How to make a rustic table top

Description

Have some reclaimed wood? Need a rustic table top? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows a simple way to make a DIY rustic table top using reclaimed wood. A nice thing about doing a rustic table top build is you don’t have to be terribly precise, which allows you to move quickly. The reclaimed wood table top made in this video was done in a couple hours. It’s primary purpose is for product photography, so it doesn’t need legs or finish. If you wanted to use this in a living space, you’d want to spend a bit more time on it to finish the edges, put a sealer on it and craft some legs.

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For a written transcript, go to How to make a rustic table top

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com

Transcript

Today at the House of Hacks we're going to make a rustic table top that can be used for a variety of purposes.

[Intro]

Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers.

Harley here.

A couple months ago, I helped by buddy Rich install a new backdrop wall in the studio that used some reclaimed wood.

You may have seen this in a couple of the videos last month.

Well, he wanted to create a table top to do product shoots with using some of this old reclaimed wood so it kind of matched the wood backdrop.

So today we're going to take some of that left over wood and combine it with some wood I scavanged from a built-in cabinet that was in the studio space before we tore it apart and combine that together to make this new table top.

In our case we want the table top to be portable so we're not going to put any legs or anything on it and just set it on available surfaces when we need to set it up.

But if you want to do something like this, you could use it as a end table or a coffee table or something of that nature.

Let's get started.
I first vacuumed all the loose dirt, sawdust and miscellaneous things off the fence wood.

Then I sorted the boards into an order that looked nice.

Next I glued and nailed each board onto the plywood substrate.

I trimmed the uneven edges off with a circular saw.

And gave it a final vacuuming to get all the sawdust off.

So this is what the table looks like setup in the studio.

And here's a test product shot using it.

If you're going to use this idea in a living space, you'd probably want to finish it off with some sort of Verathane or something just to seal it in.

Keep the splinters out of your hands. That sort of thing.

And you probably also want to put a edge banding around it to just trim it off and finish it.

For the purposes of this project, we don't need to do any of that.

The way it is is plenty sufficient because it'll never be in an image and you won't see it.

Until next time, go make something.

Perfection's not required.

Fun is!

How to quickly make a simple door knob trim plate from left over materials

Description

In this project tutorial, Harley shows one simple way of making a trim plate for a door handle. Most door hardware is pretty standard, but occasionally some hardware may leave unsightly holes in the door. Today at the House of Hacks, we use some left over material to make door trim plates to cover ugly, unused mounting holes.

For a written transcript, go to How to quickly make a simple door knob trim plate from left over materials

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Cool Rock"
by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech

Sound effect: living-room-light-switch by alienxxx at FreeSound

Transcript

Today at the House of Hacks we’re going to go from this … to this.

[Intro]

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 for more videos like this one. And click “Like" if you hoard left over material from projects with the hope of using it sometime in the future.

My friend Rich expanded and renovated his photography studio earlier this year and, in the process, door hardware was changed.

The previous hardware left behind some holes that Rich wanted an easy, cheap solution to fixing and/or hiding.

His studio has kind of a chic industrial look to it and I had some left over material in the scrap pile that gave me an idea.

I made a prototype, showed him, he installed it and loved it. Later in the week we made several more to meet his needs.

Let's look at how we did this.

For this build, I used:

• some left over sheet metal,
• some marking tools,
• some cutting tools,
• a smoothing tool,
• some bending tools,
• and a hole cutting tool.

I started with some left over galvanized sheet metal.

This is supposed to be used for heating ducts that I had left over from a home remodel project several years ago.

I cut off a piece an inch wider than we wanted the covers and long enough to cut out four more with room to spare.

Then I cut off individual squares from the long piece.

I filed the edges to remove any burrs.

Next I measured 1/2 inch from each side on the corners, drew a diagonal line through the intersection and cut off the corners.

With the corners cut, I used a small metal brake to fold over 1/2 inch on each edge.

Then I used a hammer to finish the fold by flattening it out.

A center finder gave me the center of each piece, giving me the position to drill a hole using the circle cutter.

This wasn’t the best tool for the job, but in the end got it done.

Not without a bit of mishap though.

And it did generate a bit of heat.

Afterwards, I realized I probably should have used a couple drops of cutting oil.

Also, I probably could have used a lathe tool blank to make a custom cutter that might have worked better.

But the holes still got cut, albeit with more force than finesse.

Once the holes were cut, Rich took them to the studio and installed them.

This was one of those small details that, if it wasn’t done would look bad, but in place, hardly is noticed.

All together, this took about 90 minutes to do 4 plates and didn’t require any new materials, just scraps left over from a previous project.

I’d love to hear in the comments how often you do projects using left overs? Are you like me and have a stack of materials for unknown future projects?

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 mechanical and technical 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 metal, as in this case, wood, electronics, photography 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 but fun is!

How to easily make a vacuum port for the central shop vac system

Description

The previous vacuum port design was less complicated than blast gates but still took a bit of work. Today Harley shows how to make a new and improved design that is much faster to make and easier to use.

How to quiet a shop vac

For a written transcript, go to How to easily make a vacuum port for the shop vac

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Incidental: “Private Eye" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Sound effects: living-room-light-switch by alienxxx at http://freesound.org

Transcript

In my video about “How to quiet a shop vac” I showed how I made hose connection ports modeled after a house central vac system. Today at the House of Hacks, I’m going to show a "new and improved” design that is simpler and faster to make.

[Music]

Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.

After making the first couple ports for my central vac shop system, I was perusing the plumbing department at the local home improvement store and saw these connectors.

They’re rubber couplers to go between two 2” rigid pipes with hose clamps on both sides. I realized they were the right diameter for the vacuum hose so I picked up a couple of them, along with some 45 degree connectors.

Back in the shop I cut a short piece of pipe and glued it into one side of the 45 degree elbow.

I attached the rubber connector to the other side and tightened the hose clamp down tight.

The other hose clamp I adjusted so the vacuum hose was a snug fit but could still be removed.

I trimmed the corners off a 4x4 and put it in the lathe.

Next I turned it into a tapered plug that fit into the coupler with a snug fit.

Finally I connected a chain to the plug so it wouldn’t wander off too far and get lost.

All told, I spent about 1 hour on this, including the trip to the home store. If you did an assembly line, you could make a bunch of these in pretty short order. This is by far much a much easier port to make than my previous design.

In conclusion, I’d love to hear in the comments about a time a designed of yours evolved over time.

If this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome, I’m glad you’re here. We’d love to have you subscribe. I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark and through this channel I hope to inspire, educate and encourage makers in their creative endeavors. Usually this involves various physical media like wood, metal, electronics, photography and shop projects like this one. 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. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just have fun!

How to quiet a shop vac

Description

In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how he changed a normal shop vac into a central vac system for the shop.

Associate Links

• Flanged inlet receptacle
• PowerSwitch Tail II

Measuring the efficiency of a centralized shop vac system

Alternate DIY blast gate videos

Background video about the design evolution of the switch

For a written transcript, go to How to quiet a shop vac

Music and sound effects under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
http://freesound.org/people/musicmasta1/sounds/131385/
http://freesound.org/people/nothayama/sounds/172497/

Transcript

[Vacuum getting stuck between equipment]

[Vacuum tipping over]

[Loud vacuum]

In this episode of the House of Hacks I'm going to show how I made my shop vac easier to use.

[Introduction]

Hi makers, builders and do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.

In general I'm pretty bad at house cleaning. I tend to put off vacuuming and straightening up until it's unbearable. Around the workshop, this is exacerbated by the inconvenience of the shop vac. It has a tendency to tip over on its own cord. It's big and awkward in a cramped space. And it's uncomfortably loud.

I wanted a change based on some requirements: 1) minimal daily setup: it should basically always be ready to use and not take much to clean-up at the end of the day; 2) be convenient when using: I don't want to drag it all over the shop from one tool to another; 3) quiet: I want it to be really, really quiet; 4) inexpensive: I didn't want to spend a lot of money.

So to solve all these issues, I made it into a central vac system. At some point I'd like to get a real dust collection system, but right now that's outside both my money and space budgets.

Today I'll show: the box I built for the vacuum, the way I plumbed it in to the shop and how I turn it on and off. In a future episode I plan to show before and after measurements of both noise and vacuum efficiency and finally some future improvements I'd like to do.

Since noise was a big issue for me, I built this box to hold the vacuum and muffle its whine. In the junk pile from previous projects, I had some rigid insulation foam, softer foam rubber and some scrap 2x2. I figured this would work well as the main components.

I measured the shop vac dimensions, added a couple inches to each side for air circulation and the thickness of the foam.

This gave me the target outside dimensions. I went to the local home store and got two sheets of the cheapest 3/8" sheathing I could find. This is usually used under roofs and siding so it has a lot of visual imperfections, but it's good enough for this use and really cheap. When I got home I sliced up the sheathing and built the box by simply screwing it to the scrap 2x2. It's not pretty or square, but it does serve the purpose.

When I got the sheathing, I also picked up a piano hinge and some casters.

The casters I mounted on the bottom to make it easy to move around and of course I used the hinge for the door to give me easy access to the shop vac inside.

I mounted three spare electrical boxes in one corner on the inside. Two of the boxes go through holes to the back and the other points into the box. I'll get to the details of all that in a minute.

Next I cut up the foam and used spray adhesive to glue it to each of the sides.

Finally, I cut a hole in the side for the hose to run through and a hole in the top for the exhaust vent.

The electrical part has two components. A line voltage side and a low voltage side.

On the line voltage side, one of the boxes pointing to the outside has a male plug on it. This allows me to plug an extension cord into the box. This type of plug is convenient to use on projects like this but I couldn't find one at the normal places I typically get electrical parts. I ended up having to order this online. If you're looking for something like this, search for "flanged inlet receptacle". There's also an Amazon associate link in the description.

The box inside just has a normal duplex plug wired to the plug in the other box. The boxes are connected by a standard conduit connector. Combined, the two boxes provide a clean way to run power through the wall of the wooden box.

I plugged two things into the duplex outlet: a surplus low-voltage wall-wart power supply and this PowerSwitch Tail. The power supply provides low-voltage for the switch. The PowerSwitch Tail is basically a short extension cord with a relay built into it. When a low voltage is applied to these two connectors, it turns on the plug. This allows low voltage devices, like micro-controllers or other digital electronics to easily control line powered devices, like shop vacs.

I put another electrical box pointing to the outside for a remote switch. This is the low-voltage side. I installed a barrel style power connector in the electrical box pointing into the larger enclosure for the wall wart output to plug into.

On the outside of this box I installed a standard RJ-45 connector plate, like we used to use for those old-fashioned telephones. The connectors have four wires. The barrel power connector is attached to two of the connectors on the RJ-45 jack.

The other two lines of the RJ-45 run through the electrical box and go to the relay control connectors on the PowerSwitch Tail.

I then built a little switch box. It has an RJ-45 connector on the side and two switches: red and green. Inside it has a simple flip-flop circuit. Press the green button and the circuit turns on. Press the red button and the circuit turns off. A standard 4-conductor telephone cord connects the remote box on the side to the big box with the vacuum in it. I have a pretty long cord here that allows me to turn this on and off from anywhere in the shop. If you want more details of how this works, please leave a comment letting me know and I'll make another video about it. And if you're interested in the design evolution of this switch, there's a video on my second channel going into those details.

For plumbing, I used 2" black ABS drain pipe. This is pretty close to the diameter of the flexible hose that is standard on my vacuum. I ran a straight section across the ceiling with a couple sections running down in key areas in my workshop. I used sweeping connectors for smoother airflow and minimize places where dust can get caught. I held it all in place with perforated strapping tape and some screws. Most of the connections are just press fit. I didn't want to use cement in case I need to take it apart to clean it out, move it or do other sorts of maintenance. However, the sections that run down had a tendency to fall apart with just the friction fit so I put a short, self-taping screw in each one to hold them together. It's still pretty easy to remove the screw if I need to take them apart.

For the ports, I first looked at blast gates at the local wood working store. They were pretty expensive and not terribly well made. I really didn't think they were a very good value. I thought about making some blast gates of my own. I looked online and found some designs, but they were just more complicated to make than I wanted to deal with and I didn't have all the material I'd need in my scrap bin. So I made my own based on the design of the ports on the house's central vac system.

They're basically a hinged flap with a bit of foam to seal them and some magnets to hold them closed. They're epoxied to a standard plumbing fixture. The flex hose stays in with a press fit.

So that's pretty much it for the construction details. How well does it all work? I'll cover that in a future part 2 episode.

If you're interested in part 2 or other DIY type videos of this nature, click the Subscribe button and YouTube will let you know when they're released.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. I'd love to hear from you.

Until next time, go make something. It doesn't have to be perfect, just have fun!