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Parts Organiser: Have egg cartons or muffin baking trays hold
small parts during equipment overhaul. Number each well and place parts in
order as related to each step of the disassembly. Follow the reverse number
order when reassembling. Larger parts holders can be made by joining
frozen-dinner trays. Some of the largest trays already have dividers.
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Longer Label and Sign Life: Use clear packing tape to
protect small labels and signs. Invariably they will get dirty from
handling or simply from the atmosphere in the shop due to floating
dust and debris. Clean each label you wish to protect and the surface
to which it will adhere before covering with the clear tape. Trim
near the tape edges with a straight edge and a razor knife so as
to present a finished, professional look.
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Glue Mixer: Make usage of old, plastic food container
lids to mix small quantities of glue. Plastic blister-pack or frozen
dinner trays will work, too. Use a technician's wooden applicator to
mix the glue, and a thick toothpick to apply to the smallest areas.
Send waste glue and mixer containers to hazardous materials collection.
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Solder Dispenser: A dental floss container can hold
a small coil of solder to protect it and be handy on the road. Make
each winding of solder be on top of the previous and small enough to
fit inside the container. Bring the end out the dispenser opening,
enlarging the latter to fit the solder's diameter. Remove the dental
floss cutter blade so as to prevent skin damage. Such containers are
much easier to find inside a tool kit; plus, their snap tops make for
easy refilling.
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Holders for Small Tools: Some tools don't fit typical
holders, so employ bench-top, or preferably wall-mounted, toothbrush
units. As necessary, enlarge the openings by drilling them out, or
reduce them by gluing washers in place. For a pegboard hardware mounts,
wind the metal coil smaller so the tool will not slip through. Hold the
coil base with one pair of pliers while reducing the coil diameter
with a second pair so as to not break the weld joint.
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Reuse Locking Bags: Do you bring sandwiches to work?
If they are in resealable bags, take these used ones, turn them
inside out and rinse; when dry, return them right side out and
fill with small parts. Label the outside and file them away.
Sandwich bags are often more robust than is required for food,
so they are very suitable to hold small parts.
(See "Parts Bags" and "Filing the Clutter" at
Decluttering Your Shop)
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Duplicate Supplies: If you find yourself frequently
going to other parts of your shop to get service items such
as adhesive tape, cleaners and polishes, spray lubricants, and
so on, save those steps by having supplies duplicated wherever
they are needed. If this seems expensive, realise that you won't
go through these supplies any faster because you will use only one
at a time, any way.
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Miniature Oil Can: Employ eye drop bottles as precision
oilers. Spray dispensers often splatter because they have too much
pressure. For more viscous oils, enlarge the tip's opening with
a pin. A light squeeze will deploy only a single drop of lubricant
to just the right place.
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Prevent Blade Damage: Slit pieces of old garden hose
to use as blade guards for saws, files and knives in a tool kit.
Secure to the blade with twist ties or short lengths of cordage.
(See our AIEL Cordage Guide.)
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Accumulate Tasks: As one works, there will be things that
must be put elsewhere. Instead of taking time to do each individually,
as you go past on the way to do other things, drop like items off at the
entrance to the area where they will be placed or stored. Once finished
your work, go to each area and do all its tasks in the same session. To
facilitate this, set up a `drop' area or counter that will temporarily
hold these items until you come by to resolve them.
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Restore Hook & Loop Material's Grip:
When hook & loop (Velcro) loses its holding power the hook part of the
fastener has likely become clogged. Typically this happens with hair, and/or
carpet and clothing fibres. Remove the clog with a soft-bristle wire brush,
haemostats, or use a vacuum cleaner employing only the wand's tube part with
no attachment. You may have to rub or pull at the clog from more than one
direction in order to completely clear it. Check the `loop' side of the
fastener in case it too has some cloggage.
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Replacement Handle Grips: Rubber garden hose lengths
can also make reasonable replacements for worn or broken grips on
road case handles. They will cushion just as well. Note that vinyl
hose will not work as well for this purpose; because it is not as
flexible, it will tend to split sooner, and be less comfortable
to the hands.
If the worn handle grip can not be removed, simply slip the correct-length
piece of hose over it and reassemble. Otherwise, slit the hose and
wrap it around the grip; then glue the slit back together. Don't use
tape because its adhesive will eventually gum the handle grip.
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Date Tagging: Knowing how long expendables last helps
when deciding what level of quality versus price to go with. Take
a sharp-tip felt marker and write a date on your batteries. Then you
will know if the expensive batteries cost less per time period than
multiple cheap ones. (They usually do.)
For lamps, write the date on a strip of white electrical tape and
stick it to the inside vertical surface of the yoke on each light.
Use a permanent marker to write right on the back of PAR lamps. You
will know at the next lamp change if the fixture might be causing
premature lamp burn outs, and can pull it out of service for repair
or socket replacement.
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Old Dish Washing Scrubbers: Dish washing wands with
pads can be still useful. When too worn for dishes, but still with
a covering of pad left, use it to texture paint on a theatrical set.
For a pad that is completely worn, clean off any remaining material
and glue sandpaper or a sanding sponge piece to it. This sanding
wand can now be used for small items that are too difficult to
work with fingers alone.
You can also use the clean wand as a plastic scraper where a metal
one would be too aggressive to the surface being scraped. You may
wish to sharpen the scraping edge to provide a better blade.
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Oil Station: Have a plastic dish pan that is leaking due
to a split? Buy a new one, but use the old one for an oil station.
Epoxy the split to prevent it getting worse, or weld the plastic with
a flat attachment for your soldering gun.
Take an old towel and cut a square or rectangle from it that will
cover the bottom of the pan and a few centimetres up the sides. Now
when you have small hardware parts to lubricate or protect, use a
spray dispenser of light oil over, or even inside, your new oil station.
Overspray will be kept inside the pan. Turn the parts to assure full
coverage and leave them there to drip off the excess. If you need only
to wipe a part, the bottom towel will always have oil in it for that
purpose.
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Easy Tape Dispensing: Before putting adhesive tape away,
fold over a small amount of the leading edge so as to make a tab. This
identifies the start of the tape, and it gives you a strip to grab
when first pulling tape off the roll.
If you don't like the chore to make a tab, or the wasting of tape,
one could use the plastic closures for bread bags. Stick it to
the start of the roll. The next time you use that tape, you will be
able to immediately find the cut edge, and it will be a snap to pull
off that first length.
Choose closures that are flexible; the stiff ones often fall off the
tape or break in transit, or even just when putting the roll away.
Keep a supply of closures inside a small, snap-lid container and store
that container right with your tape supplies.
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Easier Tape Dispensing: An alternative to the adhesive
tape suggestion just given is to buy one or more weighted dispensers
from a stationery or industrial supplier that hold on the same unit
two or three rolls, or one or two wide rolls. Buy one for each location
where tape is dispensed.
The expense of these dispensers can be justified by the non-wastage of
tape, by the elimination of plastic closures and the time-wastage
associated with closure fumbling. In addition, is the ease whereby
one can get just the right length of tape when it's needed, and by not
tying up both hands as happens when one has to hold the roll and do
the cutting.
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Spray Can Nozzle Extension Fix: If this no longer wants to
go into the nozzle head and/or won't stay there, cut a small bit off the
tube's end and reinsert. Be sure the cut is square, and that you've left
no burrs on the plastic. This is so the extension tube will seat properly.
Should this still not hold, replace the nozzle head and try again.
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