Fat Boy Deluxe

Finally got around to picking up some new tools. Headed up to Home Depot a little while back and grabbed a cheapo soldering gun, not the cold heat kind, but the real deal Holyfield that actually looks like a gun. I was going to try and resolder one of the legs on our coffee table, but turns out it’s too big of a job to solder. Oh well, guess that just means I need to learn how to weld, haha. I figure Kristin can use the soldering gun also for her jewelry making.

Next up was getting a Dremel. Surprisingly, there isn’t a lot of hand held rotary tools out there. The Dremel brand has a solid lock on what seems to be 95% of the market. I went ahead and purchased the new updated Dremel 400 that came with a few attachments. Once I got it home and held it in my hand, I knew this wasn’t the Dremel for me. The old ones, think over 10 years ago, used to be metal, but evidently those are really hard to ground properly. Thus they moved to a super hard molded plastic. This is what Gary has. Now the newest model is part hard molded plastic and part flexible rubber. They say the rubber gives a better grip when using the Dremel with sweaty hands, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. In your hand the unit feels cheap and the rotary engine vents push the hot air out right at your fingers. After reading a few reviews of these units burning out, I decided to take it back. I’ll be purchasing the lower and older model online at Amazon, since it’s still made from just the hard molded plastic.

Here’s the Dremel 400 I originally bought and here’s the Dremel 3956 I plan on getting instead.

Since I just took the Dremel back, I picked up a drill bit made for cutting soft metal, which I was hoping the steel dropouts on the Fuji would be. The dropouts are stainless steel though, so it was a little tougher than I initially thought, but the drill bit did it’s job over time. Things I did right - did the job outside, wore the safety glasses Gary let me borrow (along with his dremel), took my time making the cuts. If I did it all over again, things I would change - wear crappy clothes, wear gloves, and get a stronger drill bit. The biggest thing was the tiny tiny metal shards that go everywhere. Since I wasn’t wearing gloves, I now have a few of these in my hands from when I smartly brushed the shards off my jacket…oh well, live and learn.

The goal was met. My dropouts are a tad longer making my chain tighter. They could be drilled more, but it’s good for now. This along with moving the chainring to the inside to make the chainline better, solved my dropping chain issue. So now, Vanessa the Fuji Scorcher will ride again!

DT