Give the Gift of Flame

Father's Day is Sunday, and if you're tired of giving the same old ties, after-shave, or Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolets, allow me to suggest something that every man needs to turbo-charge the family cookouts: a flamethrower.

The NAO F542 propane-powered flamethrower represents the pinnacle of fire-shooting consumer devices, ...featuring all-brass finish, carved wooden grips, adjustable aperture, and the ability to cook gourmet meals in under 45 seconds!

I understand it will even sterilize tomatoes.

If Dad is the more active or less pyromaniacal type, NAO's recumbent trike design is interesting, with the ability to lean into turns thanks to a pivoting frame.

The Hapless Mechanic - Pt. 73

So we come out of IHOP after breakfast this morning and Gene points at our car and exclaims, "you have a flat tire!" Even a mechanically-challenged person like me could tell that he was right; the driver's side rear tire was as flat as one of the pancakes I'd just consumed. The cause was obvious: we'd apparently picked up a nail on the way out of the neighborhood, something I had long before figured was inevitable given the amount of ongoing construction.

It took me a couple of minutes to remember how to drop the spare from under the car, while Gene pulled out the jack and related tools. While I was retrieving the spare, he broke loose the lug nuts. We jacked up the car and I began to remove the wheel. Five nuts came loose without a hitch. The sixth didn't. In fact, after a couple of rotations, it refused to budge.

I'm not sure what I'd done if I'd been by myself, as I've never experienced this problem before. Fortunately, Gene is an experienced mechanic and he immediately knew the only logical solution. "Break it." Now, if you've been paying attention, you know that's right up my avenue of expertise, but rarely have I gotten instructions to do it. So I put my back into it and snapped the stud. It was pretty obvious that when the tire had been mounted, the mechanic had gotten too aggressive with the air wrench and stripped the stud, and breaking it was the only way to remove the wheel.

One broken stud meant a more complicated repair than just a flat tire, but it wasn't a disaster. But my mechanical adventures never end so cleanly, and it was about that time that the car gently but resolutely fell backwards off the jack, something that is never A Good Thing. Happily, we were all out of the way and no one was injured, if you don't count the lug nut that I had re-affixed to the wheel while I was breaking off the damaged one. When we jacked up the car again, I found that it, too, was stripped. Snap. We're now down to four functioning lug nuts, and that's pretty much as far down that path as you want to go.

My initial plan was to take the car to a repair shop, but I ran across this video on removing a broken lug nut stud and this one on replacing a stud. The process seemed quite straightforward, and so I decided just to try it myself. In retrospect, I should have just hit myself in the head with a ball-peen hammer.

I drove – gingerly, if one can actually do that – to the nearest of the approximately 8,000 auto parts stores we have in Midland, and bought a couple of lug nuts, studs, and some Liquid Wrench. I returned home – still gingerly – and parked in the garage. The first order of business was to put on some good mechanicking music, so I hooked up the iPod and fired up some of Tommy Castro's blues.

I removed the wheel and immediately discovered why I had not chosen wisely. The videos linked above show a nicely disassembled wheel, sans brake drum. What it obviously didn't show was the agony that was associated with removing a stuck brake drum in order to replace the studs. I tapped and sprayed, sprayed and tapped, uttered a few incantations over the rusted axle flange, and tapped some more. The drum was still as tight as a, well, drum. So I resorted to the last thing you really want to do in a case like this: I set the car on fire.

No, not really. I called for help. I dialed Gene's cell number to see if he had any tips for getting the drum loose. He started asking a bunch of questions about whether I had done this or that to that or this, and not only didn't I know the answers, I didn't even recognize the questions. At that point, I figured the best thing to do was re-assemble everything and fall back to my original plan: pay someone who knows what they're doing and has the tools to do it with. But, being the all-around good guy and good friend that he is, he insisted on loading up his tools and coming over for an in-home consultation.

Long story shortened. Even Gene's tools and expertise couldn't loosen the stuck brake drum (it's too big for his puller), so we reluctantly agreed to give up the quest (it bothered him more than it did me). I've been putting off having the brakes on the Durango serviced, and this will give me an excuse to kill two birds with one impact wrench.

And, of course, this being a holiday weekend, I'll have to wait until next week to get everything back in order. Still, it's all fixable and nobody got hurt, and that makes for a successful mechanic experience in my sad history. What I'm worried about most of all now is what the term "stripping a stud" is going to do to the Gazette's search engine traffic, IYKWIM.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, folks!

Designer Drill

It's just a wild guess, but I suspect this won't be found on the shelves of your local Ace Hardware store when it debuts in July.

The P7'911 Multihammer is an electric hammer-drill made of aluminum and carbon fiber. Now, much as I like power tools, here are a few reasons why this one won't be appearing in my garage, ever:

• Any power tool that has a "debut" is too chic to occupy space in my Craftsman-themed garage.


• Likewise for a drill that has a better website than, say, Ferrari.


• The $695 price tag would just about replace my entire power tool inventory.

I know you're not shocked to hear that this drill was designed by Porsche.

I'll give 'em credit for their marketing, though. You have to be impressed by the implication that their drill did this:

My advice is that if you ever see a contractor pull up in your driveway and haul one of these things out of his toolbox, you should be prepared to be drilled in more ways than one.

Tool Quiz

We have a winner! Fellow Texas blogger and author of the Glovebox Stories series, Deborah, correctly identified the device as a film leader retriever. For those of you who cut your teeth in the digital photography era, back in the old days cameras used something called "film." If you need more background than that, check with Wikipedia. Anyway, one of the drawbacks to using film is that it is possible to inadvertently roll the film completely into its canister before you've used all the exposures. This little tool allows you to reach inside (in a non-destructive manner, Foo) and pull the end of the film back out so it can be reloaded into the camera. Interestingly, several of you commented on the "clicking" nature of the device, and that is exactly how you can tell when the film is in the right position to be retrieved: the leading edge clicks each time it's rolled past the device, and once you hear a solid click, you roll the film backwards to jam it against the device, close the device over the film, and gently pull it out. With luck (it never worked on the first try for me), the film leader comes with it. It's another one-trick pony of a tool, but it saved several rolls of photos for me over the years.

Update: OK, I can tell that you really don't have a clue, so here's a hint: this device has become practically obsolete due to changes in technology over the past few years. (Man, I might as well spell it out!)

The first person to identify this device and its use will receive untold glory. No, really.

The Brazen Bike Hack: Putting the Saw into Hack

First, many thanks to Beth for the inspiration for a name for the new project. As she pointed out, the name works on a number of levels, with "hack" being the thing to rule them all. And that's an appropriate place to start...

If you've never completely disassembled a bicycle just for the fun of it, you should. It's great therapy, particularly if you don't have to worry about putting it back together. My victim in this case is the steel frame of an old touring bike, shown a right. Feel free to click on the image for a bigger and uncropped view.

I confess that I have never torn down a bike to its bare frame. I've never had a reason to do that, and though I've done many different types of repairs, I've never removed a bottom bracket (the mechanism that allows the pedals to move in circles, for those who are new to terminology) or a headset (the mechanism that allows the handlebar to turn, while keeping things stiff enough to maintain control). And, in fact, I don't have the tools to do these tasks properly. Fortunately, that was not a concern, as this frame was destined to never again see duty as a vehicle.

Thus, in less than an hour I had the bike stripped to its essential frameness, as shown at right. The perceptive viewer will note that the bottom bracket is still installed, because I hadn't yet figured out how to remove it, but shortly after this photo was taken, I employed a claw hammer and a center punch and made short work of it.

As much fun as this process was, it was just the prelim to the main attraction: the real-life hacking was about to begin. I mounted the bare frame on my trusty and oft-misused repair stand, grabbed a hack saw and got after it. I immediately encountered an interesting phenomenon. After you've sawed through a bike frame, if you're not very careful, your saw blade will drop past the tube you just sliced, the two cut ends of the tube will snap back together, and you'll be standing there with a hack saw trapped within the triangle of a bicycle frame. If you have the normal human quota of hands, it's not an easy task to free the saw. Silly as I felt after doing this not once, but twice, I nevertheless felt obligated to acknowledge that it was simply the bicycle's way of exacting a small bit of revenge for what I was doing to it. And what I did to it is shown at right.

The result of this process was the creation of several short lengths of bicycle tubing which will ultimately become guinea pigs in my experiments designed to help me master (or at least not injure myself in the process attempting) the black art of brazing.

Up next: Brazing Persona

By the way, anybody need any twenty year old bike parts? ;-)

The NEW Project: Part 1 - Steeling Myself

Cosmic forces have been set in motion and there's no turning back. I've officially kicked off The New Project (dang...I need a cool name for it. Any suggestions?) by (1) spending money and (b) doing some initial "research" (12 minutes on Google).

First, the research part. I operate under the theory that if you really want to know what time it is, you need to understand how a clock works. Well, not really, but I do realize that when it comes to melting metal -- especially expensive metal -- a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So I'm researching steel.

I began by confirming with the bike's builder -- the eminent recumbent pioneer, Dick Ryan (yes, I have his email address) -- that my tandem's frame is a common alloy known as True Temper 4130 steel (often referred to as cromoly or CroMo, as it's a mixture of chromium and molybdenum alloyed with your basic iron). CroMo has a melting point of around 2600°F. That's an important number to remember, more so for me than for you, of course.

I think I'm going to enjoy the research part of this project, as it's leading me to pearls of wisdom like this, from a primer on bicycle frame materials:

Muffys. Heh.

I also did some reading about the art and science of brazing, learning that unlike with welding, the metal to be joined is not melted. In fact, melting that metal is a Very Bad Thing, something to be avoided at all costs.

Instead of melting two pieces of metal together, brazing employs the capillary action of the metal pieces to fill the joint between them with a different melted metal. The filler metal actually penetrates the matrix of the base metal, resulting in a solid joint that is sometimes stronger than the original metal parts themselves.

Unless you do it wrong, then the whole thing collapses in a soggy, steaming heap and you're disgraced for life and very likely irreparably maimed in the process. But let's not dwell on the negatives, shall we?

OK, enough research. Time to spend some money. But not much; brazing rods are remarkably cheap, less than $2 each, and readily available at your hometown Home Depot. For The New Project, I chose nickel silver rods by BernzOmatic. (I was initially somewhat put off by the skull and crossbones on the package, along with the words "Caution: Poison," but I'm pretty sure that just means not to eat them. Or something.) I could have gone with the somewhat cheaper bronze rods, as either type will apparently do the trick. Again, according to Dick Ryan, when I asked which one he recommended:

Dick's a man of few words.

Now, if you went to the BernzOmatic website (and you should have), you no doubt noticed that these brazing rods have a working temperature of 1680°F. According to my calculations, that gives me almost a thousand degrees of leeway before I do the Very Bad Thing mentioned above. Anybody, even the most mewling n00b, can operate within a thousand degree tolerance, right? I mean, that's like boiling water 5 times, sort of. Still, given the fact that an oxy-acetylene torch burns at a temperature of around 5,600°, overheating the base metal is my biggest concern. That's why I need to practice first.

Anyway, it was a very productive day, project-wise. (I apologize to my clients who were expecting to get some work out of me.) Let's recap:

1. Gain basic knowledge. Check


2. Buy basic materials. Check


3. Ignore basic warning signs. Check


4. Develop cool project name. Pending

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment, as we take a hacksaw to a perfectly good bicycle frame.

Technorati tag: Tromping where angels fear to tread

The Project Report: On a Roll

The next step on The Project was to attach the casters, so I can roll the whole shootin' match around the garage, as needed. I picked up four wheels at Home Depot and welded them to the bottom of the frame:

You can also see the metal flat welded across the bottom of the main compartment, and -- if your eyes are sharp -- a couple of small tabs on the bottom rail farthest* from the camera. The flat and the tabs will serve as attachment points for the expanded metal floor for that compartment.

I realize that it appears that I haven't made much progress since the last report, but the lack of progress is in my reporting, not the construction. I've made excellent progress, to the point where I'm actually using the device for its intended purpose, even though there's still some major additions left to be done. I'll try to put up another report over the weekend so that you can sit in awe of my ode to the manly art** of metalworking.

*I refer to you Garner's Modern American English for a thorough and definitive explanation of why "furthest" wasn't chosen for this mission, despite my initial inclination to do so.

**Although, I must admit that it sort of ruins the effect when, in the midst of flying sparks and the crackle of the welder, the iPod playing over the powered speakers in the garage serves up It's My Party by Lesley Gore. At least it was quickly followed by Hendrix doing Voodoo Child.

The Project Report: Making Squares

I was finally able to spend a few more hours on The Project, with the following outcome:

If you look closely, you'll notice that I abandoned my initial strategy of beveling the ends of the tubing to make nice seams. I might have continued with that approach if the resulting seams had actually been nice, but they weren't so I'm not and I've decided, in true making-lemonade-from-squashed-and-mutilated-lemons fashion, that I'll be able to use the open ends of the tubing to store stuff. And no, I don't know what; that's not even important so don't worry about it.

Despite the appearance in the photo, the frame is about as square as an Escher print. But it's strong and acquiring roughly the same shape as my blueprint and at the end of the day, I'm satisfied with it.

Stay tuned for more exciting developments. But first, I have to find some expanded metal grating, which may be a challenge.

The Project Report: Making Sparks

Day one of The Project started out with an afternoon with the cutoff saw:

This was the result:

It doesn't look like much, but after a bit of welding those pieces of steel became the top and bottom of the main framework of The Project.

The cutoff saw is the fastest and most precise way to cut steel tubing, rods, and flats down to the right sizes. Unfortunately, the angle adjustment indicator on my saw isn't all that precise and so the angled ends never quite match like they should. I'd be better off just butting the straight cut ends together, but I keep hoping I'll learn the secret of getting a good miter cut. It didn't happen today.

Fortunately, this isn't a project that will be judged on its aesthetics and as long as enough steel meets steel in the corners to get a decent weld, it'll be fine.

Steeling Myself for a Big Project

I went to the local steel store yesterday and bought 72 feet of 1 1/2" thinwall square tubing and I aim to fire up that little welder and make some sparks, burn ban or no burn ban.

(Parenthetical note: On a hundred degree day, carrying six 12' lengths of tubing across the dusty unshaded steel yard made me understand the well-worn colloquialism, which you've no doubt used scores of times, "hotter than a hundred degree day in a dusty unshaded west Texas steel yard while carrying long square metal tubes.")

I've even got a plan, sort of. Feel free take a guess as to what it's going to be, based on the Leonardo-class drawing* (you can click on the little 'un to see the big 'un). Here's a hint: the drawing isn't complete.

But the builder isn't competent, so it all balances out.

*You can save your snarky observations about how my 24" square is obviously a rectangle. I drew it before I measured the space it's going into, smarty-pants.

Tool Quiz

Identify this tool and win fame and fortune beyond your wildest dreams:

Tool Quiz: And the answer is...

Yesterday's "Name that Tool" question generated a few good guesses, ranging from Brian's "it turns something" to Denise's "Al Gore," but, sadly, none of the responses were exactly accurate.

The tool represents the acme (ha!) of specificity; it's a cup hook driver for an electric drill. You may not appreciate this one-trick pony's value until you try hand installing a series of hooks into hardwood...your aching fingers will cry out for just such a tool.

And lest you think I'm the only person in the world who knows or cares about this, you should know that there's at least one other person who wants one. (Although I can't imagine how one might wear out one of these tools. Is there such a thing as a professional cup hook installer?)

The Vertiginous Plumber

Having given up on the hope that the box would drag its cardboard carcass from the laundry room where it had rested for weeks and into the kitchen, whereupon it would install the faucet which it encased, I took it upon myself to do the job last Friday afternoon at 4:00 p.m., allotting myself one hour to replace the identical -- if substantially more haggard-looking -- fixture that squatted over the double sink.

I hate plumbing projects, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I'm lousy at them. Any such project that ends without a frantic call to a highly-paid professional driving a much better car than mine to clean up my mess is cause for celebration. Plus, plumbing generally occurs in cramped, dark, smelly places and rarely permits the wild swinging of 2 pound sledges which I find pleasingly therapeutic.

Still, how hard could it be, taking out a kitchen faucet and replacing it with the same model? Well, I suppose that those guys who decided that connecting two large bodies of water with the Panama Canal probably thought that digging a big ditch would be a piece of cake, too.

OK, to be honest, it didn't go that badly (the faucet, not the Canal). But I did manage to do something I'd never before accomplished during a plumbing project: I became vertiginous and nauseous. Something about lying on my back, head stuck deep in the cabinet under the sink and looking up through the wrong place on my eyeglasses gave me the distinct worry that I would become reacquainted with what was left of what I had for lunch.

Thankfully, that didn't come to pass and the faucet was installed by 5:15...only 15 minutes past my self-imposed timeframe. I would have made it in less than an hour had I not been forced to uninstall the newly-installed faucet in order to entice the steel hose thingie (a technical term; I apologize) through the neck of the new faucet, as it refused to cooperate per the instructions with the faucet in place.

And, of course, there were a few minutes here and there where I had to stop to contemplate whether it was preferable to throw up in the kitchen trash can or make a dash for the bathroom.

Does Craftsman make Dramamine?

Cool Tool

My Tool Meme from a couple of months ago didn't generate a huge amount of response, but I did notice that a few people put a box cutter in their list of indispensible gadgets.

The main problem with most box cutters (which are now generally referred to as "utility knives" after 9/11, for obvious reasons) is that they are difficult to carry safely, or if the bladed is safely shielded, the tool is too bulky. Sears has solved both problems with this little gem:

It's a folding, lock-back blade design and measures only 3.5" when closed. It comes with canvas carrying pouch with belt loop, and it also has an attached belt clip. If you frequently use a box cutter either on the job or around the house, check this one out. (Note: I could not find this tool on the Sears Craftsman website. You may have to visit a store to buy it.)

Tool Meme

Update (6/25): This meme resonated well with Clarence over at Can You Hear Me Now?, resulting in one post to mimic the meme, plus two additional posts to detail his achievements in making his own tools over the years. He's even created a photo album of some of those tools.

One of the pleasant surprises last weekend is that my parents and my brother and his wife lavished me with early birthday presents while I was in Fort Stockton. The Big Day is actually next week (the 28th, in case you're computing shipping time for that new Crossfire...but I'm willing to wait as long as the 30th), but we weren't likely to see one another before then.

Among other goodies, I received a 5 1/2" Craftsman cordless circular saw, complete with laser guide. This little gem is bound to be a big time saver since my household jobs are usually small enough that it takes as much time to haul out the big saw, string an extension cord and then reverse the process when finished as it does to make the cuts.

Anyway, all the guys were impressed while the girls made polite remarks before resuming their discussion about the latest catalog from Talbots. Now, I'm not trying to read too much into this, but it does seem to me that guys just naturally get more excited than girls about hardware and tools. I know there are exceptions -- on both sides of the aisle -- but, generally speaking, it's a valid differentiator of gender.

And it occurred to me that I've never seen a tool meme in the blogosphere. That's a crying shame, and someone should do something about it.

1. What's the last tool you bought? It was a 4 pound short-handled sledge hammer. It's not often that I need a sledge hammer, but when I do, nothing else will fit the bill...not the clawhammer, not the rubber mallet, not the phenolic mallet or even the ballpeen. And the short-handled sledge matches perfectly to the 50-pound anvil I bought a few years back.


2. Which tool do you enjoy using so much that you make up jobs for it? That would have to be the little 110 volt wirefeed (MIG) welder (another gift from mi hermano). Having worked around welders in the oilfield when I was in college, I always admired the way they brought a certain artistic eye to the shaping of even the most massive pieces of metal. And even though I don't have a tiny fraction of those skills (I once set my own pants on fire), there's just something special about putting electrode to steel and generating sparks. Plus, it keeps the neighbors wondering just what you're up to.


3. What's the most obscure and yet useful tool in your collection? That's a tough one, but I think the tool that's bailed me out of more tight spaces, literally, is my angled ratcheting screwdriver. They'll generate a surprising amount of torque for such a small tool, and they'll sometimes save you from having to completely dismantle a mechanism just to fix one part. (Like, when one doesn't necessarily follow the assembly instructions to the letter, but the problem doesn't become obvious until late in the process. Not that I would know anything about that!)


4. What tool do you use most often? This is easy. Hardly a day goes by that I don't find a use for the little cordless screwdriver that came with my 19.4 volt Craftsman cordless drill. Now, the cordless drill is a fine piece of, um, Craftsmanship, but I can stick the screwdriver in my pocket and it will do the smaller jobs that the drill would just overpower. Tim Taylor wasn't always right with his primal call for "more power."


5. Which tool do you admire most for its sheer craftsmanship? I answer this with a certain amount of melancholy, as the tool in question is no longer with us. It was a Japanese folding pruning saw, which I bought years ago from Garrett Wade. As with any good pruning saw, it cut on the pull stroke, so as to reduce binding. But this jewel of a tool sliced through branches so quickly and smoothly as to be effortless. I do believe that all the shrubs and trees in our yard breathed a collective sigh of relief when I managed to snap the blade. I've repressed the memory of how I did it, but the sadness lingers.


6. Bonus question: Box or bag? I grew up with toolboxes, and only late in life have discovered the utility of a well-constructed toolbag. If you must be annoyingly well-organized, go with the box...but if you must be well-equipped, the right bag will let you carry everything you need, and then some.

The idea of tagging someone for a meme like this is just too girly, so I won't do it. But if you're similarly inspired by things that shape, break, attach or otherwise modify other things, then feel free to pick this one up and work with it.

Handyman Hell

[Note: As you read the following, consider this question: what is the worst household chore that you refuse to hire someone else to do?]

I spent five hours this afternoon replacing the valve diaphragms on my lawn sprinkler system. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being take-out-the-trash easy, this job rates a 12 in my book. It's not a task that has to be done very frequently -- even with Midland's hard water, diaphragms last 5-8 years -- but that's also part of the problem. More on that in a moment.

If you're fortunate enough not to need a sprinkler system to keep your lawn alive, you may not have any idea what I'm talking about. The valve diaphragm is a flat rubber disc, about 3 inches in diameter. It moves up and down to allow or stop water flow to the sprinkler head. You can tell when the diaphragm needs to be replaced when the sprinkler heads don't pop up properly, or when they continue to leak after the watering cycle is over.

In my system, the valves are located in underground boxes, about 2 feet deep. There are three such boxes in my yard; two of them have three valves each and the third has one valve. In order to replace the diaphragms, I have to (a) locate and uncover the boxes, (b) dig out the valves from the years of accumulated silt, dead bugs and other gunk, (c) disassemble the valve, replace the diaphragm and reassemble, (d) put the valve box and lawn back into pre-excavation condition.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? In actuality, it's a horrible job, partly because of inherent installation difficulties and partly because of inevitable operator incompetency. The act of working in a tight space, 2 feet below ground level, complicates things. Plus there are creepy bugs to deal with (I'm not ashamed to say I'd rather commune with a rattlesnake than be in the same county with a black widow spider). Also, the valves have six screws that have to be removed, and there are many opportunities for scraped knuckles due to the lack of adequate working space.

Then there's the fact that I can't remember from time-to-time exactly how to do the job. Eight years is a long time between practice sessions. Inevitably, I disassemble the first valve incorrectly, costing time, energy and patience. Fortunately, this mistake is rarely serious enough to derail the whole process (as in, "I gotta run to the store and buy a new valve, dear; this one seems to be, um, worn out."

But what really complicates the job is the fact that my 20-year old system has a master shut-off valve that doesn't...shut-off completely, that is. I could shut off the water supply to the entire house, but there are some things I fear even more than spiders. 'Nuf said, I think. Anyway, what this means is that once I removed the valve cover, I have mere seconds to take out the old diaphragm, install the new one and re-attach the cover before the valve box floods.

I get better at this as I go through each valve, but it's still a big problem in the box with only one valve, as there isn't enough volume in the box to keep the rising water level at bay. Interpretation: I installed the last valve completely under water, working by feel (and trusting that spiders don't have access to tiny little scuba outfits).

Now, the real point of this post is not to bore you with sprinkler system trivia (too late, you say?). I just wonder if others are like me in this regard: there's a pretty clear demarcation line between "handyman" tasks that I will take on, and those which I'll contract out. The valve job here is on the bleeding edge of that line.

I consider myself to be fairly proficient at household chores, including some things requiring a bit of skill (or, at least, patience). I install garbage disposers, kitchen sinks, toilet valves, garage door openers, etc. I installed my own satellite TV dish, and I welded together a very functional sailboard rack, starting with nothing more than a picture in my mind and 60 feet of square tubing.

But, as they said in "Cool Hand Luke," a man's got to know his own limitations, and there are some jobs I refuse to take on. I don't do any projects for which the use of a voltmeter is mandatory equipment, and I don't work on anything that requires me to close the valve at the gas meter. I would be extremely embarassed to kill myself and blow up the neighborhood while attempting to install a new water heater.

I also avoid working on my car; I was never any good at auto repair. I stopped changing the oil and filter myself when proper disposal of used motor oil became so difficult. I don't care to take on major projects like replacing a roof or put down ceramic tile throughout the house. For some things, time is just more valuable than money. (I would argue that the question of installing a new roof in west Texas in August is really an intelligence test.)

I suppose it boils down to whether the time and effort associated with a job justifies the sense of satisfaction that comes from completing it. In the case of the above-described valve job, I grudgingly admit that it does. But, ask me again in 8 years.

Now...back to the question I posed at the beginning. What are jobs that push you to the limit, that represent the last stop before picking up the Yellow Pages and dialing for help? (And, ladies, this question doesn't just apply to guys.)