10 min hack #4

I frequently use a label maker for various label tasks, like labelling sockets!

It lives in a draw and to use I got to get it take 2 steps to the right, plug it in, print label, unplug it, take two steps to the left, place it back in the drawer, and close the drawer. Way to many steps there. In distance and processes. 

So having FINALLY figuring out how to get said drawer out, I drilled a 10mm hole in the back. I had no grommet of that size so I used some low friction tape to avoid the coating of the wires wearing down over time. The length of the cord is perfect as the plug serves as a counter weight to avoid the cord getting tangled behind the drawer. 

A couple of cable ties inside the drawer to secure the cable and job done! I can now make a label inside a drawer yay! Total cost $8 which was the cost to buy another 9v dc adaptor to replace the one used here. 

Tidy drawer, tidy mind

My socket drawer has always annoyed me due to:

Too many loose sockets that didn't come in a set so had no plastic tray. 

Present plastic trays were too flimsy, and I was unable to take them out for fear of them breaking. 

The 3/8,1/4 set didn't have the size of the socket next to each socket. So I was always pulling stupid 3/8" instead of 10mm

The draw only extended 3/4 of the way out hiding the loose crap at the back. 

I flattened the metal tabs and added a screw to allow the drawers to fully extend. This would decrease the weight this draw could hold, but I think it's ok as the draw runners are really quite well made. 

I cut up a mat designed to kids to play on and cut a space for each tool. Should have really built A hot wire cutter for the foam, would have made cutting it so easy. This mat was perfect as it was tough and cheap. The socket holders I think are designed for mounting to a wall judging by the holes at each end, but whatever. I can take a selection of sockets to the job easily. And everything has a place making it super easy to quickly see what's missing. Although labelling the sockets took ages (especially) the small ones it's well worth it to not have to dig out the socket list every time I wanted a socket. All in all I give myself 13/16.

On a unrelated note the imperial system of measuring is stupid. 

Next up? I'm looking at you spanner drawer. 

Imperial madness!

Just when I thought the imperial system of measurement couldn't get any more stupid, I watched this. 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QDbKqJztFo4&autoplay=1

I laughed the entire way through. Crazy man. Props to the metric system!

Sous vide machine mk1

Scored a cheap rice cooker, vacuum sealer, and assembled a cheap digital temp controller. The result?

Sous vide machine! Works a treat. Set temp. Leave it for a couple days. Hit it with a blow torch to get some color. Meat heaven. 

Digital temp controller mk11

Trashcan smoker in background. 

Temp controller in foreground. 

My mk1 temp controller has an internal mechanical relay, it's only capable of switching 3  amp max.

Perfect for sous vide machine, or the black garlic project but Not enough for the electric skillet powering the smoker. 

So I assembled this. 

This one features an external solid state relay. So using transistors or magic or something to switch the high voltage instead of a tiny mechanical  switch. Should last far longer. I'll also use this on the sous vide machine if I'm not smoking at the same time, as it's a far better controller. 

Al

Foot switch for power tools

I've been after a foot switch for some of my power tools for a while. 

The main use I'll use this for is my pedestal drill, it's really inconvient and sometimes dangerous to start the drill press with my hand whilst holding a piece in place with the drill bit. 

It would also be useful to have for the router and the dremal. 

So I got a 240v/15amp foot switch off eBay and wired it up. 

And done! 

I used crimp connectors covered with tape and it's a spdt switch so it's only switching the active wire. 

Works a treat. 

Al

Water powered workshop

This is a 60 min film taken in the 1980's in New England USA of a water powered workshop. 

The amazing thing about this film is. 

The equipment is run from a water turbine using belts and pulleys. 

There is no safety guards whatso ever. On any machine. 

This guy appears to have all of his fingers. 

Is a great demonstration of how not to use equipment. The part where he cuts a bevel on a piece of wood by free hand tilting the wood onto the blade is the perfect example. 

It forces me to stop complaining about the maintaience my machines require. I don't have to empty a frigging pond each autum to keep my machines running!

The machines are from the 18th century and still work fine. 

This guy is unbelievably skilled. 

It's well worth a watch if you can spare the time. 

Www.folkstreams.net/film,187

Al

End grain chopping board

Xmas time again. This year seing I've the equipment, I'd have a crack at an end grain chopping board for mom. 

I started with some hardwood off cuts which was cut into about 2" thick strips then glued back together end grain up

Next, the board was cut into 2" strips cutting 90 degrees to the glue lines. 

And glued back together. 

Pine boards that had packing tape on them to avoid the glue sticking to them were used top and bottom to keep the strips aligned. 

Next I made a mdf template and routed the design about 6mm deep into the wood and cut the board in half along the design on the bandsaw

I routed out the waste with a flush trim bit on the router table. This bit followed the first routed pattern. 

I had multiple A4 sheet size light and dark veneer which was cut into strips 3" wide and glued in a overlapping pattern 2 veneers thick. 

The newly glued veneer was sandwiched in the board 4 veneers thick or about 6mm. 

Then whole process was repeated for the other veneer. 

Then trimmed to size on the table saw and planned flat on the jointer. 

Mineral oil was used to season the board and done! 

In retrospect, I should have not overlapped the pattern as it didn't line up exactly the same when glued back together. I still don't understand why that happens. Also I had to trim more off the ends then I would have liked due to it looking faily crap with the colours not lining up, and I ended up with a couple of gaps right at the end of the Lamentations. 

Pretty happy with the end result for a first time, and mum really liked it.

Til next time. 

A shop vac for the shed

Other Al: whatcha go there Al?

Al: ummmm did you read the title or look at the pic?

Other Al: Nah putting my feet up, was gonna do it later. 

Al: sigh. Well what we have here is a 20l shop vac wet / dry vacuum. 

Other Al: cool! Does it suck?

Al: you bet! The last cheap vac I used had less suction power then an under water sealed drainage unit off suction. This is right up there with a dyson. 

Other Al: great! Any cons?

Al: only that it doesn't have the ability to plug a power tool into it, and it will start when the power tool does. If we were in America this would be a quick trip down to a big box store and $20 later we'd have a small box that could sort that right out. But Australia being the nanny country that's not gonna happen here.  

Other Al: soo yah sort it out?

Al: of course!

Al: said box doesn't exist in 240v that I could find and costly and difficult to build from scratch, so I moved the power switch to the handle, not pretty but works fine. And only cost $10 for a 10m extension lead to cut up for the wire and some electreral tape. 

Other Al: nice solution, maybe one day you'll build a voltage sensing box.

Al: yeah, I'll add it to the list. Right under building a CNC machine. 

Al: till next time. 

Christmas special!

With my partners birthday late in November and Christmas just after that, I decided to build some Christmas presents for her.  She really gets really excited by Christmas. My opion? Bar humbug!

First up, an advent Callander. 

I'm no where near creative enough to come up with a design, so I pinched this one. 

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/advent-calendar-pt-1/

This was by far the biggest PITA to build that I've ever attempted. 

I had to hand make 50 tiny little nails for the doors. 

25 tiny little stained dowels for the handles

And at least 5 million dado joints. 

It's supposed to look kinda of like it has just snowed on it. 

I was too cheap to buy 3different colours of proper paint, so I choose some kids craft paint. It's washable is written in large letters on the front of the bottle. Great I thought, if j's kid ever vomits on it, it'll come right off with a damp cloth. Nope. What they really mean is it will ALWAYS be able to wash off with water, even if it has dried! Didn't realise that bombshell till I tried painting a coat of white over the green, it just mixed the white and green together! 

Oh well, at least now I know. 

The other point of interest is the numbers on each of the door. I used a stencil to pull that off, haven't used one of those since bob hawke was in power.

Next up. 

I found a 7ft Christmas tree. The box it came is sucked, so I built a better one out of 6mm MDF, pine supports and finished it in wrapping paper. It was quite fun and quick to make. 

The only wood of wisdom I have is don't use any water, oil, or blood based adhesives. It look great when the paper is applied, but the paper being well paper adsorbes the water then contracts as it dries and leaves giant wrinkles in the paper. I ended up using an aerosol spray adhesive, that worked well.

No present is complete without a bow, and what better then a wood bow!

This was made from pine and a mystery wood. Ripped some super thin stripes on the tablesaw and attached in the centre with hot gule, and a red button added for good measure. 

That's enough Christmas to last me a decade. 

Till next time. 

Table saw mods

Finally got around to completing some table saw mods!

First up is the out feed table extension. This makes using the saw so much safer when cutting sheet goods. Before there was only about 10cms of table beyond the saw, so it didn't take a very long piece of board to want to raise off the table at the user side. This meant the piece had to be forced down on the table and when the cut was complete it would fall on the floor! So I made this. 

It features:

It uses existing holes already present in the saw to attach.

Routed t slot so cross cut sled doesn't hit the extension. 

Remove two screws holding the brace to the table and it lifts right off. 

Makes the table saw look huge!

I also plan on extending this with a drop down table off the end which would make for an extra 1m of table. Perfect for cutting up full sheets of mdf without setting up the circular saw. 

While I was in a modding mood I made this:

It covers the saw hight adjustment slot. When an angle is set on the blade this wheel moves. I used to get a heap of saw dust coming out this slot. There is still a little bit coming through, but this is all after a month of use. It's got a few rare earth magnets and some stick on weather proofing to maintain a seal. I only had some small magnets on hand, I think if I used some decent sized ones this seal might be airtight. As I make 99% at 90 degrees, to move it out of the way and wear some dust out the slot when making angled cuts is no big deal. 

I also had the top of the saw recently and while I was there I noticed big gaps between top and base where dust was coming out. This was solved with half a can of expending foam. This makes my dust extraction much more efficient. 

I've had a router for a while, but didn't use it as much as I would like. It was always such a hassle to clamp stuff down, route, move clamps repeat. And to do small stuff wasn't worth the time.

Enter router leaf extension complete with adjustable fence!

I love this thing! It's not perfect, but it works and so easy to use!

It features:

Gives me an extra leaf in the table saw, making it even safer cutting sheet goods.

Uses the existing table saw fence, the wooden router fence fits right over the top of the existing fence. 

Router is held in with gravity, very easy to remove for bit change and height adjustment. 

Fence is adjustable is it straddles the bit, never have a bit gaping hole for small stock to get jammed in.

It doesn't have:

Hight adjustment without removing the router. This will come. 

Any form of dust extraction. This also will come. How much dust does this thing make? All of it. The only silver lining is the dust now goes directly only the ground not into the air like when using it free hand. 

I'm really pleased with the adjustment mechanism. It took quite a bit of head scratching. I haven't seen a design like this anywhere else. Most of the time people either use a store bought fence, or make one where the adjustment bolts go all the way through the fence. I didn't have either of those options. 

It only needs to be hand tight and I luckily had a spare 12mm socket which now lives near the router making fence adjustment convenient.   

I use half a dozen archive boxes for storing leads, cables etc. They are strong, cheapish and convenient. But after years of use they are starting to show some wear. So first project with the router table was this. 

Nice simple box. Would have been really time consuming to make this without the router table. There are 12 routed edges 3mm deep, 6mm wide. Makes for a much stronger joint then a but joint and really easy to put together. A lid will just fit on top and ill rout out some holes or add handles. And make another 5. 

That's enough for now. 

 

10min hack. #3 wine bottle holder

Take a board, that ones about 45cm long.

Cut the bottom at an angle. 21 degree in this case. 

Drill 1.5 inch hole in the top. 

Spray varnish x 2 coats. 

Pat self on head for a job well done. 

10min hack. #2. Sandpaper storage.

Problem:

My sandpaper draw was a mess. The was heaps of sandpaper in there and it took forever to find and I kept ripping sheets of it getting it out. 

Solution:

A3 display book! Protects the sheets, in order of grit, holds plenty of sandpaper and keeps draw neat. Also if you write the git # when cutting small sections of a large sheet, there's no more asking yourself which git is this that I'm holding in my hand. (Its difficult to tell the finer wet n dry paper apart)

Win!

10min hack. #1. Lawn aerator

Problem:

There's a patch of grass that's dying due to soil compaction secondary to getting driven on often. 

Solution:

Lawn aerator. 

Using some weird broom thing that I found in shed + really long nails = 

 Lawn aerator!

Pressure washer hose reel

I brought a pressure washer a while back, and a feature that I weighted heavily was a long hose. The one I ended up with has a 7m hose which is good but not great. I couldn't make it all round the car in one pass and cleaning the deck meant dragging the thing up a flight of stairs. Last time I made a trip to the hardware store I was looking at a genuine hose but the price made me look else ware. I came across a generic one at a reasonable price and bought it. Now armed with 17m of hose I can clean the deck and the car without moving the unit. Perfect. (the only downside is there is some pressure loss. Doesn't really mater when clearing the car or deck)

I had another reel lying around, but it was too big. It did however have a nice sized tube that i hacked out of it. Using my circle cutting jig i cut two circles out of MDF. The two circles are joined together with three long bots that i nicked from the other reel. They didn't have threads where i needed them, so this gave me an excuse to try out my tap and die set. After (most) of the bits were painted (badly) i put it together.

And done! Once the paint hardens i'll be able to give it a run. Happy times.


Till next time

Alister

Drill press mods

I've had this drill press for a few months now and haven't written about it before because well, it's a drill press. It drills. What of it. 

Now that I've made some mods to it it becomes a bit more interesting. 

First up the chuck key sits on the right side via a rare earth magnet super glued to the body. The benefits of this include. 

Having a home for key making it less likely to head down to the pub when I don't have time to chase it down. 

No chain or rope to get tangled in the drill. 

And thanks to the power of the rare earth magnet it doesn't vibrate off. 

The drill comes with a depth gauge. The only use this has is as a depth stop. So I added a modified digital calliper. 

The main advantage with this is that it can be zeroed in any position

To avoid modifying the lid so it could still open I cut the calliper as short as possible.

Works a treat. 

Lastly is the table. Most drills come with a circle cast iron table. Due to the design it's very difficult to clamp anything to the table. 

This table is bolted to the original and features dual t tracks for the fence to slide along and a removable centre piece. I made a few extra of these when I made the table. 

Lastly

The floor in my shed isn't level so the dill rocked like a rocking horse. 

The solution I came up with was to use two blocks of wood with embedded nuts and 4 100mm m12 bolts. Now I can level the drill and I get a few more cm of height. Win!

Future mods include fitting Cree led's to the light arm as the current ones almost match a single tea light candle as far as light output is concerned. 

That's it for now.

Al 

Outdoor laundry basket holder

We had been using a stool to hold the basket outside, but this was very suboptimal as the concrete isn't level and the top of the stool slippery, so the basket would fall off if you took a sock out of it. 

So I made this:

I recently bought a combo disk/belt sander and I bolted it to a bench so I didn't use the included stand. Add some 12mm MDF for the top and brace and 3mm MDF for the basket. It holds about 60 pegs. Which is good as we have about that number of pegs. All badly painted with spray paint. I had run out of primer so didn't use any. Time will tell how long this lasts out in the weather. 

The bottom pieces are scrap pine cut like a triangle to hopefully avoid polling water and rot. Thanks Mr Glue Gun for making that a painless exercise

  

Till next time

Al

Welcome to Al's shed

Well I think the time has come for a blog. I had been sending off emails to a group of friends about the activities in my shed, but it has become too much hassle to shrink every photo and follow the comments that follow each email. That's why god invented blogs. So watch this space for hopefully entertaining and informative posts. Excuse me, I need to get back to my shed.