You know one thing I'm curious about with all that welding and grinding you have been doing, how do you keep the floor so clean? I usually drag my welder and grinder out on the driveway and then have to sweep everything up out there which is a pain. Any fancy vacuum system setups?
One thing that helps a lot is working from a welding table...
In the good 'ol days I would do all my fabrication right on the concrete floor, and the welding spatter and molten metal spray from the plasma cutter would leave marks everywhere. Believe it or not, working only a few feet off the ground allows all the debris to cool enough that when it hits the floor it won't stick and burn itself in like before.
Don't get me wrong, I spend LOTS of quality time with my Shop-Vac and I seem to be buying replacement filters for it all the time.... so it's not like I have some kind of "magic workshop" where it is always picture perfect like you see when I snap the photos to post here.
As I've said before, the "process" of working on the truck is at least as enjoyable as the actual finished product I hope to have someday. So I spend a great deal of time trying to improve the environment that I'm working in. To those that get are discouraged by a limited shop space, I'd suggest taking another look at the "BEFORE" shots of this workshop located here:
http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219868
....it was a cold, dark and cluttered space. Over the past year, it has evolved into something nicer as time (and money) permits. So much of my pleasure in this hobby comes from the "shop time" and I firmly believe that the quality of my work is a result of the environment I work in.... and the shop will continue to evolve and improve, just as the K5 is improving.
As for the cage questions (Brian)...you'll have to stay tuned in the coming months. Cagework is rapidly approaching and I'm sure you'll see things that you will want to adapt to your own build.
It's funny how the trips to Moab can really highlight was is good (and not so good) about a vehicle. Each time I go there, I keep a written list of things that bugged me about my truck. Even in 2006 when I rented that J**p Rubicon, I took lots of notes about what it did well to make sure that my own truck would be at LEAST that good when it showed up next time.
