Homemade Plywood

Griffin started with free strips of thin wood from Home Depot. These are used as spacers in large stacks of lumber and would have been thrown away. He took three of these strips and coated them with glue. He stacked the three strips of wood and used clamps to hold them together until the glue dried. Maybe he should have used wood glue, but for this project white glue worked OK. It took a few days for the glue to dry because it was raining. After the glue dried, he sawed it with the scroll saw so that you can see the layers. Then he sanded it and added furniture polish so the wood grain shows up well.

Homemade Dust Collector

I saw many dust collectors like this on Youtube and decided to make a smaller version for myself.
Most of the ones on Youtube use a 5 gallon bucket. I used a large plastic container for the external dust collection tank that is about 2 gallons with a 1 gallon shopvac.

I cut the hose from the shopvac and spliced it into my dust collection system. If I had more hose, I could add a 2nd stage.  The shopvac by itself worked fine, but had a smaller capacity and was harder to empty. I used a bungee cord to hold the container under the workbench.

The dust gets trapped in my bucket because of cyclonic filtration. The angle of the tube inside the bucket along with the placement of the exhaust tube to the shopvac creates a cyclone.

Most of the dust is from the scrollsaw. When I'm cutting MDF, the dust is finer than when I cut plywood, particle board, or real wood.  The dust collector uses more power than the saw itself.

12-volt automotive outlet

After taking apart the device this AC adapter was from, I decided to use the AC adapter in another project.  I first tried to with my rotary tool but the connector didn't fit well. Now I'm using it to power stuff meant to be used in a car, such as a phone charger. One problem with this AC adapter is that it uses the same input connector as my camera and I left the other cord that goes with it in my workshop. It's the highest amperage 12 volt AC adapter I own. It's 5 amps and most of the others are 1 amp.

 

 

Homemade Flashlight

I took apart an old solar garden light because the battery was dead. I used the solar panel to make a solar annoying device. I used the driver board (which I did not take a photo of) to make a homemade flashlight. First, I coated it in hot glue so the wires wouldn't break off. The board had a resistor, an led, and a 4-lead component I could not identify, along with the wires. I used masking tape, aluminum foil, and then mounted it in a case. The case is part of the plastic from a battery backup for a piece of network equipment. I cut the section of plastic with my scroll saw. My flashlight works best with a D battery, but could work with other sizes if I modified the case. I tried "orange size" hearing aid batteries and it worked, but not for very long. It does not have a switch. You have to take the battery out to turn it off.