Lights and boring things like that.

  This blog is going to be short because I really don't have anything too exciting for you.  This is more of a public service announcement than anything.  The idea here really is that you need to be able to clearly see what you're working on.  If it's too dark or the lighting is too harsh, it's difficult to work, especially if you have a lazy eye and your eyes go all wonky if they can't focus properly on something.  Having adequate lighting greatly reduces that from happening. 
  After deciding that I needed better lighting, I hastily decided that flourescents were the way to go, so I bought some 4 foot 32 watt fluorescent fixtures and some little screw in light socket adapters to convert the light socket into a power outlet.  The only problem was that the adapters weren't grounded and the fluorescent ballasts require a 3 prong grounded plug.  I went back to the drawing board and started to get frustrated, realizing that a standard power outlet will not fit in the 3 1/2" junction boxes where the previous light sockets were mounted.  I did, however find some light sockets at the home depot that had a grounded electrical outlet, so I got a couple of those and a 3 outlet tap.  I wired those in where the existing light sockets were, mounted the flourescents, and was amazed at the difference.  I can now see everything in the shop, plus the t8 fluorescents seem not quite as harsh, due to their smaller diameter than a standard fluorescent bulb.  Also, since my Jet air filter has a fairly low amperage motor, I plugged that into the same outlet as the back flourescent fixture, which completely solved the dilemma of where that was going to get its power from.
  In other news, I finished the dust collection plumbing to the router table and gave the new drum sander a bit of a workout by sanding down some mdf drill press table inserts I got from Rockler that were too thick.  I was surprised at how much of the sanding dust my el cheapo harbor freight dust collector picked up.  I also found a cool extension cord at the home depot that has electrical outlets every 8 feet, which solves the issue of having no electrical outlets on the outside wall of the shop where the router table, spindle sander, and belt/disc sander are   Template perfection and mold making will begin to happen on Thursday.  That's all I got.