03/04/2018 Receiving Tools And Preparing Workshop

Assembled  DRDT-2

The DRDT-2 arrived earlier than the rest of the toolkits. It’s shipped from its factory directly and weight as much as the rest of the tools combined. The assembly manual isn’t written as clear as the manuals from IKEA, but understandable if looking at the graph long enough. I think the package is missing one small screw on the back of the bottom plate which the springs were attached to. But since the springs are just for preventing accidental dropping and the plate isn’t really moving freely at all, I think I should be OK without that one screw.

Practice Kits and Additional Material That I Bought for Practice

Two practice kits from Vans(the one wrapped in white is a toolbox kit and the bottom right is a small piece of control surface) and some additional aluminum sheets and strips as well as rivets have arrived. I’m planning to use the aluminum to practice drilling, countersinking and different kinds riveting before I start my project. Thanks to the class I took in January, I know how easy it is to drill bad holes or mess up a rivet installation.

Set up Air Compressor

This is probably the easiest thing for most people, as there’s not much detailed instruction and zero accessory for the air compressor. The air compressor I bought is literally just a compressor, no hose, no connector, but thank goodness it at least has a power cord. I was able to break in the compressor following the manual because breaking in does not require any thing connected to the compressor. It’s nice to find out that the compressor does run very quiet. I don’t have to increase my noise cancelling headset volume much when the compressor is running.

I soon learned a few new words about the accessories as I read through the user manual and looked around online as well as at HomeDepot, such as the couplers, the male and female plugs which look very similar to each other,  and the air filter that used by some people but skipped by others. Needless to say I was more lost than ever about how to use it. Finally I found this very well made Youtube video on how to use air compressor. It not only explains everything that I was confused about using the compressor, it also let me know through the comments of the video that I’m not the only idiot who doesn’t know how to use an air compressor before finding this video 🙂 I bought the air hose on Amazon and bought an air compressor kit as well as a filter from Home Depot and followed the Youtube video to finished setting up the compressor. I also attached the blow gun included in the compressor kit for test running the set up before my Isham toolkit arrives.

 

Built Two More Small Workbenches

On Saturday I stopped by Home Depot to buy a few more 4*2 studs and use the remaining 3/4 in thick plywood from workbench project earlier to build two smaller workbenches. A little smarter this time I asked home depot to cut the studs to correct size for me so it only took a few hours to finish these two new tables. I’m planning to use one table for dimpling and the other for equipment like bench grinder/bandsaw/drill press.

Isham Toolkit

Isham packaged box with everything in the toolkit minus the DRDT-2 dimpler is surprisingly small. I took a picture with a Aicraft Spruce catalog next to the box to show how small the box is.

 

Everything unpacked from the box. They did a nice job packing and almost every tool has its own label inside its own bag. I think this is very helpful for new builders because I would be complete lost if some many unfamiliar tools all show up at the same time.

 

A photo of the complete Isham toolkit, with the DRDT-2 dimpler on the far left.

 

I moved all the tools to my tool cart, with the original labels and bags. I’m going to leave the tools with their labels in the bag for now until I’m so familiar with them that taking the tool out of the bag and putting it back to a bag feel like a hassle.

Garage Lighting

I have also changed the old inefficient not-so-bright light bulbs in the garage with two LED light bulb. The new LED light is 100W equivalent producing 1500+ lumens but only 13W each. With a few small USB charging LED strip at the workbench, I’m pretty happy with the lighting in the garage now.