil. It was finished in a sort of pot metal chrome that clashed with the rest of the motor and I’ve been meaning to paint it. Last week, I did just that when I got an idea. Why not throw this thing under the laser? So I pretended my brother’s hot rod shop was making coils back in 1951, imagined how one might look, and then drew it up. Twenty minutes later and the Hellfire Ignition Coil was born. Anyway, here are …

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A few years back, I built a bench that ended up becoming a bit of a thing. It was called the Atomic BF/MFT—basically my own oversized take on the Festool MFT. I wanted something that could handle full sheet goods, offer endless clamping options, and stand up to just about anything I threw at it. It worked. People took notice. I ended up building a few for friends, and over time, hundreds of others followed suit with their own versions. Of all the things I’ve built, it’s probably been the most productive and efficient tool in my shop. But woodworking …

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