Cleaning... Again...

Time to clean the shop again.  Lots of dust, scrap, misc stuff tossed around because that desktop took up so much room for so long...  Then back to models.

Tools wish list...

Some stuff I'd like to add to my collection:

Dremel lithium ion cordless rotary tool.  I love my old corded Dremel, but it would be nice to be able to leave it in an attachment for a project and have another to do other things with. 

Small compressor. I was tempted to pick up the small 3 gallon compressor Home Depot had for $49 over the weekend. Lack of space led me to pass...

Dremel SawMax. It looks cool, and I'd like to have a small power saw.

Craftsman C3 LiIon batteries.  My last NiCad is for all intents and purposes dead.  I have too much invested in C3 tools to switch to Ryobi's offering, although some of the Black Friday deals were tempting...

Bandsaw, drill press, router/table, 10" variable speed disc sander (MicroMark) Lack of space, again to have these in the shed.

I was able to find cutting blades for my Great Planes power planer on eBay for a good price - less than retail!

Bed is assembled!!!

Well, I finally got to assemble the loft bed over the weekend. A couple things I ran into...

1) following the instructions *should* yield better results.  Drilling holes exactly where told resulted in some screws being too close to the edge of the attached piece for comfort. I redrilled several holes during assembly and now have some empty holes to fill. If I was to build another, I would leave the drilling until final assembly. 

2) standard matresses are thicker than the instructions would have you believe.  For a standard mattress, lower the bed deck by 4-5 inches.

3) I probably should have cut pieces to fit during assembly, disassembled, and then sealed.  I didn't realize just how far off the instructions would be. Prefinishing the parts made it more difficult to adjust on the fly.

The desk is in the shed with its 3rd coat of polyurethane drying. Should be ready by Saturday.  Once that's done, I'll install a work light under the lower bookcase shelf, mount the power strip to the leg, and add any little refinements that the boy has requested.

And soon, I'll have my little workshop back to do other projects!