Shop update #358 (9-18-24) lots of little projects

The battery in my wife’s car died so my son and I spent the better part of Saturday afternoon replacing it. Have you ever replaced the battery in a 2013 to 2016 Ford Escape? You have to take the windshield wipers completely off and then both layers of the cowl and also remove the brake fluid reservoir.  You can then reach the battery.

Do you remember the lantern that I made last week? It was actually the 3rd one that I made and the first one that fit together properly. I didn’t get the sizing/spacing for the slots correct on the first 2. You can see them on the table behind the final one here.

I took the front of one and spray painted it black and then glued it onto the back.  I’ll drill a hole in the top and hang it on a wall somewhere.

The original coffin is 12″ tall and has to be cut out of 2 – 16″ x 16″ sheets of 1/8″ MDF.  I redesigned it to be 10″ tall and I now can fit all of the pieces onto one sheet.  One of my poker buddies is a manager at Stater Brothers Market so I made a coffin lantern to give him at our monthly poker game.

A friend of mine got around 30 –  10′ 2×4’s that had been cut lengthwise at around a 30° angle.  She raises chickens and wants to make some roosts for them so we cut off the sharp edges on my table saw.  That was the most sawdust that I have made so far with the new saw.

My son volunteered to make a cell phone holder for one of his teachers so we spent a good hour in sketchup coming up with the design that he had in his head.

We went to Home Depot and picked up a full sheet of 1/2″ plywood for his project and a full sheet of 1/8″ mdf for the laser.  We had them cut down to fit in my car and then I cut the MDF down to 16″ squares to fit in the laser.