Plus Drawer Liner Discovery

I finally “finished” my arbor press stand today. I’m insufferably pleased with myself.

Yesterday, I used my finger brake to make a storage shelf to fit the stand, and today I ground and welded to make it work. I also welded a bottom in the catch bin I made for the stand.

I may go back over it, grind here and there to make it look better, and fill in around ugly welds with J-B Weld. I think this will be a great sneaky way to improve the appearance of the project. Once it’s painted, people will think the smooth, pretty J-B Weld is steel.

My next project is a stand for my dry saw. I already have the steel. Having bent the shelf for the arbor press, I have to say that making the top of the saw stand is somewhat intimidating. I don’t care. I have to get on it and see what happens. Here’s what I tell myself when I think a job is too big or intimidating: “You don’t want to use your tools? Sell them.” That puts me in the right frame of mind.

Life without tools is life as a woman, for most practical purposes. Although there are a lot of women who use tools very well, which makes it even more disgraceful to be intimidated.

In other news, I found a great cheap product to protect the trays on my amazing Harbor Freight 3-tier $39 tool cart. Initially, I used clear Flex-Seal, which is a rubbery substance you apply like spray paint. I could have used toolbox liner material, but it’s generally black, making it hard to see little things in your box or cart, and it’s extremely overpriced. It’s also thick. I wanted to be able to use little magnetic parts trays in my cart, and they will not stick through a heavy drawer liner.

The Flex-Seal looked like a good idea, but then I found out gasoline dissolves it, so if you work on gas engines, you will get gas on your cart, and then you will have problems. It appears that it also reacts with the rubber bases of magnetic parts trays and makes them stick–more than you want–to the cart.

I found these things out after applying Flex-Seal to all three trays. Removing it was a challenge. I had to find a solvent that removed Flex-Seal while sparing Chinese paint. In the end, gasoline turned out to be the only answer, so I used gasoline and paper towels to clean the top tray. After that, I went to the local firehouse and asked them if they wanted to give me a safety prize.

I finally found the product I needed. Lowe’s sells clear adhesive-backed drawer liner material in rolls 30 feet long. The price? About $13. That’s about a third of the cost of useless toolbox drawer liner material.

The clear stuff I bought comes with paper backing that has one-inch squares on it, so measuring and cutting is a breeze.

I stuck this product to my top tray, and it’s fantastic. It’s thin enough to use with a magnetic tray, it’s clear so my trays aren’t black holes, and it does not react with solvents.

The product is Duck brand clear shelf liner. Buy it immediately.

This is all I have right now. More joyous announcements will be posted as things develop.