Monday, April 11, 2016

shadow box

I think I messed up my shock cross bar.  I will talk more about that later, but for now I will just mention that fabricating without solid models and fixtures means everything is a delicate dance of what precise order I have to make things.  Sometimes I judge wrong.  Fortunately the materials to fab this setup cost less than 1/10 of what buying finished items for, so it just comes down to wasted time.

When I hit a setback it feels too easy to not go out there for a while.  I usually do pretty good at powering through, but this time I let a few weeks slide by.

I busted out of the slump by cleaning up the whole garage which was overdue.  It feels much better to be out there now.  In particular, I have a sort of station next to the drill press where I tend to layout holes a lot.  I wanted to mount some tools on the wall.  Slatwall and pegboard are the common solutions there.  I feel like the metal hangers for these never hold things that great.  I decided to design some custom hooks.

It also occurred to me that once you get a pegboard organized, you don't keep moving the things around, so I decided to just use an old piece of MDF and just attach my mounts with drywall screws.

A little solidworks action and 3D printing later:




I have been surprised how nice it is to have the things I use in that space well organized and in front of me and not in drawers.  Aside from convenient it sort of relieves mental strain to not have to remember which drawer items are in, or to look around under things for them.  Plus it is obvious if something goes missing.