time clock stand

We always had old school mechanical time clocks at work for many years.  Then corporate said that we needed to hook up this fancy time clock that had a finger print scanner and hooked up to our intranet, so it could dump out punches into some software which went to payroll.  Very cool.

It was built to hang on the wall but in our foyer we didnt really have a place for it like that.  So I built a stand for it so it could sit on a small table and it has worked out great for many years.  The AC adapter was a bit dicey so I even built a small compartment for it to sit in so it doesn't tug at the cord.

I kept meaning to take new pics but I knew I had some originals from way back when I put it together.  Finally found them.

fan retainer on post

It gets hot as hell in here.  So we bought a big fan but had no where to mount it.  For starters, I don't know that I'd want to drill an I-beam that holds up the roof (not that it would be easy).  But the flat edge of the beam faces the wrong way.  But otherwise, the beam is the perfect placement.  So I decided that using compression is the best answer.  Held two pieces of 2x6 together with huge threaded rod and used lag bolts to mount the fan.  Nothing has budged an inch!

rock table

This old table is semi homemade and had some kind of secret switch in it, where a magnet would set off a light, which would illuminate one of the rocks.  Well as it was very old, it stopped working.  So I took it apart.

It has a very small mercury switch hooked up to a little swivel with a magnet at the other end of the fulcrum.  This powered a light bulb and a huge series of batteries, I think it was 110 volts or something crazy.  It was all encased in wax which I had to chisel away.  Then I got a tiny LED lightbulb rated for 9VDC and a battery clip for a 9V.  I soldered it all together and reinstalled it, I actually used a chunk of a tupperware bowl to mount some of it then I closed the whole thing up.  Works great and should last damn near forever now.

30' table

For years we had just one building at work.  Then we got the building next door and broke a hole in the wall to connect them.  One of my first orders of business was to build a huge table.  We have a table 50' long in the old building so I decided to build one 30' long here.  I brought a friend aboard who is a professional carpenter and very good at this stuff.  We had some beers and hung out for a few days in the evenings and got it done.

We used all new lumber for this as the company was paying for everything (including my friend's labor).  We built it upside down and I remember we had a hell of a time flipping it over, we way underestimated how heavy it would be.  We had a forklift but it is so big that even that was scary, we were nervous we would tear it in half. So we had some huge straps and chains and all kinds of rigging to get it on its side then somehow try to let it down easily.  I later painted the whole thing myself, grey and blue.  After that I had my coworker do a huge logo in white in the middle of the table, then I covered the whole thing with 5mm thick acrylic sheets.