Shop Tricks

[BearKiller]

>> HITCH PIN PULLERS <<

I was at TSC today, buying 30-pounds of bolts/nuts/washers to replenish my jars.

I saw that they had hair-pin hitch-pin retaining clips made with a "wing"-like handle, to facilitate a much easier removal of the clip, in tractor-matching color schemes; about eight bucks a pair.

I can do better than that for free.

Whenever some concern or the other is giving away key-tags, I grab a hand-full (a pocket-full if nobody's looking).

Put the hair-pin clip on the key-ring, as if it were a key.

Now, when you want the clip out, just grab the key-tag and give her a yank.

The key-tags work equally well on those finger-pinching linch-pins.


Those key-tags also make excellent zipper-grabbers; just thread the key-ring into the little hole in the zipper tongue and let it hang there.

I have one of those Harbor Freight tarp "garages" that has zippers on the doors; I put key-tags on them and they are now a lot easier to zip/un-zip.

 

[BearKiller]

>> SHARP BITS <<

Probably the one single most appreciated tool to ever grace my shop is the DRILL DOCTOR that my wife got me for Christmas several years ago.

It is the big one, Model-750 or somesuch, capable of sharpening up to 3/4-inch bits.

Before the Drill Doctor, drilling a hole in metal, even a small one, was a much dreaded task.

Often, when I knew that I had holes to drill, I would arm myself with several new bits that would all be dull by the time the drilling was over.

Now, every single bit on the place is razor-sharp and ready for action.

I am adamant about immediately re-sharpening every bit as soon as it comes out of the drill, before putting it away.

Seeing as how I had a large collection of broken bits of various sizes, I also bought one of those 25-dollar H-F drill-bit sharpeners.

After first getting the profile close with the grinder, I roughly sharpen the broken bits with the H-F machine, before putting the razor's edge on them in the Drill Doctor; this saves wear on the diamond wheel of the Drill Doctor.

It sure is a good feeling to watch those long shavings curl around a nice sharp bit, instead of smoking and squealing.

 

[Gem99ultra]

>> SHARP BITS <<

Probably the one single most appreciated tool to ever grace my shop is the DRILL DOCTOR that my wife got me for Christmas several years ago.

I also bought a DD 750. Had about 400 bits, all dull Spent the better part of a day sharpening up every bit. Later I discovered that I had not seated some of the bits correctly. If not done right, they're like drilling with a stick!

But - re-sharpening is definetly a great money saver. I need to adopt your habit of touching the bits up before putting them aways though. That way, they'll always be ready to work.

 

[larryccf]

this might serve some - probably like a lot of folks, back in the early 90s when all the box stores had those $8-9 twin 48" tube flourescent light fixtures i bought quite a few. Had 19 of them hanging from the ceiling in the shop.

when the new CFL bulbs (with the squiggly pigtail bulb tubes) came out, i bought a few to see what they were all about. Interesting to me was that the 60W rated bulbs showed a current draw of only 13 watts.

For the hey of it, i put two in a double socket light fixture and with my el cheapo watt meter measured the draw at 21 watts for the two 60 watt CFLs. Did the same with the twin tube 48" 40 watt fixtures and one of those fixtures showed 132 watts.

I then built a 4 socket light fixture and with 4 of the 60 watt CFLs actually had more light than from one twin tube flourescent fixture - so basically more light from 42 watt consumption than from 132

I know the electrical engineers will step in here and tell me that flourescent fixture ballasts skew a watt meter that isn't capable of compensating for the ballasts like my "el cheapo" watt meter isn't, but i assumed i'd get the same or approx same skewing for comparison purposes, on both fixtures.

all i know is my electric bill went down about 45% from same billing periods the year before - but those 19 fixtures burn 8 - 10 hours a day. Still 132 - 42 = 90 watts per fixture, x 19 fixtures = 1710 watts per hour savings

here's what i ended up building from scrap lumber, including "surplus center" sourced industrial white paint. Total cost was about $22 per fixture plus the labor. Most of the cost was for the exterior boxes and the cast alum sockets from external light fixtures (the ones that hold two PAR floodlamps). When i made these, per bulb costs was approx $4, and i recently saw them just under $1 per bulb at one of the box stores. I've heard some folks complain they burn out irregularly - in two years + i haven't had one burn out yet. And i got a chance to use all those electrical cords with plugs that i'd saved over the years, from equipment that had gone bad. These fixtures plug into the same receptacles the twin tube flourescent fixtures did, so no need to call in electrician.

Like an idiot i applied aluminum tin foil to the inside upper surface BEFORE painting. the plastic lenses were simply those 2X4' plastic lenses for accoustical ceiling tile replacement - i ran them through a table saw to narrow them down to 11 X 36" size (and btw, paid $3 each as i asked the manager at local Ace hardware did he have any cracked in shipment that he wanted to salvage some value from)

lenses slide in on a groove i routed in, and at the end, there's a foam sealing strip to keep dust from traveling in

only suggestion to anyone considering this, buy a few of each "color" bulb, ie soft white, bright white, daylight and try them out at the very location you'll be using them, as they are different to your eye - the bright white bulbs were "whiter" but much harsher to my eyes - ended up going with soft white bulbs.

But the beauty is, at some work stations, where we needed stronger light (over a bench), rather than adding bulbs to the fixture, we could simply screw in 75W or even 100W bulbs, as needed.

iirc, four 75w bulbs kicked the current draw up to 54 watts on the el cheapo meter

 

[tatra805]

just a piece of advice on the lamps used by larryccf

These are here called "saving lamps" which are now standard issue in europe as by end of next year the normal bulbs will not be sold anymore (goodbye Mr Edison)

In our production we have these bulbs in overhead lights and on individual table/machine mounts.

these bulbs hate being switched on and off and lasted about 2 weeks on the individual places where operators switched them on and off depending on daylight, breaks, etc the overhead ones are now 3 years running 16 hours per day and besides a single failure, still working.

So, dont switch them on and off too often, if you have to use energy saving bulbs in such situation look into LED bulbs, still a bit more expensive but these dont bother the switching.

The saving bulbs are not cheating the watt-meter. Dont ask me the exact theory (too long ago) but the cos fi correction is not necessary on these. (if so, THAT would have been the biggest political HOAX of this century, as power stations would still have to produce equal amounts of energy as with the edison bulb and polution would be equal)


just 2 cents




PS: you can find these saving bulbs from 4 up to 45 watt (250 watt conventional) these are just tripple size of a normal bulb

 

[Danno1]

.


Another piece of advice: the cheap flourescents don't like to start up in an unheated shop. You need a certain ballast (which I forget the name of ! ) .


.

 

[larryccf]

actually haven't noticed any difference in start up between these and the twin tube flourescent fixtures
both seem to take a minute or two to warm up and hit full light output

 

[BearKiller]

As for lights, at our nine-bay, two story tire shop, we started with 100% 8-footer flourescent lights, lots of them, with one big addition being completely lighted with the twin-bulb four-footers.

It kept one guy busy constantly monkeying with the lights.

They hum, flicker, go out for a couple hours and come back on, take forever to come to full brightness, bulbs cost a small fortune.

We have worn out two ladders servicing the lights and I personally took one bad fall when a ladder kicked out from under me on the concrete floor; I rode it to the ground, falling amongst the tire-changers.

For the last few years, I have been string by string replacing EVERY flourescent with plain old hangs-straight-down 100-watt incandescents.

I have a telescoping pole that I can reach and change the highest bulbs with ease.

I have seen no increase in the electric bill that I can notice.

It is no longer dark as Mammoth Cave where we are trying to work.

I am stock-piling plain old bulbs for the day that they decide to force that other junk on us.

I will never pay my money for another flourescent light.

It takes a long bed truck, handling-eggs care, and a sack full of money to go after a few flourescent bulbs; whereas, I can send a kid in a Pinto to the Dollar General with five bucks and he will come back with a sack full of bulbs and don't even have to be careful with them.

I can kind of get along with those screw-in worm-tube flourescent bulbs, but I have yet to have one last six months.

I can see no economy in using them.

 

[mgtd]

Need to remove a broken key from a cylinder lock. Take a coping saw blade and break off one end pin, then grind a slight taper on the back side of the blade. Insert into the cylinder so that the blade's teeth grab the notches on the broken key and pull out the broken piece.

If you need to limit access to someone whom you trusted with a key--purposely break of a key that fits the lock and push into the cylinder--no other key can be inserted--the above tool lets you remove it when you want access. We used this trick to "lockout" tenants (illegal of course) when we needed to dunn them for overdue rent. Whose to say how a key got broken in the lock.

 

[larryccf]

As for lights, at our nine-bay, two story tire shop, we started with 100% 8-footer flourescent lights, lots of them, with one big addition being completely lighted with the twin-bulb four-footers.

It kept one guy busy constantly monkeying with the lights.

They hum, flicker, go out for a couple hours and come back on, take forever to come to full brightness, bulbs cost a small fortune.

We have worn out two ladders servicing the lights and I personally took one bad fall when a ladder kicked out from under me on the concrete floor; I rode it to the ground, falling amongst the tire-changers. ....(END QUOTE)

had the exact same experience with 8 ft flourescent - don't remember why, but we tried the twin tube 48" tube fixture and had much better luck but still they seem to burn a bulb every year or two

and those 8' flourescents are not in anyway efficient - heck, you probably saw a drop in your bill going back to incandescents - but you might want to really stock up on those incandescents as congress last year voted to ban them, i think the ban goes into effect, either 2011 or 2012