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Shop and Tools: Tips and Tricks

Muckin_Slusher

Muckin_Slusher

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Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
53
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1,949
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Abitibi
Can't believe we haven't got this thread going yet. It was one of my old favorites.

I'll start. And yes I know it's not rocket surgery.:homer:







Went to my local plumbing buddies shop to get some propane orifices. Left with the combustion blower from a furnace and from a gas water heater.

Mounted the furnace blower to a plywood and am using it to circulate air into my tool room. It's mounted over the old electrical service hole (circled in red), helps keep the tools in the room from rusting as it's all a poured concrete structure and holds the cold for a long time.

The backside of the blower is nice and flat, easy to mount. Draws 0.75 amps which is about the same as the bathroom exhaust fan it is replacing.

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This is the water heater power vent. Marrette the black wire to the blue one and it'll run when plugged in.

You can see it's got a nice, flat surface that's easy to mount. This one draws 3.5 amps and moves a ton of air. It's gonna get repurposed into a welding fume extractor.

Easy peasy to vent outside with how it's already got the boot to clamp onto pvc pipe.

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Squamch said:
Old ubolts make skookum hangers for whatever you could want to hang.

I also save hole saw slugs.

Order of importance in a shop:
1-dry
2-light
3-warm
4-hard floor.

Carpet scraps make lying on concrete or gravel a far more pleasant experience.
Click to expand...

You have shitty priorities.

1-Light

2-floor

3-Dry

4-Warm

And even the, once you have the bare minimum of light the floor becomes the most important thing.

You can get away with working on a shit floor if all you ever do is jack up one wheel at a time to change brakes but moving heavy things on a rough floor really sucks.
 
arse_sidewards said:
You have shitty priorities.

1-Light

2-floor

3-Dry

4-Warm

And even the, once you have the bare minimum of light the floor becomes the most important thing.

You can get away with working on a shit floor if all you ever do is jack up one wheel at a time to change brakes but moving heavy things on a rough floor really sucks.
Click to expand...

LOL.

Location dependant.

1-Warm

2-Warm

3-Warm

4-anything else is a bonus.

Can't hardly do anything when it's -30.
 
Muckin_Slusher said:
LOL.

Location dependant.

1-Warm

2-Warm

3-Warm

4-anything else is a bonus.

Can't hardly do anything when it's -30.
Click to expand...

-30 (freedom units I assume) is not really that big a deal if you can work with gloves on (a skill most in those climates develop) and you're inside out of the wind.

Would you rather have a well heated poorly lit garage with a shit floor or an unheated garage with decent lights and floor?
 
Get your compressor off of the floor.

A 30-60gal doesn't take up much space, but it weighs next to nothing and really only needs to do one job in one location.


Mount it to the wall as high up as you can and free up some space. I have mine in the crawl space over the garage suspended from the roof.

Keeps it from being as noisy in the house being suspended and I ran a hose off of the drain valve and mounted that to the wall underneath so I could have easy access to it.

My main line comes straight down into a larger pipe with an internal baffle and an exit out the side. This catch pipe has a drain on the bottom to drain the water. This acts as a direr before the regulator/dryer for when the humidity is high.

Also, put a muffler on your compressors intake and quiet that thing down.

My garage is attached and like most right off of the kitchen, so having it quieter makes the family happy.
 
Something that Im noticing is that a lot of people have really dirty spalled up looking mig gun tips.

I shocked the shit out of myself ONCE due to excessive spall buildup inside the nozzle/tip making the nozzel go hot (Electrically) and didnt like it, no sir not one bit.

Get a can of nozzle gel and save yourself a heart check and a burn.

Clean out your nozzle with a wire brush or whatever and dip it every now and then.
 
2020AT4 said:
Something that Im noticing is that a lot of people have really dirty spalled up looking mig gun tips.

I shocked the shit out of myself ONCE due to excessive spall buildup inside the nozzle/tip making the nozzel go hot (Electrically) and didnt like it, no sir not one bit.

Get a can of nozzle gel and save yourself a heart check and a burn.

Clean out your nozzle with a wire brush or whatever and dip it every now and then.
Click to expand...

That's why the funny looking welding pliers have the file looking part on the outside of the needle nose.:flipoff2:
 
If your having concentricity issues chucking some thing up in a three jaw chuck that has master/top jaws, remove the top jaws and chuck your part in the master jaws.

The removable top jaws receive most of the wear over the years and doing this will guarantee you a more centered part.

Plus it eliminates the leverage the top jaw has over the master which results in less canting of the master under pressure.
 
I have a little abrasive cart that I keep all my air tools and grinders on. I mounted a random 7/16 wrench to the cart to assist in tooling changes. Maybe I am just a clumsy mf'er, but it was a pain in the ass trying to swap tools everything with the shitty little stamped wrenches they provide. This is the slick ticket.

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Wisconsinite said:
I have a little abrasive cart that I keep all my air tools and grinders on. I mounted a random 7/16 wrench to the cart to assist in tooling changes. Maybe I am just a clumsy mf'er, but it was a pain in the ass trying to swap tools everything with the shitty little stamped wrenches they provide. This is the slick ticket.

IMG_20200418_191517.jpg



1620229606332.png
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Everyone, and I mean every single person over tightens these air tool collets.

Yes, even me.

But that is slick.
 
I spend half my time working on my jeep build, and half my time working on my "shop". I rent a portion of a commercial building, and have set up a little work shop for myself. Getting organized has taken me forever. This is how it was two years ago.


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Wisconsinite said:
I have a little abrasive cart that I keep all my air tools and grinders on. I mounted a random 7/16 wrench to the cart to assist in tooling changes. Maybe I am just a clumsy mf'er, but it was a pain in the ass trying to swap tools everything with the shitty little stamped wrenches they provide. This is the slick ticket.

To take this to the next level, I have a dedicated air tool for each abrasive
Click to expand...
 
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