Hades Over My Shoulder

 Last time I told you that I was keeping busy playing with my nuts...and bolts and all kinds of other hardware that needed to be sorted. I got a lot done with that and decided it was time to start making the storage system for the trays themselves. I had a few ideas and saw a few on pinterest and youtube but nothing was jumping out at me and saying "build this style." Finally I just looked around my shop area to see what would actually work. I have this weird file cabinet that was actually the donor for the roll up door on the tool box hutch. I only keep it around because its a nice little rolling work area. A lot of stupid little projects are done on this thing when all the other flat surfaces are covered in crap.

 I decided to harvest the running gear and scrap the thing. My new cabinet could be built to replace it and also hold the trays.
 To get started with the build I would need to get a 4 x 8 sheet of 5/8 particle board up onto a pair of four foot high saw bucks. Sounds simple enough but if you have to do it without damaging any corners on tender particle board then its a bit more of a challenge. If it were even a pound heavier I wouldn't have been able to muscle it up there, at least not without a backache.

 I got to use Grandpas table saw for a few cuts so thats bonus. The rest of the semi completed project can be found on the video. Oh, the little paper mache puppet is something one of my daughters made a few decades ago. I had to contact her and ask who it was supposed to be. My wife thought Zeus but its his brother Hades. I'm just glad it wasn't supposed to be me. He's been sitting right about in that same spot all these years and I had forgotten about him until he showed up over my shoulder. I picked the phone up to take a pic, it was in selfie mode, and there he was.
 Check out the video:

Later.

Keeping Busy

 I don't have a job thats critical to the welfare of people during this threat of the covid-19 virus so I'm laid off and doing my part not to make the situation worse. The governor has asked us in Wisconsin to stay home for a month. A lot of us get stir crazy after spending a whole weekend at home so I'm not sure how this is gonna pan out. Anyway, with a month of time on my hands I figure my garage and shop better be clean and organized by the time we get to the other side. Theres really no excuse not to get some of this around the house stuff done although I must admit that I'm pacing myself.

 I might have mentioned that every time I go to Harbor Freight and have a coupon for them, I pick up some of these storage totes.

 The picture isn't accurate because some of those totes ended up in the upper tool cabinet at work but then after that I bought some more. I think I have 12 smalls and 3 large here at home. The last couple days I've been gathering small items from around the shop and filling these up.

 Eventually when I get through everything it will be so nice to go to one place to look for something. I found a lot of stuff I kinda knew I had but could never find when needed. An example would be pop-rivets. I found them in three different locations so depending on what size I needed and what pile I stumbled across first, I may have thought I didn't have the size I needed even though they were cleverly hidden in the bottom of a box of plumbing parts that was jammed behind a chainsaw case. The weird part is that as soon as I saw them I remembered how they got there. I guess the old mental filing cabinet is getting rusty because there was a time when I could set something down in my garage and remember its location for a long time as long as nobody messed with it.

 The best two bucks I ever spent at Harbor Freight my have been on this parts funnel. It was an impulse buy and sat unused for months. 

   If you run into a project like this where you have to do a lot of sorting I highly recommend getting something like this. Actually you should make one from crap sitting around the house. You'd think I'd be a little pissed for not making one myself but it works so good that I'm ok with the $2 investment.
 Part of organizing is knowing which pieces belong in file 13. Now at one time I had a rule that if something sat around for more than a year I would let it sit one more year and then throw it out next time it got in the way. Theres a lot of fudge factor built into that rule that allows me to interpret if something is actually "in the way." Take this box of hardware for example.

 Thats all good stuff in there. No reason to throw it out, I'll just sort it, at least thats what I first thought. That pic isn't upside down and this wasn't some anti-gravity trick. Something got in there. Something with glue-like characteristics and sealed that whole mess into one glob of unusable scrap.
 If I stumble across that box of scrap next year I'll certainly consider throwing it out. Wish me luck in my cleaning adventures.

Later.

The Rat Turd

 In an effort to practice social distancing I decided to stay home Saturday and dink around in the house. It was 20 degrees when I woke up so going for an actual bike ride was never on my radar. Ya it got warmer later on but I didn't have any of the bikes prepped yet so I just stayed home dreaming about a bike ride.
 The video is about the bike I call The Rat Turd. Its a 1984 Kawasaki KZ550ltd that has been lightly modified. In the video I describe the crest on the back fender. I forgot to add that the shape and outline color of the crest represent the US interstate symbol, Anyway, here ya go:

Later.

Tool Box Transformation

 I was thinking about what the next phase of my work toolbox might involve and that got me thinking about where it started.

 The following two pics are of "the train" as it was called by coworkers. The two stacks are each 42" wide along with a 16" locker making it 100" long total. These are 18" deep series one boxes and as you already know the hutch with roll up door is something I built myself. Including an electronic locking mechanism solved the problem of having to carry keys for unlocking the treasures within. The second pic shows the computer drawer I also made.

 The size of the box was borderline and what I really wanted was deeper drawers. When coworkers offered to purchase the individual boxes of the train, I decided it was time to upgrade to a 72" roll cab.

 I didn't sell the hutch and that was quickly set on top of the 72. At this point I was worse off from a cubic inch standpoint than before the new box purchase. Not a problem, I had a plan. When the 72 incher went on sale a week or two after my purchase of it, I went in to Harbor Freight with my receipt and the amount they refunded me was the same price as the 26" top chest. 

 Of course I needed a locker. Yes I sold one off the train but that one was not the same 22" depth as these series two boxes.

 I didn't like the way the tops of the boxes lined up in the above pic so put a lift kit on the 26 in the form of a slide out work surface. BTW, that slide out surface is working out great and I use it every day.

 I converted the deep drawer of the 72 into a "power drawer"in an effort to keep from cluttering up the hutch with more wires and chargers. It too is working out great.

 I wanted to incorporate a mini fridge into the new rig and decided bolting it on top of the locker would make me happy. 

 It didn't make me happy. At the time of the fridge addition I thought it just wouldn't matter if it looked a bit unsymmetrical but it really looked like ass sitting up there. I had some other storage issues including clothing taking up a big drawer and a printer in the hutch that was taking up valuable space. The obvious answer to me was an upper cabinet. This was a really fun build for me and in this pic its still not complete.

 Reaching all the way to the top of the upper cabinet was a challenge so I added a permanent step in the form of a truck running board. At first glance it looks a bit odd or out of place but this step is wonderful. Because I use this "work center" kinda like an office, I sit in front of the slide out table, put my feet on the running board and work on the computer. It works well for me. Oh, because I know some are thinking it, that running board will hold two grown ass men without issue.

 A fun detail was making this coat rack from some old Craftsman nut drivers.

 The five pieces stand 88" high and are the same length. I obviously have much more storage area than I did with "the train" even though I have a 12" shorter foot print. That 100" length fit ok in this space so I made a plan to stretch this box that extra foot, which ended up being 20".

 At first my plan was to use this locker as a side locker to the 72" box. While working on the design I came up with the idea to add a slide out panel along side this locker. The "gearhead on a budget" inside me really wanted to make this work but eventually I realized that what I really wanted were multiple panels and no locker at all. Enter the triple rack.

 The triple rack is 3 two sided panels and one solo panel on the back of a pocket door. The hutch was fun to build and challenged me with its roll up door and electronic lock. The upper cabinet was pretty straight forward and went fast. This side locker with pull out panels and pocket door wasn't difficult to build but required a lot of planning. By far it was more involved with all its slides, wood working, and that pocket door. The payoff is getting rid of layers of stacked tools in the main box and also having a place to hang some odd shaped tools. Its nice to secure tools that would normally hang on a wall for everyone to "borrow".

 Whats next? This tool box will not get any longer. There is space on top of the triple rack for another project but there isn't a plan in place for it yet. I do have a bunch of micro project improvements I still want to make and honestly I never finished the upper cabinet. Stay tuned for updates.

Later.

3/4" Socket Rack

 When I started thinking about what tools were going to hang on the triple rack, I knew I'd have extra space in the 72" box for some of the tools I had taken home. My 3/4" socket set was one of those tools. Its a cheap set from probably 30 years ago but has saved my butt a few times and I haven't broken a socket yet but I did replace the ratchet after it broke under the persuasion of a long cheater bar. You'll get that.
 The metal box this set came in is pretty durable but moving the whole set at once is clumsy. Grabbing the size I think I need and one socket on each side of it (just in case) will work out just fine. By this I mean I'm gonna put the sockets in a rack in the big drawer of the 72 with the rest of the socket sets. This will require a socket rail or rack and when I went online to investigate for such a device what I was seeing were fairly high priced racks with the wrong number of pegs for my set. I decided to make one.
 I had some wood left over from the triple rack project but did have to buy $3 worth of wooden dowel. That didn't break the bank and certainly falls within the guidelines of "gearhead on a budget".
 First I had to cut the wood to width and then lay the sockets on it for spacing.

 Once I knew where the pegs would go I got to use my forstner bits again. I should have bought these years ago.

 For the pegs I decided to put an angle on the top so I could label them and easily see those labels. After the angles were cut on the compound miter saw, I used Grandpas table saw to cut them to length.

A little sanding...

 Here is what the rack will look like before paint.

 It turned out pretty good from a visual standpoint but once I tried to put the sockets on I found I had a problem. They fit good before the dowels were painted but now many of them required multiple f-bombs to be removed. I ended up sanding all the dowels down till the sockets slid on with ease.
 Its all in the video:

Later.

Weird Friday Night

 Those of you that regularly follow this blog know that on Sundays I've been posting videos. Those videos are hosted on youtube and that has drawn me in to watching other youtube videos. Mostly I follow the tool head/mechanics type of channels. I suppose thats because I share the same interests as those folks and also because those are the same type of videos I'm posting.

 The other day I was eased back in my recliner enjoying some youtube vids when something odd happened. It was the end of a long day, I had a big meal for dinner and a few brewskies in my belly and if things went as they usually do, I'd be taking a pre-nighty night nappy poo pretty soon. I guess I was half asleep because my eyes were closed but I must have been just awake enough to be picking up audio because I heard someone say in a loud voice, "Who's this Scott Seidl"?

 Huh? What the heck? Who said that? I looked around the room and realized I was very much alone and decided I must have been dreaming when I glanced at the screen and realized this dude on my laptop was talking about me. At this point I wasn't sure if I was awake or not. The dude was CP the tool addict and he was doing a live chat. Apparently the topic was tool boxes and another tuber that I follow, Bearded Seabee82,  had posted a link to one of my videos. It was a weird way to be brought out of a nap and I have to wonder what else I missed.
 If tool videos interest you then these two guys are worth checking out. I admit to not following them for very long so I'm not sure what else they may be into.

 As far as my youtube channel is concerned, its just there to host my videos for the blog. At this point I'm making no attempts to build that channel but if it did ever have a large following I might be inclined to take advantage of that. I don't foresee that happening and am enjoying making the videos just for fun. Besides, those guys work hard on their channels and they take up a lot of time. I'm not sure if I'd want to go down that road.

 As for this blog, I kinda like this hybrid system I have going on. Its nice to make a video and then back it up with pics and details in the blog. Ya maybe it gets lengthy at times but sometimes I need to ramble a little to get all the details out there. Take the sentence you're reading right now. It had no purpose and neither does this one so I'll end this nonsense right now.

Later.

Another Triple Rack Update

 I know, you're asking why I keep talking about this damn triple rack thing and that tool box. The answer is because thats what I've been working on and the bottom line is that this blog is about what I'm up to. When I start another project we'll talk about that till you want to puke.
 In todays video I show you that I've cleaned the hutch. I have an office at the shop that I've pretty much walked away from except for a large filing cabinet. All my office type activities happen at my tool box now that its morphed into more of a work center. This time of year when spring landscape proposals are going out and people are signing up for fert and squirt apps is pretty busy for me as far as office type activities go and the "work center" has been an acceptable compromise.
 In the video you'll see I've started hanging hammers and pry bars. Here is the first hammer holder I cut.

 Each of those lines represent a stage in the thought process of how I wanted to make these holders. In the end they turned out way less complicated than the above pic would suggest.

 I also will show you progress on the hex bit holders. I've been using this part of the triple rack all week and am very happy with how it has turned out. Blow-molded cases blow and not having to deal with them speeds things up. As I age, my eyesight has been getting worse. I plan to put some type of labels on the front of the bit holders to help speed up the discovery process. Other than that, this section probably won't get any other improvements.
 By the way, I do own more than one shirt. This just happens to be my go-to shirt this winter and its always clean when I get dressed on Saturdays.
 Check it out:

Later.

Workshop Wednesday-Shop Life

  And now for something completely different. When I was trying to decide what to blog about for today I ran across a bunch of pics in my phone of random shop life. When I started to caption them I musta had some jams in my head and found myself using song lyrics, so lets have some fun. Try to guess the song that goes with each caption. Hint: I'm old and the songs I know lyrics to are also old. Hint two: If it ain't classic rock, it ain't shit. Be the first to guess them all and get bupkis.

Turn on, I see red
Adrenaline crash and crack my head.
Nitro junkie paint me dead.

Well every time I move, every step I make
You know I just can't seem to take, the right direction.

Nothing wrong with me, somethings got to give.

History shows again and again, how nature points out the folly of man.

Got to be a joker he just do what he please.

I killed a man on the Mexican border.

I was sitting in this coffee shop just minding my own affair, when all of the sudden this policeman caught me unaware.

Theres a bad man cruising around in a big black limosine. Don't let it be wrong, don't let it be right, Get in his way you're dead in his sights.

You can call it another lonely day.

If you get lonely on your daddys farm just remember I don't live too far

Listen kid you paid for the call. You ain't bad but we heard it all before.

 Did you get em all?

Later.

Another Boring Post

 Yes I'm talking about the triple rack again but the boring I'm referring to was boring two hundred holes for hex bit holders. Maybe this blog can be a yawn fest at times but I enjoy creating it so lets move on.
 I finished moving my Blue Point socket set out of its blow molded case and onto a triple rack panel. I suspect I'll get asked about the labels I used so heres a link to their site. I got them on Amazon. I'm sure they will stick better to a smooth piece of metal rather than a rough piece of wood. I'm wondering if I should just shoot some clear over them now instead of waiting to see how long they stay put.

 Another panel making progress is the T-handle panel.

 Nice easy access to these tools will be much enjoyed. I just hated unstacking these things every time I needed one. 

 Clamping a "fence" to the drill press table allowed me to keep all the holes in a nice straight line. That fence was also the test mule for checking the various depths of holes I'd need for different style bits. The spacing was all on me and turned out ok.

 Check it out:

Later.