Well, it looks like Target has taken
over now and for more reasons than one.
They are hard to beat when it comes to
small appliances. I replaced the test
blender with a new Oster one and for
only $15.00. Then I found a toaster for
another $15.00. Now this toaster was
special. It had wide openings at the top
for anything up to the size of bagels and
with a special heat setting if you choose
them over thin sliced sandwich bread. I
was in heaven now but still needed one
more fix. How was I going to totally
eliminate going to the store each day for
… ICE?
I tried the Internet but I must have
been looking in all the wrong places.
The week before the NAMBA Nationals,
I was looking at the Target ads and low
and behold, there was an Emerson ice
maker on sale. It was normally $129.00
on sale for $119.00. I was pretty leery
about buying this because of the
inexpensive price. I found some reviews
on the Internet including a You Tube
video uploaded by a house wife. They
were all pretty positive so I gave it a shot
and bought one. It’s the size of a bread
machine and operates on only 135 watts.
It makes three sizes of ice cubes and
kicks out 9 cubes every nines minutes.
The ice is not clear so you know that it is
not hard ice that will last as long as clear
ice. But ice is ice. When I needed ice for
the ice chest, I would reuse the melted
ice water from the ice chest. It was
already cold so it made ice quicker.
When I wanted ice for the blender, I
would use bottled water. The machine
would make 24 pounds of ice in a day.
That’s not too bad. The other good thing
was that I could run it at the same time
as the toaster or the blender or any
charging I needed to do during the day. I
didn’t try running it at the same time as
the microwave. I didn’t want to push my
luck and blow a fuse. How good is this
ice maker? It currently sits on the
kitchen counter at home in place of the
bread machine and makes ice when we
have a party coming up. Now that is
money well spent.
And last but not least, there was one
more addition to the trailer upgrade and
it saved my back at the Nationals. Now
if you don’t get to the Nats mid week
before they start to set up camp, you
know that you will be located at the
PROPWASH
10
October 2011
Upgrading the Budget Minded Trailer
(Continued From Page 9)
As I mentioned quite a bit in my first article, where would you think I would go to
find an inexpensive generator. Hello Harbor Freight and Tool! Throw in a sidewalk
sale, weekend holiday sale, a coupon or two and I bought their Chicago 800 rated
watts/900 max watts portable generator. As of the writing of this article, it is $149.00
on sale for $129.00. I bought it at the time for $89.00.
Now I won’t be able to light up the pond for night racing or host an FE Nats but I
felt that it could do what I needed it to do. There are a few downsides but nothing that
I thought I couldn’t work around. There is only one plug receptacle. No problem! I
bought the heaviest gauge 50 foot extension chord I could find (at Harbor Freight and
Tool) and added a three way extension cord to it. I figured I wouldn’t need more than
one thing running at a time anyway.
First, I had to break in the generator before use under load. I read a lot of bad things
on the Internet about generator carburetors, stale gas, oil clogging, starting up every
month whether used or not, emptying the gas tank out after every use and hard
starting. This told me that Ethanol in pump gas is the problem just like some of us
have with our gas boats. Well, I run on Coleman White Gas so why not run the same
in the generator? Okay, so it’s a little more expensive and there goes the warranty but
it was only $89.00 and doesn’t smell like gasoline. I ran the generator for an hour or so
each day for a week. Then I figured it was time to test it out. Why not with what I
bought the thing for in the first place? A blender!
I placed the generator in the front yard and tested the blender in the garage. Now
that’s what I am talking about. It worked like a charm. I am covered at the end of a
day of racing. But what about the mornings? What could I do? How about a cup of
coffee or a nice hot chocolate? Hmmm!
Well, Harbor Freight and Tool doesn’t carry everything. I went to Best Buy
looking for a small microwave oven. I found a nice black three quarter cubic foot
microwave for $55.00. Normally $59.00 so the savings wasn’t monstrous but it
covered the tax. I gave it try at home connected to the generator and it worked but
nothing like 110 volts from a household wall plug in. It took ten minutes to get hot
water but that was about the same time it took me to tape up the radio box and fuel a
boat. Besides, I haven’t found a waitress in a restaurant that could get me a cup much
faster than that anyway. Now I needed to have something with that cup of hot
chocolate.
From left to right: The Emerson ice maker, Sunbeam toaster, Oster blender,
G.E. microwave oven, and the Harbor Freight and Tool generator