Cleaning Your Lab/Workshop

[TerraHertz]

Do you have some sort of rotary jig there that you're using to make the welds attaching the nuts to the tubes?  If so, I'd be interested in seeing a photo of it.

Yep. Improvised. Here: http://everist.org/NobLog/20091009_pipe_rotator.htm

That's got to be the neatest MIG weld I've ever seen - they usually look like a dog's dinner!  I'd have thought it was done with a TIG machine if I didn't see the picture with the wire feed gun in it.

Yeah, it's amazing how much better MIG (and TIG) welding works, when you take the bozo out of the process.

And I can totally relate to trying to do something and winding up going off on all manner of tangents then seeming to get nothing accomplished!

Yeah. Well, _sometimes_ some of the stupid number of entangled projects individually reach completion. The stand shouldn't take much longer. So long as I don't die from this damned flu first. 2nd bad one in a month. Or maybe, the first one come back with a bam, due to staying up all night at a party on Malabar cliffs on October 3rd. Getting a bit old for stuff like that. Possibly breathing the fumes from people chucking plastic on the fire didn't help. Including a large PVC banner. God that stank. Poor, poor old lungs.

[Cubdriver]

Yep. Improvised. Here: http://everist.org/NobLog/20091009_pipe_rotator.htm

VERY cool!!  I need to keep that in mind if I ever find the need to do that sort of thing - it looks very useful.

Yeah, it's amazing how much better MIG (and TIG) welding works, when you take the bozo out of the process.

   Ain't that the truth!  Many years ago when I worked for National Semiconductor, they had an orbital head welder for joining small diameter (half inch and under, IIRC) SS tubing for plumbing gas supply systems without using fittings.  It was pretty amazing - there was a cutter to square and prep the tube ends, then they'd be butted together and clamped in the welder's head.  Press a button (obviously with the machine set up as required for the size of tube being welded), and a few seconds later (I'm assuming after a brief argon purge) you'd hear 'Eeeeeeeeee' as the arc fired and a motor drove the electrode around the joint.  In under a minute you had a beautifully fused joint.  The whole thing was about the size of a medium suitcase, just add an argon bottle and tubing to be welded.  I didn't weld at the time, and it wasn't my department so I never got to play with it, but still think it's a pretty cool piece of hardware more than 25 years later.

Yeah. Well, _sometimes_ some of the stupid number of entangled projects individually reach completion. The stand shouldn't take much longer. So long as I don't die from this damned flu first. 2nd bad one in a month. Or maybe, the first one come back with a bam, due to staying up all night at a party on Malabar cliffs on October 3rd. Getting a bit old for stuff like that. Possibly breathing the fumes from people chucking plastic on the fire didn't help. Including a large PVC banner. God that stank. Poor, poor old lungs.

Once again, I can relate.  I'm slogging through what's turned into a multi-year home renovation, and am presently working on getting heat properly installed so I don't have to spend another winter freezing my butt off and stepping over a few pieces of finned tube baseboard radiator mickey-moused in and laying across the floor propped on pieces of 2x4.  Everything seems to take ten times longer than it should, require multiple trips to the hardware store to get that one more thing you didn't think you'd need, and/or have something else that has to be finished before it can be done.  (I can safely say that I much prefer electrical work to plumbing - the holes are smaller and gravity doesn't matter!)

Umm, yeah - breathing burned plastic fumes?  Probably not gonna make your lungs happy.  Nasty stuff!  (As you doubtless already knew, and have now had reinforced by example after the party!)  I'll stick to rosin flux smoke, thanks just the same...  Here's hoping that whatever ails you passes soon and you can get back to YOUR fun in the shop.

-Pat

[TerraHertz]

I'm slogging through what's turned into a multi-year home renovation, and am presently working on getting heat properly installed so I don't have to spend another winter freezing my butt off and stepping over a few pieces of finned tube baseboard radiator mickey-moused in and laying across the floor propped on pieces of 2x4.  Everything seems to take ten times longer than it should, require multiple trips to the hardware store to get that one more thing you didn't think you'd need, and/or have something else that has to be finished before it can be done.

God, tell me about it. I don't think I want to ever do another owner-builder building.
Btw, if you can get a slow combustion wood-burning heater, do so, They are great. I have one in my electronics lab, and so glad of it in winter. Helps to have more deadwood from the trees on my property than I can burn. Free heat from the Sun.

There's now a partial writeup of my current 'cleaning up my workshop' project here: http://everist.org/NobLog/20151012_spring_diversions.htm

[Galenbo]

Vacuuming is where you hear the tinkle in the vacuum tube of that small screw or part you spent half an hour on you knees searching for without luck.
...

I don't use a vacuum cleaner.
I have an air compressor in the garage, and installed a pipe to the room above.

8bar works much better than vacuum. Especially when precision is needed.

[isaiahA]

Vacuuming is where you hear the tinkle in the vacuum tube of that small screw or part you spent half an hour on you knees searching for without luck.

  true!

[crispy_tofu]

Quick edit in pixlr - fixed it! 

[Psi]

Fixed it

[funkyant]

I tidied my bench 3 days ago. My biggest issue with the untidiness is incomplete repairs. If I'm waiting on a parts order to arrive, I don't want to completely re-assemble the unit to safely store it again.

Only when I have all or most repairs completed does my bench get a fully thorough clean.

This does frustrate me though, as I hate mess. Every time I look at it, the OCD part of my brain wants to explode.

[alsetalokin4017]

Oh nooo.... better close your eyes quick!   

[ez24]

Oh nooo.... better close your eyes quick!   

whew I am not the worse 

[Artlav]

Quick edit in pixlr - fixed it! 

Hah.
One thing i was shocked to realize was that having everything organized and compartmentalized does not make losing stuff any harder.
In other words, i still can't find "that thing i need right now" more often than not.
Difference is, now i tend to lose entire projects rather than just separate parts...

[bitseeker]

now I tend to lose entire projects rather than just separate parts...

No worries. It was probably just a distraction anyway. Now you can get on with something new.

[matseng]

I think the level of neatness is inversely proportional to the size of the desk(s).  In my Bangkok condo I just have a small desk in my bedroom and when I'm there I keep the desk clean and neat all the time - even while working on something.  In my "real" lab back home in Kuala Lumpur I have two full rooms dedicated to electronics and a plenty of deskspace, but it's always so messy and disorganized that even I get annoyed at myself. :-)

[Psi]

There is a difference between a lab that has a metric shit tonne of stuff and a lab that is messy.

[lapm]

I try keep my little corner neat, thanks to two cats that like to play with anything small they can find on it... Wife's opinion docent matter, but considering money i can spare to electronics, every damn component counts.. Not to mention learning hard way how it feels to peel of 40 pin dil package from bottom of your leg. Not nice feeling, 40 small holes, all 5 mm into your skin...

[med6753]

Since my "lab" is in my living room it's always tidy and get's dusted/swept/vacuumed once a week without fail. Unfinished projects are put away in a closet. And there is no permanent estrogen unit living here to prod me to do this. I am an admitted neat freak. 

[ez24]

Since my "lab" is in my living room it's always tidy and get's dusted/swept/vacuumed once a week without fail. Unfinished projects are put away in a closet. And there is no permanent estrogen unit living here to prod me to do this. I am an admitted neat freak. 

If you live in San Diego maybe you can come over and clean up my "lab"