TOOLS we use to convert a Shipping Container into our Tiny Home – Living Tiny Project Ep.015

Hello. Hello. I know you were expecting to see a wooden deck today, but we didn't finish it on time. Well, instead of doing the episode about the wooden deck, today we took the day to record an extra
episode. That's something that a lot of people is being… they're being asking… No. Yeah. They are asking, on the comments. Everyone is asking about what kind of welding machine we use. Everyone's asking about what kind of
angle grinder we use. So we are gonna try to show you guys all the equipment we've been using so far. And why we chose this equipment and what we think about them after use for such… I don't know, 3, 4 months. So, let's get started. Well, to make it easier we are gonna divide this into six sections. The sections are: cutting and grinding. Second: drilling. Third: measurement and hand tools. Then painting. Safety. And welding. That's the most asked question. Everyone wants to know what kind of
welding machine we are using.

So, let's start with cutting and grinding. So, for 3 months I was scared, thinking about how I was gonna actually cut the shipping container. It's something that I was like worried about. I was still searching if I was gonna buy a plasma cutter, or if I was gonna buy an angle grinder. and as you guys know we bought the angle. And we didn't regret at all. And the reason for that is because… I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but most of the times that I see cuts made with the plasma cutter, it's not like… the cuts not clean. You still need to clean the cut, so you can weld later. So, you need to cut, and then you need to grind off the tip. And I don't know, it's just… you need to work twice. And with the angle grinder you cut straight and it's perfect clean, you can well straight away. And then we decide to get the angle grinder. But, as we decide to go with the angle grinder there are basically three options. You can buy the small one, that's the four and a half inches.

You can buy the middle size, that's the 7 inches disc. And you can buy the 9 inches disc. Most of the people that I see use the nine inches disc. But it's really big and heavy. Yeah, the thing is… I'm pretty sure it would be cheaper to cut, because you use like a disc that's like this big. So, you need less discs and the price is not that different. But at the same time, the weight of the machine is twice as the weight of this machine. So, the reason we actually decided for the
smallest one was the weight.

Because I was scared that with time I would get tired and maybe I don't know… let go and let fall the machine and get hurt. Actually you get tired even with this
one. Yeah, basically. So, the ones I saw, the 9 inches, they would be like 5 and a half kilos heavy. This one is 2.4 kilos. But, the good news is we found this specific machine from Bosch… Oh, by the way we're gonna show a lot of equipments, a lot of them from Bosch and from different brands.

We are not sponsored by Bosch. They didn't pay anything for us. And actually if Bosch is watching, you
guys can sponsor us. It's no problem. We would love to. But until now we are
paying for all our equipment. The cool thing I found about this machine is that actually it's not a 4 and a half inches disc. This supports a 5 inch disc, that's just a little bit bigger, makes a huge difference.

And the best thing is even though it's a small disc angle grinder the body is as big… almost as the big angle grinders. So, that means it's really good to hold. And it's like… feels like the big machine but it's really really light . And at the same time it's not as weak as the small ones. So, usually you have like 700, maybe 900
watts, on a small angle grinders.

This one is 1500. So, that means 1500 watts is really enough to cut the shipping container. So, you need to hold these all
the time. Yeah. The other thing is…. you have 2 options for this machine. There is one that you can lock the on and off. But this one that I bought if I let go
it turns off. I bought this one for safety. But, at the same time, sometimes I wish I had the other one, because I would get a lot less tired by just letting go. So this makes me tired by, you know, holding the button for like 4 or 5 hours. But, the really nice machine. We don't regret. It's really good. Now let's talk about discs. Talking about discs… we use basically
5 kinds of discs. There is one that's not here. So, to cut a shipping container we usually use these thin discs, that are made for stainless steel. We use this one from Makita. Not because… it's just the one we've found in a good price and we like the disc.

And then when we need to cut something that's more… Thicker? Not.. yeah, it's thicker but a different kind of material. Like the rings that they are located on the side of the shipping container. We found that I brake too easy this disc doing that. So, we use the thick disc, that we
don't have here today, but it's meant to cut regular steel. And then if we need to take the paint off, we use this one to grind off stuff, when it's really rough. And then when we want to give like a good finishing, and to be like really smooth the grinding, and then we use this flap disc, that's based like sandpaper on a disc. That's… Really good. We use a lot of those, way too much, and that's not that cheap.

And then, like 2 months ago we found out this. That's not a disc, that's like a brush, it's like a metal brush. And we use this one from Makita. And this is really good to take the paint off of the shipping container. When we need to take the rust. So, that's what we use a lot to clean the rust on the top of the shipping container, on the roof. So, that's… we used make like 4 of
those already. Yeah. So, basically, for the angle grinder that's it. Bosch again. Yeah. That's not sponsored. So, talking about drilling… What do you use? Well, this one… we bought a kit from Bosch also. Bosch, if you want to say there's a stronger one, we won't mind. We just bought this one because was affordable and we need something like this. So, basically we got a kit that's a drilling, a battery drilling and a battery wrench. Impact wrench. So, that's the impact wrench. Yeah, well…

So, basically we use this for screws. And we use this to make holes. So, the models are … Let's put like this. These are the models. And sometimes you might see us using a wired one, a bigger one, stronger one. Thing is this is good, but sometimes it's not strong enough. So, when we need to use like for heavy
things we use the one with the cord and… But that's not ours, we always borrow. So we don't have here today. But the name, the specification is
this one. So, let's get to the item number 3. The number 3 is measurement and hand tools. So, we started the project only with this… Yeah. We only own this one, that's a 20 meters measurement tape. That's really useful. Makes the job. Yeah. When it's something big that's what we use. Then we bought this one, that's a regular… That you can fix.

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Yeah. So, this is an 8 meters one. it's really good because it's… you know, you can do some measurements by yourself. When she's not here I cannot use that one. So, this one's easier. And then… We bought this one. We bought this one. This helps a lot actually. Yeah. I mean, when we start working with
wood this is going to be even better. But still, for measuring is steel that was really good.

Yeah. That is just a 1 meter. Stainless steel. It's really good. And then there is this one. We always wanted this one. To work with shipping container it's a good one, because there's a bubble, a level. Here, here and here. There are 3. 3 angled levels. And there is the measurement and there is a magnet. (in Portuguese it's ímã) Yeah. There is a magnetic, so you can just, you know, leave… a Attach it. You can attach to the shipping container. Like this. So, basically you can attach it to any metal. So that helps a lot when you're trying to get something on the level on the shipping container. This is really really useful. We used it a lot when we locate the windows on place, the frames for the windows on place. We always used to level the windows. It's really good. And then the squares. We started with the basic square, I mean at
least in Brazil, that's the square you see everywhere. Then we bought this one. Yeah. The thing is, it's hard to…

It's hard to make sure the frame for the windows are are squared on the corners with this is more one sometimes. Yeah. And it has this. Yeah. This angle here sometimes is… I don't know. We ended up buying this. And this is another life. Yeah. So, this is much much better to make
sure the frames are squared. And then.. We got this small one. We went, we travelled on December and we got as a little treat.

Because it was really cheap. In Brazil
it's really expensive. So, this is a square that you can move. And sometimes it's really good when you want to measure a distance… And keep this distance. Yeah. So, basically you can lock the distance and then you can just, you know… keep seeing the same distance. This is just… It's really helpful. I love this one. And then we have the electronic one. That's measurement, but first we have this. The other square. This one. You might see these one a lot in our videos. That's a magnetic square. That's basically when we weld metal frames we use this to make sure it's squared. The thing is… when we bought this one we thought it would be easy to do the frames.

You just put one metal in each side and it's squared. But, that's not true. You see that's really dirty, with pieces
of metal. It's not… there's always pieces metal attached to it. It's really hard to clean it. It's really hard to clean. And it's really hard to actually get squared at the first time. We always need to… Yeah. So, basically put the metal here and a metal here and keep like hitting with the mallet, until we get the right position. But there is one that you can turn the magnetic later. Yeah. But I like this one.

The thing is… it's good because it holds on place so you can weld. But, it wont guarantee that's squared. So what we do… we hold on place with this one and we make sure it's squared with this one. Yeah. But still, it's a good tool to have. Talking about… we have this rubber mallet, really good. And the regular hammer.

We use it a lot. Yeah. And about measurement. That's the last measurement. Laser measurement. That's really good. For interior. For outside part it's not that useful if you have sun, because the laser doesn't work really well. Yeah. But this was essential for us to
build the windows. Because we ordered the windows custom-made. So we did the frames, then we've got this and we measured with a really good precision.

And all the windows fit perfect, because of this. Otherwise we would not get the right measurement. Safety gear. So, let's talk about safety gear now. Well, the safety gears we were buying along the way. When we need it, when we felt
like we need it. So, if you see the first images, we didn't have any shoes. And not even gloves. Yeah. But now, you know, you feel like you need protection. Yeah. Safety gear is really really important. Don't start like us. Just buy straight away, because otherwise you get hurt, and that's not good.

So, let's start from bottom up. You need boots. These are not the best ones., but it's holding so far. Yeah. Mine is like old shoes that I have. So, that's my working boots. As today we are not working, we are just shooting this video I don't need them. So, that's my working boots. Pants. Long pants. I'm wearing shorts today that's the first time I'm wearing shorts, because we're not working today. But always long pants, and jeans, strong ones, because, I don't know… Because my pants where are lasting each pair of pants for 1 month. We have been working for 3 months and I've lost three pairs of pants already. But, it's part of the job. If you want to loose t-shirts just use old ones or uniform, like us. Jacket I suggest like something really
really strong. This one's tough and even though it's tough it's burned from the welding. I mean, if you're not working with welding you might not need a jacket. But if you want to work with welding and grinding. I always wear this when I'm grinding in welding.

And I always tell her that I feel safer when I have my jacket on. It's just… Now it's like 30 degrees and he's still wearing this right now. Right now is summer and yesterday I worked all day long with that jacket. It's all good. So, sometimes you wear this for welding. For welding this is also good. You can see it's all burned already.

So, that's like leather. How you call that? I forgot the name actually. Well, the name is here. That's the name. Apron. So, that's a leather apron. That I use sometimes. What else? Gloves. It's been really hard to find the right pair
of gloves. We always buy bigger… it's too big, to small. The material is not as good. So we've been trying. So, we bought this cheap one. But, it's… You can use just once actually.It's not that good. Yeah. This is good for painting for sometimes a little bit of sanding, or something that have dust on your hand. To mix paintings good, but not for
cleaning like strong paintings, I don't think it's good. So, we bought this one. That's better for painting… that is really dirty. For steel we are using leather ones. This is really good to work with any kind of steel, but for welding I find it too thin. It burns too easy.

So for welding I bought as a specific,
that already now this week burned. So, these are gloves for MIG welding. So, it's more robust and thicker. So, the hit won't hit your hand that much. So that's specifically for MIG welding. That's what I do. So, that's gloves. Talking about breath. You know, when you work in the construction site there's a lot of stuff that are not good for your health that you breathe. So, we started by using these simple masks. But, it's good just for light dust. I mean, it's really good, these ones, when you need to sand something for a long time, because you don't want to use the, you know, the big mask, that's just like annoying for the whole afternoon when you're just sanding something or painting something with like a light paint. But works, but not when you're painting with epoxy or then that's not enough. Oh, there's another good thing for this one.

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When I'm welding, because the smoke of the MIG welding is really bad, but this big mask won't fit inside of my welding mask, so I need to use… to wear these ones underneath. So, this is good for that also. When we do some painting, that's how we use it. Let's show you guys how it works. Like an airplane. So. So, in the beginning we used only the the
cloth one, but we found out that you can still smell the smell of the painting. And it's bad for you. So, we bought these ones and that's good. Another life actually. Yeah. That's from 3M. And it works really good. We paint all day long with epoxy paint and we don't smell anything.

We really really like these ones. So, if we talk about safety gear, that's one of my favorite ones. I mean not for safety but for comfort. It's safety also, but it's
comfortable also. Because angle grinder makes a lot of noise and this is just magical. When we bought, at first we bought those little plugs. But, I don't know, for me with the plug or without the plug doesn't make any difference.

It's was like just a cotton. Yeah. Seems like all the same. So, we decided to buy a good one and … a cheaper one. So, we bought the cheaper one for her and the expensive one for me. As he is always working. I'm always closer to the machine than she is. So, she is far away so she could use this one and I bought the expense one. In the end. The cheaper one was not that good. It's not that good but, you know, it's
cheaper, you get what you pay. And this one is for, I think, maybe 12 decibels or sometime.

No, it's more. It's more? 20? 23. 23 decibels. This one is for 33. So, the noise cancelling on this one is a lot better than this one. And about the quality. The construction. Yeah. So, in the end we bought an extra one of
those for her and we use this every single day. I mean whenever I don't want to hear her. Yeah. This is… I mean, I suggest you if you
are gonna work with a grinder buy a good one.

Not just angle grinder, I guess when we are working with metal. Cutting metals. Even wood. For any noise, this is essencial. Ok. So, we talked about this one. I don't know if we talked about this one. Sometimes this is not enough. I mean, for some jobs is enough, but for angle grinder the sparkles sometimes come from different directions. We use these ones a lot. The only time I didn't use this one I got hurt. So I never do this anymore. I was gonna grind just something really
small and I was like: no, I don't need to get the mask and I just… and a sparkle from the angle grinder came straight on my right eye. And for one week it hurt all night
long and I couldn't sleep. and I didn't even know if my I was going to come back to normal. So now, just make sure I always use the mask. Always always always. So. What else? Painting. So, we have 3 kinds of painting. Of material to paint. So we have their regular brush. That everyone heard about.

The roller. And… The magical spray paint. It's not that easy to get use to using this. Actually this was really tricky to start using. it's really hard to calibrate, adjust the machine. But, we love it. And for some kinds of paintings this is just amazing. So, basically we bought this compressor, that is a 24 liters tank with a 2 horsepower engine. And the pressure that makes is 120 psi. So, she complains that makes noise. Because every time she's gonna press
record button… It start working and making noise. So, it's really hard to film. Yeah. But the way it works is that the tank gets full and then you use without noise, and then when there is no pressure on the tank anymore the engine goes on.

And as this tank is too small, the engine just keep going on and off all the time. Yeah. But the good part is that it's really good to go around, because it's really small and light. You can even take it to top of the shipping container and that's pretty good. That's the best part. And it's really good for painting and cleaning. The thing is…

It's too small for using with some pressure tools, with some air tools. That I wish I could use, like angle grinder. There are all kinds of machines that you can use with air pressure. Maybe in the future. But this one is only for painting and some…
maybe just for like clamps or something. How do you call clamps? Yeah, whatever. But we only use it for painting and for
cleaning dust. That's pretty good. When you're gonna paint you just clean the dust and for cleaning equipment.

And to clean her, it's like. When she is really dusty. But, the difference between all these 3. When it's just a small job we prefer to use one of these. And when it's too windy it's really hard to paint with these ones, so we use these ones. But the best part about this one is that you can do coats, between layers. The time in between coats is much smaller. So, basically sometimes some paints you need to wait 4 hours for the second layer when you do with the roller. With this you can do after 15 minutes. That
means in 1 hour you can do like 3 layers of a painting. You get a lot faster the job done.

Yeah. And, that's it for painting. So, next stop. Welding? Oh, we forgot one cut. Oh, we forgot one. When we talked about cut we forgot about
this machine. The angle grinder is good for cutting like, you know, like straight lines and, I don't know, and different, I don't know just like a straight cut or even like the shipping container or pieces of metal and stuff. But, when we talk about welding steel frame that need to be squared, this is the machine. Yeah. Basically you need to cut a square this is much easier to guarantee that this square is a square. it's really easy to use. I've used it, so
it's really easy to use. Yeah. There is only one trick. The problem is we use this, as this is portable, we just use on the floor. But, it's not the correct way to use it I guess. I mean.Yeah. It's correct, but you need to have a support, because we cut like six meters long bars and then…

The tip of the bar is not on the same level as this, so sometimes it moves a little bit and… the angle changes. So, we suggest, if you want to use this machine, you should have a table that's flush with the machine. So then will be perfect and you would get like 100% square all the time. But it's a really nice machine. That's the specification for the machine. Oh, just to remind you all these numbers and models are the ones that they sell in Brazil, maybe if you're in a different country
the model number changes a little bit, but I'm sure all these factories make in
most of the countries. Like Bosch sells anywhere you want. So, now the last equipment. The one that everyone's asking about. Welding. So, let's talk about welding. This is our welding machine. What to talk about the welding machine? I don't know.

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There are several kinds of welding machine. This specific one is a MIG welding machine. MIG means this. Inert gas. So, basically this is a gas welding and
that's the gas bottle. So, this one, the factory that makes this is Hylong. That's actually a Chinese welding machine. We were trying to buy the Lincoln one. Yeah. We wanted to buy the Lincoln Electric machine, that's a really really good welding machine, that's American. They sell here in Brazil but the thing is the warranty here, the service if something breaks is not that good. So, I ended up by this one that it's
Chinese, but there are a lot of parts to sell here. And if it breaks I know someone that fix it.

So, we bought this one and we don't regret at all, because the machine is really good. And it's really light, so you can carry around really easy. Yeah. And I never told you guys, but one of the reasons we are building on a shipping container is because I was always curious to learn how to weld. And I always want to learn how to weld aluminum. And one day I want to weld aluminum.

And this machine actually welds aluminum if I want. So, this is a multiprocess welding machine. That means it welds MIG, TIG and stick. You just need to change some accessories. So, right now is configured to weld MIG, that's the MIG torch. The reason why I use MIG is because of the speed of welding and I like the quality of the finishing it gets. And I think for someone had never welded before like me. And me. And her. She's gonna weld
this week, maybe. So, I think it was a good process to learn. I think was an easy one
to learn. So, that's a Hylong MIG 180 Y. And it uses wire that's 1 millimeter or 0.8
millimeters. We use 0.8. What's the amperage that usually you use? Yeah. The amperage goes from 30 to 180.
But I don't know if you guys know, but that doesn't mean that you can well 100% of the time in 180. All the welding machines they have working factory I guess that's how you call it.

That means if I work on a 180 amps I
need to work 6 minutes out of 10. That means, out of…every 10 minutes I can work only 6 minutes otherwise the machine is gonna burn out. So, this machine is 100% when I weld on 140. And that's really good because… Or less. And that's really good because I usually weld on 100 or less like something in between 80 and 100 amps. So, it's pretty good for me. So, that's our welding machine. That's my helmet. And it's really good because when the light is on… Yeah. That's… Nowadays I guess it's really normal, that's an automatic helmet. So, I don't need to take on and off if I'm
welding because it turns on and off the… the glass. So, basically when I'm welding it's really
dark and when I stop wearing I can see again. That's really good. But that you can find anywhere, it's justa a normal helmet. And we always rent the gas. Oh, that's the other thing. We decided not to buy the gas. For now. Because it's to big for us to have the gas tank and we are using a lot now, but after we finish the shipping container we're only gonna use the welding machine for small jobs, small tasks.

So, I want you buy a smaller gas tank. But for now it would be too small. So, we rent this one, it's pretty cheap. It's like less than 10 American dollars a month to rent plus the gas. And the gas is. This mixture gas for MIG weld that we use is is 75% argon and 25% CO2. So, that's the mixture we use. And this is the manometer. So that's basically that shows how much pressure I have on the welding machine and and how much gas I still have on the tank. And just for you to know the machine has 15 kilograms. Oh, yeah. The machine, the good thing, the thing I love about this machine is because it's light for the power. It's still powerful but still light. Because some of the machines that are a 180 amps, they weight like maybe 40 kilos and this one weighs only 15 kilos. Plus the wire. That's like 5 kilos. So, that basically means that weights total with the wire, full wire, that weights 20 kilos and I can carry up roof, as you guys already. So, that's a really good thing.

I guess it is. What can I say about that? No no no no. When we talk about welding it's important to talk about this things. So, we strongly suggest that if you work with welding you have one of those, that's called… This helps a lot. Mechanical vise. Yeah. So that when you weld small pieces, it's really good to have to hold the pieces. These are really really good.

C clamps. To hold all the kind of pieces. So you can weld it. And this one we found really really helpful. Grip plier. How do you call this one? Grip plier. This is really useful when you need to grind a small piece, you can hold the piece with this and, you know, grind on the angle grinder. or when you need to weld a small piece you can hold with these and weld with the other hand. This is really really useful. Yeah. And I guess that's it. I guess that's it. I mean, we did't talk about all the machines meant to use with woodworking. Because it's just too much for one episode. And we are not working with wood by now. Yeah. We didn't start working with wood
that much. So we are gonna talk about that in the future. For now I think that's good . If you have any… if we didn't explain something that you want to know about one of these machines, let us know.

We are glad to answer any question. Just to make sure you guys remember we didn't get paid from any of these companies. We just use it because we like and because the price was good and, I mean, it was affordable or it was something that we
liked. But any of the brands out there, if they want sponsor us, like Rockler, just to say. Just a hint. We're gonna start working with wood soon. So if Rockland wants to help us… you know we don't mind getting some accessories for woodworking Rockler. So. Yeah. For now I guess that's it. Yeah. If you have any doubt just ask us. Sorry that we are kind of annoying to finish
recording, because the mosquito now, it's like 7 o'clock at night and the
mosquitoes are just getting crazy here. So we kind of need to quit shooting. And I'm not wearing pants today so it's killing me. See, I'm telling you. And I'm not joking, it's true.

Next week we are gonna talk about… I guess the deck. Hopefully, yeah. Sorry we didn't talk about the deck today. But the thing is… takes so long for painting the wood. Because we need to give 3 coats of painting with 12 hours in between coats. And it turns 24. We have a lot of wood and then you need to do in turns and then took like 2 weeks painting the wood for the deck . But hopefully next week we're gonna finally talk about the deck. Fingers crossed. So, see you guys next week. you.

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