Shop Vac Upgrade

I love cyclonic vacuums. A lot. I've had Dyson cyclone for about 4 years now and recently i pulled the wash every 6 months HEPA filter out for the first time and it was perfectly clean. I was shocked, that's efficient cyclone! That vacuum has been used and abused over its life from sucking up superfine MDF and plaster dust to dirt, screws and leaves and it has not failed yet.
I've (and possibly my neighbours) of having to take the filter out of the shop vac every couple of empties to take it out into the yard and blowing it out with compressed air. Usually creating giant dust clouds.
So I decided to add a cyclone to my shop vac. The cheapest available solution that I could find was a Dust deputy which was $85 just for the cyclone, no bucket or hoses were included. The full kit was $179. Considering i only paid $30 for my shop vac that seemed a little pricey. The other day on eBay i noticed a Chinese clone of the dust deputy for $50. Still more then I wanted to pay, but I really wanted to stop having to clean that damn filter, so I bought it. I have made one before but it would be really fiddly to make one that small.
 I started with making a little trolley to hold it all and used the wheels from the shop vac to make it mobile. Added a handle to make it easy to move around. The cyclone is bolted to a sheet of 12 mm ply and held down to a 30l bucket with bungee straps with some weather strip added between the ply and the bucket to achieve a good seal. Lastly the vac was screwed down to the base, I don't plan on having to empty the vac very often so I don't mind undoing a couple of screws to do that.
I tested it buy sucking up about 10l of stuff that I had emptied from the shop vac. Opened the shop vac and it was perfectly clean! Yay!

The Finished result.

Till next time

Al

Pallet Pal

With the addition of a ute added to Al's shed fleet, i'm now able to transportate large stuff around, in particular pallets. 

 Pallets are great. They're free and mostly made from hardwood. Pallets are designed to never come aapart toensure the longest lifespan. This is achieved by using spiral nails, sometimes glue coated.

These nails are designed by satan himself. They are very very difficult to remove with a hammer, you really need quite a lot of mechanical advantage to remove these. It also makes prying the boards off a pallet without damaging the pallet very changeling. There are various methods around the internet of breaking down pallets, but all seem to be more difficult than is necessary and either result in a low yield or cut off nails which are difficult to remove.

Luckily Izzy Swan over at think wood works has developed a cracker tool to solve this problem.

The pallet pal.

Check out it being built and in action here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpcur7RTDVU

So i decided to make one.

Because it straddles both side of the board being removed and having a long handle it really makes short work of breaking down pallets.

In the three pallets i've broken down i've only cracked one board.

If you have the urge to break down pallets i strongly suggest you to consider making one of these. Its quick to make and quite cheap even if you have to buy the plywood and threaded rod.

Till next time.

Al

Shop vac get a HEPA filter

The air filter on my $30 shop vac sucks, not in a good way. When i suck up super fine dust it can be seen coming out the exhaust port back into the air. Most unsatisfactory. I've been thinking about upgrading it to a HEPA filter for a while, but they are a little pricey. Recently i got a new dust extraction system which meant i decommissioned by DIY cyclone one i had made earlier. When i pulled apart one of the vacs that was in that system i discovered it had a HEPA filter.

HEPA (High-efficiency particulate air) filters remove at least 99.97% of airborne  articles 0.3 micrometers (µm) in diameter or larger.

I started with figuring out how to adapt the rectangle filter to the round exhaust port. I had a 2.5" to 4" adaptor that would be a good start but the exhaust port was only 2" in diameter. So I cut it in half and removed the excess material to form a 2" pipe and plastic welded it back together.

Next i made a quick box to encase the filter using 3mm MDF and hot glue and cut a hole on the back before i attached it. (Baking paper works great to stop hot from setting where it shouldn't)

I had to be careful to not get glue on the pipe, as that hole would serve as the maintenance port for cleaning.

Wham bam thankyou mam, shop vac now has a HEPA filter.

Till next time.

Al

Al gets a lathe!

The story starts as usual, me getting a deal. I was at a garage sale on the weekend and spotted a lathe. Mr man initially water $80, he had reduced it to $30 as it was getting late in the morning. I offered he $20 and a deal was done! When i was a kid i remember going to my grandparents house and being assisted by my grandfather, using the lathe. It was good times and not that difficult, well for basic stuff anyways. A lathe is something i've always been keen to have, every now and then a need for one arises (trivets for instance) but i've never been able to justify buying even a cheap lathe. Until now. It seems $20 is the buy in price for Al to buy a lathe.

A$20 lathe! It wasn't in bad condition little rusty, little been dropped from a bench, and average paint condition. As i had it outside i thought this would be the perfect opportunity to give it quick refresh.

So the following work was done.

• Full nut and bolt teardown
• Sand to bare metal and respray.
• Bearings were in perfect shape, no movement side to side and spun freely.
• Power switch also in very good shape, almost no wear to the contact pads.
• Low friction tape applied to metal on metal contact points.
• New power lead attached.
• No bolts were included to keep the side door closed, so a 6mm thread was tapped to allow for the star knobs on the side.

All in all i'm rather pleased with the outcome. It was great to get some more practice with the spray gun. Hopefully now with its mid life update it'll continue to function for years to come.

Till next time.

Al

OCD Screw Style!

As with so many of my projects this one starts by getting a deal! I am constantly on the lookout for high quality inexpensive cases to hold stuff. In this case i found some good cases almost half price from repco.  One of these cases would be perfect for storing commonly used screws in the bottom of my tool chest. The case just fitted and i removed the lid by removing two rods from the back so that should i wish to take the screws on the road it would only take a minute to reattach the lid.

The most common screws i find myself using are 8g screws, so they are easily at reach in the top sections. 6g Screws can be found by lifting out the MDF container as shown in the above pic. I made the MDF containers and dividers from 3mm MDF hot glued together. The project was finished off by a quick labeling session to quickly identify what was in each container.

Till next time

Al

Trivets!

With christmas rapidly approaching, gifts need to be found or in this case made.
The basic idea behind the design was poached from some ones i found in a homewares store. Those ones were just pieces of dowel with holes drilled to hold the rope. I thought i could make a more interesting design and for much less then the $35 the store wanted for one.
And so the project begins!

I really wanted to make my own dowel as i have some hardwood stair treads laying around that would have been perfect for this project, but alas operation "make a doweling jig" did not end up with a usable jig. So 25mm hardwood dowel was purchased and cut to 175mm lengths. Then planed round, the store bought dowel was mostly round, but not round enough for what i needed it for.

Next up was to drill some holes in each end. It dawned on me that even if i punched a mark on the timber prior to drilling the holes it would be almost impossible to get holes that perfectly matched up. So a jig was made!
I cut a hardwood block in half, drilled a 25mm hole in each end, then carefully marked and drilled a 4mm hole in the top of each one. And lastly cut a slice out on the bandsaw from each bottom so the final dimension of the 25mm would be slightly less when a clamp was applied holding the dowels tightly in place.
Once that was made i was able to drill the holes at the end of each dowel precisely.

 I wanted to cut two  grooves at each end of the dowel. Usually this operation would be preformed using a lathe, which i dont have. So to the internet! Turns out other people have faced this problem and making a router jig was the easiest solution. So i knocked up this contraption. Dowel gets feed into the hole, the router is lowered till it reached its depth stop and the dowel rotated (hence the need for really round dowel. I found that if it wasn't really round it would bind and get stuck when i tried to turn it) then when all dowel was cut the jig was adjusted to cut the second groove.

The end result.

I applied a coat of tung oil to one of the test pieces and was quite happy with the result, but i felt it needed something more but i wasn't sure what. So i took 24 hours to have a think.
The next day i was doing some plastic welding and it dawned on me, i needed to blacken the groves with the soldering iron. So with all the enthusiasm in the world i set to it! And stopped once my back started to get sore, which was only 10mins after i started and i had only done 4 grooves. A quick bit of math removed any bit of remaining enthusiasm . 4 groves per rod and a total of 14 rods = 56! This was going to take a while. Luckily Mrs Paleface was kind enough to lend a hand so it went a little quicker.

After a coat of tung oil.

And the finished product after a second coat of tung oil.
Its design allows for it to either be compressed like on the left (and the cord can be placed under it to hid it) or extended like on the depending on your trivet needs.

Till next time

Al

Welding trolley follow up.

Last week i finished off building the trolley, and this morning i spent some time fitting it out.

Starting from the top.
I bolted the grinder to the top of the cabinet, its quite heavy and i was concerned the trolley would become top heavy, but luckily the welder is heavy enough to maintain good stability.
A shelf containing clamps and right angle magnets
Welding gloves, helmet and chipping hammer.
And lastly the welder on the bottom.

Close up of inside shelf.

Left hand side containing 4" grinder with cutoff and grinding  wheels and  arbour adaptor.

On the back is a 6 way powerboard which i modified to use 15amp power power cable. I didn't want to see the effects of voltage drop over the 10m run. Also although the welder is rated to only 10amps they use 15amp cable with a 10amp plug. The power cables for the welder and bench grinder are nicely cable tied to the frame. It was when i installed the final tie i released that now i could not get to the welder wire in the welder as there is not enough room inside the cabinet to open it, and now with the power cord cable tied, i cannot move the welder out of the cabinet! Oh well. Sounds like a problem for my future self.

And lastly the right hand side with 5" grinder and accessories.

All in all i'm rather pleased how this came out. It should make for a far more efficient welding experience. The only other thing i'd like to do it change the power lead on the 4"angle grinder, it has a really short lead on it and i can't get much beyond the front of the cabinet when its plugged into the rear power board.

Till Next time.

Al

Welding trolley.

I recently got a great deal on the mig welder, and although it's portable it weighs about 30 kg and doesn't have wheels. Also my welding stuff is in a big box and i often don't weld something because its such a pain to set up. So.. a welding trolley was commissioned.

The finished project after 2 coats Scandinavian oil.

Its made out of 12mm ply, radiata pine, and molding made from cedar.

The objectives I wanted to achieve by doing this are the following.

- Practice mitre joints, as i've never really tried them before and it's a skill i'd like to have.

- Have a play with Scandinavian oil

- Make molding

- Use pocket hole joinery, again never really used this in a project before.

- End up with a trolley for the welder.

The mitre joints for the most part came out really nice. And I got good experience at cutting mitres after cutting 28 of them! 

Same with the mitred pine to edge band the plywood top.

I also invented a new join. I'm calling it a double half lap. I cut a half lap on two pieces of timber then went back to the saw an cut a half lap from the new joint and out of a new piece of timber and glued them together. and that formed the corner joint you can see in the photo.
All the side panels are held in place with pocket holes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKNHZ2rQtH4
A short video explaining how to make a pocket hole.

I had to drill 48 holes which is a bit painful to do, but its way stronger then using a butt joint and easier than using dowels. As this was a shop project it doesn't really matter if the screw holes are visible.

This trolley will probably be repurposed at some stage as building a welding out of wood was not my best decision, however i didn't have enough steel to make one from that. So when i do i'll make a steel one.

Till next time...

Al

Mitre saw stand upgrade.

I recently bought a cheap mitre saw stand which i really quite like except for 2 things:
- It has no wheels making moving it around with the saw attached really difficult.
- It does not have an adjustable foot which results in the whole thing rocking if it's not on a even surface (which i have none of)

Hence the upgrade.

I started with cutting four wooden blocks, one shorter than the rest and drilling a 38mm hole in the middle of each one.

Marked a cut line on some wheels.

And cut to size.

Mounted the wheels to the block at 90 degrees to the ground, as the legs are angled outward from the saw. and added 2 screws that go though the block of wood and into the leg to prevent the block from rotating.

On the short block i tapped a M12 thread to allow for an adjustable screw in foot thing.

And project complete!

Some thoughts.
I could have mounted the wheels under the blocks of wood which would have been easier, but they are currently mounted slightly of the ground and they only contact the ground when the end is lifted making for a more stable work surface.

I didn't appreciate that the legs are angled and i now have a only the pointy ends of the wood in contact with the ground. I should have drilled the holes at the same angle as the legs.

10 min hack #8

I've been fighting with the take from the coffee machine for a couple of years now. The plastic it's made from does not seem to play well with heat, which is a shame considering it's constantly being heated from the machine. This time round when a crack developed i tried my hand at plastic welding.
Using a soldering iron to melt a cable tie into the crack seems to have worked. For now. Time will tell.

Special Bolts.

Might need to pick some of these up!

Washy Washy

July has ended up being the 'get our shit together month'.  Part of these has been the purchase of a new washing machine. Our old one still works (it really shouldn't considering the thrashing i've given it over the last nine years) but at 4.5kg it was just too small. So small that i couldn't wash our queen sized sheet set in one load without the sheets coming out with soap still on them. Also the plastic overlay on the buttons had worn out after only 3 years of use, so a newbe trying to operate the machine would have now idea which button did what.

I spent a considerable amount of time researching washing machines in general and the following became apparent.

• All new washing machines on sale in Australia from 2011 must rate at least 3 wels stars. This is calculated from the amount of water used per kilo of clothes washed.
• In the states, new legislation has been tightening on on manufacturers to use less water and power in washing machine. They've achieved this by using little stunts like emptying half of the first rinse water and topping it back up with fresh water and calling that a proper rinse cycle. Not having a 100% hot wash cycle, instead diluting the hot down with cold and calling that a hot wash. I'm not 100% how much this affects the australian market.
• Washing machines have become too tech focused with load sensors, moisture sensors and bright flashy displays.
• Reading a whole buttload of online reviews, it seems that this technology failing is the main reason washing machines breaks.
• It takes water to wash clothes. If the clothes are not thoroughly rinsed soap residue will be left behind.

So with this information at hand it was time to make a shortlist. 

The citrea was a machine that does a stellar job at washing clothes and is built to last. almost every band was immediately discounted due to high WELS ratings, too much plastic, or too much technology. That left two brands left. Kleenmaid and speed queen. My mum has a kleenmaid washer and its a cracker, well built and has lasted 10+ years without skipping a beat. I went to their website and they don't make washing machines anymore. They now sell speed queen. So i guess the list has been reduced to one!

Harvey norman stock these, but its delivered by the speed queen distributors. Ordered on sunday too delivery on thurs (Worked mon-wed)

Perfect. Looks like it belongs in a laundry mat.

To access the mainbaord only need to undo 3 screws and the whole thing drops forward. Makes changing the mainboard a cinch. Don't even need to more the washer.

Ditto for the font cover (only two screws this time.) Thats the motor bottom middle and the water pump to the right. Looking at how well this thing is made, like those stupid big springs that keep it in balance. I can't help wonder whether its in fact rated greater then the stated 7.5 kilo. If they rated it any more it would have to use less water to achieve the WELS rating. And its difficult to compare to the american ones for weight rating as their machine are listed in drum volumes.

So rounding it up

Pros

-Longest washing cycle takes 30mins.

-Put a heap of dirty as shop rags in a load and they came out clean and smelling fresh. (I used to have to wash them twice in the old machine, and that took over 150mins!)

-Quiet. 

-Looks the business

-No stupid computers or unnecessary functions.

Cons

-Expensive 

-Start button looks crap and is made of plastic.

-No Buzzer when its done.

Upcoming mods.

-Plenty of room on the inside for sound deadening so i may add some.
-Replace start button

-Buy cheap digital timer to serve as a notification device when the load is done.

Al's Shed Top Tip #1

Dilute star brite liquid electrical tape with acetone.

When i opened this last night it had the consistency of dough rather then wood glue, upon peering into the container there was only about 1/4 or a can left. There is no way i've used that much of that stuff i really only break it out once a year as usually standard electrical tape or heat shrink will work better/faster. After a quick internet search i found some pretty crap evidence that acetone may work to dilute it.With nothing to lose i gave it a try, and it worked! Its now back to wood glue consistency. Yay! +1 for acetone!

10min Hack #7*

*I can't weld to save myself. So this took about 2 hours.
This addresses a couple of issues.
I've a large bench vice that i don't have a bench to bolt it to.
I've no metal bench for welding.
So i drilled a couple of 12mm holes in the tray of the ute and welded nuts to the under side.
And done! Now whenever i wish to do metal work, i just need to back the ute in, bolt the vise on and get to work. Yay!

The welds would win a cookie in a crappiest weld competition 

Grinding wheel revamp

The bench grinder wheel was well and truly in need of a revamp. Very very difficult to sharpen anything with a gauge in the middle.  So i got a diamond stone dresser for about $8 off ebay.

MMMMMM thats a nicely dressed wheel!

10 min hack #6

Picked up YABR (yet another bloody router) new for $50. I got this as I completely screwed the plunge feature of my plunge router that lives permantly in the router table and my other router is a trim router. This seams to be a great little router and does everything a $200 router does. This one major failure is the router will not sit inverted due to a round top. The manual recommends changing bits while it's on its side, however the manual doesn't say that the removable collet adaptor is spring loaded and will fly accross the room is you do that! It's also much easier to set the depth when it's inverted. So 4 m4 bolts hot glued into the top of the router and into some plywood and problem solved! Hot glue was chosen as wilth a little heat it can be removed should the brushes ever need changing. 

Till next time

10 min Hack #5

Trying to pull something apart but don't have a long enough driver bit or the driver bit body is too large to fit into the hole?

Standard on the left, modified on the right

Chuck it up in a drill, run the drill the opposite way to a running bench grinder and trim it to size. Using a bench grinder maintains the roundness of the bit. A file, or angle grinder could also be used, extra care would need to be taken to ensure bit roundness was maintained.

Lastly or firstly if the hole is large enough for the bit to drop into place, cut a slot in the top to receive a flathead screwdriver. I used a die grinder. A file, hacksaw or super thin cut off wheel in an angle grinder would also work.

Pat self on head for a job well done.

Till next time