What did you do today?

[dbhost]

Quick update. Took some CRC Brakeleen to the inside of the messed up drawer, which took out the abundant goopy lubricant and tracer dye mess quite easily, the bumpy junk on the bottom though was not dirt, and debris mixed with refrigerant oil, but rather the finish on the drawer bubbling up...

Not sure I am going to go back with a proper color match. Might just finish cleaning up up / paint prepping it, and then hit it with some gloss black and then new drawer liners.

It occurred to me that the chain saw, is too big for the deep drawers, which is fine, it is a lawn and garden tool anyway. Out to the shed with it!

Noodled around on the pinewood derby cars with a file trying to even out the cuts. Getting close, then I slope the noses...

[LCHIEN]

Kids should be able to do the rasp work to a line- safe enough and they learn some craftsman ship Rasp short of the marking line . clean up with OSS.

Nail holes push in by hand are a little loose. You will end up putting them in and out a few times and there's nothing more embarrassing than having the wheel fall off when running down the track.
I drill two sets of holes at each location (look at my pictures) once I get the drill press set up - a prime and a back up in case I wear out the holes. I drill holes when the block is whole... easier to jig up than when you cut the block every which way,

[dbhost]

Sorry it was giving you fits. Sometimes you eat the bear sometimes the bear eats you.

[dbhost]

I stopped being productive since I got some calls from the family just trying to catch up with me.

The drawer that had the drill bits taps and dies apparently had a bottle of refrigerant oil and tracer dye in it from about 30 years ago and it busted open and messed everything up I've got it all in a Box I just need to clean that drawer out something desperately and Move on to the next drawer to get it completely empty.

I think the friend that is receiving this stuff has a solvent wash so I'm not gonna worry about cleaning these things up.

[twistsol]

Finally had a little shop time and made the ramp to the dog wash and the hinged mounting block. That is ready to be painted and hopefully installed before I head to Sioux Falls for my grandaughter's 5th birthday party.

I also made the end panels for the bookcases from reclaimed birch and had a host of problems with the build.

• The rail and stile bit cut right through a couple of the old nail holes in the birch and I got a bit of splintering.
• The wood conditioner didn't completely solve the stain blotching on the birch ply panels
• Where I filled nail holes the putty didn't take stain in the area around the holes even though I thought I had sanded and scraped it completely.
• The wood conditioner kept the birch from taking stain so I couldn't get the color to match the bookcases.
• The first coat of poly accentuated all the flaws, and these are now destined for the burn pile. I'll have to try again in a few weeks when I have a free weekend.

[dbhost]

Got the car bodies planed, and cut out. Now I need to sneak up on the cut lines with a rasp, round over the edges, then the kids get to do the sanding... Good luck getting them away from the Nintendo for more than 5 minutes though... Ugh...

The nails on these can more or less be pushed in by hand.

My scroll saw blade kept getting loose on me and walking. I need to dig into adjustments on this thing, maybe replace the blade holder bits... Haven't used it in about 2 years, but I don't recall the blade walking so much...

Oh went to Harbor Freight to swap out my rusted up metric ratcheting boxe end wrenches. I already have a newer set that I bought before I realized HF has a lifetime warranty on the Pittsburgh stuff, so I am giving these to the same friend with the kids..

I know this sounds wierd, after this first set rusted up and the ratchet bits wouldn't work, I have taken to every time I get a new one, and periodically, I treat it with some air tool oil just to coat the metal surfaces and not allow rust to start...

[LCHIEN]

Drill press wheel camber jig
Scrap materials.
See photos. Works like a champ.
Just threaded a #6-32 screw into the legs using a #6-32 tap to start them.
#43 or #44 drill for the BSA PWD nails depending on how tight you want them.

[dbhost]

So the Pinewood Derby cars are going to be more or less I shaped, and need to be 9/.16" thick. Not my specs BTW...

Anyway I planed them down and stopped at just under 5/8" as these are short blocks of wood and my AP1301 snipes.

Next step is to drill the axle bores. Maximum camber from this groups rules can be no greater than 2 degrees. Going to dial in the drill press table and get it set up for the task and get this done after I go get some milk for my breakfast / lunch...

Taking down the list of missing tools, spitting the surplusses out.

I might have mentioned it or not. I worked in a hardware store that went out of business in college. When we closed it down, the stock room had a mess of drill bits, punches, taps, dies, C clamps bench vise, bench grinder etc that were store use that were going to be trown out. Well they went home with me.

The bench vise is a nice OLD Ace Hardware machinists vise that I de-rusted and painted safety orange probably 15 years ago now... I don't use it a lot, but I can bolt it down to my workbench when I need to say hold a CV shaft to drive the knuckle off etc... The bench grinder is doing duty in my brother in laws body shop, and all those drill bits and taps and dies....

I am goinmg to filter out the replacements for bits in my current sets that may be missing, and then pitch the rest into a bucket. Bucket goes to a machinist / industrial mechanic friend of mine. I don't need the surplus, he can use it to make money, I get space back, he gets tools he should be able to put to use.

If anyone is wondering, these are almost certainly all old Vermont American stock as that is what we carried back then.

Lookinmg for someone that can dig out a crepe myrtle root at a reasonable price so I can get my shed done.

Lastly, making potatoes O'brien cajun style for breakfast taco filler through the week, need to stretch out the eggs these days...

[dbhost]

Spent the morning cleaning up the old tool stack, still a lot in there, but all the automotive specialty stuff is in the new one, all my sockets, wrench sets, electrical tools, and I still have 5 empty drawers in this thing. Now I need to round up my plumbing tools and get them in here... I spent a good bit of time with pen and paper and made a shopping list of missing sockets to replace, time to go to the pawn shops and start doing some shopping...

I have like I said the combination wrench sets as well that are missing pieces. Will sort them out and list out what is missing for the upcoming shopping. I have full sets in this cabinet, but I am going to dedicate a set for roadside repairs for the truck / camper... Or for when I need to go help a friend out...

As I go through all of this, I am pulling back loose tools that never had a home and giving them a home, and this is helping to further clean my shop out. I should have done this LONG ago...

The sanding pad for my 6" dual action sander has had its foam rubber disintegrate into little bits of black dust, time to get a new one... Yay...

I have 2 drawers in the old chest still populated with unbelieveable quantites of old taps, dies, miscellaneous drill bits and, for lack of a better term, thing a ma jigs... I seriously do NOT know what I am going to do with that stuff.

I found somehow I ended up with 4 soldering irons. Trying to give 3 of them away as the remaining one is my 90w adjustable temp soldering station that I absolutely love...

Anyway that is where I am at now. Going to take a shower, and go have dinner and a discussion about how they want me to cut out and shape their pinewood derby cars. There may be some 3d printing to be done here as well...

[dbhost]

Top of the too chest got rearranged. My inner tie rod tool is LONG and apparently too long to fit in any of the drawers, so I had to rearrange the sockets. I need to see if I can figure out how to attach the One+ battery charger to the pegboard back of the chest.

I am discovering I have a lot of duplicates in my wrenches. Basically almost full sets with a missing wrench or two. Considering finishing the sets back up via pawn shops, and sewing together a few wrench rolls and pick up an 18" tool bag from Harbor Freight so I can have a roadside emergency tool bag for the camper.

I was volunteered for Pinewood Derby assistance for my friends kids. Since Debi passed and us never having had kids, they are trying to get "uncle Dave" involved more. I get it and appreciate it...

I found my AC vacuum pump is too tall for my deepest drawer, which is a little frustrating. I was hoping to be able to house ALL my specialty automotive tools shy of lifting and support tools in the toolbox.
The other deep drawers are getting checked to see if maybe I can stow my Ryobi One+ tools. Notably the chain saw, battery packs etc...

And I am sorting through the electrical tools to see how best to organize them.

[dbhost]

So you'd be surprised how much time it takes to sort through old overly cramped tool boxes, get sockets organized onto socket holders and specialty sockets onto rails down in one of those drawers, not to mention putting all the drawer liners in, and ordering a keyed matching lock for the tool chest so the chest and cabinet have the same key. That should be standard when you order them together. (And was what Lowes told me before I ordered, but the cabinet I ordered at the time of the chest apparently got sold and, well you know the drill...

I have my drivers in there, torque wrenches, and other misc in there. I also have been putting specialty tools off of shelves and into the cabinet drawers like my AC manifold gauges, ball joint service kit etc...

I know not a lot of woodworking tie in, but it IS tool related... And frees up space for woodworking tools in a roundabout way...

[dbhost]

No pics yet as I just wrestled it into the house, but the new Crafstman 52" tool cabinet and chest just got dropped off. I was contamplating loading it in the living room and rolling it out to the garage, then I found out just how heavy this thing is empty. I can do it, but I am going to need to get some help getting over the threshold.

Lowes had pre-assembled the cabinet for me as they way they ship them they don't have a pallet jack and the cabinet is bigger than they want on a dolly, so they put the handle and casters on for me so they can have it as a rolling unit. Yay I guess...

The cabinet does not appear to be any deeper than my old 27", but the chest is almost full depthand a LOT taller than my old Proto chest...

This weekend is going to be cold again, but I HAVE to get that stump dug out and the hole filled so I can call the shed guy out here to put in my shed...

Funny thing is the chest got nasty dirty sitting in the box. As in the box lid had a 1/2" gap and every bit of dust dirt and grime from the warehouse found a way though. So I need to clean that... Yay me I guess.

There were bought as a set and I was told they had matching keyed locks, that is not correct. I am on the phone with Craftsman right now to see what if anything we can do about this. I do not want to have to deal with too many extra keys.

[dbhost]

I have not run it through its paces yet As I want to get it on a Flip-top stand so I need to build a new one big part of the reason I am spending so much effort trying to clean up my filthy shop so I have space to work... The only things that have been iffy by me so far is the fence and pretty much every single benchtop jointer I have Seen as a less than stellar fence honestly this is better than most but it's still not as good as a well made cast iron floor model mostly I really dislike the fact that it's aluminum.

[Sam Conder]

Unboxed, assembled, cleaned off the shipping gack from the cast iron tables and adjusted the fence on my Wahuda 10" jointer. Still need to spend some quality time getting the infeed table adjusted. Feeling kind of lousy today so might be a bit of a challenge...

It took 3 shop rags in a box rags to remove the shipping goo plus a good amount of isppropyl alcohol. And only one to apply a good coating of Johnsons Paste Wax... The pic is the jointer assembled but still coated in that, stuff. Not sure what that stuff is. Looks like wheel bearing grease to me...

I didn't update here, and no pic yet because, well I am being lazy, but unboxed, assembled, and water soaked the stone on my Wen sharpnening system machine... Need to order the Grizzly gouge jig for this and I should be set. The idea is to use the Wolverine / 8 in grinder to get the shape, and this to get a fine slow edge on my tools... I might actually be close to done on my sharpneing setup!

Eager to hear your assessment of the Wahuda. I’m considering one.

[dbhost]

Nah, I would likely start picking up early Broncos 70s F250s and doing custom 4x4 builds... It's a disease...