apologies for the reduced pace...

 I am still recuperating from my back injury, and dealing with other health issues, enough so that I had to quit my part-time job.

 So while I am slowly working on rebuilding my shop and increasing its capabilities so that I can try running my own job shop for a living, I'm not good for more than five or six hours a day before I run out of steam / spoons, so progress has been slow and incremental and there hasn't been much to report.

 What I've thought of, I've posted.  I've considered expanding a bit more on the travails of my attempts to replace a classic swivel-head vise, or my impressions of my first tool box ever... but my heart wasn't really in those topics.  Maybe later.

 At the moment, I am focused on a short-term end goals of: 

A) restoring all the capabilities I had lost during the past few years, ie; vise, torch, welding, air compressor, and more

B) adding an abrasive blasting cabinet, if possible with the additional capability of doing shot-peening, as these are both things I can do to make money, either directly as a service, or in the case of metal cleaning, simply as a way to drastically speed up and ease my use of recycled metals for projects and of restoring rusty old tools to re-sell

 Step A was completed recently, except for the new air compressor, which hasn't arrived yet.  It took me a while to decide how big to go, and how much money to spend on it.

 Step B is in progress now, and has turned into a somewhat larger project than I had, at first, envisioned.  I hurt myself shortly after ordering the cabinet and replacement parts, so the entire project sat for a few months until I was well enough to bend over and cut open a cardboard box.

 Then it seemed as if every little detail which needed to be improved turned into a hassle or a sub-project of its own:

• finding a good gun for a price I can afford proved impossible; I had to compromise on quality
• the seller of the less-expensive good-quality food pedal couldn't obtain stock, I had to spend more than I had expected
• I had no air plumbing in my shop; until now I just plugged hoses into the portable compressor I had, so I've had to run a new air line from where the compressor will live to where the blast cabinet is located
• compressors capable of feeding a sandblasting operation turn out to be unavoidably large and expensive - when I bought the cabinet, I had not expected I would have to replace the compressor, but its tank turned out to be dangerously rusted, the shock of this cost nearly caused me to scrap the entire project
• the "large and heavy duty" filter / drier I already had turned out to be junk, and severely restricts air flow, so I'm still shopping for a replacement for that...
• needed to add a dedicated regulator to the blast cabinet, didn't realize at the outset that would be necessary

  On the very other hand, I've been forced to admit to more and more reduced mental and physical capacity with every passing month to the extent I'm investigating for dementia / Alzheimers / Mystery Neuro Condition™ now that I've got into the Indigent Care Program for Broke-Ass Mother Fuckers.

 And it it turns out that I really ought not to be allowed around welding equipment and milling machines any more, then you'll probably wind up reading about me on the evening news, 'cuz if my life is already over, I'm gonna check out with a fucking bang, not a whimper.