Picking up small items

Nuts and bolts scoop:
get small fasteners back into their boxes quickly with a scoop made from a square-shaped plastic milk, or other container that has a handle. Use a utility kiife to cut off the bottom half of the container at an angle and away you go.

Magnetic bagger
Here’s an easy way to pick up spilled washers, nuts or nails. Drop a bar magnet into a plastic sandwich bag. The spilled items stick to the magnet through the plastic. Then turn the bag inside out and pour the items back into their container. Similarly, to clean up small metallic filings, put plastic wrap around a magnet, sweep it over the work area, then fold the wrap over the filings and discard it.

Magnetic sweep:
Separate out screws, nails and other reusable small iron and steel items while sweeping up. Use contact cement to glue a flexible magnetic strip onto the edge of a dustpan. The items will cling to the strip when you empty the pan.

Dust busting

Brush it off:
No vacuum cleaner readily at hand? Trim the frayed bristles from an old paintbrush and use it to sweep fine sawdust or filings from your bench top, or to clean out blind corners on a drill press or lathe. Also, keep a, child’s broom handy for sweeping around stationary tools, bench legs and other tight spots you can’t reach with a regular broom.

Blow it away:
If you have a spare hair dryer, use it to blow away dust, dirt ind shavings in the workshop; to dry sweaty hands before handling new timber; and to speed the drying of paint touch-ups.

Enclose it:
Before undertaking a large messy sanding or sawing job, tape or staple plastic sheets around the work area to contain the dust. If your home’s heating or cooling ducts serve your workshop, turn off the system while doing heavy sanding; otherwise it will spread fine particles all over the house.

Trap it:
To capture fine airbourne dust when sawing or sanding, mount an air conditioner filter on the air-intake side of a box fan, using adhesive tape, wire or an elastic stretch cord. Put the fan next your work area, blowing away from you. vacuum the filter when it becomes filled with dust.

Recycle it:
Save the sawdust from your workshop projects. It will come in in handy for soaking up grease, oil, paint or other spills. You can also use it to rub glue off vour hands or mix it with carpenter’s glue to make a wood filler.

Vacuuming

Thrifty timesaver:
You can extend the life of some workshop vacuum cleaner filters, and so avoid having to clean them so frequently. Cut the legs from an old pair of panty hose, tie the cut ends, and then stretch the waistband top over the filter. The suction won’t be affected, and you can clean the panty hose by just rinsing it.

Easy-empty cleaner:
To avoid the mess of emptying a workshop vacuum cleaner, line the canister with a plastic garbage bag (fold the bag over the canister rim so the top holds the bag in place). To empty the cleaner, all you need to do is take the bag out.

Long reach:
If the crevice tool on your vacuum cleaner isn’t long enough to reach the accumulated sawdust behind your workshop cabinets, make your own extra-long crevice attachment using the cardboard tube from a roll of wrapping paper. Fit one end of the tube into the hose nozzle and secure it with cloth tape. Then flatten the rest of the tube.

Tips on buying a workshop cleaner

A wet/dry workshop vacuum cleaner is an invaluable aid that gobbles up sawdust, chips and nails as well as large and small spills. You can also hook one to a sander or other tool to remove dust as you work (but a vacuum cleaner is no substitute for a proper dust cotlector if you do a lot of sawing and sanding).

Power and performance:
Determining a vacuum cleaner’s power is not an easy matter. Neither a high wattage nor a gee-whiz demonstration of lifting power is a reliable indicator of a unit’s capabilities. Luckily, most brand-name units sold in home centres and department stores are adequate for a home workshop. However, if you do want to compare units, multiply the cleaner’s ‘sealed pressure’ (measured in millibars) by it’s ‘airflow’ (measured in cubic decilitres per second). The resulting figure should be at least 7000; the higher the number, the better. If the information is not available at the store, the manufacturers may be able to send facts sheets on request.

Tank body:
Plastic is the most common material and is fine for most workshops. It has the advatage of being lightweight, rustproof, and dent resistant. Steel, used an some higher-end models, is durable and less prone to damage from beat and solvents, P. 45 -~o 70 litfe cip,andcit-~T
is adequate for most home workshops.

Filter type:
If you vacuum mostly dry debris, a pleated paper cartridge filter provides more surface area for dust, reducing the number of fiIter cleanings. But the pleats are hard to clean when the dust is wet or caked on. If you do a lot of wet vacuuming, a flat paper (or foam) filter is better. Some units can accept both filter types.

Attachments:
Large- and smaller diameter hoses (typically 2-1/2″ & 1-1/4″ (65 mm and 30 mm) are available. A large-diameter hose is handy for picking up sawdust and chips, a small one for picking up nails and heavy particles. Many large-hose units have adaptors to accept small hoses. Extension wands, a floor nozzle and a crevice tool are essential.