Cheap Plans

While I was in Bunnings, I found some plans for an outdoor Garden Bench on their sales table.  Originally $9.95, they were marked down to $1.

Not sure if I’ll every get around to making it, but for the sake of some pocket change it was a no-brainer.

Airborne Dust

I’ve been rather indecisive about this for a long time, and as mentioned in a video earlier in the year it is about time I got a bit more serious about safety (without buying a inflatable plastic ball to live in).

One thing that I have long just accepted is air cleanliness, and have (on occasion) worn breathing apparatus, or had a fan blowing past me in the general direction of the door, or just done the work then walked out of the dust cloud for a breath.  It’s amazing what we just accept for ourselves that you’d never dream of putting up within a workplace (and I’m not referring to workshop type workplaces here – if it was an office, the inhabitants would have run screaming a long time ago).

As the shed is undergoing the upgrade, I’m trying to do things just a little bit better this time around.

I was really unsure if I wanted to justify spending money on air filtration.  I’ve always disliked the bad night’s sleep after a big workshop session (let alone all the black snot that is blocking the nose afterwards)  So I have to ask myself – why am I using the last line of defence for my lungs as my only line of defence?

I looked at the price of different systems – the Carbatec branded one, the Jet one from Woodworking Warehouse, and the Microclene one that a couple of visitors have recently pointed out that I had forgotten about, and they were all money to put it simply.

I then thought what I really wanted to do was replace the air in the shop 6 – 10 times an hour.  There is no point sucking good air in from outside – that would only dilute the dust but not be rid of it.  But what if I vented the shed to the outside?  That would suck clean air in all the various openings, and blow the dusty air out.  Good – so now all I need is a good fan (or two).  Off to Bunnings – these fans can’t be all that expensive?

Hmm – what overpriced pieces of …very ordinary stuff.  Boy do people get ripped off.  You can’t use a ceiling fan in a wall – the bearings will give out (and remember I’m planning on sucking dusty air through, so there would be a double insult on the bearings).  Wall mounted fans – a little one, like 150mm and they were asking upwards to, and over $100.   To get one with a good airflow was double that.

So I could have saved a few bob and made a box with a filter or two, and mounted a ceiling fan in it and gone that way, but no – I decided that the compromise that I always find myself doing just doesn’t ever leave me really happy with the solution, and for a bit more, I could have the real thing.

So that’s what I did.  Off to Carbatec, and I’ve bought a CTF-1000 air filtration unit.  You just can’t always compromise, and here is the right unit for my shed.  It will filter the air in the shed greater than 12 times/hour depending on what setting I put it on.  I’ll take a photo of it when I’ve gotten it installed, but for an initial view, this is from the Carbatec website:

At some stage I will reinvestigate the dust extraction itself, but first I want to install the trunking for it to my current (1HP) unit and see how it performs before deciding if I need to upgrade to 2HP.  It is located in the second shed, so any dust that escapes (and dust always does from these things) doesn’t fill my workshop.

Today or Tomorrow

Sorry, no this isn’t one of those profound posts about not doing something today that can be put off until tomorrow.

It is simply – is Stu’s Shed going to have it’s 100,000th visitor today, or tomorrow?

To qualify it a little, I only count actual visitors, not page loads. Nor do I count search engine bots or other false site hits.  As best as I can figure it, these are as legitimate figures as I can get.

In any event, it is a very cool milestone that I was hoping to hit before the site turned 1, which is in 17 days time 🙂

Northwood Premium ZH-1024 Rip Blade Review

The next review from the “Battle of the Blades”. The Northwood Premium ZH-1024  24 tooth ripping blade