Ok, I've given the thread a new title.

SepticSceptic:

 

 

 

Nice job!.

 

Just a thought on the jackup - wouldn't it a bit wobbly only having one contact point underneath ?

 

I'd be thinking of a tough inflatable bag, perhaps powered by a 12v blower, and a foot-operated release valve.

 

Hmm, looked the prices of air jacks - bit OTT, and expensive.

 

But food for thought ..

 

Cheers!

I jack up one end at a time, so there are always three points of contact. The big ol' induction motor right at the bottom lowers the center of gravity heaps too.

I've always been impressed with air jacks, ever since I was a wee fella and watching the Bathurst cars go up for wheel changes. Couldn't believe it when Dad told me it was just air doing that. Sticking a nozzle from the compressor into a table saw to wheel it around would have *enormous* cred in my books. However, part of the self imposed brief for this one was not spending heaps of money on over elaborate solutions. Some of the jacking solutions on Youtube are really clever. But spendy.

Amateur plumbing hour today. Tap had a drip that turned into a dribble as I "investigated" so was planning on replacing the washer and reseating it. But when I finally managed to unscrew the body, about 20 years of corrosion poured out everywhere. Decided that wasn't re-useable and it wasn't really a viable option not to have running water until I could get a plumber in. Surprised myself and managed to install two new taps and a length of braided connector (decided not to reuse the old junky plastic pipe the hot tap was using). And I got to use my biggest spanner!

I did manage to get myself pretty wet though.

Drain unblocking 101

This afternoon I was doing some laundry and noticed water backing up through the two gully traps outside our house on the driveway.

Once the washing machine had finished draining, I tried a variety of methods to clear the drains:

• Tipped a 20 litre bucket of water down both gullys with no success.
• Flushed the toilet and tipped water down it. This caused more water to overflow from the gullys.
• Forced the garden hose down both the gully traps and ran it on full. No joy either. Just a few bits of congealed grease floated out.
• Filled the kitchen sink with hot water and let it out. No joy.

After a bit of head scratching, I decided to try this:

Blocked up the two gullys with some old towels and held them down with several bricks each.

Blocked up the toilet with another old towel and held it down too.

I got up on the roof with the hose and started filling the vent stack up with water. Reasoning that with enough weight of water, a soft blockage past the lowest gully should hopefully be flushed away by the head of water behind it. At some point gravity did its thing and what ever was blocking the pipe has now become the city council's concern. 

What a bastard of a job, but I'm very pleased it worked and I saved myself the cost of a plumber.

mdf:

 

Surprised myself and managed to install two new taps and a length of braided connector (decided not to reuse the old junky plastic pipe the hot tap was using).

 

Just remember to replace that braided hose in 5 years (a burst one caused $15k worth of damage to our place early this year).

Today was trampoline assembly day (a Springfree one). Was supposed to be an xmas delivery but came home to find it on the doorstep and can't have it cluttering up the garage.

Assembly hour zero: Instructions read. "You need two people to assemble this" totally disregarded.

Assembly hour 1: Pfft, this is straightforward. I don't know why everyone said they were hard to put together. I'm more than halfway done already!

Pride commeth before the fall.

Assembly hour 2: Yeah, that bit was a bit tricky [installing the net] and the instructions didn't really help, but all sorted now.

Assembly hour 2.15 mins: All the flexible rods locked in to the mat, except for two recalcitrants that are a bit stubborn.

Assembly hour 2.30 mins: Swearing starts.

Assembly hour 2.45 mins: Blameless bit of two by four, innocently lying on the lawn, is smashed in half.

Assembly hour 3: Success! Small victory dance ensues.

Assembly hour 3.01 mins: Notice that the two recalcitrant rods haven't in fact locked in to the mat properly, the socket has shifted. They need to be removed and reinserted. But they appear to be stuck...

Assembly hour 3.15 mins: Literally jumping up and down with rage. Bang head. Doesn't help.

Assembly hour 3.30 mins: Mrs MDF arrives home and is asked to assist. Also doesn't help. Mrs MDF wisely takes herself away.

Assembly hour 3.40 mins: Revenge fantasies start.

Assembly hour 3.45 mins: Underside of trampoline now consists of a layer of skin scraped off my back on the way under there, and a veritable spider web of ratcheting tie down strops used to flex f*ing rods _just_ so.

Assembly hour 3.50 mins: Total victory appears to be at hand. Rods are in and sockets haven't shifted. Don't trust this and reinspect everything.

Assembly hour 4: All remaining steps completed quickly and kids are allowed on to bounce.

Assembly hour 4.01: Elsewhere in the house, the "disassembly" section of the instructions is quietly shredded. Never again. Then collapse into couch with aching muscles, sore head, scraped back and rage induced headache.

A local cat rescue group has tasked me to build a few pieces of equipment for them. I've now built them several drop traps for catching stray cats and kittens:

And have nearly finished this feeding station, which is going to be located at a dusty and dirty trucking depot. Designed to keep diesel fumes away from the cat's food and water:

first real project.  made some garage cabinets, carcasses are plywood, doors are mdf (18m for the rail and sides, routed to tongue and groove with 6mm router bit, middle is 6mm mdf panel).  top is a 30mm pine benchtop i picked up from bunnings and just stained it with some british paints stain/varnish.

im going to put a mitre saw in the gap on the side and make it a mitre station, need to cut the left over bench top up then join it together so I need some more clamps before doing that (only have 1 big clamp, and using lots of little ones together usually causes me to misalign things).

came out really nice, a little too nice in fact... dont want to put a drill press or anything on it :)  

next job is to make the mitre saw shelf (once i get a better mitre saw ill make a draw carcass, for now ill keep my vacuum there). then I need to make some wall cabinets and put up some peg board.

best drill press ive found is the Bosch Bench Drill 710W 

I like the fact you can easily adjust the speed without having to mess about with anything and it has a large service.  seems like the best cheapish one for wood working....

reven:

 

 

first real project.  made some garage cabinets, carcasses are plywood, doors are mdf (18m for the rail and sides, routed to tongue and groove with 6mm router bit, middle is 6mm mdf panel).  top is a 30mm pine benchtop i picked up from bunnings and just stained it with some british paints stain/varnish.

 

im going to put a mitre saw in the gap on the side and make it a mitre station, need to cut the left over bench top up then join it together so I need some more clamps before doing that (only have 1 big clamp, and using lots of little ones together usually causes me to misalign things).

 

came out really nice, a little too nice in fact... dont want to put a drill press or anything on it :)  

 

next job is to make the mitre saw shelf (once i get a better mitre saw ill make a draw carcass, for now ill keep my vacuum there). then I need to make some wall cabinets and put up some peg board.

 

best drill press ive found is the Bosch Bench Drill 710W 

 

 

I like the fact you can easily adjust the speed without having to mess about with anything and it has a large service.  seems like the best cheapish one for wood working....

 

That looks very nice. I've been saving my pennies for the same drill press.

Have you seen John Heisz's mitre saw cabinet? Designed with a hood and a drop down area for the dust. My mitre saw seems to have a vacuum port positioned such that it will collect precisely no dust whatsoever so I'm keen to try this idea at some stage.

I'll add to the list - I walk particularly slowly past that exact drill when I'm cruising Bunnings... I wish my current one would just die and give me an excuse :-)

Cheers - N

mdf:

 

I've always been impressed with air jacks, ever since I was a wee fella and watching the Bathurst cars go up for wheel changes. Couldn't believe it when Dad told me it was just air doing that. Sticking a nozzle from the compressor into a table saw to wheel it around would have *enormous* cred in my books. However, part of the self imposed brief for this one was not spending heaps of money on over elaborate solutions. Some of the jacking solutions on Youtube are really clever. But spendy.

 

Now that is a good idea, and one I didn't think of when I made this stand for the three-in-one sheet metal machine at my Menz Shed. 

I need to make something similar for our heavy as jointer machine (not this model but similar), and air jacks would be so much easier than jacking up each corner with a spanner.

Talkiet:

 

I'll add to the list - I walk particularly slowly past that exact drill when I'm cruising Bunnings... I wish my current one would just die and give me an excuse :-)

 

 

 

Cheers - N

 

this pay I bought a router table, a pocket hole jig, a dowel jig, 5 different finishes until I found one that I liked (made the stupid mistake of trying to poly over white paint, shellac is pricey and didnt have enough colour to it), a new ryobi battery (biggest one, it was on sale at bunnings as a deleted item - in a packet with usb adapter thingy), some clamps and a whole bunch of wood.  so waiting on next months pay to buy that drill press :) might get a band saw aswell, so I can make sure the ones I go with have clearance under the wall cabinets ill put there.    probably get the ryobi bandsaw, I tend to buy ryobi for most things, table saw is mikita, have a couple of bosch things.   looking at a mikita mitre saw from mitre 10, as its compact and can be put hard up against the wall.  toolshed have a similar one, for $300 less, but not sure about that brand.

mdf:

 

That looks very nice. I've been saving my pennies for the same drill press.

 

Have you seen John Heisz's mitre saw cabinet? Designed with a hood and a drop down area for the dust. My mitre saw seems to have a vacuum port positioned such that it will collect precisely no dust whatsoever so I'm keen to try this idea at some stage.

 

thats kinda what Im going for, sink the mitre saw on the end so the cutting service is flush with bench.  but I only had about 2.7m so decided to put it on the end, and give myself about 2.4m for cutting.  i may need to do rough cuts with a circular saw then take them to the mitre saw for final cuts if the piece is too big.  but i can live with that.

one idea was to put the mitre saw on a set of draws on casters that I could wheel out if needed.  but that could mess up the fixed fence i plan to put on the bench top there.  

EDIT: on closure look at that article, im making it like his old one, the other idea was to make it like his new one.  :)

I may not put a fence on the bench top yet, and just clamp a piece of wood a cross it as a stop, this way I can test the mitre station before fully committing to it.  if I decide to make a wheelie able station like that article, I can put the bandsaw where the mitre saw would go, then I can make the cabinets a bit lower/taller.

TLD:

 

mdf:

 

I've always been impressed with air jacks, ever since I was a wee fella and watching the Bathurst cars go up for wheel changes. Couldn't believe it when Dad told me it was just air doing that. Sticking a nozzle from the compressor into a table saw to wheel it around would have *enormous* cred in my books. However, part of the self imposed brief for this one was not spending heaps of money on over elaborate solutions. Some of the jacking solutions on Youtube are really clever. But spendy.

 

 

Now that is a good idea, and one I didn't think of when I made this stand for the three-in-one sheet metal machine at my Menz Shed. 

 

I need to make something similar for our heavy as jointer machine (not this model but similar), and air jacks would be so much easier than jacking up each corner with a spanner.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing that. I'm super impressed with both your 90 degree bolt jacking concept and the neatness of the welds on the current one.

reven:

 

Talkiet:

 

I'll add to the list - I walk particularly slowly past that exact drill when I'm cruising Bunnings... I wish my current one would just die and give me an excuse :-)

 

Cheers - N

 

 

this pay I bought a router table, a pocket hole jig, a dowel jig, 5 different finishes until I found one that I liked (made the stupid mistake of trying to poly over white paint, shellac is pricey and didnt have enough colour to it), a new ryobi battery (biggest one, it was on sale at bunnings as a deleted item - in a packet with usb adapter thingy), some clamps and a whole bunch of wood.  so waiting on next months pay to buy that drill press :) might get a band saw aswell, so I can make sure the ones I go with have clearance under the wall cabinets ill put there.    probably get the ryobi bandsaw, I tend to buy ryobi for most things, table saw is mikita, have a couple of bosch things.   looking at a mikita mitre saw from mitre 10, as its compact and can be put hard up against the wall.  toolshed have a similar one, for $300 less, but not sure about that brand.

 

I've bought a few Toolshed branded things (biscuit jointer, multi tool, plunge saw, clamps) and have overall been really happy with them. They are clearly OEM out of China with the Toolshed colours and logos added. It's not premium plastics and contoured rubber grips like you will find on a Bosch, Makita, Dewalt or AEG stuff (though their f-clamps have proved to be an exception to that rule; super premium), and the manuals are nothing to write home about. That said, the Toolshed buyers clearly do their own quality control and everything I've bought has been rock solid and worked as expected. They also grade their stuff themselves, Serious DIY < Trade < Professional, so you know the standard of electrics and internal parts you're buying. Some of their branded stuff is more expensive than Bunnings' house branded things (Craftright, Trojan, Full Boar) and the quality usually reflects that. Finally, they actually have genuine sales where every now and then something is actually substantially reduced (no 10% off every other weekend) and the guys in Petone are thoroughly friendly and know what they're doing. 

So in summary, I've been thoroughly impressed with the quality of the Toolshed branded stuff and would recommend a closer inspection at least of anything you're considering buying.