"free" pegboard - shed tip #1, and magnets

A useful shed tip which saved me some money when I first set up my shed here. I know many people who adore the look of pegboards, with all their tools neatly silhouetted on the board, easy to see what you have, and if anything is missing.
Personally I'm not too fussed on having my tools on display (seems hypocritical after posting about tooling - bear with me), but I do like having commonly used tools in a location that is easy to get to quickly.
When I set up my shed, I considered pegboard, but it's not cheap. I then came across the idea of using an old hollow core door.
These doors get tossed out all the time around here as homes are refurbished. I grabbed some for use as trestle tops, and I took one of these and screwed it to the shed wall, effectively cladding that section of the wall with the door. The door is screwed on horizontally, and flush with the wall top.

Peg board works by having a 6mm (1/4") masonite board, pre-drilled with holes, mounted with a 1" (25mm) gap behind it for hooks to pass through.
A hollow core door is a sheet of 5-6mm masonite, with a 1" gap filled with a light honeycomb of cardboard, and then finished with another 5-6mm sheet of masonite. The whole assembly is edged with a solid wood frame which is around 35-50 (1 1/2 - 2") wide... other than the pre-drilled holes, the hollowcore door would pass for pegboard on a frame.


The photo above shows the door, with holes drilled anywhere I want them, things screwed to the door, things hanging off it... lots of options.
Once the door is mounted on the wall, I simply started screwing things to it, corner brackets for heavy duty hooks, blocks of wood for holding squares or saws. I can drill holes where ever I want for hooks, the tail of the hook simply crushes the internal cardboard if it's in the way.

Another thing which is good about the doors is that I could screw hard drive magnets to it where ever I want. I dismantled a number of harddrives over the years - mostly for collecting material for the furnace, but I also salvage useful components such as platters, magnets, and bearings.

The magnets get used for all sorts of things, but one common use is for holding things up. The photo below shows magnets screwed to the door and labelled for the hammers they hold.


I've yet to find a hook I'd trust for holding up my sledge hammers, but is easy to remove, or replace the hammers on. The photo below shows my club hammer attached to the wall via the magnet.



I'd show a better picture of some of the other things hanging on the wall, but it's hard to get a decent photograph through all the mess in the shed.

The magnets also get used for holding charts to the roof of the shed. I ran out of wall space in my shed pretty quick. Between shelving, door, tool storage, and a bench, the walls seemed to disappear pretty quick, so I stored my thread/ drilling charts on the roof. I simply covered the charts in contact, and then used some magnets to attach the corners to the roof.


So shed tip #1 - free pegboard by using hollowcore doors, and drilling your own holes where you want them, (as you need them, etc)

Bonus tip - save hard drive magnets for use for holding tools to walls, etc. I use one magnet for a 35lb sledge hammer - they are dynamite for holding, clamping, etc - and free for minimal labour.

Bender's Beard - or is it Flexo's?

Fans of the show know Bender has a beard, but "never wears it". When we first meet Flexo, the key visual difference between Bender and Flexo is the beard.
To make a beard... When I was making the eyelids for Bender, I tipped any leftover putty into a quick cardboard mold I made.

The mold was basically a triangle, with a thickness of around 42mm (1 3/4"). Since it was done as two pours, I placed a magnet inside with it's poles facing the base of the triangle, between the first, and second pour.

Once cured, I cut the mold apart, and then cut the triangle section apart to form Bender's beard - as seen below.

The followed a lot of filing, and adjusting so the magnet poles were exposed, and the triangle cleaned up so it was even, and had sharp lines at the edges. Once happy with the look, I primed the beard as shown...

Originally I painted it the same light gray as Bender's body and head, but my darling wife pointed out it looked wrong. I checked the disc again, and sure enough it was too light (She is always right, but don't tell her I said that...). The beard needed to be darker than the colour of Bender's extensomatic arms, so I gave it a shot of the Zinc-It.

Front view...

Three quarter view...


That'll be it for a while.. Bender is pretty much complete. I still want to do up a bottle of "Ole Fortran" for him (does anyone else remember FORTRAN?... I can still remember coding in FORTRAN 77 and FORTRAN 90 - first language I ever used which didn't have a "print" statement of some description.)
I digress... I want to do up a bottle of booze for him, and try and recreate the kids' drawing from the orphanarium. At that point, Bender will definitely be finished.

The suggestion has been made that the next project should be the Robot Devil... I'll admit he looks great, and would be a challenge. I think I'll hold off for a while - never a shortage of jobs to do, and I'd like to document some of my other projects.

Bender starts smoking.

To make a cigar for Bender.... Ideally it shouldn't fade, and should look reasonably "realistic", or at least as real as Bender does.
I started with a short length of 20mm (3/4") electrical conduit, with a magnet taped into on end.
I also grabbed some empty chip packets (Samboy BBQ) for the orange colour, and the "sparkly texture"


To simulate the burning/ glowing end of the cigar, I cut the chip packets up to get 50mm (2") wide strips of orange material, folded them lengthwise so no silver showed, and rolled them into a tight roll to place inside the end of the conduit - shown below.


I then rolled a wider strip around the outside to cover the end of the conduit, and taped this in place. The rest of the chip packet was then folded into itself to form a 60mm (2 1/2") wide strip, and wrapped around the conduit to widen the middle portion of the cigar. I then wrapped the whole thing in tape to form the cigar shape, and leave the orange exposed.


Once the taping was finished, I painted it Brown, and let it dry. The photo below shows the painted cigar drying - stuck by it's magnet to a cabinet.


I then added the black spiral lines to the cigar using the gridding tape (see article on teeth) and gave the cigar to Bender - he seems to enjoy it.

Next article will cover the beard.

Bender gets emotional - part 1

For Bender to display emotions he usually has his eyelids change, or his teeth change (horizontal lines only)
To make some eyelids for Bender I cut up the eye molds I'd used - made from Christmas decorations. In the photo below, you can see two halves of a Christmas decoration which were used for eye molds, and one still complete decoration.

I removed the eye-plate (with eyes) from the spare head, and using a discarded plastic tag, made a dam for the putty. I cling wrapped the eyes and plate to prevent the putty from sticking, and positioned some cut decorations on the eyes with their centres at 1:30 for the "sad" look, and at 10:30 for the "frown" look. I magnet was placed at the top between the eyes, and a piece of metal was placed for a handle into the putty before it cured.

Once the putty had cured, and the dam, and cling-wrap removed, the resulting eyelids were filed, carved and generally cleaned up. In the photo below, you can see them stuck (via their magnets) on a metal cabinet.

Once painted black (to match the interior of the eye shroud, and eye-plate, the eyelids were tested. The "frown" first...
Then the "sad" expression...

The next installment of this build log will cover the other emotional accessories I built, teeth plates.