Revenge of the shop nerds. - or how to trick out your shop vac!

 Friends are the spice of life, right? 

My buddy Rick is a designer, computer whiz, woodworker, inventor, and one of the nerdiest guys that I know. I say that with a ton of love and respect for him! 

 The other day, he decided to paint and trick out his shop vac, turning it into a droid. Because.... why not? 

Like I said - NERD!

He has so many tools and tricks up his sleeve, but he relied mostly on his 3D printer. And his creativity.

He painted the body of the vacuum with a shellac primer, ordering a couple colors of paint from Home Depot.  

To make it look like a droid, he designed some buttons and lights -  here are some of the prototype parts he printed. 

He even curved the backs of them, to fit on the rounded body of the vac.

He dug out some semi transparent filament for the buttons and the lights, to make it look more realistic. While he was printing the light panels, he started thinking about the arms, and designed them to hold the end of the hose. The other one will hold the bag of accessories so it’s all together. (Smart design, I love it!)

These arms have fake screws and fake wires. 

Again - they are curved on the back for the round body and the yellow pipe can be a hook or hold the end of the hose.

This rendering is what it would look like, according to his design.

Hot off the press - these four button/LED plates just finished printing. 

He thought of everything, including printing a bunch of multi color semi translucent buttons and lights for the droid. 

This is crazy-fun!

Next - he turned his attention to the exhaust ports.  Fake vents with fake screws? No problem!

Here's the vac after two coats of primer and two coats of paint. Next is the black banding around the middle

He masked off the area, and sprayed the band black. 

Gluing the semi-translucent buttons and lights on the panels was a challenge. Superglue for the win! He told me this was all PETG filament for these parts,  btw.

(Whatever that means!)

A real challenge was clamping everything while the glue did its magic. 

Good thing he has a ton of these clamps.

He attached the feet and started applying some detail items. Clamping the robot name plate on.

He decided to do a 30mm atomic rocket ship inlay - all 3D printed, no paint. His 3D printer holds numerous spools of various colored filaments, so he can print things, integrating the colors. 

Here's one of the “arms” of the robot.

Btw the text on the logo means “AIR!” In an droid font. (Who the hell knew there was a droid font?!?)

A little robotic grip to hold the bag of accessories for the arm

This is genius - he put a pool sock on the filter, so he doesn't have to constantly buy new filters. I'm totally buying some of these socks the next time I buy a new filter - I hate beating on my filter to coax a little more life out of it. 

 He also figured out how to make the superglue work more quickly, by using a spray activator on the glue.  That meant he didn't need to use tape or clamps to hold everything.

And finally...  

I'm not sure when he snuck the wiggly eyes on it, but it's a cool effect.

I constantly tell him that he should advertise, telling people about some of his services - like 3D printing. He has a big laser and a CNC - and I have used him a few times for help with some of my projects. 

So - if you need a little boost for something you're working on, let me know and I'll connect you with him!

The future of reclaimed lumber?

 Seems like every week, I get an email or a call from someone asking me to build something out of reclaimed lumber. That's always dicey, as the chance for finding nails or screws in the wood is a real concern.  

Finding bullets in boards is pretty common, too. Most people don't think about that, but shooters often attach targets to trees, and aim at them. So trees can be riddled with bullets, which make their way to lumber mills, which end up on your workbench. Running a board through my planer - and discovering a piece of metal embedded in it can be a nightmare. Blades are expensive, and the downtime for replacing the blades is a real concern. 

My buddy Eric sent this video, and I was fascinated to see that someone has come up with a machine that will inspect a board for metal, and then remove it. After it is removed, the machine then x-rays the board to ensure there's nothing left!

How does this all get accomplished? That's even more interesting - the metal fragments are targeted with induction heat, thus charring the wood around the screw or nail. This makes it easier to pull out the metal culprit. Brilliant!

This ten-minute video is worth a look!

Finishing up the Porter Cable 690 router repair

The router parts finally arrived - the two new bearings and a new set of brushes. 

Installing the larger bearing was simple.

 It slipped very nicely in place, and I re-installed the snap ring that holds it in place. 

But then I turned to the armature, where the smaller bearing was to be installed. 

It was a super tight fit, and I had to grease it, in order for it to slide on.

 I slipped a socket over the top of it, so that even pressure was applied when I tapped it into place.  

The armature fit nicely back in the body, 

and this nut holds everything in place. It's a 1" nut, and I tightened it down with an impact driver, all while holding the armature on the other end with a rag. 

There are a lot of sharp fan blades on the other end of the armature, so the rag is definitely needed!

Finally - I put the top cap in place, making sure that all of the wiring was pushed away from moving parts, and that nothing would bind. 

 Last thing to replace were the two brushes - and WOW - those were a PAIN to install. My hands are pretty small, but even so - my fingers got in the way of holding down the brush spring, all while slipping the top plastic cap in place. 

Seriously - it took longer to install the two brushes than the whole time it did to replace the bearings. There must be a trick to it that I was missing. 

But finally - the router was buttoned up, plugged in and working fine. 

 If you ever see one of these (Porter-Cable 690 series router) at a garage sale or flea market, I highly recommend that you snap it up! They are out of production and when they're gone, you'll be out of luck! Just the fact that they made two differently sized collets for it, as well as a fixed and plunge base makes this one of the most versatile routers out available.