Having trouble getting consistent measurements in the workshop? In this episode, Harley gives seven woodworking measuring tips to improve your projects' success.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 4.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Transcript
Are you having problems with consistent measurements on your projects?
Today, I have 7 woodworking measuring tips here at the House of Hacks.
If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark.
Creativity involves connecting the dots in new ways.
The more dots you have, the more creative you can be.
Here at the House of Hacks, I try to show new connections and give you new dots for your own inspiration.
If this sounds interesting to you, hit the subscribe button and ring the bell notification icon and you'll be notified when new uploads are available.
The first tip is to square the ends that you're going to be measuring from.
This way, if there's any angle, it won't impact the final measurement.
Tip two is to use the same tape measure for your whole project.
This will eliminate any variation from one tape measure to the next, particularly on the ends that move.
Those holes may be slightly different from one tape to the next.
Tip number three is to use a sharp pencil.
This will help minimize any error from the mark itself, both when making the mark and also when lining it up for the cut.
And stay tuned to the end because there's actually a bonus tip at the end.
Tip number four is to use a "V" to mark your cut location rather than a straight line.
This will help reduce the amount of interpretation when lining up to make the cut.
Tip number five is to make one measurement, cut it, make your next measurement, cut it, and so forth.
This will eliminate any drift from the kerf width of the blade.
Tip number six is, if you're making multiple cuts that are the same length, use a stop block.
This way you only have to measure once, it speeds up your production and it also gives you much better consistency.
Tip number seven is to be consistent where you line up the mark with your blade.
The more variance you have in your alignment, the more variation you're going to have in your final product.
And bonus tip number eight is, if you're cutting multiple pieces that are the same length, in addition to using a stop block, if you make multiple cuts at the same time, that'll further reduce the room for error.
Thanks for joining me on this creative journey that we're on.
I'll see you in one of these videos over here that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy.
Do you want to live life without sound or sight or 10 fingers? Protect them! In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley presents basic workshop safety gear and some rules that everyone should follow to stay safe while making things. Topics include safety glasses and other eye protection, hearing protection and other lesser thought about items.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Transcript
[Norm Abram's voice] But before we use any power tools, let's talk about shop safety.
Be sure read, understand and follow all the safety rules that come with your power tools.
Knowing how to use your power tools properly will greatly reduce the risk of personal injury.
And remember this, there is no more important safety rule than to wear these, safety glasses.
I'm sure many of us remember Norm's sound advice from back in the day.
While an important start, workshop safety gear goes far beyond just safety glasses and we're starting right now.
Welcome to the House of Hacks.
If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I make stuff out of wood, metal and sometimes other materials.
And sometimes I talk about other issues, such as today, for National Safety Month, I want to talk a little bit about shop safety.
To start, I want to acknowledge that if you watch some of my videos, I wouldn't be surprised if you found violations of some of what I talk about today.
In the home shop, ultimately, you're the only one responsible for your own safety and you have to make the judgement call about what to do and how to do it.
In my opinion, the two most important pieces of safety gear are eye protection and ear protection.
Anytime a power tool is used, or a hand tool with high forces, such as a hammer or a press, eye protection is critical.
Since I wear both glasses and contacts, I have solutions for both.
But even if you don't wear corrective lenses, it's a good idea to have both on hand in case you have visitors that stop by and need some.
And, while they're better than nothing, prescription glasses are not safety glasses.
In addition to safety glasses, for some operations, particularly if flying particles are involved, like using the lathe or a grinder, I like to have a face shield.
This provides additional protection for the eyes as well as some level of protection for the rest of the face.
After the eyes are covered, the next most important thing is ear protection.
This is something that for some reason doesn't seem to get as much attention, but in my opinion should.
This is something that I kind of got upset at Norm for, for not mentioning it more often in his show.
Our eyes are super sensitive and we know immediately when we get something in them, but hearing damage is much more insidious.
It tends to happen without us being aware of it and it's cumulative over time.
Many small instances of too much noise add up until it's significant.
Since we adapt as it worsens, we don't notice it until it causes problems in our interactions with other people, and by then it's too late.
So in addition to safety glasses, another must is either ear muffs that go over the ear or ear plugs that go in the ear.
I have and use both.
Ear muffs I use for shorter operations where I only need them for a limited time.
They're easier to put on and take off but they are more bulky and hot.
If I need hearing protection for an extended period of time, I personally prefer ear plugs.
They're a little harder to put in but they're more comfortable, they're not as bulky and they're not as hot.
I get a box of 200 disposable pair for about $20 a box and I use them not only in the workshop but also in the yard for yard work and when riding the motorcycle.
Another piece of safety gear that's not talked about as much as the first two is breathing protection.
Primarily involving wood working, like hearing damage, dust is one of those insidious things that causes damage over time.
I've heard reports of people that have gone without breathing protection for years and have no visible problems until one day they develop an allergy to either wood or wood dust that makes doing their hobby or profession either undoable or very uncomfortable.
One way of protecting your breathing is with filters and masks.
This can be anything as simple as a dust mask to a respirator or even something battery powered that provides positive pressure ventilation.
Examples of the last one, while expensive, also sometimes have built in eye protection and hearing protection.
In addition to dust, respirators should also be used with chemicals, but be sure that the filter you're using is appropriate for the chemical that you need to filter.
And also, dust respirators may not filter out chemicals and vice versa.
Another form of breathing protection is with really good dust collection.
Tony over at Shop Hacks has this down to a science and a really optimized system.
His shop air while he's running his table saw has a lower particulate count than the outside air.
Another unrecognized hazard, and something I'm become more aware of, is jewelry.
Anything loose can get caught in equipment, particularly things that rotate, and something that would have been a simple brush with the equipment becomes a serious injury.
Since I wear my wedding band all the time, I rarely think about taking it off when I come into the shop.
And this is something I've been thinking about: I need to do more proactively.
I've also thought about the option of getting a silicone ring and wearing it most of the time and only wear the gold band for dressy occasions.
Shop dress code is another item that's not talked about too much but is a safety gear concern too.
Briefly, a couple items...
Wear cotton. It's less flammable than synthetic material and not as prone to melt into your skin if something hot hits it.
Wear close-toed shoes or boots. Again, hot flying metal or falling off-cuts aren't going to penetrate leather. Never wear sandals or flip-flops.
Nothing loose. Always short sleeves. Make sure everything fits well and no ties.
I'd love to hear in the comments what you consider essential safety gear. Did I miss anything critical?
I'll see you in this video where I talk about 16 safety tips in two minutes.
And after watching that video, when making things remember...
Imagine, what would shop life be like if you could easily move any tool around? In this episode of the House of Hacks, Harley opens, assembles and installs a universal mobile base for table saw. Used in this video is a Bora Portamate PM-1100 kit that is a DIY mobile base for power tools.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Riptide"
Transcript
Imagine, what would it be like if you could move your larger tools around the workshop?
How would a universal mobile base for your table saw or other tools change your workflow?
Would you have more flexibility for storage?
Would your shop be more space efficient?
Would your tools be easier to use for different sizes of materials?
Today at the House of Hacks we’re going to be looking at how to do this.
About 18 months ago, I went to my Dad’s to pick up some tools that had been my Granddad's. When I got back, I did a video of what I brought back with me and I'll leave a link up here in the cards.
Recently, I made another trip to pick up a few more things that had been left behind. Most notably was a larger table saw that had been my Granddad's and he'd built a base for it.
It's going to be a great upgrade to my current small one but it's much larger and won't fit in the workshop the way it's currently organized.
So I looked at what I needed and what I had and changed my approach to my shop's organization.
Previously, all my large tools were set and ready to use in fixed locations. This had the advantage of being quick to setup.
But it has two disadvantages. One is it takes more floor space because you have to dedicate room around the tool in order to work.
And two, you have less flexibility in your material handling in and out of the equipment.
In addition to the tools taking up floor space, I also had two 6' snap together utility shelves that contained various supplies and small bench tools.
I decided to change to a mobile layout where most of the large tools are on movable bases.
This will allow them to be stored closer together for more compact and efficient use of floor space and it'll give more flexibility for material handling.
This more efficient use of floor space will allow me to get the larger table saw in the workshop.
It does come at a cost though of more setup time.
To accomplish this, I did two things.
First, I split the two 6' shelf units into four 3' shelf units and then hung them from the ceiling.
This allows better space utilization closer to the ceiling and it frees up a lot of floor space.
Second, I converted a number of tools with fixed bases to have mobile bases.
This conversion is the topic of today's video.
But first, welcome to the House of Hacks.
If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I make stuff out of wood, metal and sometimes other materials. And sometimes I talk about other workshop related topics.
Today, I'm going to be showing the assembly and use of the Portamate PM-1100 universal base kit.
On my previous trip to Dad's, I picked up a large saw with a base that Granddad had made.
I didn't have a permanent location for it, so for expedience, I picked up a mobile base with metal rails.
These metal rails have holes in them in fixed locations for adjustability, but because the holes are in fixed locations, you don't have infinite adjustability.
And so it didn't exactly quite fit the base that I already had. It ended up being about an inch larger than it really needed to be on both the width and length.
I looked around and found the Portamate PM-1100.
This is a hardware kit that has wheels and all the hardware to mount them to a piece of wood.
The piece of wood doesn't come with the kit. You'd make it whatever size you want.
So this allows me to have a base that's exactly the right size for the bases that I already have.
I'll leave an Amazon affiliate link in the description below.
With this design, there's two corners that are designed for the back of the equipment that only roll in one direction.
And there's two corners that are designed for the front with castors that allow you to change direction as you're rolling it around.
The castors are also designed with levers on them so they're up when you're using the tool and it won't roll around and you can push them down, the wheels drop down, lifts the tool off the ground and you can move it.
You supply a piece of wood to connect them at the desired size.
Plywood is usually best for strength purposes.
When I originally bought them, I was planning on just attaching them to the preexisting bases without using any plywood.
However, when I actually got them and tried putting them on, I realized there were toe kicks on the bases that interfered with the hardware raising and lowering mechanism.
So in order to put them where that would work, there wasn't enough material left to attach them to so I ended up going with the plywood anyway.
I cut some plywood left over from previous projects to the desired size, added the hardware to it and attached those assemblies to the bases.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let's take a look at what's in the box and how to assemble them.
In the box are two bright orange pieces that are the levers for the cam activation and two plates to mount the castors to.
There are also four corner pieces and wheels.
Two corner pieces are designed for the rear wheels and two are for the front wheels.
There are also four flat plates that are designed to sandwich plywood between them and the corner pieces to provide extra support.
And all the needed screws, nuts and bushings are in a little baggie.
The rear wheel assembly is straightforward.
Using the appropriate bolt, put it through the axel hole from the inside of the base.
Place a bushing on it, the wheel, another bushing and then a nyloc nut on the outside.
Putting the second bushing on is a bit tricky due to the limited space but holding the wheel flat keeps gravity from working against you.
The front wheel assembly has a few more parts.
First put in the foot rest.
This is what will rest on the floor when the wheel is in the up position, keeping the tool from moving around.
It just screws into pre-threaded holes in the corner piece and is secured with a jam nut once the height is set as desired.
Then put a carriage bolt through the top square hole.
Put a bushing on the bolt followed by the orange piece, flat side up, followed by another bushing and pushed through the other side of the support.
A split lock washer goes on followed by a standard nut.
Put another carriage bolt through the other square hole and then the grey plate.
Note that the plate comes pre-lubricated with some grease.
Be sure to put the grease side towards the orange plate and don’t get it on you.
Push the screw through the assembly followed by another split lock washer and nut.
Finally, the castor can be put through the grey plate and secured with its nut.
This nut has a flanged surface that acts as a lock nut and goes toward the plate.
Next measure your tool base to determine how big you need to make your plywood and cut it to size.
The hardware is designed to work with either 1/2” or 3/4” plywood and comes with different length screws for each application.
Depending on the thickness you use, you’ll have screws left over intended for the other thickness.
With the plywood cut to the correct size, place the wheel assemblies on each corner and mark the hole positions.
Then drill the holes.
I used a drill press but you could use a hand held drill.
Just be sure to get them as straight as you can since there’s another metal piece that needs to match up on the other side.
There is some room for play, so it doesn’t have to have super tight tolerances.
But the closer you can get it, the easier it’ll be to get everything lined up.
Once all the holes are made, it’s time to attach the corner assemblies.
Put the corner piece with the wheel in place, put a flat triangle piece on top with the countersink side up and attach them with the appropriate screws.
Note that the bottom piece has a pre-tapped hole so no nuts are required for this operation.
Get all the screws started first, then make sure the corner assembly is tight to the wood before tightening the screws down.
Repeat this process for all four corners and the base is ready to attach to your tool.
How this is done will vary, depending on your tool.
In my case, I just used grabber screws to attach from the bottom of the plywood up into the bottom of the tool’s case.
My Granddad used 2x4 construction for the base’s frame, so there was plenty of wood to attach to.
You’ll have to figure out the best means of attaching this for your situation and provide your own hardware.
Once it’s attached, all that’s left to do is adjust the rubber feet on the front.
You want to adjust them so they support the weight of the equipment when the wheels are in the up position but are lifted off the ground when the wheels are in the down position.
Once in the desired position, tighten the jam nut so they will stay in place.
And, they’re ready to use.
I’ll see you in this playlist of other shop organization ideas.
June is National Safety Month. In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to install fire extinguisher to help increase fire safety in the shop. In addition to fire extinguisher installation, he'll take a look at the classes of fire extinguishers and see how well some old extinguishers work even though they expired years ago.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Transcript
Fire extinguishers are a great thing to have around both the home and workshop.
Today at the House of Hacks I'm going to see how well these old fire extinguishers still work and install some new ones.
In the process I'll also talk about the different types of fire extinguishers that exist and what I choose to replace my old ones.
Welcome to the House of Hacks!
If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I make things out of wood, metal and other materials. I also talk about other workshop related topics.
Since June is National Safety Month, today I'm going to talk about fire safety in the workshop.
I have these old fire extinguishers that I've had for a number of years that tend to float between the workshop, the garage and the utility room depending on where I'm working.
But they have a few problems.
First, fire extinguishers are only good for so long. The contents in them have a tendency to compress over time and make them less effective. These fire extinguishers are over twenty years old so they're long past their expiration date.
Secondly, they're really small. Even in their prime when they were brand new, they wouldn't have put out much of a fire.
And finally, they're not rechargeable. This means that, since they're expired, they just have to be thrown away.
To remedy these issues, I got a four pack deal of these new fire extinguishers off Amazon. I'll leave a link below in the description if case you're interested.
These are 1) new, 2) rechargeable and 3) much larger.
By getting a four pack, I'm able to place them strategically around the property in places where fires are most likely to occur.
As DIY projects go, installation is pretty simple.
One thing of note though, the Amazon description says they come with wall hangers.
This isn't quite true. They have a loop on the extinguisher to hang them from but no actual wall hardware.
So I went down to the home improvement store and picked up a pack of simple hangers to hang them from.
Here in the shop, I'm going to put it here on the wall with other personal protection gear.
One right here easily accessible from the stairs, next to the furnace in the utility room.
One here in the utility room that's immediately adjacent to both the kitchen and the garage behind me.
And conveniently, there's a stud located right in the middle of the wall.
And here in the garden shed, I was thinking of putting one right here next to the door.
Here in the shed we have fuel and oil and grass clippings and hot engines.
Seems like a really bad combination and a great place for a fire extinguisher.
There are 5 classes of fire that extinguishers might be designed for.
Class A fires are normal combustibles. Things like trash, wood, paper, and plastic.
Class B fires are where the fuel is flammable liquids or gas. Around the workshop, petroleum based products are the common combustable.
Class C fires are where electrical components are the source of ignition. Things around the workshop include sparking motors, transformers and extension cords.
Class D fires where a combustible metal is actually burning. Examples of these types of metals are things like magnesium, titanium, and aluminum. The latter being what would most commonly be found in the workshop.
And the last class is K where combustion is in the kitchen from a liquids used in cooking. Fats, greases and oils are the typical examples. This is actually a special case of class B that was created for the special and unique properties of kitchen fires in the commercial environment.
The new fire extinguishers are designed for classes A, B and C since these are the most common combustables that are going to be found around the home. I figure we're not going to need anything specialized for the kitchen since we're not in a commercial environment where we have the large quantities and specialized equipment that that class was designed for.
Let's head outside and see how the old fire extinguishers work.
OK, we're out here in this controlled environment: the fire pit.
The fire's starting to go and we're going to test out these old fire extinguishers.
I've never actually used a fire extinguisher, so I've don't have any personal experience with it but there is a handy acronym that's used to describe how you're supposed to use them and it's PASS.
P is Pull the pin.
A is Aim at the base of the fire extinguisher.
S is Squeeze the handle.
And the other S is Sweep across the base of the fire.
The idea is you want to aim at the fuel that's providing the fire, not the flames themselves.
So let's let this get going a bit better and we'll give it a try.
Well, the smaller wood seems to be going really well. I don't know if the big wood is actually going to catch fire. It's large enough, it's kind of getting charred but I don't know that it's actually going to combust itself.
So, let's give this little small guy a try.
So, I pull the pin. It's got a little lever here on this particular one.
And the idea is we aim at the base of the fire and squeeze the handle here and sweep across.
So here goes nothing.
Well, there you can see. Even though that 20 year old fire extinguisher worked fine on this little, tiny small fire of course.
It's still a little bit warm. It didn't cool it down, but it did extinguish it and I can still hear the wood kind of popping a little bit, but it does seem to work.
Like I said, that was for a small fire. It was... so like on a kitchen, it'd probably work fine. You saw that it only lasted for a couple seconds, so I don't think it would have done a real good job for anything of any significant size.
At this point, I'm not going to use the other one because I'm guessing it's probably still fairly decent shape and I'll end up putting it somewhere just as a backup.
I’ll see you in the playlist that's on the screen right now of tips and tricks for the workshop.
Wondering about how to build a portable air hose reel cart? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows an install method for his new air hose reel that's portable and uses a new-to-him construction material: SteelTek. There are many ways of mounting an air hose reel but sometimes you don't want it in a permanent location. This option will allow you to move the reel around. This is a small test to see the applicability of this product for future SteelTek projects.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "The Whip Theme", "Pump", "There It Is", "Guiton Sketch", "Cool Rock"
Transcript
There's got to be a better way.
Hi. If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and this is the House of Hacks where we use our God-given creative talents in the workshop to make things out of wood, metal, electronics and other things like that.
Today we're going to be working on a storage system for this compressor hose.
As part of the car project, I picked up a new air compressor. And along with that came a number of new things that are related to the air compressor itself. Things like the air hose and other miscellaneous bits and bobs that are used to connect hoses together and things like that. And eventually I expect I'll be getting some more air tools and I need a place to store those. To help keep the garage organized and less cluttered, I need a place to store some of this new stuff.
I got a ReelWorks hose reel to store the hose on but now I need a place to mount this and I don't want to mount it permanently to the wall anywhere in the garage because I don't really have a good place for it in there and I don't know exactly how I'm going to be using it, where I'm going to be using it, so I wanted a portable solution.
So today I'm going to look at making a cart that this hose reel will mount to and then will also have additional storage that possibly in the future might be expandable to store additional air tools and things like that in that I purchase in the future.
Let's open this up, get some basic dimensions on it because it will be kind of the core around which everything else will be built.
[Unboxing ReelWorks hose reel]
This is what came in the box: the reel, a manual, a strain-relief spring, a connector fitting and the handle.
A little tiny bit of assembly required.
When I ordered the air hose, I also ordered an air filter and a three foot section of hose.
The idea was I will mount the air filter close to the hose reel and that will filter out any contaminants that are in the air line.
I'll get another hose, probably in the 20 foot range, that will go from the air filter to the air compressor.
From my research online, that's a good length to have between the air compressor and the air filter in order to allow time for anything that's suspended in the air flow to condense out and for the air filter to actually be able to be effective.
Then I'll have the longer hose that will wrap onto the hose reel to move around for actual use of the compressed air.
So, let's assemble this, make some drawings and see what we come up with.
[Hose reel assembly]
[Drawing cart elevations]
OK. Here's the concept.
We've got elevation drawings for the front, the top and the side.
The hose reel goes right here and we've got castors on the bottom.
It's 19 inches from the edge of this handle to where this curves up and it's 13 inches tall from the base here where it mounts to the outside edge and it's 11 inches around in this direction.
So the idea is to build a square base that has castors on it depicted by the circles down there so that'll allow it to roll around and have a plate on the bottom that the reel will mount to and then also have two supports that come up and that are joined at the top and it's going to be offset from the center.
It'll be behind the reel.
And that will be what the air filter connects to and then there will be a hose that runs from here down around into the bottom of where it mounts to to connect the incoming air from the air filter into the hose reel.
And I may think about putting some sort of storage media on top here somewhere.
I need to be careful about how big this is though because I don't want it to go above the handle, so it might look like something along these lines where it covers a portion of that space to hold odds and ends and nick-naks.
I don't want it to get all the way to the edge though otherwise it'll make it hard to spin the handle.
So that's the general idea. Let's go see if we can find some parts to build this with.
[Parts shopping]
[Parts cutting]
I was walking through Lowe's the other day in the plumbing department and noticed this really cool material that I hadn't seen in there before.
It's a whole system for making things with. It doesn't really belong in the plumbing aisle as far as I'm concerned other than it has these tubes that kind of looks like plumbing but it's not a plumbing system at all.
It's really a, basically a, Tinkertoys for adults.
They have all kinds of different connectors. These happen to be Ls and I also got some intersection connectors that have one pipe go through on the one direction and has another connector attach something in.
But they have all kinds of different connectors for Ts and multiple intersections coming together in pretty much all the different configurations you can think of of pipes coming together.
They also have adjustable connectors where you can have set screws and put the pipe in and adjust it to different angles depending on the purposes for whatever it is you're building.
It seems like a really cool system.
According to the web site, it comes in 3/8, 3/4 and 1-1/4 inch sizes and in galvanized and in black.
Now my local Lowe's only had it in 3/4 and 1-1/4 sizes and only in galvanized so I haven't seen the smaller size or the black.
For this particular project, the 3/4 is what I got because that was the smallest size they had but it's really overkill.
3/8 probably would have been way more than sufficient.
Each of the connectors have set screws in them that are tightened with an Allen wrench that tighten down onto the pipe and hold it in place.
It seems to be a really solid, robust system and I have a number of projects that I think it'll work really well for but I wanted to use it on this smaller project just for testing things out.
It is not a very cheap system.
These eight connectors and a 10 foot section of pipe ran me about $70 so compared to like copper or PVC that you might use for a similar application from the plumbing aisle where the connectors are in the cents to dollar range, it's much more pricey but it also is much more robust, rigid system.
The pipe comes pre-cut in various lengths from about I think 4 inches was the smallest in I think 2 inch increments up to a certain size and then it started going in foot increments.
The pipe was pretty expensive when purchased in the smaller sections so I ended up getting a 10 foot section which was the longest I could get and the cheapest per foot and then just cut it up to what I needed for this project.
I cut three 20 inch sections for the cross members and four 15 inch sections for the width and the height and now it's just a matter of connecting everything together with the Allen wrench.
Let's put it together.
[Frame assembly]
OK, that's all there is to it. This is a real sturdy system. I'm real impressed. Like I said, this is way overkill for this particular project, but don't have to worry about the hose reel going anywhere.
The next step is to cut some plates to mount things to.
A buddy of mine gave me some of these surplus moving dollies that his company built.
It's basically a piece of heavy duty sheet metal with a bunch of castors on the bottom.
The castors are a little gummed up, a little worn out possibly, possibly just dirty.
So, I'm going to tear these apart, clean them up and cut the metal down to fit in here and use a couple of the castors for the four corners of the hose reel.
[Moving dolly disassembly and cleaning]
OK, that worked really well.
I first started by trying to spray some WD-40 in one of them and realized that was going to take a lot of WD-40 and a lot of fiddling with things so I had the idea to take it upstairs and run them under some water and within seconds of putting them under water they immediately freed up.
That tells me that the thing that was really keeping these things from moving freely was dirt and probably soda.
These things were used to move soda vending machines around and my guess is they just got a lot of soda in there that kind of caked the dirt in there and made everything really gummy because, like I said, within seconds of putting it under the water they were moving freely.
I did use some soap and tried to clean things up pretty well. Had a lot of dirt come out of it as I was running it through the water and now I've kind of soaked them in WD-40 to drive all that moisture out, to lubricate them a little bit and to protect the surfaces from rust.
WD-40 makes a great solvent and water displacer. It does a little bit of surface protection and lubrication but that's not really it's strength.
So, once this WD-40 kind of evaporates out and displaces all the water, I'll get some oil, 3-in-1 oil or something similar to that, and just kind of lubricate this up for long term lubrication and protection.
The next step is to take those metal plates and cut it down to try to make it fit for the frame that I made earlier.
[Metal cutting, filing and drilling]
[Final assembly]
Well, that's a lot more compact and I think it's going to be easier to use. I don't have to unroll the whole hose in order to use things and we've got the filter on it now.
I didn't get it as far done as I would have liked. I would have liked to have painted the wood and gotten the storage system on top but I just have other projects I need to get to and ran out of time.
So, I'm going to call this good for now. Eventually I can do those as future upgrades.
Over here are some videos that YouTube thinks you're going to enjoy and remember when making things, as this demonstrates...
Need to easily hang your moving blankets for sound absorption? In this episode of the House of Hacks, Harley shows an fast hack to make moving blankets easy to hang for acoustic treatment.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Transcript
Want to see how to make it easier to hang cheap moving blankets to absorb sound? Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to do exactly that.
Hi. If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and this is the House of Hacks where we use our God-given creative talents to make things in the workshop out of wood, metal, electronics, photos and other things of this nature.
In this earlier video, I looked at how surprisingly effective cheap moving blankets were for an acoustic treatment for a room. I measured the echo in my workshop before hanging them and then hung them and then measured it again and found that it worked really, really well.
Now I need a way to easily hang them, move them around and put them to use.
In that video, I used some spring clamps to hold the blankets to some overhead joists here in the workshop. It worked well enough but it was kind of cumbersome since the blanket was held in place by the jaws of the clamps.
As I showed in this other video, I put 1/4-20 bolts on spring clamps in order to hold photography accessories.
One such accessory are these. They're studs that are a couple cents apiece when bought in bulk and are designed to hold studio lights. But of course we don't need to use them for that.
At the hardware store, I picked up a grommet installation kit with some large grommets and some paracord. We'll use this to hang the moving blankets.
The installation kit is designed for two sizes of grommets and so it comes with two cutters for material to make holes the right size and a piece of wood to back those cutters up when cutting the material. To install the grommets, the kit comes with an anvil for one side of the grommet. This is two sided. One for the large size and one for the small size.
And it comes with two punch heads. These are used to crimp the two halves of the grommets together.
To be able to hang these blankets, I'm going to put three grommets on one edge of each blanket.
Starting with the large cutter and the wood, I used a hammer to drive the cutter through the blanket and into the wood. This gives me a hole the right size for the grommet.
The grommets come in two halves. The first half is designed to go through the hole and the second half goes over the top of this with the material sandwiched in between and then it's crimped together.
Place the grommet that goes through the hole on the bottom anvil and then place that under the blanket through the hole.
Place the other half of the grommet on top with the curved side up.
Use the punch head and a hammer to round over the center part of the grommet, crimping the two halves tightly together.
Once the grommets were in place, I then cut the rope into nine inch long segments and sealed the ends. I show in this video how I like to seal the ends of kernmantle rope and paracord.
The rope is looped through the grommets and held with a knot. I used a square knot but you can use whatever you like.
The loops of rope can now slip over the studs on the spring clamps and I can hang a blanket where ever the clamps can be placed... On shelves... On equipment... And it's easier to use on the joists too.
Thanks for joining me on this creative journey that we're on.
I'll see you over here in this video that YouTube thinks you'll like.
And while making things, remember: Perfections not required. Fun is!
[Beep]
OK! We got the audio running this time.
Last take I did the entire video and didn't have the audio on.
Need a small vacuum cleaner for tight spaces? Have an air compressor handy? In this episode of the #HouseOfHacks, Harley shows how to make a DIY compressed air vacuum cleaner out of some junk parts and a couple fittings from the hardware store.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Rocket"
Transcript
Do you ever have a small mess in the shop that you need to clean up?
Something that may be in an out of the way place where a big shop vac can't get to?
Or maybe a big shop vac is too much power and you something that doesn't have quite as much suction?
Well today at the House of Hacks we're going to make our own DIY vacuum cleaner.
That uses compressed air as a power source.
[Intro]
Hi. Harley here.
Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to make a DIY vacuum cleaner that runs off compressed air.
Now, compressed air may not necessarily be the most intuitive thing to use to make a vacuum cleaner with.
So, we're going to first talk about the physics of how this operates and then we're going to get into the making of this vacuum cleaner with just some surplus parts that I had lying around and a couple fittings from the hardware store.
If you're not interested in the physics and you want to get right into the build, there's a link in the description below that will take you directly to that part of this video.
Now, let's take a look at the physics.
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, there was a family named Bernoulli that had a number of prominent mathematicians and scientists who contributed to our better understanding of the natural world.
One of these people was Daniel Bernoulli who recognized that in a fluid system, as the speed of the fluid increases, it's pressure decreases.
He published this discovery in a book on hydrodynamics in 1738.
This principle is used in many of our modern devices from airplanes to computer disk drives.
Later in the 18th century, along came Giovanni Venturi.
He was a man of many accomplishments and among his achievements, he applied Bernoulli's principle to a device consisting of tubes that demonstrated the effect of pressure differentials.
In 1797, he published a treatise on hydrodynamics wherein he described this effect that was eventually named after him, the Venturi Effect.
This picture illustrates what happens.
When air goes through these tapered tubes, as the cross section of the tube decreases, the speed of the fluid must increase. And as Bernoulli's principle indicates, the pressure must correspondingly decrease.
When a U shaped tube, known as a manometer, is connected between the slower moving fluid and the faster moving fluid, the pressure differential causes the gauge's fluid to rise on the low pressure side and drop on the high pressure side.
This low pressure can be used in many applications, from the gas furnace that heats your home to the hose attachment to drain your waterbed to the vacuum cleaner we're going to make today.
OK, to make this, I have some scrap tubing I scavenged off the old dishwasher that I replaced.
Here's some water line and some drain line, I think. This might be water supply line. I don't remember right now off the top of my head.
I have an old T-shirt that was in the scrap bin.
I've got a blow gun for my new air compressor that has a nozzle on it.
I've got an old 2 liter pop bottle.
And I've got a T fitting and an L fitting.
So let's get making this.
OK, the way this is going to work is we have the blow tube that will connect into the end of a piece of flexible pipe.
The flexible pipe will have the T connector on it.
The bottom of the T connector will have this black pipe that will we'll use as the vacuum hose.
And the other side of the T will be the discharge that everything that is picked up by the vacuum will go through as well as the compressed air as it is escaping.
That will go through a tube that has the L bracket on it and the other side of the L bracket will have the bottle on it with a hole cut out to let the air come out so it doesn't escape and all the debris will collect in the plastic bottle.
That's the theory anyway.
[Time lapse of build]
[Example of use]
If you like workshop related projects, like making vacuum cleaners out of some trash and a couple parts from the hardware store, or other things made out of wood, metal, electronics, photography, things of that nature, hit the subscribe button down below and YouTube will notify you next time I upload something.
They're cheap but are they effective? Today at the House of Hacks, Harley investigates if it makes sense to use moving blankets for acoustic treatment. People have tried different sound absorption techniques to remove room echo from recording spaces. Acoustic foam panels and a sound blanket are two popular items. Moving blankets appear similar to sound blankets and are considered DIY sound absorption materials, but how well do they work in a recording studio for sound absorption? Today we're going to measure the difference between having them and not having them actually makes.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, go subscribe and click the bell to get notifications.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: Hot Swing
Transcript
[Door bell]
Oh, FedEx. Thanks!
Do you need to reduce echo in a room for recording?
Today, we're going to look at these moving blankets and measure how well they actually work for this application.
[Introduction]
Hi! Harley here.
I'm down here in the workshop which is in the unfinished portion of our basement.
It's got concrete walls, concrete floors, and from this app we can see we've got 0.65 seconds of decay time.
To try to get that down, I got some moving blankets from Amazon, very cheap, and I want to see if this is actually going to make a difference in the echo in this space where I can hang them from the ceiling, drape them around the workshop, as I'm recording to try to get the echo down.
Let's open it up and give it a try.
[Opening package]
There are twelve blankets for less than $60 from Amazon.
I'll leave a link in the description below.
By comparison, you can get an acoustic blanket that's marketed as such for $75 for just one.
But the question is: does this inexpensive option really make a difference?
I haven't spent the money to compare the difference between the moving blankets and the one that's really designed for the purpose, but I can compare the difference between with and without these moving blankets.
First, I installed an application on my phone to actually measure the echo.
And as we saw in the opening, without the blankets, the echo is 0.65 seconds.
I'm going to use some spring clamps to hang the blankets around the workshop.
[Hanging and draping blankets]
So, I'm really impressed!
Depending on the test, it was between 0.19 and 0.43 [sic] seconds delay after adding the blankets.
That's between...
...about a third on the high end and not quite half on the higher end.
So, yeah, these blankets really do make a difference.
How that compares to an acoustic blanket? I don't know.
I'm not going to spend that much money, but they do make a difference.
That's a good thing.
I'll certainly be using these in the future when I'm recording to reduce the echo in here.
I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark.
If yours leans towards marking things and you're interested in future House of Hacks workshop related videos, hit the round House of Hacks icon over there and then hit the bell notification and YouTube will let you know next time I upload something.
And down below are some videos YouTube thinks you might be interested in.
Wondering about the differences between lithium grease vs silicone grease? In this video, Harley compares silicone grease vs lithium grease, explains the differences, applications and uses of each.
What is dielectric grease and why should I use it? https://youtu.be/GXyRYArHryU
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, go subscribe and click the bell to get notifications.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: Hot Swing
Transcript
Are you like Jeremy and wondering what the difference is between lithium grease and silicone grease?
We're talking about that right now in this video.
[Introduction]
Hi. Harley here.
I recently had a comment asking about the difference between dielectric grease and silicone grease and also how that compares to lithium grease.
So let's talk about those differences today.
Lithium [grease] is:
generally petroleum based,
it adheres well to metal,
it's non-corrosive,
it's moisture resistant,
it handles heavy loads really well,
and it's resistant under high temperatures. It doesn't break down.
Silicone grease is:
of course silicone based,
it adheres to a wide variety of surfaces,
it inhibits corrosion,
resists moisture,
and comes in various formulations.
A couple notable formulations are ingestible ones where it's safe to be used in dental tools and plumbing for potable water.
Another formulation is dielectric grease where it's used in applications where you have high current and you need something that has insulation properties.
Because lithium grease is petroleum based, it's not recommended for use around plastics and rubber where it'll cause these to prematurely fail.
These applications are better served by silicone grease.
Silicone grease, on the other hand, works better in low temperature, low stress applications around plastics and rubber.
Common examples around the house for using lithium grease might be for garage door openers and hinges.
Whereas applications for silicone grease might be sliding doors and windows, seals around waterproof flashlights and plumbing fixtures.
So I want to get back to Jeremy's question about using silicone grease for brake caliper applications. In this case, neither lithium nor silicone grease is really ideal.
Lithium because it's petroleum based will cause decay in the rubber parts of the brake system and silicone grease isn't really designed for that high temperature/high stress application.
There are actually specially formulated greases for brake applications that are designed to handle both the high temperature and high stress and also coming into contact with the plastics and rubbers in the brake system.
Thanks Jeremy for the question and for everybody else for joining me on this creative journey we're on.
If you're interested in making things out of wood, metal, electronics, photography or other things like this in the workshop, hit the subscribe button and then hit the bell notification icon and YouTube will notify you next time I release a video.
Harley unpacks a haul of antique hand, power and Craftsman brand tools. Vintage tools tend to be well made and still serviceable. In this episode, Harley shows a collection of vintage tools his Grandfather owned that he picked up from a recent trip to his Dad’s. Also included is a library of machining textbooks from a self-study machinist course and various other workshop related books and magazines.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, subscribe.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Incidental music: “Sweeter Vermouth" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Transcript
Interested in antique tools? Today at the House of Hacks, that's check-out what I have loaded in the Jeep.
[Intro]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers.
Harley here.
Over Thanksgiving holiday, my wife and I took a road trip to California to visit my Dad and step-Mom. And while we were there, I spent a couple days with my Dad cleaning out and organizing his workshop. In the process, he gave me a Jeep full of antique tools that he got from my Granddad, his Dad's, workshop when my Granddad passed away, it's been close to 10 years ago now.
When he passed away, I got a lot of his tools and I currently have them down in my workshop and use them on a regular basis. Over the years he and my Grandmother, for Christmas and birthday, would routinely give me tools for my own use. And it's rare that I work on a project that I don't use at least some of the tools that they've given me.
Many times, most of the tools I use were given to me by them.
And so, it's a cool legacy that they've passed down in this regard.
My paternal Grandfather was probably the one grandparent that I was closest to in terms of interests that we shared.
He was a self-taught machinist and had an extensive workshop behind his house.
He had a metal lathe that I now have. And did quite a bit of machining on his own, just for general projects around the house and cars and things like that. So it's quite an honor for me to be able to get some more of his tools and outfit my workshop a little bit more.
Some of these things that I got are actually things that I want to refurbish and put on the shelf sort of as museum pieces almost. I won't be planning on using them.
I also got a library of books all on machining that I'm looking forward to reading and learning more about machining.
I wouldn't call myself a machinist by any stretch of the imagination but I do have his metal lathe and would like to learn how to use it more effectively in projects and make more projects out of metal.
Let's start unpacking.
[Music]
OK! So this is the haul.
I've got a table saw and a lathe and these were purchased by my Granddad in probably the mid-50s or so. They came as a set of three. There's also, that I've had for awhile, a jigsaw. And they're all kind of the same style. They're all Craftsman. They're kind of like an entry level, beginner's Craftsman set for that time period.
My plan for these is to kind of fix them up, clean the rust off them. I haven't decided if I want to paint them or not, kind of get them back to more period colors. Most of the paint has kind of chipped off over the years. So I'm kind of up in the air over what I want to do with finish on these. But I do want to at least clean them up and mount them with probably a some sort of, maybe an inexpensive drill or something, just to make them turn as kind of a demonstration unit for those three units.
The jigsaw that I have down in the basement is probably the one that's in the roughest shape. It needs to be completely disassembled. It has more rust on it and it has some wood parts on it that need to be remanufactured.
So that's kind of a side project that I have for the winter months.
I also got this arbor press. It's a small bench mount unit. It was cracked. I'm not sure how it got cracked or where it got cracked but my Granddad did a repair on it and mounted it to a really heavy base. The base probably weighs as much as the arbor press itself does. But that'll be nice if I need to do any pressing for anything.
I picked up an anvil. It's probably... I'm not sure exactly the weight on it. It's somewhere in the 80 to 120 pound range, I'm guessing, just based on how heavy it is to lift. I think it's heavier. My Dad thinks it's lighter. He thinks it's about the weight of an 80 pound bag of concrete. I think it's a little bit more than my 100 pound weight set down in the basement. But it's somewhere in that range. One person can move it by themselves.
I got an old Kodak slide projector. I've got a bunch of slides that I actually want to transfer to digital and make a home movie out of it. My grandparents had slides for their 50th wedding anniversary and there's also notes in there that they read as they did the slide presentation. So I want to redo that kind of in video format just for some family history. I think that'd be kind of cool.
I got a later model sander/grinder unit that takes the 1 inch wide sanding strips. It's also a Craftsman but much newer than some of these other things but it's still old enough that it's all pretty heavy duty steel. So I'm guessing that's probably 70s vintage would be my guess.
I've got some corner clamps that are new that my Dad didn't want anymore. He'd picked those up a couple years ago for a project he was working on. So those aren't antiques, anything special.
I got a couple task lamps: a black one and a white one. We'll put those up, probably one in my wife's sewing room and one in the workshop, just for general task illumination. Again, those aren't super old. I'm guessing probably 70s vintage would be my guess.
I got a wood vise that I'm not sure exactly what the vintage is on it. It is probably, I'm guessing, 50s vintage.
I got an old manual blowtorch that ought to be kind of fun for the museum shelf. It'll kind of go along with these. I'll clean it up a little bit but I don't really anticipate using that. Propane torches are so much easier to use than these.
I got a vacuum pump. I have no idea what the condition is on that or really anything about it. I don't know when my Granddad picked it up or what he used it for. But figured that'd be a handy thing to have around the shop.
A couple T-squares. Nothing of particular note there. Those are relatively new. My Dad bought those in the 80s I think.
I got an old microscope that my Granddad had.
And a bunch of books.
And really the big unit is this jigsaw and the mounting base that my Granddad made for it. Those are pretty heavy. I'm guessing the mounting base is probably upwards of 80 to 100 pounds and the saw itself is probably, again I'm guessing, probably over 100 pounds based on what it takes to lift it. It's all cast-iron. Again a Craftsman, vintage, probably the mid to late 50s.
I got some sheet aluminum that my Dad had lying around the place that he didn't have any need for anymore. So I brought that home, just to have stock on hand for various projects.
And then I got a box over there of small hand tools and books. I'll go over those in the workshop down below after I get out of the wind and where it's a bit more quieter.
I've got a bunch of books in here: Gas and welding, How to use power tools, just some old things, a pattern making book. That ought to be pretty interesting to peruse through.
This is some project templates that Granddad had lying around.
One thing that I got, I think some of it is in here, was a... the guts of a clock. This is a pattern for the case.
A couple articles on miscellaneous things in and around the workshop, making some tools and sharpening. Just some articles my Dad had pulled out.
An old magazine, Science and Mechanics in the workshop.
A book on the basics of welding. I'd like to get into welding here in the relatively near future so thought that'd be a good text to just kind of read up on.
Directions for a water level. The water level's in here somewhere.
Probably the most interesting in here's a multi-set library on machine shop practices. So there's, I think, eight volumes in here going from Machine Shop Work and Pattern Making and Foundry Work and Tool Making and Metallurgy and Blueprint Reading and Mechanical Drawing. I'll put this up so it's readable here. There's the whole set of eight books like that so you can read those titles. That ought to be interesting to go through and see what's in there. Grandpa was a self taught machinist and this will be interesting to go through. I think there's some markings in there, things that he made, notes that he took, things like that.
Some string. Dad probably threw that in there at the last minute.
Some workshop projects and idea books. Sheet metal shop practice book. More shop machining workbook. This one was precision measurement and gauging techniques. Again, that ought to be interesting to go through and look at.
I'm not sure what this is...
Machine Shop Operations. Oh, just... this is in the same series as that eight series book, same manufacturer. More information on how to do machine work. That was some lathe tool grinding stuff. Cutting threads. And more machine work for the lathe. This will be really good to be going through and getting that information. I'm really looking forward to that.
Making Whirligigs. Another book.
This is a face plate for that old lathe that I brought home with me to just kind of complete that kit.
Band clamp that Dad had lying around.
This is just an aluminum project box. Again just miscellaneous stuff. Put that in the projects stuff. Somehow I got all these screws. Miscellaneous sheet metal, or not sheet metal, machine screws that Dad had around. Again, I thought that had gotten left there at Dad's but apparently it got migrated to my box.
Some sanding belts for that grinder.
I was actually looking for one of these and I got two of them. These are solvent containers so they're completely contained for solvents, so you don't have fumes in the shop. But they have measured, metering valves here so you go like that and get just a measured amount to put on a rag or something. I got two of those. This is one that Granddad had... something had happened to the bottom. I think they're made out of brass and so usually they're impervious to chemicals. Something apparently happened to the bottom because the bottom had been cut out and Grandpa had soldered in a new base. The other one is in its original condition. These are probably vintage 50s or so. There's another one buried in there.
OK. This is an interesting piece. This is the optics out of a Norden bombsight. Grandpa, after the war, found a Norden bombsight at a surplus store and had taken it apart just to see how it worked. This is all that remains of that one that he took apart. The machining on this is pretty amazing. It has a mirror, some optics that go through. It looks like there's a prism inside here that things bounce around through. I've never really investigated it. I don't know really exactly how they work. Dad mentioned that when they got close to their target, the control of the plane was actually transferred to the bombardier and he'd guide the plane in through the Norden bombsight and the bombsight apparently was somehow connected to the avionics on the plane. Those planes all had mechanical, they didn't even have hydrolics, they were all cable driven going to all the control surfaces on the plane. So apparently this was some sort of, kind of big mechanical computer that the bombsight was connected to the cables controlling the plane and it just, the bombardier just kind of guided it in. That was kind of one of the secret weapons of World War II for the Allies. So that was kind of interesting. I got that for the ol' museum shelf. An interesting piece. I'll clean it up a little bit. It's a little dusty and stuff so I'll take some Q-tips to it and clean it up and it'll be kind of an interesting to look at. Probably inspire me to go look at the Wikipedia page for the Norden bombsight just to see how they really operated.
As I proceed to dump things all over the place.
This is just a fluid level for hook up to a garden hose. So you can hook up a garden hose between these to measure things... to get things level between two distant points. Like if you're trying to get a fence level across a large distance outside in the garden area or something. Put water in it, connect a garden hose in between. Water seeks its own level on both sides and so the top of the water will be at the same level regardless of how far apart these are. Kind of cool little instrument. Very simple.
And I just dumped a whole bunch of screws and nuts and things all over the box. The important things in here are these screws that hold the jigsaw to the base that Grandpa made. Some drill bits with counter-sinks.
More books. These are all electronics books. Oscilloscope. Solid state electronics. Motor control circuits. Experimental circuits. Just things to play around with. Increase general knowledge.
A couple inspirational signs Dad had and apparently somehow they managed to make it in here. This one talks about requirements being important. Two out of three isn't good enough.
And this one says: On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless missions, who at the dawn of victory sat down to rest... and while resting... died.
A couple books that I actually have on my reading list and so now I don't have to go out and buy them. Good to Great and Built to Last, both my James Collins. Those are things that I've been wanting to read. Put that on the end table in the bedroom. Read before going to bed.
A shaper. Sureform I think is what they call them. It's basically just a wood rasp on a plane type handle system. These are really handy sometimes when you're doing rough forming of wood.
Here's a small hand plane that needs a little bit of refurbish work. It's a little rusty. Just kind of clean that up and put it on the shelf with the other planes to work with.
A spoke shave. Dad's had this forever. It just needs a little bit of clean-up and have a new edge put on it. It'll hurt you if you're not careful but it's not very sharp for woodworking at the moment. So that needs to be cleaned up.
I think I put... I think you saw in the earlier part of the video the slide projector. These are a bunch of slides that I need to go through and sort and take a look at.
A brace for drilling holes by hand.
Another hand drill. Sometimes these are handy if you need more control than you get with an electric drill. Slow speed. Things where you need to see what's going on.
Here's another one of those solvent containers. The interesting thing about this and I didn't realize this until I was taking a closer look at these... These actually have different throws on them, so you can get different amounts of measured liquid. This one has a smaller volume amount on the release than the first one did.
And here you can see the size difference between the two. The one that Grandpa had repaired is probably about an inch shorter than the standard one. Again, I was looking for these online a number of months ago and I wasn't able to find any. So I don't know if they don't make them or if I just didn't know what to search for.
Some hair trimmers. Old manual ones. Again just for the museum.
Here's a hole cutter for the brace.
This is an interesting tool. One of those that if you need it, you need this specific tool but you'll probably rarely need it. I'll just put it on the shelf for future possibilities. It's actually a sheet metal crimping tool designed to crimp the edges of sheet metal for when working with duct work. So I don't really do much duct work. I've done one small project around the house but, you know, Dad didn't have a need for it and was going to throw it away if I didn't take it. Figured I'd save it from the dust bin.
Oh, and here's the innards for that clock I was telling you about that Grandpa had. The bag looks like it's been unopened from the manufacturer. You can see in there all the bits and gears and spring and there's the pendulum for it.
A couple pieces of plexiglass. Just to have on hand for the scrap pile.
This is for sharpening chisels and plane blades. You run it across your stone and it keeps it at a consistent angle.
I think these are some impact drivers. So, you hit this on the end with a hammer and it will impart a rotational force to help break things loose if they're tightened up. These are high strength bits to go with it because you can break bits if it's not designed for this kind of use.
Another rasp type device for forming wood with a spare blade.
A handle for safety razor blades. All the blades I have, or handles, are where you scrape like this. This allows you to scrape sideways. I figured that'd be kind of handy to have hanging on the wall.
A putty knife. Actually this is an ink knife. Grandpa was a printer so he'd use this for putting ink on the press.
A nut cracker. This will split hex nuts if they're... put the hex nut in there and tighten this down until it comes off the bolt.
Another book. This is on the Lord's Prayer by Phillip Keller. I enjoy him as an author. I haven't read that book of his so I thought I'd grab it.
A cutter for a milling machine. It can be used in the lathe also. Dad doesn't have any tools that he can use that in so I got that.
OK. You may not be able to see this real well. We'll see if that'll focus on that. But that's a... It's shaped the way and set type was shaped so it would go inline with those things. But it has etched on the front of it the Lord's Prayer. It's just kind of a curiosity from the printing industry.
Tape measure with double sided tape on one side to stick it to the workbench top.
A wrench for something. I have no idea what that's for or how that made it in there.
A whetstone. Very fine grade. It needs to be cleaned off. But that's for like putting a final polish on honing a blade.
Miscellaneous 9-volt connectors. Put that in the electronics bin.
A bunch of bolts for different things. I'm not sure what.
Some bolts for cars. Specialty bolts for... I've got a Skylark. I've got a '65 Buick Skylark that that's for. Some more miscellaneous car parts.
More slides.
Oh. These are the notes for my Grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary slide presentation that they did. And so it has it organized by title and who was... what it is and what they were saying and who was saying it. I really want to go through and kind of redo that as a video just for family history purposes.
Units in the Machining of Metal. It's a book primarily of machining metal and how to do measurements. All machining. Ought to be pretty interesting to go through and learn about.
A deburring device.
And the rest are all just miscellaneous small parts that fell out of the bins.
This is an on/off switch plate that my Dad had made, oh gosh, a long, long time ago. He never actually finished the project that he was using it on but I thought that'd be kind of fun to use for something. Polish up the brass and it should look nice for some project.
And that's it for this box.
Well now I need to find a place for all this stuff in the workshop.
As you saw, I have a wide variety of interests, from machining to electronics and things in between.
If workshop and house projects of this nature are things that you're interested in, I encourage you to subscribe and I'll see you again in the next video.
When working on electrical outlets, a must have tool is the outlet tester. In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley show how to use one of these inexpensive tools to test receptacles for proper power and ground wiring. They are also an easy way to test an outlet to see if the power is off prior to working on the wall plug.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Transcript
If you do anything with 110 volt receptacles or outlets and wiring them, you need one of these. We're going to talk about what it is and how to use it, today at the House of Hacks.
[Intro]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers.
Harley here.
Wiring 110 volt receptacles or outlets are pretty simple and straight-forward for the average DIYer. There's only three wires to connect and they're all color coded. So as long as the circuit was installed correctly originally, replacing the outlet is really trivial.
But when you do replace an outlet, you do want to make sure you use one of these tools. They're designed to tell you if things are wired properly or if you have safety issues. They're really inexpensive and you can pick them up on Amazon for less than $5. I'll leave a link to a bunch of them down in the description below.
To use one of these, all you do is you just plug it in. It has three lights on it that light up and, depending on what order the lights are lit and which ones are lit, it'll tell you the status of the outlet.
The best condition is that it's lit up as correct and you're good to go.
There are a number of problem that may occur. The first one is open ground. This is where the ground wire is not connected. The ground wire is typically green or copper without any insulation on it at all and in this case you need to make sure it's connected and make sure it's properly connected to ground on the other end.
The next one is open neutral. This means the white wire is not connected for some reason. You need to go in there and trace the white wire and find out where the disconnect is.
The next one is open hot. This means the black wire is not connected properly. In this case nothing will work when you plug something into it because there is no power actually reaching the outlet.
The last two are safety concerns because if you plug something into the outlet with these configurations then you may have power exposed to the user in ways that are unsafe. Which is why one of these tools is really important to use to make sure everything is good.
The first of these two critical ones is hot neutral reversed. And this means the black wire and the white wire are backwards. You just need to take the plug off and reverse those two wires and you should be good to go.
And the last one is hot ground reversal. This means that the hot wire and the ground are backwards which are the black and the green wires or the plain copper one, depending on the wire that's used. And in that case, just these two need to be switched around.
That covers all the error cases and also the good case. So, make sure you use one of these anytime you're wiring up an outlet just to make sure everything's safe for your users.
A pair of momentary switches become a latching on/off switch as Harley expands on a previous video about remote controlling a shop vac. This is the first of several in a modular switching system to remote control shop equipment using the PowerSwitch Tail II.
The central part of this system is the PowerSwitch Tail. It contains an electronically controlled switch to turn things on an off. There are a large number of ways to control this. In this episode, we introduce a modular system to allow different types of switches to be used to control the shop vac (or any other type of appliance).
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Special effects: livingroom_light_switch by AlienXXX at http://freesound.com
Transcript
Last year I showed an easy way to remote control shop equipment using a PowerSwitch Tail, a couple batteries, a switch and some wire.
Today at the House of Hacks I’m going to show how I made a push-on/push-off switch that mimics the way a lot of shop equipment are controlled.
[Music]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
Just a quick reminder, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the House of Hacks channel to get notified of future videos.
Last year I made a video responding to a comment by Rob about how I made the remote control switch on my central shop vac system.
In that video, I showed the core design element: the PowerSwitch Tail and how to use it with a simple battery operated switch.
Today i’m going to show a different way to control the same PowerSwitch Tail by eliminating the batteries and using a switch with two buttons: one to turn the tool on and one to turn it off.
This is similar to how many shop tools are controlled. It also has the additional feature of being able to be expanded upon in the future.
If you recall, the PowerSwitch Tail requires 3 to 12 volts DC applied to these two connectors to cause the tool to turn on.
Batteries are of course one source of power for this but they need to be replaced on occasion.
Since I didn’t want to deal with replacing batteries, in my application I decided to use a surplus wall wart style power supply. I had a bunch of these lying around and figured this would be a good application for one of them.
I plugged it into the same outlet I plug the PowerSwitch Tail into.
I connect the low voltage power supply to two connectors on an RJ-11 jack.
Then I connect the other two connectors on the RJ-11 jack to the two connectors on the PowerSwitch Tail.
This allows me to use a phone wire as an extension cord.
For the switch's end, I put another RJ-11 jack in a project box. This project box can now have any type of switch mechanism in it I want and provides a nice modular way to use different types of switches.
For example, I could put in a toggle switch just like I showed in the last video.
Simply wire the negative side of the power to the negative input on the PowerSwitch Tail and wire a switch between the positive side of the power and the positive input for the PowerSwitch Tail.
However, since we have power in the project box, we aren’t limited to just a simple mechanical switch.
We can build circuitry that controls the PowerSwitch Tail.
The first thing I’ve made is a simple latching switch.
Similar to the switches on many tools, like my drill press and my bandsaw, I press the green button to turn on my vacuum and push the red button to turn it off.
Inside the box is a simple flip flop.
A flip flop is a type of circuit with two inputs, called Set and Reset. It also has two outputs, called Q and bar Q, or also known as not Q. It’s just the inverse of Q.
The inputs receive momentary pulses.
If the pulse is on Set, then Q goes high and bar Q goes low.
If the pulse is on Reset, then Q goes low and bar Q goes high.
If we consider just one output, Q, we can see Set causes it to turn on and Reset causes it to turn off. It just flip flops between the two positions.
Flip flops can be made with a variety of different circuits ranging from discrete components to various types of integrated circuits.
I happened to have a Quad 2-Input NOR gate chip in my parts bin so I used that.
But I could just as easily have used NAND gates, a chip with a dedicated flip-flop circuit in it, or a couple of transistors and resistors.
Once I had the circuit built, all I had to do was put it in the box and wire it up.
The switches are wired with pull down resistors. This allows the inputs to be normally low and go high when the button is pressed.
The green button connects to the Set input. The red button connects to the Reset input.
The negative input to the PowerTail Switch goes to the negative power connector.
Since I’m switching the positive side of the power, I’m using a PNP transistor.
Its base connects to the flip-flops Q output.
The PowerSwitch Tail’s positive input goes to the transistor’s collector.
And finally, the transistor’s emitter connects to the positive power connector.
In this configuration, the transistor acts as the switch for the PowerSwitch Tail’s power.
When it’s all put together, pushing the green button turns on the appliance and pushing the red button turns it off.
Since this switch system is modular, I have plans to build other switches too.
The next one is a current sensing switch so the vacuum will automatically turn on when a tool is in use and will turn off, after a short time delay, when the tool is turned off.
I’d love to know in the comments below if the level of detail I presented here was too much, just right or too little.
If this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome, I’m glad you’re here and would love to have you subscribe.
I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark.
Sometimes this manifests through making things with a technical or mechanical bent.
Through this channel I hope to inspire, educate and encourage these types of makers in their creative endeavors.
Usually this involves various physical media like wood, metal, photography, electronics, like in this video, and other similar materials.
If this sounds interesting to you, go ahead and subscribe and I’ll see you again in the next video.
Thanks for joining me on our creative journey.
Now, go make something. Perfection’s not required. Fun is!
