Innovation in the workshop is the cornerstone of many shops, I have seen woodworkers come up with and are still coming up with the most amazing ideas for tools and handy items in the shop
Here are some of the ideas I use in my own shop that might help give others more ideas ...
My poor old drill press finally gave up a few weeks ago after 30+ years, so I replaced it with something similar but with a bit wider speed range ... what I LOST was a drill press table or deck as it is sometimes called, that was larger. The new drill press has a slightly small table (which is annoying) so I solved this by adding on a thin, 10 Gauge steel sheet over top the existing deck, secured it with flat top bolts so I could keep the new top absolutely flat and now I have a much wider deck that gives me more options to place my magnet fences for my Magswitch, adjustable fences.
I have a small collection of 7-1/4 circular saw blades that I use on my table saw for a variety of "specialty cuts", like cutting metal, the thin cross cutting or ripping of different wood projects. I love the think kerf of these blade they are perfect of making wood "banding" projects.
As you can see in the video, I discovered several months ago that the small padded plastic shipping envelops make a perfect storage sleeve for this blades, it helps protect the carbide from touch the steel top of the table saw, which can allow the carbide to chip or break off. Carbide is very brittle and when bumped against steel, it can be enough to chip or break the carbide, particularly when hitting the sides of the blades.
Another shop shortcut I learned well over 30 years ago is that angle aluminum bar, can be used for making "shop made" drawer and door pulls. I can be easily painted or polished so there are lots of options. It's strong, comes in many sizes and can be used in may different ways.
Below is an example of black painted aluminum that I used as drawer pulls on my "temporary" tool holding cabinet.
Last for this segment, a shortcut I learned from Jim (thanks Jim, I use this all the time now) is using a leaf blower to blow out the dust from the filters of my shop vacuums and dust collector as shown in the video. It's quick, handy and does a great job where my poor 2 gallon air compressor always ran out of steam trying to do this job.
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Colin Knecht
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