Gadgets and Gizmos

[RichlandSawyer]

I was looking through some old woodworking magazines and admiring all the ingenious things people have come up with over the years to make theirs lives and hobbies easier. I was hoping some of you would like to share some of your home brew inventions. I can always use some new ideas.
Here is a couple of mine to start things off.

Richland Sawyer

Tablesaw blade and dado cutter holder




Bar clamp rack




Keeps the glue ready to go, no pounding on the bench




This is a removeble chain hook for the bucket of my tractor

[D Hagens]

Hey Richland Sawyer, if I get a chance I will take a pic of my glue holder, kind of like yours but I chuck the cap.

[pigman]

I like your glue bottle holder. I have to ask, how hard is it to clean off the bench when the cap comes off. I lost my glue bottle cap and just stick a piece of take over the hole.

[D Hagens]

I like your glue bottle holder. I have to ask, how hard is it to clean off the bench when the cap comes off. I lost my glue bottle cap and just stick a piece of take over the hole.

Pigman if you look at his bottle holder, drill a hole the size of the cap on the bottom plate, lower the top support so that when you put the bottle through the hole it sits in the drilled hole. This is the way that I made one of mine and it works great! No mess, no cap and the glue is always at hand and at the right end of the bottle.
The others that I have have no top support, just a back rest that's at an angle.

[Magicman]

How the heck to you find stuff in a neat shop  ???  Errr, I guess if it's neat, maybe you don't loose stuff.   :D

[Radar67]

Last time I saw a neat shop was in High School where we were made to clean up after class every day.

[gary]

I like the saw blade holder. If I can get close to the any of the walls in my garage in the next couple of years I'm going to make one.

[Raider Bill]

I like the saw blade holder. If I can get close to the any of the walls in my garage in the next couple of years I'm going to make one.

I'm about 6 feet from any wall myself. I got to get rid of some of these bikes and bike parts.

[RichlandSawyer]

Here is another time saver. The first time I had to put the bags back on my dust collector after dumping I decided I needed something better. I found the plans for this in wood magazine. The dust and wood chips just fall into the garbage can then I lift the lid and dump the can.

[woodsteach]

Last time I saw a neat shop was in High School where we were made to clean up after class every day.

Yep, our shop looks that good at the school.....but at home.....well that is a different story!  Great looking shop Rich

woodsteach

[SwampDonkey]

This is is one gadget I bought last Christmas that I am not too impressed with.




It's a 3" C-clamp as you can see. Tooltech from China. The screw is fine, but the dang cast isn't threaded to tight enough tolerances. A man should not be able to bust a C-clamp threaded in this size material with his bar hands. My hands ain't that strong.  >:( >:( From now on when shopping for C-clamps give it the wiggle test and if it's loose chuck it back in the bin. Quite honestly, I think China makes this stuff to last just long enough for you to get your $20 of use, like an extension of their shop where your paying by the hour to have someone clamp your material.  >:( >:( >:( Once your purchase breaks in short order, you've had your money's worth. Toss it into the recycling bin and let China do it's magic all over again.  :

[David Freed]

I don't know if you would call this a gadget or machine, but I thought this was pretty neat.

http://www.shopnotes.com/issues/115/extras/milling-machine-patterns-and-setup/

It makes these.  

 I'll show you if I can figure it out.  

[Woodchuck53]

With the new garage now we found that the fall leaves have a place to hang up. I took and cut the spout off of the wife's yard blower and glued in a 1 1/4' pc. of pvc with a male thread glued on. Then glued a female threaded pc. onto a pc. of 10' pvc pipe. From a 6' step ladder I can reach the break in the roof line that holds the leaves. When finished unscrew the 10' pc. and store away.

[scgargoyle]

I'm not sayin' my garage is messy, but if you poured a gallon of water out there, it would be 10 minutes before the first trickle hit the floor.......

I made a simple gadget back when I was building plywood rowboats many moons ago. On a boat, nothing is straight or square; it's all curves and angles. To top it off, the angles change from bow to stern. The problem then becomes how to accurately plane the edges so you can nail a plywood bottom on the boat without gaps a mouse could crawl through. At first, I would lay a straightedge across the surface to check my progress. Then a light bulb went off (a real one, not a CFL. It WAS a long time ago!) I attached the straightedge to the hand power planer! Now I could just walk down one side of the boat and back up the other side with the straightedge laying across the opposite side, leaving a surface that was dead flat across. Building them in batches, I could knock out a 14' skiff, ready for paint, in 6 hours labor.

I've always made up for my lack of skill and talent by making gizmos that take the hard part out of the equation. Different kind of talent, I guess. I have a friend who builds very expensive guitars. I tooled up his whole shop with jigs, fixtures, and machinery to make the job easier and more repeatable. For example, a guitar has a crown across the fingerboard. The standard is about a 7" radius. He had a cutter that would put the crown on, but what do you do after the inlays are glued in? I took a horizontal belt sander and built an overhead attachment to hold the guitar neck. It swings on a pivot, neatly sanding a perfect radius across the fingerboard. It is adjustable for whatever radius you want. Now if only I could come up with a (legal) idea to make money. ;D

[aigheadish]

Digging this post up from the past, as it seems mostly aptly named for my comment. These may have been discussed before and elsewhere but I've got to say this is one of the best things I've ever bought. 

Remote controlled power outlet. 20 bucks for 2 of them and every time I push a button on one, whether it's for heat, dust collection, light, fan, or whatever, I get a little chunk of joy in my heart. I'm currently running 4 in my shop for those things and they are incredibly handy. There appears to be many different brands you can get, this was the first I tried and I've had zero issues with them, and they use the same battery as my garage door opener, so it's easy enough too. 

[doc henderson]

I have 3.  one on a light over my paint booth, one to turn on an air cleaner fan, and one for the exhaust/blower to the engraver/paint booth.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Does the 12" magnet from, HF hanging over my work area with drill buts, chucks and such count?

[aigheadish]

I really love the remote power. I need to think what it makes possible and easy, beyond the shop. 

Magnets totally count! I just got a 6" magnet from HF, supposedly lift 125 lbs or some junk. Mine is just attached to a cabinet so far.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I keep a magnet about the size of a blackboard eraser stuck up over my work area and use it when I drop a can of nails or screws or lose a small drill bit or such. It has an eyelet with about a 3' string on it. 

[Resonator]

I've got a bar magnet kind of like a push broom on wheels. One of the best tools I've bought for cleaning up in the shop or outside. My dad was an electronics repairman and would get old cabinet stereo speakers for free. He'd take them apart, and mount a handle to them for picking up nails and bolts.

[doc henderson]

I have one with a handle and a puck sized bottom and the handle has a trigger to pull up the magnet to release the catch.

[aigheadish]

I've got the magnet broom on wheels from HF, I usually tape paper towel to it so I can release it's catch more easily. I need to run it over my fire pile six or seven thousand times to get the metal out one of these days. 

[Resonator]

Reminds me of back years ago when I was doing a lot of cutting up scrap metal to haul to the junkyard. I'd haul in a load in my old pickup, heavy with cast iron engine blocks, furnace sections, or assorted steel chunks and pieces. They had an old clapped-out excavator with about a 4' wide round magnet mounted on it, that they'd swing over my truck bed. He'd hit the switch, and instantly levitate all the iron out of my truck. A couple times he was a little close, and my back wheels would even get air time. He'd make a stock pile on the ground, and then do a clean up pass. Anything ferrous metal would rise magically from the dirt, nails and bolts sticking in a daisy chain to the magnet in midair. 

[aigheadish]

My dream job!

[GRANITEstateMP]

Austin,

Do you want to use the magnet to unload trucks, or just pick peoples rigs off the ground???

When I worked in racing we would use dzus fasteners to hold in windows and some sheet metal parts that you'd need to take off/apart a lot/quickly.  A flathead screw driver, and a quarter turn and bang they're apart.  When installing them, you'd need to drill 3 holes for the base, one on each side for a rivet to secure it, and the larger center hole for the spring. Anyways, one of the fab guys had a layout gizmo that looked like an aluminum dogbone.  You simply held it where you wanted to put the dutz and drilled through the guide holes, BAM, on center every time!  I'd post a picture, but after spending the last 15min looking for mine, I better try and remember who borrowed it last...