Removing Rust From Hand Tools

I was working on a project cutting quite a bit of plywood and I came to realize my circular saw had achieved the status of powered splinter maker, it was time for a new blade. My circular saw, like most, has a blade wrench tucked away in the shoe. When I went to remove the wrench, it offered quite a bit of resistance, more than was expected. I soon discovered my blade wrench had suffered a respectable case of oxidation, nothing that would ruin it, just enough to cause it to really stick in it's little holster. Well, I had been holding on to a chisel I had been using on the same project that had also rusted a bit, again, not unusable, just rusty. Time to clean.  I could use the old wire brush and a lot of elbow grease, but did I tell you I was in the middle of another project? Let's do a soak.

Flexy Slinky-Action Extension Cord

I was curious when I saw this product on a web advertisement and when asked, the nice people at Philatron were kind enough to send me a sample. A springy "slinky" extension cord that coils up nice and neat when not in use....gimmicky?  Let's check it out and see.

Simple Sturdy Garage Storage Shelf

The first part of making your garage into a usable workshop is making space to work. An easy and affordable way to do this is by using store bought storage totes for organization and building a heavy duty shelf to store those on.  I purchased a bulk pack of totes so I would have a uniform look and matching totes would also help maximize my storage with a uniform size.  You could always use mismatched totes, no big deal, just measure all the different totes and use the largest measurement in any dimension when sizing your shelves.

Poor Man's Mach3 Pendant

Now it's perfectly OK to use the keyboard and mouse to control and zero your X, Y and Z axis at the first of a job, but it's not always convenient.  Most CNC setups I have seen have an easy to use hand-held controller called a pendant.  Some DIY pendants use video game joysticks that don't look very professional, cost money if you don't have one laying around and take some extra effort to setup with lightly documented unsupported software packages. Buying a professional 3rd party pendant is definitely an option, there are some very nice options out there but I couldn't justify spending $100, $200 or even $500 for a premium pendant, not for my needs.