Friday, January 28, 2022

The Boys are again let Loose

There is another problem to be solved, so the DeWALT Brothers and their friends have been called out to tackle the issue at hand.


The issue is yet again lack of storage - but in this instance accessible storage.  I have standardised on an 11 litre plastic box for storing a lot of my gear in. A great place to store them is on top of the adjustable shelving sets I have.  Since the ceiling it waaaay up there, I can get 7 boxes on top of each other and 8 side by side - 56 in total if my maths hasn't failed me. (my math will never fail me - I was beaten by the teacher to an inch of my life, well OK, he threw blackboard dusters at me - but they were wooden ones...) (mind you, the Nuns weren't much better!). So here is the space I will be working with after I moved the current contents to all over the garage in whatever spare space I had (very little in fact!)



But an issue is that the boxes also contain some gear I regularly want - can you see the problem?  Yep, I normally have to remove a pile of other boxes to get at the ones I want and this involves getting out the step ladder and such - oh the pain...(I can hear the old Dr Smith ...)

I worked out that the lower 3 boxes can be lifted down without the need of a ladder. So if the 4 boxes on top could be elsewhere, we'd be tickety boo (OK, I was watching an old Pommie TV series last night and some lingo rubbed off).  Hmmm, light bulb moment. What if there was a shelf in there just over 3 boxes high and all the lesser accessed boxes sat on top and all the regularly accessed boxes below?  I think I just heard the call of "Bingo!"

So here are just some of the temporarily displaced boxes jammed around the place - squeezy.



So I already had one sheet of 17mm film faced plywood and just needed one more sheet, so the other day it was off to a favourite place for us all - Bunnings. You know, a 2.4m x 0.6m sheet of ply sits inside of my Hyundai car?  Easy Peasy - no trailer or ropes needed.

A quick design drawn on a piece of scrap paper after measuring 10 times (don't you hate it when you only measure once and cock it up?) and I had a solution of a sheet of ply as the shelf with two "legs" of same material and one end being held by brackets to an existing shelf wall on the right hand side.

So the buzz saw was taken out and relevent measurements transcribed to the wood and the noise began, as did a crap load of saw dust.  Then the DeWALT boys came along and put some holes and then long screws into place along with their friend Mr Aquadhere.



Then I lugged the solution into the Paint Shed for a coat of 4in1 Prep undercoat and then left it overnight in the warmth of the drying shed.


I figured I'd move it into position and then give it a top coat of paint in situ.



So this morning I thought I'd work up a sweat after a lousy sleepless night and try and get the juices going in this bod of mine (you beast you...)  So a few screws were added. Some to add a couple of brackets to the right hand side and then a few from under the "floor" of the shelf, the top of the storage sheves themselves.  This way it can't fall on me if I grab the shelves and tug on them (why I'd do that I dont know, but safe is best)


Well that didnt really get any sweat flowing, but this did - move the boxes back into position! Close enough to 40 boxes got shifted and yep, sweat was dripping from this one.

Now I can more easily access the lower three boxes along the storage area, which I made sure all contained only regularly accessed stuff and the not so regular stuff is on the new shelve above. 



Now for a coffee and some tucker for lunch I think, then a relax for a bit.