NEW SHOP UPGRADES AND BIG STUFF COMING!!

Hey there, what is happening YouTube? Thanks for stopping back into the channel here with a Rust Belt Mechanic. So, I know it's been a long time, a long hiatus since I've really made any kind of meaningful videos. So, I'm going to be hopping back into stuff and giving you guys an update on what exactly is going on, where I've been, what I'm up to, and what's to come here on the channel. Stay tuned. So, as you guys can see, I'm here in my home shop. This is one of the big projects that I've been working on lately and putting what little extra time that I have. Light literally just fell from the ceiling. I'm pretty sure there's some squirrels messing with me right now. Retake. So, I've been putting a whole lot of work into this barn in the little amount of free time that I have. And that little amount of free time, uh I've been trying to find here and there just because I've been taking on a new job, which you guys can check out in a couple of my older videos where I kind of go through leaving the dealership. But, where have I gone? I'm working for Rivian, the electric car and truck manufacturer. They make the R1T and the R1S as well as an EDV van for Amazon. It's fully electric. Everything they do is all electric. They are pretty awesome vehicles. So, I've been working for them the last 4 and 1/2 months and we'll just say the experience has been absolutely amazing. I've never had a company that I've worked for before that has been more employee driven, uh more quality control driven towards their products. Putting out a quality product is above all else. Uh it's not one of the big three like working for those. It's definitely not working flat rate, which is amazing. They're all about putting out quality product, getting things fixed on time and to a higher standard than I've ever seen in the automotive industry. Now, I really haven't done a whole lot in the way of videos or anything when it comes to those yet because I've just haven't gotten with the uh legal team or anything yet on being able to get the okay on doing any kind of Rivian specific things, uh videos-wise, being able to tell any of the processes or how things work or anything yet on being a technician, but I'm hoping to get that one here in the future cuz I'm sure you guys would like to know that. But anyways, one of the small things I can tell you guys is I am a senior service technician for Rivian. I am primarily doing mobile technician service. Uh Rivian's goal is to do probably 80% of their uh service visits mobilely at a customer's house or their work, wherever it might be. So, I go out to their houses or go out to their work and be able to fix their vehicles uh while they're on the go. So, a whole lot less ha- hassle and stress for them. These vehicles, we'll just say they're a whole lot easier to work on. Uh not nearly as much stuff goes wrong with them as I'm used to with Fiat and Chrysler vehicles that I've worked on for 13 years. So, it is a really cool change of pace. But anyways, let's get into what I've been doing kind of around here. I know when I come home on the weekends, I've got a whole lot of stuff to do with all the training and everything I've got through Rivian. I'm usually only got the weekend time, which is why I really haven't come out with a whole lot of videos. You guys know that I moved into this place, got a a shop, and a whole lot of acreage to be able to take care of. So, that has been taking up a bunch of my time. Now, I started doing some renovating here in this area over here and just one thing kind of compounded on top of another. Uh ended up having to put a new roof on the shop on the barn here and it's a pretty big shop. It's a pretty big barn. So, the roof line I think the building is 100 ft by 65 or 70 ft. So, it's pretty good size uh barn roof to put on as well as they put a whole new ceiling here in the barn. So, a new metal ceiling so I can do some insulation and be able to heat this place a little bit better this winter. I still need to do insulation up into the uh up into the rafters area, but I'll figure that one out. I think I should be able to do it. I mean, Home Depot even lets you rent the equipment to do it. Can't be that hard, can't it? So, you going to talk to me or you just going to keep butt each other? Break my balls, Jack. Also, over into this area, this is another area we've been kind of working on. This place was pretty bare. Um yes, it was finished. The ceiling and everything is all finished, but we're putting a couple of rooms in over here. One is for uh storage and things for my me and my wife and then a spare bedroom uh for when a couple of visitors or family comes over, they've got a nice place out here to be able to call their own. Well, we're doing some work with the HVAC up there and getting everything all in. I didn't finish any of the drywall in any of these rooms yet because obviously a leaking roof makes things not so great. So, this, my friends, is going to be the future Rust Belt studio in here where I'm going to do a whole lot of recording, podcasts, and pretty much anything I can get a hold of in here. So, it's going to be a good time. We're going to do some fun stuff in here this winter. Uh this is another project table that's going to be going up to the house. And you can see our new little shop mascot curled up over here in the corner. This is uh what my son has come to name Launchpad. He's our barn cat to keep all the dastardly squirrels and mice out of here, which have really been uh wreaking havoc on this place. It's been a real pain in the butt. Just check out what this guy is doing here. Look at this guy. He's doing the superhero pose in front of my camera. How is that a cool thing? This is beyond uh infuriating when I see that and I just walk into my barn and if I find 30 different nuts sitting around from all these stupid little squirrels. They're a pain in the butt and I hope this cat takes care of them or at least scares them away this winter. We're going to be able to pull cars into this area or motorcycles, and we're going to have our toolbox over here. This is our smaller one that we had in here. My bigger one is out in the shop. This is going to be able to do, you know, some of the smaller videos and we're going to make a really cool backdrop over here for doing some live streams and podcast recording. So, that is going to be pretty awesome there. If you guys didn't see on one of the live streams, I showed you this. Uh this is my new tractor I ended up getting for the property here. It's a 2016 John Deere 3039R. So, it is used, had some low hours on it, pretty nice uh piece of equipment to have here. Got some forks, got a bucket outside as well as a grapple. One of the major necessary things for having a property and so much woods out here. That thing has helped out tremendously. It did come with a mower deck and I'm not going to use that. I can't use it. There's way too many trees here on the property and it doesn't help to do anything. So, got one of those for sale if you guys need one of those. And then over here in the corner is my good old SP Tools toolbox from the shop as well as my Snap-on tool cart. Now, you guys did see way back in like April, which actually wasn't a few, but a few videos ago. Unfortunately, like I said, haven't been doing a whole lot lately, but I ordered a new toolbox. Now, fast forward like 7 and 1/2 months later, guess what? My new toolbox that I ordered while I was working at the dealership, it's coming in tomorrow. So, I'm getting pretty excited. That's why I said I'm going to come down here into the barn tonight, clean this thing off all the cobwebs and stuff that got on the top of it and everything. So, I'm going to clean that off, and yes, I am still getting the toolbox. It's going to be a really cool thing to see. It's a really unique, special, different um mixture of colors and what the toolbox is. So, you guys will make sure you want to stay tuned to that one. That will be the next video coming up. So, if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe and uh turn on the bell notification so you get notified when that video drops. And that will lead us into what content is going to be coming here on the channel here uh over the next month or so. So, you seen in a couple of the recent videos where I went to the Milwaukee pipeline event. Some of their new tools just dropped this month in October. So, I'm hoping to get a couple of those to be able to review and you guys to check out. Some of them are pretty neat. I do like some of the new lights as well as the new hand tools, the ratchets that came out. Those are pretty impressive. I'm hoping to do a comparison video with some of the newer ratchets that have come out on the market. They are pretty nice. So, that one's going to be coming up. The toolbox, I'm going to be getting that tomorrow, doing a whole, you know, I don't know if I'm going to do a whole assembly kind of thing uh or not, but I'm going to do a whole organization video because I am super excited to get rid of all these tiny little drawers and reorganize things totally so I can get stuff where I want, how I want. It's going to be awesome. And everybody always likes reorganizing. When I get a new toolbox and I can take everything out apart and reorganize in a new space, I don't know. It's just something that does it for me. I'm super excited about that one. So you guys need to stay tuned for that. Now one of the other things that I'm hoping to get into throughout the winter because the winter months here in Ohio pretty much suck and I don't really have a heat source for this big part of the building yet. That's why I said I'm working on those things as much as I can, but time and money are always not enough and few and far between. So I'm hoping to get everything insulated and I'm hoping to get some plates in some way that I can heat this area of the building a lot better and easier. Currently there's no form of heat out here. There is in the finished section where I showed you where the little studio is. So I'm going to utilize that area and hopefully be able to do some live streaming and some podcasts this winter. I'd really like to get some of the old guys from the channel on here. Get Captain Ron, get McBacon here and maybe some other guys. We can do some interviews and cool things about what's going on across the automotive market as well as the EV world since I'm pretty dope down deep into that one now. If you guys would like to see any kind of specialty content like that, please feel free to leave some comments down below or hit me up on Instagram or email me over at therustbeltmechanic@gmail.com. Well guys, that's about all I've got for you today as far as the update video about what's going on and what's happening here on the channel and where I've been the last three and a half four months. We've got some cool awesome stuff coming up here soon. Make sure you stay tuned for that one. Thanks and as always, you guys stay awesome.