Electronics Workbench

This is the third iteration of my electronics bench. The first was a small shelf in my bedroom. The second was an old sewing machine bench. This iteration uses a custom-made, electric height-adjustable table with two Linak linear actuators. 

Bench space is approximately 1000x700mm. The height adjustment also makes it useful for many other types of work. 

Garden Trellis

A garden trellis is a lattice structure used to support climbing plants as they grow. I recently bought a passionfruit plant, and needed a trellis to grow it on. I was keen on trying to reuse as much scrap material as possible, as it was going into the garden anyway. I also did not want to use the pine lattices available at Bunnings / Masters, as they are made from Copper-Chrome-Arsensate (CCA) treated pine.

Floating Floor

I had two packs of 1.5m^2 Mahogany Floating Floorboards. These are "engineered" floors, which consist of tongue-and-groove boards with a plywood substrate and a 3mm Mahogany veneer. I bought them purely because they were 75% off at Bunnings, thinking that they could potentially make some nice storage boxes.

After being stored for years, I decided that they would make a good floating floor under my bed - it would make it easier to store things there (especially if I got some boxes with wheels). It also would be a good area to store plywood sheets flat - as this minimises amount of warpage compared to when stored upright.

Building a Cajon

A cajon is a simple percussive instrument which resembles an innocuous wooden box. Despite it's simple appearance, it can produce a wide variety of sounds depending on where and how it's hit. An internal snare and a loose tapa (the striking surface) further adds to the variety.

I thought I would put my table saw to a good (and first) use, and try building one!

Magnetic Hooks

Magnetic hooks tend to be rather useful - as a lot of workshop surfaces tend to be metal. 

An easy, but effective one can be made in a few minutes using a spare rare earth magnet from a hard drive. 

These come with a convenient backing plate, so it's a matter of finding a suitably sized screw, and bending it into a hook. 

Jet JPM-13CS Thicknesser

A new addition to the workshop - a Jet JPM 13CS 13" Thicknesser / Moulder.

I put it through a fairly standard reconditioning procedure, which involved:

• Removing all guards and cleaning all accessible surfaces with ethanol / degreaser.
• Removing old lubricant and grime from the guide posts and the lead screwsand flushing the bearing surfaces several times with clean oil. 
• Greasing the leadscrews and oiling the guideposts.  
• Replacing stripped fasteners.
• Setting of cutterhead and roller heights. 
• Setting the drive belt tension.

It is interesting the types of problems that you find in the process... but the final result was worthwhile - a clean quiet machine, that produces a smooth planed surface, and makes less noise than the dust extractor! 

Doweling Jig

I needed a jig to help my drill 8mm holes in the ends of hardwood boards for my Outdoor Table. These holes needed to be accurately spaced, otherwise assembly would be difficult if not impossible. 

I started with a piece of 80x20mm mystery steel bar. (It later turned out to be a really fairly hard tool steel!) The bar was milled on all sides to 70x18x22mm.