Quest: Real world impressions

So we've had the quest for a few weeks now and just took our first trip down to NY. In 200 or so miles we averaged 60 MPH and 26.2 MPG according to the car's trip computer. Given that this was on regular gas, this seems pretty good. (Nissan suggests premium but says that regular is OK but will result in lower gas milage)

Overall, the quest has lived up to hopes and expectations. The 3.5L 6-cylinder engine is more than powerful enough -- it might even be more than is needed for around-the-town trips. Getting the kids in and out is a breeze, and the amount of storage space is just plain crazy! The DVD player and 6-CD changer makes long trips go much faster.

There are a few minor nits... There is a flip-down center console which itself is handy -- you can store a bag or other stuff between the front seats -- but it has the only cup holders available for the front seats. So when you have it down, no cup holders. The DVD player for kids old enough to controll it themselves would be fine, but is very hard to controll from the front seats since you can't see the monitor. Like I said, minor nits.

All in all the transition to the dread mini-van has been a success.
(22:13) [/Misc] #

My Car Purchase Story

Short version: The Internet is your friend, Costco is your ally, and promise yourself that you won't buy the car the same day you do a test drive.

Now on to the details of how I purchased a new 2007 Nissan Quest S.

First, why a minivan? Well with two kids the trusty 2001 Subaru Outback was starting to buckle under the load after 130K miles. On the financial side, between the alternator dying in the middle of Connecticut, a $2K head-gasket repair and an upcoming need to replace the catalytic converter it sure wasn't feeling like we weren't making car payments every month. On top of that the rear seat was just big enough to accommodate the two child car seats and left no room for a fifth passenger, let alone a friend for the kids.

This didn't leave many options. SUV's were out of the question. Really not much more practical than the Subaru wagon, more money, more gas and not very convenient for loading small kids into car seats and such.

The only real choice was a minivan. I have a number of friends that have already taken the plunge and joined the Minivan Club so the stigma wasn't really an issue but it did affect our purchasing decision.

The first step in buying a car is picking the one to buy. I'd originally hoped that the Subaru Tribecca would be a salvation but after giving it a test drive my impression was that it was going to be a lot of money to be very cramped (8 cu ft cargo with all seats up).

Ok a minivan, but which one? We had the big players (Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna), the domestics (Dodge Grand Caravan, Chrysler Town & Country) and the niche players (Nissan Quest, Kia Sedona). We settled on three choices to focus on:

• Nissan Quest. Frankly it was the exterior styling. And they have nice commercials. Sad, but true.
• Honda Odyssey. If everyone else is driving one, maybe there's a reason?
• Chrysler Pacifica. A last gasp attempt at not buying a minivan.

So with that list in hand I called some local dealers to make appointments to test drive each on the last Saturday of the month. Last Saturday? Yes, all things being equal the Internet-wisdom seems to suggest buying in the last week of the month is your best chance at getting a deal. This end of month happened to also be end of quarter which made it even better.

The key to the test-drive day is to promise yourself that you will not buy a car that day. No matter what the sales guy (or gal) says, stick to your plan. You have 3 potential choices, you're going to test drive each and then go home and think/talk/sleep on it. Be firm and don't be afraid to get up and walk out.

The first appointment was with Honda. But due to some dumb planning on my part we ended up at the wrong Honda dealer and didn't realize it until we'd unpacked the kids and entered the dealership. Talk about plans being the first casualties of war! We were already starting off on the wrong foot. So no appointment in hand we were shown to the "up" sales-woman who took our name and brief info and asked what we were looking for. She proceeded to say "sure I'll go get one" and 20 minutes later came back with the next higher trim than we'd requested which just happened to come with leather seats and the nicer engine. But she said "oh, it's the same other than the leather. hop in!". We dutifully drove it (just walking out is much harder than I implied earlier, but we should have) and it was very nice. Everything seemed where you would want it and felt good. Back inside the dealership we regained our game face and politely told her that we had another appointment. If I hadn't asked for her card I probably wouldn't have gotten it. The car was nice, but the sales technique was lacking.

After a trip to Dunkin Donuts to kill time and compare thoughts on the Honda, we drove over to the (correct) Nissan dealer to try out the Quest. The salesman I'd gotten on the phone to set up the appointment was Joe the Internet Sales Manager (or one of the two or so). He was much more the expected car salesman (not in a bad way) and had the model we'd asked for ready to go. The Quest felt just like the Odyssey and from the test drive I really couldn't feel the difference. There were interior differences. The Honda has more seat configurations for example, but the Nissan felt just as put together. Just different.

Next up was Chrysler. Going from the imports to a domestic really is night and day. Or entering another country. Everything works almost the same way but feels different. The sales guy we had an appointment with was young and nice but was so busy he practically just threw the keys at us and let us drive it ourselves. The Pacifica is fun to drive. It's got a 4-liter V6 with the triptronic type auto/manual shifting thing. Let's just say I gave it a good try-out. As expected the quarters were as cramped as in the Tribecca but probably wouldn't have been the end of the world. This was the only dealer that was interested in looking at my trade-in before sitting down to talk purchase numbers and the estimate was unsurprisingly bad. $3K when Kelly Blue Book suggested $4.7K for fair condition.

With the drives over it was time to get rid of two options. First to go was the Pacifica. Not practical enough and let's just say that by not matching the manufacturers warranties of the imports (3/36 vs 5/60 drive-train) it's just hard to take them seriously.

That left the hard choice. Go with the car everyone else is driving (and once you start looking you see Odysseys everywhere!) or the "cool" one. Well damnit if we're going to buy a minivan at least we'll have the cool one.

So it was the Nissan Quest. Now the nervousness sets in: how am I going to negotiate a deal and not get raked over the coals? This is where the Internets come in very handy. Truthfully I'd done a fair amount of research before the test drives but that doesn't really matter here. What does matter is that you read these before buying your next car:

• The Motley Fool's buying a car series.
• Edmunds.com's confessions of a car salesman
• Hacking the Car-Buying Process a Car

The first two are pretty old but the concepts are all still useful today with some tweaking. The third is a contemporary experience that applies many of the same principles.

Through sitting up at night surfing the web I also ran into a what seems like an essential tool in buying a car. The Costco Auto Program. Costco negotiates deals with dealerships to provide fixed markup offers to Costco customers. In the case of the Nissan Quest that meant that I could walk into an authorized dealer and walk out at $100 over invoice. That's a pretty good deal in and of itself and if you aren't interested in the work or time involved to get a better deal you could just stop there and drive away knowing you didn't get completely ripped off. Just remember that this doesn't help you with the trade-in or financing or add-on offers (warranty, lowjack, life insurance, etc).

Unfortunately there was a gotcha in my case. The closest authorized Nissan dealers to me were about 100 miles away. There are at least 50 dealers closer than that (trust me, I know. more on that shortly). I clicked submit on the Costco form and asked to be contacted anyway. Worse come to worst I could drive out there to take the deal.

In the meantime I compiled a list of all the Nissan dealers within 100 miles. Luckily I'm a hacker at heart and a little python scripting later I had my list. I then went through and checked the inventory of each dealer to see who had what I wanted (trim, options and color). It wasn't fun but it was somewhat interesting to see how much inventory was in the Northeast US. About half of the dealerships had one or two of what I was looking for (S, with DVD, not red/blue/brown).

On Sunday I also took my Subaru to a random used car lot to get an offer from them to compare against the trade-in offers from dealers. This lead to the sketchy-but-fortunate series of events that make my car buying experience unique and probably unrepeatable. This particular used car lot sold mostly late model luxury cars and really the only reason I stopped was it was the first one that didn't look completely sketchy. The guys working there were all suspiciously young and hip looking but whatever. Neil took my information, checked out the car and another guy even drove it around the block. Eventually he came back and explained how he could get the same thing but ready to sell from wholesale and that all he'd be willing to offer me was $3-3.5K. On the way out he offhandedly asked what new car I was looking for, because "he knew guys" and might be able to broker a deal. I told him what I was looking for and what my dream out-the-door price I was looking to pay was. Figured I'd never hear from him again.

Now it was Monday morning. I had my list of dealerships and was planning on walking down the list soliciting bids from the Sales or Internet Manager at each and attempt to get a bidding war going. But before I could start I received a call from one of the Costco approved dealerships who told me about the $100 over invoice deal and said he'd get back to me if he could find a model that fit my request (he never did but that was fine).

I took this information and called Joe at Nissan and said that I'd like to get at least the same deal from him as I'd of course like to do business locally. Joe said he was sure they could work it out and would call me back.

Still I was planning on calling at least a couple of other dealerships to see what the water felt like and maybe get a better deal. But before that could happen I got a call from used-car Neil. He said he had a guy that would give me the price I'd asked (essentially $2K below invoice). I reminded him, as I had already explained the day before, that if his guy was at the same Nissan dealership I'd test drove at we may have a problem. Neil said not to worry and I agreed to go over with him later in the afternoon.

At the dealership he seemed to know a number of the guys on the floor fairly well and we managed not to run into my guy. Eventually "Smitty" was located after making the introduction, Neil left to sell more used cars.

First thing I told Smitty was that I'd been in just two days earlier and test drove with another sales guy. Smitty was not happy at this point as Neil, of course, never relayed this information. I was promptly ushered over to Joe because even among car salesman they don't steal from each other. (at least after the customer has been logged in the system taking a test drive)

I was somewhat nervous starting the negotiation at this point but got it out there that the reason I'd come in to see Smitty was that I'd been lead to believe that I had a deal at $26K out-the-door. This was on a MSRP of $28,870 and invoice $26,462. The price I was asking without the tax, title and registration was approximately $24,000. I never would have had the guts to come straight in and ask this.

Joe was somewhat skeptical but said he'd see what he could do and went off. I suspect at this point that there was a three way conversation with the Sales Manager, Joe and Smitty. Ten minutes later Joe and the Sales Manager returned to discuss. It was made clear that they would accept the offer but were very interested in getting their hands on my trade-in. I explained that I didn't have it with me but gave the Sales Manager a description of it and that I was looking to get $4500. He came back with an offer of $4K and I shook their hands and took my deal.

The way I see it, the $2K below invoice made my trade-in worth $6K with a deal at invoice. $6K was about what I was expecting to get via private sale anyway and saved me the hassle of floating the cash, listing the sale and finding a buyer.

The Finance and Insurance guy was easy to deal with and I managed to say no to everything except for the extended warranty. I'd priced these out at Warranty Direct and the dealer's offer was only slightly more expensive but covered more stuff for longer. I consider this insurance in case the Quest quality isn't quite up to snuff. It's also transferable if I want to sell later.

I'd also gotten pre-approval for a 5.90% loan from Bridgewater Credit Union but the 5.99% from the dealer was good enough that I just let them have it.

Four hours after entering the dealer on Monday I drove home in my new Nissan Quest reasonably confident that I wasn't taken to the cleaners. (although I'm always suspicious that if they're agreeing to do the deal I must be loosing somehow)
(23:49) [/Misc] #

A toddler's guide to online videos

I've started a new blog where my daughter and I are going to highlight some of the best toddler appropriate vidoes on the internet.

Have a look: A toddler's guide to online videos
(21:47) [/Misc] #

Zero-clearance insert and narrow rip jig

Here is my Shopsmith 10ER with a custom zero-clearance insert cut from 1/4 inch plywood. Cutting to size was straight forward, but drilling the holes for the set screws proved tricky.

I also built a jig to straddle the saw's fence that allows me to rip thin stock safely. I traced the shape of a saw handle and rounded the edges on the router table. The fit was a smidge loose so I shimmed on the inside with electrical tape. Seems good now.

(18:40) [/woodworking] #

Shopsmith Lathe Info

So I recently acquired my very own Shopsmith 10ER. It's a super cool multi-tool from the early 1950's that can be used as a table saw, drill press, horizontal boring machine, disk sander and lathe.

I'm very interested in trying out the lathe but a ittle hesitant to jump right in as I haven't used a lathe since high shool (and really have no memory other than I made a clock).

I've joined the SS10ER user group and trolled around looking for some helpful links. Here's what I found...

First is exactly my question:

Hi, I'm wanting to try the lathe option of my er-10. I would like to try spindle turning but don't know which fittings go on the tailstock or headstock or if I even have them. Unfortunatly, my father, who gave me his er-10 passed on a dozen years ago so he's not here to ask. How would I identify the fittings and if I don't have them, how might I obtain them? Thanks so much and please excuse my ignorance.

Which elicited this response:

Lets start with a link

http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/l_lathecenters.htm

This should take you to Shopsmith WEB page with Lathe parts. If not go to The Shopsmith home page and select Accessory and Parts catalog - Then - Master accessory - Then - Lathe Accessories - and - Lathe Accessories.

Item A in the pic is attached to the spindle of the ER. This item is available from Shopsmith. Sears used to sell then although I dont believe they do any more.

Item B goes in the Tail Stock.

A pic of the tail stock is here in this group http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/Shopsmith10ERusers/photos/view/24b7?b=2 The one on the left is probably what you have. The center fits into the bolt with a hole in it. It is a tapered hole. It is a common taper for lathes called a Morse taper #2. You can get centers to fit this taper from any lathe supplier.

Item C does the same as Item B but has a bearing in it to spin with the work. This prevents burning of the work. Either B or C will do. Again available from most lathe suppliers.

Item D you dont need right now come back to it later.

In the photos section of this group we will find some important pictures

This first one is the tool rest. It mounts in the carriage and is used to position the cutting tool. http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/Shopsmith10ERusers/photos/browse/9d42 A pic of it installed with a chuck mounted http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/Shopsmith10ERusers/photos/view/cc51?b=2

This link shows a pic of the basic set of Chisels. There are MANY styles of these and they are available from many places. http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/l_lathechisels.htm

You can get most of these items from any wood working supply

Grizzly is just one http://grizzlyindustrial.com/

Item H3404 is the ball bearing live center Search for Lathe Chisels for some of their options.

That should at least get you started on the hunt :)

and this:

Great job of explaining the parts and their functions. I'd add just one additional item: Aligning the drive center(headstock) and the live/dead center (tailstock). This is accomplished by sliding the headstock (with drive center mounted on the spindle)to within an inch of the dead/live center mounted in the tailstock. Then extending the quill forward so that the two points of the drive center and dead/live center just touch. If everything is aligned, then the two tips will meet. If they are not aligned, then the floating center (large nut) can be lossened and moved around to align the two tips. Then retighten the large nut.

Later I ran into a pointer to The American Association of Woodturners and from there I found my local chapter the Revolutionary Turners.

And here is a long thread where I found this:

CAUTION: the holding power of a chuck system can exceed practical use (swing) of the 10E/ER spindle - especially is you extend the quill. I still turn between centers (for larger pieces) until a piece is rounded and vibration is reduced, before using just the chuck.

Duly noted.

Also in this post reviewing the Artisan chuck, there was a link to the Penn State page where they sell the 1" X 8 TPI adapter for the SS.

And finally this post on sharpening

This is only looking back until May 4th 2006. I'm sure there is more good stuff to find.
(21:33) [/woodworking] #

Stenciling The New Baby's Room

Painted the nursery for my second daughter this weekend (first daughter pictured). 3 walls are green and one white with polka dots. The idea was inspired by this picture.

The stenciling was done with acetate film taped to the wall. I'd cut 5 stencils (3 little and 2 big) and reused them for each color. This worked OK, but the paint drying on the acetate ended up stretching it so that subsequent colors were harder to keep the edges from bleeding. I'd bought some temporary spray adhesive but unfortunately it didn't seem to work on the acetate.

For paint I used the green from the other walls plus 3 of those little color samples they sell at the hardware store.

(20:32) [/woodworking] #

Credenza: Adventrues in wood finishing

This weekend I built a credenza. It is a adaptation on the Cubby Credenza in Handmade Modern. The main difference is that I couldn't bring myself to nail and screw through exposed faces. Instead I used pocket holes from underside the shelves and only glue to attach the top. (The plans called for 8 finish nails to be driven through the top into the uprights. I just couldn't do it!)

Another difference was that I didn't bother putting a back on it. This was half because I liked the look and half because I didn't have a suitable piece of wood to do it with.

The project started by creating the drawing of cuts to make in a full sized sheet of plywood using SketchUp. I chose a maple veneer from Boulter Plywood in Somerville. For $3 labor they made all the main vertical cuts in this diagram. This saved me immensely over trying to get the whole sheet home and then deal with cutting it in my meager shop.

Even with the cutting done at Boulter, I still had larger cuts to make than I can achieve with my puny table saw. So that meant using the circular saw. First I picked up a new blade specifically designed for cutting plywood. It had tiny teeth and cut a kerf maybe 1/8" wide. I also used this handy hint to support the plywood while cutting. This woorked much much better than my previous technique of letting the cut off piece fall onto a waded up blanket! Here is a picture of the jig just after making a cut:

To finish cutting, I used the table saw for the small pieces (pink in the diagram) and excess from some of the others.

Next came the edge banding. I'd bought a 50' roll of pre-glued iron on maple from Boulter and a trimmer from Rockler in Cambridge. It took some time to get the hang of just how much heat to use but it came out pretty good. (had to glue down a couple ends later on)

Right about now I was thinking I was making progress and with a little bit of time applying stain and what-not I'd be getting right to assembly. That turned out to be wishful thinking.

First I had to apply a washcoat to partially seal the wood in order to prevent blotching. While at Rockler I'd picked up a copy of Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner which Woody from Rockler said was the practically the bible on wood finishing. This turned out to be a good purchase because it does a great time explaining what all the finishing options really mean. This included the advice not to believe the labling on the washcoating that you can apply the stain in 2 hours. I ended up giving it 8 and the results seemed good. (although I didn't do a test piece in 2 hours to compare)

In any event, this meant that the staining took much longer than I'd intended. Because of this I didn't want to wait before staining the backs of the upright panels. I ended up "tenting" them so that I could stain both sides and still let the dry. Clumsy, but effective.

Once the stain was dry I finally got to assembling. The biggest challenge here was attaching the top using only wood glue. I ended up attaching the legs first and then using the bar clamps as shown in the following picture.

The doors were attached using piano hinge and magnetic push latches from Rockler. (no handles needed).

Tasks remaining include appling a little more stain to the center drawer and painting the white feet black.

(21:27) [/woodworking] #

Sketchup Hints

Some simple things that have made my sketching much more productive. These are really simple, but some took me a while to figrue out...

• Click and then move. There is hardly any reason to click-drag.
• For creating models where you care about dimensions, you can type in precise lengths after drawing something. For example, make a rectangle on the intended plane. Then type 14", 1' 6" for 14 inches by a foot and a half. This works for all sorts of things, lines, tape measure, moving things, you name it.
• You can make multiple copies via the Move tool. Make the first copy to the desired spacing and type 3x for 3 copies.
• Groups/components are your friends. They prevent other geometries from sticking to them and with components, you can make the change once and it will be refelcted in all instances.
• Learn the keyboard shortcuts. Then define some for yourself. I've added:
  • Ctrl-E - Edit/Construction Geometry/Erase All
  • Ctrl-G - Edit/Group
  • X - View/X-ray

(22:31) [/woodworking] #

CD Shelf

My latest obession is the free version of SketchUp and today I used it to design a simple CD shelf. For materials, I had a 5' long 6"x1" piece of red oak which at a nominal 5 1/2" wide just happens to match up perfectly with the size of a CD jewlcase.

First I used SketchUp to play with how I wanted the shelf to look. Because the CDs aren't going to weigh very much I decided to simply attach two end pieces to the shelf with dados and hang them using keyhole cuts in the ends. Here is the final visualization:

And a detailed view of one end piece, with dimensions:

To build the actual shelf, the first thing I did was mark up the cut lines on one of the end pieces. The mechanical pencil lines were hard to see, so I enhanced them in this picture:

The first cut was the 3/8" deep dado. The dado comes first because I need the long board to be able to use this handy dado jig I made a while ago:

Now I moved over to my (super handy) Makita sliding compound miter saw to cut the end piece to length and make the 15-degree angled cut:

And just like the first end piece is finished (minus the keyhole):

The opposite end is the same except the dado needs to be cut on the opposite face.

This was the first time I tried to cut a keyhole using my router and I was a bit unsure of how to set up for the cut. I ended up clamping stop blocks on my mini router table as shown. Connecting those two blocks with a third across their face probably would have made things easier. But it worked:

With the cutting done I glued and clamped the ends to the shelf:

To finish the shelf I gave it a coat of stain, and that's where I ran into a bit of trouble. I'd gone a little heavy on the glue and where some of the spill had been didn't take the stain. I'll have to figure out how to avoid that problem in the future... Hopefully it isn't too noticeable:

If you'd like to see the model in SketchUp, you can download it from the 3D Warehouse.
(22:10) [/woodworking] #

The Patio

So we saw these Platta decking tiles at Ikea

and said "what the heck." Just laying them out on the ground didn't feel all that satisfactory. A frame of some sort was called for. I picked up a bunch of pressure treated 1x2 strips and cut to size. Then came the drudgery, cutting notches in each strip so they can all fit together and make a flat, square frame. With a new mortising bit in the router and a jig I built previously things went about as fast as could be expected. The jig:

The frame being glued up:

One problem I ran into was that my frame had supports under the centers of each tile. This left a little too much spring at the corners when walking on them. To solve this I cut short cleats to put under the corners and serve as feet. After drilling pilot holes and screwing to the frame with 2" decking screws, here's what it looks like:

And one more in a real life setting:

(20:24) [/woodworking] #