The Adventures of Golden Boy, my Rebound E30

[CubbyChowder]

^^^ Thanks guys!

Finally have some progress to report regarding Golden Boy!

Today was the big day, The '02 finally got trailered off to it's new home at CAtuned in Sacramento:





With the arrival of Igor and Landan also came the arrival of some goodies for the E30. First off is a new clutch kit for when I manual swap the car (still looking for an M20 flywheel if any of you happen be selling one):



A late model IS front lip (all the clips were included but not pictured), however I am not sure if I will be keeping this. While I plan on doing a plastic bumper swap front and rear, I think I'm going to run the early model IS front air dam, I just love that thing. We'll see what happens though, I'll make the final decision when I'm actually performing the swap:



A new set of IS side skirts. The driver's side fender portion was missing, so they're sending me one in a week or two. No big deal:



And last but not least, I have a set of these arriving in a week or two when they get their newest shipment in. Very excited about these!:




My next plan of action will be to get the E30 up on the lift and start the major suspension rehab. Can't wait!

[btns44]

You are good at everything.. I love it!

[LCG]

Tasteful.

everything...

[Asshole Bicycle]

Totally stealing your mixing bowl lamp idea. The headboard and cutting board are awesome as well.

[CubbyChowder]

I can't decide what I like more, all of your side projects or the actual car.

Awesome stuff as always, man.

Thanks man!

[dillon7]

I can't decide what I like more, all of your side projects or the actual car.

Awesome stuff as always, man.

[CubbyChowder]

I am sorry to report that I have no new progress on the E30. I am still waiting for the '02 to be picked up, so it's going to be just a little bit longer. I am thinking the car will be gone by this weekend though, so expect good updates soon!

Since this thread will sort of double as my shop thread, I'll post an update on what's been happening since my last post. Spent most of the holidays with my lady, friends and family so I wasn't in the shop all that much, but still got a few things done.

I wanted to build Janine some new lighting in her corner of the shop as a Christmas present because it's pretty dark back there and she had mentioned a few times that she can't see very well when she's working. I wanted to create some sort of hanging pendant light setup to follow the aesthetic she has going on back there, and decided to build them from scratch instead of forking out $100+ per light. So off to Bed Bath & Beyond I went in search of some mixing bowls and then headed to Home Depot for the rest of the supplies and came back with this:



I drilled a few holes in the mixing bowls and prepped them for paint:



Primer:



Paint:





I then sprayed these guys a metallic silver color with hopes that they'd blend into the polished stainless portion of the mixing bowl:



This might have been kind of a funky way to mount a bulb in the bowls, but I didn't really know of a better way, realistically I don't really know what I'm doing. I started wiring them up and had to make a small spacer out of a nut to allow room for the wiring to do it's thing once they were bolted to the bowls:




Then came time to do all the wiring. I tapped into the main shop light wiring so that they would turn on with the main light switch. I ran all the lights and main power supply into one box up in the rafters and connected everything in there, don't really have any pictures to show of that, but here's how I was working haha:



Don't worry, the table actually has a lip on the edge and the ladder was resting against that, so it was safe (kind of).

I finished everything and stepped back to see if it all lined up and looked decent:



Then it was the moment of truth to find out whether I'm a huge idiot or not. I cleaned up, installed the bulbs, hit the breaker and then the light switch and alas, all was working well. Her station is lit up much better now and she was very excited and happy when I surprised her on Christmas with it. I'm glad it all worked out:





A good friend of mine sent me a photo the other day of a bed frame he found on Pinterest (he loves Pinterest more than your average housewife) and said it was his new project for his week off from work. Of course this translated to my new project for his week off from work haha. I enjoy working on projects with him though, we've built him a ton of stuff for his house and it's always fun so I agreed to help him. He wanted to do it as cheap as possible and throw some of his own touches into it, so we assessed some details, simplified the design and went material shopping. We had to make all the cuts ahead of time so we could assemble everything up in his room. This was the first photo I took of this project:



By the end of that evening we had this:



We ripped down a few sheets of very thin plywood into 6" strips so he could stain them in various colors and layer them for the head board. He chose all the colors he wanted and also bought some exterior lights that he wanted integrated into it. He mounted the boards and I mounted/wired up the lights (the bulbs were just for testing, the final bulbs aren't nearly as bright). We also installed the floating frame boards which go around the mattress:



We built and installed floating night stands on each side of the bed:



Then the final step was to build a top mantle shelf which holds six flush-set dimmable puck lights that illuminate the wall behind the frame. The finished product is pretty awesome, he's super stoked about it. It's the ultimate baby makin' station now (sorry for the dark pic):



I'll get better photos of that setup soon. I think in total he spent about $250 for everything, not bad! He's gonna have a fun time taking that all apart when he has to move, it's too bad that I'll be too busy at the shop to help him that day

Another good friend of mine wanted me to build him a cutting board as a Christmas gift for his girlfriend who loves to cook. I've never built a cutting board before so I was excited to try something new. I happened to have some scrap Walnut and Honduran Mahogany around that would work perfect and we went and bought some Maple for the rest of it. He gave me free reign on the design of it, so I just cut a bunch of strips of each wood because it's all I could really do with the scraps I was working with. After some time with the jointer, planer and table saw I ended up with these:



I then proceeded to apply way too much wood glue and made a huge mess clamping everything together, it was mayhem:




My friend Jory offered to run it through his huge drum sander to level both surfaces nice and flat. My planer can only handle 12" wide boards and this cutting board is 18"x22" so that was a huge help. Here's how it looked after squaring it up and running it through the drum sander:



I recently got a router and wanted to try it out so I beveled the edges to 45 degrees on the top and bottom:



I then gave it a final sand and applied some cutting board mineral oil and am amazed at how much all the colors popped, I'm so happy with how it turned out. Can't wait to give it to him tomorrow (it's a late Christmas gift as his girlfriend was out of town during the holidays and they are reuniting on Jan 7th):



Thanks for looking and I promise I will have E30 updates soon! Happy new year everyone!

[CubbyChowder]

This!

I was sad to see the 2002 go but glad you've got a new project. I sure know the feeling of how a project gets put on the backburner and you just can't seem to get anywhere with it and then want to sell it...

I love what you're doing! Nice clean work on that bead roller stand and everything!

Thanks man! Yeah that sucked seeing the '02 go untouched for so long. Excited to take it slow and keep it simple with the E30.

Definitely put stuff from your shop/garage work in this thread too! I love me a good multi-dimensional to a build thread haha. All the fab work is awesome, you have a good eye for these things. Really excited to see how the e30 turns out.

Side note: Love your work! Tried to check out your girlfriend's stuff too but it would appear her Etsy shop is down for the time being as she constructs her 2016 line. I'm moving to a new apartment in August, might be in the market for some new furniture/decor.... definitely be keeping your stuff in mind!

Thanks man I'm glad to hear you're interested in seeing my shop stuff as well! I have a few shop related posts to make which will happen pretty soon, still haven't made any progress on the E30 yet, still waiting for the '02 to get picked up.

And yes Janine's shop is on vacation mode right now. She had to dedicate some time to reassess a few things and come up with some new products and methods for this year's business. Check back at the end of the month and I'm sure she'd love to build you some stuff for your new apartment.

Cool to see you're still in the game, and good choice of car

Thank you sir

[Grime]

Cool to see you're still in the game, and good choice of car

[philohlean]

Definitely put stuff from your shop/garage work in this thread too! I love me a good multi-dimensional to a build thread haha. All the fab work is awesome, you have a good eye for these things. Really excited to see how the e30 turns out.

Side note: Love your work! Tried to check out your girlfriend's stuff too but it would appear her Etsy shop is down for the time being as she constructs her 2016 line. I'm moving to a new apartment in August, might be in the market for some new furniture/decor.... definitely be keeping your stuff in mind!

[DER E30]

definitely both, your furniture and garage stuff is super cool and it'd be great to be able to see it all in one place

This!

I was sad to see the 2002 go but glad you've got a new project. I sure know the feeling of how a project gets put on the backburner and you just can't seem to get anywhere with it and then want to sell it...

I love what you're doing! Nice clean work on that bead roller stand and everything!

[CubbyChowder]

Your GF stuff is pretty cool, I may have a spot for something on my new place, I just need the stanceworks super discount code to cope up with the ridiculous shipping fee that I will have to pay.

Unfortunately shipping is a killer on our end too, it rapes us every time without fail. Where are you located?

I like your shop.
I like your way of thinking.
I envy you for sharing a workshop with your lady.
I like your car. Keep up the good work and it will repay you with rainbows in your heart.

Haha thanks dude

I love everything about this! I have mad respect for you my friend.. You quit your job to follow a passion and mold a career around it.

That, is truly awesome. Keep up the great work!

Thank you man that means a lot! It was a big risk but I just take it one day at a time and try not to get too ahead of myself. As cheesy as this might sound, I am a big time believer in trusting your instincts and I've always kind of just followed my gut and most of the time it lands me where I feel I need to be, or at least in the right direction. Obviously there are hurdles and hardships but that's to be expected and you just gotta push through 'em. Plus it's constantly changing and evolving so I'm curious to see how it all unfolds over time. I would highly recommend taking the leap and pursuing a true interest to anyone who is feeling drawn to the idea of it.

[btns44]

I love everything about this! I have mad respect for you my friend.. You quit your job to follow a passion and mold a career around it.

That, is truly awesome. Keep up the great work!

[gnmzl]

I like your shop.
I like your way of thinking.
I envy you for sharing a workshop with your lady.
I like your car. Keep up the good work and it will repay you with rainbows in your heart.

[LCG]

Your GF stuff is pretty cool, I may have a spot for something on my new place, I just need the stanceworks super discount code to cope up with the ridiculous shipping fee that I will have to pay.