[Mad Max]

I am so jealous I am surprised this page hasn't turned green.

You move in December.. wasn't it stonking cold out there? I've lived in Amsterdam a few months at a time back in 2009 and come November, I was ready for India again.

The setup looks absolutely great. For a proper man-cave, you'll need a beer fridge and a dart board / pool table. Let me know when the T-BHP invites are being offered. I'll be in line.

[Ricky_63]

Salutations to you Sire !! You are living the dream I wanted to live !
Would love to live the life, unfortunately my health is an issue, but after reading \ seeing those pics, I have to admit I am re-motivted !

Thanks so very much for sharing this awesome way of living life !!


Cheers

[Sutripta]

Ultrasonic Cleaner?

Regards
Sutripta

[Blow Horn Ok]

Congratulations for the new place. It surely looks beautiful and serene. I hope you and your family Enjoys the place for years. I feel here in India even if people have access to this kind of space and money in their banks they rarely live their life and invest in their own hobbies.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Mad Max

You move in December.. wasn't it stonking cold out there? I've lived in Amsterdam a few months at a time back in 2009 and come November, I was ready for India again.

The setup looks absolutely great. For a proper man-cave, you'll need a beer fridge and a dart board / pool table. Let me know when the T-BHP invites are being offered. I'll be in line.

Thanks. It wasn’t to bad except for a few days where we actually had a bit of snow. Temperatures around 3-6oC during the day, near freezing at night. some nights a bit of frost.

The snow was a problem though. Our drive from the dike into our property is very, very steep, curved and not that wide. With snow there is no way to drive up or down it, not even with a 4x4. So when snow is forecasted we park our cars up on the dike, or on the drive of our rear neighbour. Through our garden we can walk through his and onto his drive way. His driveway exits onto a regular road that runs parallel to the dike. He had this arrangement with the previous owner and the first time we met him he offered it to us immediately as well. Interesting guy. He was actually born and raised in the this very house we now own! He used to run the village garage and his shed/garage which borders our property still has some classic cars in it, and a huge lift!

I’ll be thinking about the fridge and other stuff later this year.

Originally Posted by Sutripta

Ultrasonic Cleaner?

No, not yet at least. I was looking at some today actually. There are still a couple of other things I might want to get first. Column drill, electric and gas welding equipment. Some grinders. A new 3D printer??

But the ultrasonic cleaners are very handy. I’m just pondering what size. below the shop where I buy a lot of my tools these days. All in Dutch I’m afraid but you will get the idea:

https://www.hbm-machines.com/product...n-reinigerssub

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Another little job on my garage today. The previous owner left me the lights that he had fitted in the garage some twenty years ago. These were four sets of double TL or Fluorescent lights. I had noticed that in each armature one tube was not working. So today I investigated. I must admit it has been years since I worked on TLs, or so much as changed one.

Anyway I started by swapping the tubes and the starters only to find out that all tubes and all starters were working fine. The next suspect tend to be the ballast. But I also noticed that on each of the tubes that wasn’t working a huge capacitor was fitted.

So I did a bit of checking. The capacitor is fitted due to the fact that these are 4 x 2 TLs that all need to start at the same time. You can actually just short circuit the capacitor and sure enough all the TL’s all fired up. A bit slow to start but that’s understandable. So all the capacitors are likely to be wonky

Don’t quote me on this, but I also use a very simple test to see if a capacitor is ok. When working on capacitors be careful, these things can pack a punch!! So always make sure to short circuit the terminals so they discharge fully before handling them.

I just put my multimeter on resistance measuring and then touch the appropiate capacitor terminals for a few seconds. The multimeter puts out a Voltage and the capacitor will charge. Disconnect the multimeter and switch to a low DC range and reconnect. If the capacitor is still ok, you should see a few volts, slowly discharging. It’s not a hundred percent fool proof mechanism, but it’s good enough in many instances.

Now I need to find myself four new Bosch Capacitors. Problem is nobody stocks these things anymore. If they do sell TL it will be with fully electronic starter/ballast. But mostly it’s all LED these days. I might have to convert to LED as well.

Shame as my friendly previous owner even left me several spare TLs as well.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Wonderful, Jeroen. Wishing you many happy years of living and tinkering in your new home.

Although you give it just a few words, you house sounds like my dream house. I have always wanted a place that I could almost get lost in, a place with different routes between any two rooms...

My best man cave was minute in comparison. It was what the Brits used to call a "box room..." but a previous occupant had fitted it out with a wood-working bench, and few odds and ends remained. I just had room to build a small jeweller's bench, and it was there I did my modest metal work for a few years.

suggestion... convert your light fittings to LED!

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Although you give it just a few words, you house sounds like my dream house. I have always wanted a place that I could almost get lost in, a place with different routes between any two rooms...

suggestion... convert your light fittings to LED!

Thanks, we love this place. We love old wonky places. We started married life in the early eighties in Brighton UK. Bought an old terraced house in Kemptown. Well over a hundred years old. We have lived in modern houses as well. But we do prefer old ones. Our home in Kansas City was an absolute gorgeous completely renovated 1900s American home.

Our previous home was actually a newly build house and we bought it off drawings. But we had different requirements at the time. Family, three kids growing up, both of us jobs. But the old home idea never died. We are very lucky to also own a very old property in Suffolk. Again, just a small terraced house, but over a hundred years old. It does come with it’s own problems but we like to call it the charm of the place.

When it comes to houses we are a bit like Alfa Romeo Owners. We know we are going to have endless problems and most likely a continuous drain on the wallet too. But it’s so worth it!!

Touch wood, we haven’t come across any setbacks really. I had a full technical inspection done before we bought it and we knew the house was in a pretty decent state.

All the building, electrical, plumbing and painting went really well. It’s just that along the way we decided to change a few more things, so it took them longer. Interestingly enough, all these subcontractors had worked on this house before. They are all family of the previous owner. So we had a fairly good idea of their workmanship already. We contacted them and they were all available. Which is really rare these days. Building and renovation is booming at the moment. Some builders might not even pick up the phone for the next 6 months as they are booked solid.

All these guys were true craftsman, very professional, very pleasant and flexible to deal with.

On the LED; I might have to change all the TL out for LED. But then again, I like fixing old things. So I’m hunting for these capacitors and if I can find me some at a reasonable price I might still go for that option. Replacing old with new is a last resort measure for me.

Jeroen

[maddy42]

Jereon: your thread as always left me amazed! Friends dad worked in the navy in the states and once he retired he setup a garage at home to work on his rides and any friends as a full time mechanic. You planning on any lifts to the garage or that would require permission from the home ministry?

One thing which amazes me is the culture of DIY instead of hiring someone to do the same! Kudos to folks like you who keep the art of wrenching alive!

Getting hit by a blizzard of a snow storm now so let me get out and clean my car to be in time for any future updates!

Maddy

[sudipta]

My heartiest respect to you and your wife (especially) for living your dream. Both of you actually put in place my dream to life and I can't say enough to praise you on this mammoth task you have achieved.

Per my calculations, I will have the time and opportunity to relive the same dream when I will be around 55+ years of age (due to family and kids) and your experience will be my starting point for sure. I sometime think that I should start looking at places from now itself but then not really sure where life takes you as it will be at least 10+ years and things change so fast.

I would love to visit your place if I am in the neighborhood sometime and experience this dream of yours, it will be only for Coffee though

[veedub89]

Hi Jeroen.

I loved the oil-free compressor! I got just as excited to see it, as I did when I saw your cars.
Our business is all about compressors. We design compressed air solutions for industries. We have even worked with the local car garages to fulfil their need for compressed air.
Your machine looks solid. One of the things with an oil free compressor is that they are almost maintenance free. Apart from the suction filters that need to be cleaned/replaced.

Oil free air will also ensure you can use to clean things without any apprehensions of putting oil stains. Might I suggest a filter at the outlet of the compressor, just to remove solid particles and water? Compressed air can hold a surprising amount of water vapour which condenses to form water. Can't tell for sure from the images if you already have a filter.

Cheers!

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by veedub89

Your machine looks solid. One of the things with an oil free compressor is that they are almost maintenance free. Apart from the suction filters that need to be cleaned/replaced.

Oil free air will also ensure you can use to clean things without any apprehensions of putting oil stains. Might I suggest a filter at the outlet of the compressor, just to remove solid particles and water? Compressed air can hold a surprising amount of water vapour which condenses to form water. Can't tell for sure from the images if you already have a filter.
!

Thanks, yes they require very little maintenance indeed. I did quite a bit of research into this, talked to a lot of people I know and on forums. There are an awful lot of compressors for sale out here. Any DIY place will have several models and variants for sale. I quickly found out that a lot of them are pretty crappy and won’t last long and make a hell of a racket when you switch them on. I don’t need a professional type of compressor. I don’t use it much. But even for my kind of usage I want it to work properly for many years. So in the end I found this one.

The other thing that people tend to underestimate how much capacity you need to run an impact wrench. A lot of people I spoke to had problems to use their impact wrench continuously. If you have to wait a few minutes after undoing only a few bolts/nuts it sort of defeats the purpose of having an impact wrench in the first place! Also, the hose diameter and length is important. I did not point it out, but I bought one of these auto-hose things. It contains 15 meters of pneumatic hose and it winds up automatically once you are done with the job. Very cool!

It is fitted with a water trap, see this image:

[veedub89]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Thanks, yes they require very little maintenance indeed. I did quite a bit of research into this, talked to a lot of people I know and on forums. There are an awful lot of compressors for sale out here. Any DIY place will have several models and variants for sale. I quickly found out that a lot of them are pretty crappy and won’t last long and make a hell of a racket when you switch them on. I don’t need a professional type of compressor. I don’t use it much. But even for my kind of usage I want it to work properly for many years. So in the end I found this one.

The other thing that people tend to underestimate how much capacity you need to run an impact wrench. A lot of people I spoke to had problems to use their impact wrench continuously. If you have to wait a few minutes after undoing only a few bolts/nuts it sort of defeats the purpose of having an impact wrench in the first place! Also, the hose diameter and length is important. I did not point it out, but I bought one of these auto-hose things. It contains 15 meters of pneumatic hose and it winds up automatically once you are done with the job. Very cool!

It is fitted with a water trap, see this image:

Ah yes!
The water trap will help.
I agree with you on the noise. The piston type reciprocating compressors make a lot of noise. Your is different. From the images, it seems like its got motors which are sucking in air and then compressing it.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Jeroen, the house in which I was able to have a dedicated jewelery workshop, instead of a bedroom corner (a huge improvement, although it is one of those crafts that really can be done in a tiny space) was a terraced house, 100+ years old, in East London. Originally, it was bought by a friend of mine who, technically, rented me one room, but in practice I had the house to myself. A lot of history later, I became part owner.

The house had been inherited and left empty for years. Previous decorations were decades old, and some perhaps original. There were a lot of bits and pieces left in the house. A friend described it as "like visiting your grandmother." You'd have loved it: I did!

Ave has in interesting video on ways to control a compressor so that it maintains pressure, rather than being on/off. Being highly technical yourself, you might find some usable/useful idea there. If i can find it easily, I'll post the link.

AVe: BIG COMPRESSOR PERFORMANCE BOOST... (Probably NSFW, at least if you have the audio on speakers!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIQ_AM3bnwo

[M00M]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Thanks, we love this place.

We are very lucky to also own a very old property in Suffolk. Again, just a small terraced house, but over a hundred years old. It does come with it’s own problems but we like to call it the charm of the place.


Jeroen

Sir,

You are living a dream of many of us on this thread. I too after studying in the UK always wished and still wish that some day i could move back and buy one of these old detached houses with a garage. The charm that these old houses have is just unique and un matchable. Also maintaining these cars abroad is much more easier, as most of its DIY and also most of the parts can be sourced with a little trouble. The moment you have to depend on others to fix your car and source parts, it becomes almost impossible as everyone is not as keen and particular as the owner is.

Love the car collection as well, 2 limos, and a convertible sports car with 2 every day cars. Personally i wish to have an old porsche, an old fiat padmini which i am carefully restoring right now to be in my collection.

I have always followed and read all your threads which you have started over the years.

Please do keep posting, i was recently in amsterdam changing flights but hopefully if im in that part of the world anytime soon i would love to meet.

Can we use one of these trickle chargers on the Fiat Padmini in India ?