A Productive Day: Cord cover, lazy suzan, bit storage tray - 334

Hey folks, how you guys doing? Hope you're all having a great day today. I've got a Sesame Street song stuck in my head from watching that show with my daughter. So with that being said, today's letter is the letter P. Not for project, but for productivity. I've got a tremendous amount of stuff to get done and rather than simply just knocking it all out, I figured I'd complicate things just a little bit by recording it all because why not? Whole list of stuff to do. There's no way I'm gonna get through it all, but I can charge through as much of it as possible. And the shop is a wreck and it's probably gonna stay like that till the end of Christmas or the end of this year because like just about everybody else out there, I procrastinated with making Christmas gifts and waited till the last minute. So instead of knocking them out in October and November, here we are, three weeks, two weeks, three weeks prior to Christmas and I've still got a lot of stuff to do. This is one of those years also where it's like, no, I'm not gonna make any Christmas gifts. I'm just going to buy everything and it's just gonna be easier on me that way. And then as we go through the list, I'm like, well, I can make that and I can make that and I can make that and I can make that and I can make that and just bite off probably more than what I can chew. So I need to shut up and get started. One of the things that I cannot stand at all is working in a messy shop just because I hate having to move stuff to work every time you go to another station, which is what I have to do right now. So I guess I'll clean up as I go today, which is what I normally do and I don't know why I haven't been doing that. On second thought, I only need a 33 by inch and a half strip. So it makes more sense to cross cut the little bit that I need and then rip the rest out at the bandsaw. That way I don't waste so much of this board. That's much more efficient than cross cutting the whole piece and losing full length on the other side of the board. Just as I had anticipated, today's gonna be one of those days where you gotta back up a couple steps before you can take a step forward. That's really a testament of how keeping a tidy shop, clean and tidy shop just makes things go much easier. I forgot I put this blade in this cleaning solution a couple of days ago and I gotta use the table saw. So I guess this is all steps in the right direction, right? You're cleaning a table saw blade so you can actually get better cuts at the table saw. I just didn't wanna spend the time to do it, but it's maintenance. You never wanna spend the time doing maintenance. All I'm doing for this is making a few cuts to make a groove on the bottom side for a cord to run through. So I just put a little chamfer on here, nothing special. This is gonna be sanded and painted black and hopefully just blend in. Before I sand it though, I can swap out the hose on my shop vac and cyclone cart. So speaking of hoses, right? All these tool manufacturers use 30 different size ports on their machines for whatever reason, I don't know. Well, actually the reason is probably to, man, it's getting windy outside. The reason is probably to have a specific hose that's proprietary and sold specifically for that company. From a business perspective, I guess it makes sense, but it's really annoying as a consumer when you have 16 different tools with 16 different size ports. It's absolutely frustrating sometimes. So the solution to that previously was to use, my solution was to use the Rockler Hose Dust Right Adapter Super Majig Kit. I forget the name of it. It's one of these hose kits that has all these different attachments and the attachments worked great to attach to all the different tools, but the hose, in my opinion, got so frustrating that I think I gave it away to somebody because the hose was one of them black, what's it called? It's a retractable hose, right? So when you let go of it, it shrinks in size. Well, that's convenient if you just wanna just let go of it and set it off to the side, but as you're trying to use a sander or something, it's constantly pulling away from you. So for that frustrating reason, I stopped using it and switched over to the hose that I got on here now, which is a, I think this is a household central vac hose and it's got two ports on it. So this particular port only fits great on my sander. And then it came with another port that I think is in here. Yeah, this one kinda, sorta, somewhat fits on the Domino. So I guess this was an acceptable solution for these two items, but they don't fit any one of my other tools. So it's actually time to change to a different hose and I'm making all kinds of noise. And I think this actually is going to work out this time because it's another Rockler hose. It's got a funky name, Flexi-Port Power Tool Hose Kit. It's a 12-foot hose and it's got all these different adapters just like the previous hose that I was using from Rockler. But the good thing is this hose does not shrink. It remains the same 12-foot length at all times. So I've already tested it on my sander here and it does fit and all the other attachments seem to fit all the tools that I've tested them on. So hopefully, hopefully this will solve all of the issues with attaching a shop-vac hose to a tool. Who would have thought that that would be a complicated process? So this is my little pop-up spraying station. I use an HVLP sprayer that has very little overspray so I don't need any big size tent. And I have a really nice air cleaner cart on the other side of this cabinet over here that you can't see. That does a good job of taking the particles out of the air. At least the particles, not the chemicals like harmful fumes. So I do kind of air it out from spraying harmful fumes but I rarely do that because I keep shellac in this gun. I've had three or four different fill-ups of shellac in here and I've yet to clean the gun at all because shellac, it burns in. So as material is passing through the needle of the sprayer it's continuously dissolving what was there before if there was any buildup and continuously cleaning it out. The alcohol is the vehicle in the shellac that distributes the stuff. So for that reason, it's a very convenient setup to keep right here at all times. And I got a little remote start on the sprayer which makes it really convenient. So I pop up something over here to start spraying on. The last little bit of convenience that I need to add to this little setup is some type of lazy Susan for spring. I'm making a lot of little pocket dump trays out of scrap wood for Christmas gifts this year and they're small. So having like a big setup like this where you have to walk kind of all the way around it with the hose getting in the way, it's not the end of the world. Obviously I've done a bunch of them already but a simple little lazy Susan setup would be great for spring. And I am gonna spray this in just a little bit. I'll probably wait until later on in the day to spray this so I can actually work in here while I go somewhere else and it dries. Lazy Susan, that's where I was going. All right, small and expensive lazy Susan mechanism. And if you don't know what a lazy Susan mechanism is, is a double platform type of bearing system where you can have two planes rotate on a center axis. That's a complicated way to say you can make a bottom surface fixed and a top surface spinny. This is gonna be sprayed with all kinds of different finishes and is going to be 100% utilitarian. So it does not make any sense at all to make this out of nice materials. This is just the crappiest piece of plywood that I happen to have on hand here in the shop. I think this is actually from a pallet. Simple, quick, and easy, and something that's been on the list to do for a long time. These are those little pocket dump trays I was telling you about earlier. So just a scrap piece of wood. I think I need about 12, 12 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 inches this direction, 7 5 1 8 this direction. And this whole thing takes about 10 minutes to cut on the CNC machine. So from start to finish, from rough sawn lumber to sprayed finish on here, I can knock out three of these in an hour. So that's pretty good for a little gift, right? Pocket dump trays with a name personalization on it. Pretty cool. But I wish I would've done this sooner. I mean, this took all of five, five minutes. But now I can reach all sides of this without moving. Super simple, super effective. I made a bunch of these. This is, I think, I think this is bloodwood, this particular one. Could be wrong. I think that's what it is. I know this is padauk. Looks pretty cool. I like the color there. And then this one is, I know this one's bloodwood for sure. Babinga, babinga, babinga. And then another little Christmas thing out of some ash with some general finishes. What is this? Mahogany, water-based brown mahogany finish. Water-based dye. I can't speak today. Ash takes stain really, really well. That turned out nice. Moving down the list, we're at the router table. And this whole setup is really nice. This particular tool, I can adjust on the fly the elevation of the bit, as you saw when I cut the chamfers on here. It's pretty cool to be able to do that if this is readily available. So for that reason, I made this little block that goes on the backside of the fence. The problem is it's just a little bit too long. It works really, really well, but because of its length, it obstructs the use of this knob over here. So the solution, I'm just gonna cut it down really quick, but I did wanna bring it up in this video because maybe you can get an idea from this setup that I have right here. If you have a similar situation and can benefit from this, then go ahead and make something because this has been really, really handy. And there we go. Problem solved. Quick little cut. Something I should have done a long time ago. This way. There we go. Both knobs, still easy to access. Next on the list is the router situation. And by that, I mean, I've got two router tables over here, all of my router bits way over there with the CNC machine, and then all of my handheld routers over here. So first thing that I wanna do is take all of my router bits over here at the CNC machine. Anyone that pertains to actual use in a handheld router or in the router tables over there, I wanna move all of these bits over to there. And I also want to move all of my routers, which are in this drawer over here at the miter saw station, all of this router accessory stuff and extra handheld routers from here and move them down into the cabinet over here. Now, all of my handheld routing is done at the assembly table. So it kinda doesn't really make sense to move the routers away from that, but at the exact same time, I'm gonna always come over here for a router bit. So if I'm over here anyway, then might as well just store the routers in this location. That will free up that drawer for more hardware, which I've been needing another hardware drawer, and it will kinda streamline the use of this particular station. Inside this cabinet, let's see, can you see? Yeah, you can see. The dust box for the router, and then a shelf up here that I'm using for just regular, well, I got the precision collet care stuff over here and some other stuff. But the main thing is down here is some larger item storage. So I'll put all these routers and accessories down here. Right above that, I've already got these rails in place, but I never made a tray of any kind or a drawer. I think I'll just make a tray. Yeah, I'll make a tray. No need to make a drawer for the bits. So all of my router bits will go on this pull-out tray, and there's plenty enough height here for even the tallest bits that I have. The bit tray is just a rectangle piece of plywood, and no need for any sides or anything. I'm gonna use the CNC to cut all the holes. That way I can be productive cleaning up in here while all these holes are drilled or cut. Cut, drilled. I guess in this case, they're gonna be cut. Not drilling, cutting. Yeah, that's it. So that took about 15 minutes to cut, but the good thing is while it was cutting, I was cleaning up the entire shop. So everything is put up and everything is vacuumed and cleaned and swept, and way more inviting in here to work. But all of these holes, so there's no rhyme or reason to this layout. I just put a bunch of half-inch holes and a bunch of quarter-inch holes, and I put a chamfer, but I think the chamfer's just a bit too much. I wanted just a slight little chamfer to allow the bits to go in there a little bit easier. It's a little much, though. No big deal. Half-inch bits, quarter-inch bits, plenty of holes, plenty of little itty-bitty fuzz here and there. And I'm probably not even gonna worry about the fuzz because this is just gonna hold bits, and that's all I want it to do. Oh, yeah, good deal. This is a much better spacing and organization than I had in the last tray. Well, this is all the stuff for the router tables, and they're not really close together, so they're easier to grab compared to the tray for the CNC machine. And all of these tiny little bits with the pokey ends sticking up right next to each other, I've stabbed myself several times trying to get certain bits in this orientation. So this kind of spacing is a little bit close. This spacing is much better. But now that I have most of this board emptied, I can space the stuff out on it. All right, so I did not get everything done that was on the list, but I got the majority of the stuff done that I wanted to get done, mainly the whole router table situation. I don't know why, but it's always some type of little itty-bitty thing that you keep putting off and keep putting off, and as soon as you do it, it doesn't take long to do it, and you're like, man, I should've done this sooner. So the whole situation of having the bits near the router table, brilliant idea there, right? It's just something I should've done a long time ago. Anyway, I've gotta cut today a little bit short because I just got a text message saying that I've gotta go get the groceries, and the main benefit of that is our orange juice is gonna have pulp in it instead of no pulp orange juice. Big thank you to Rockler Woodworking and Hardware for supporting this video, for sponsoring this video, and I'll have links down in the description you guys can check out to all of the Rockler stuff that I have in here in my shop, my favorite Rockler stuff, including that really nice router table that I have here in my shop. So thanks again, Rockler. If this is your first time here, subscribe so you don't miss the next video. Go to my website to sign up for my email newsletter because I post a lot more stuff on my website than I do on YouTube, and if you haven't seen the last video for the end of 2019 giveaway, be sure to check it out. I'm giving away a Panto router with all the accessories, and I'm also giving the winner the option of picking it up here in my shop and having a day of training on the machine. So we'll spend a day working with the machine, making sure everything's nice and calibrated, showing you how to calibrate it, and then making a couple things with it. So if that's something you're interested in, be sure to enter that giveaway. I'll have a link to it in the description below, and then also in that video, in that giveaway, I stated it was only open to USA residents only, and that's because of government issues with giveaways. However, if the winner simply wants to come here and pick it up, then it doesn't matter where you're from because you are coming here. So if you want to choose option B and pick it up here in person, then I guess it's open worldwide. I guess that's the case. So be sure to check that out. I've really got to go to get groceries. So see you guys later. I'll talk to you in the next video.