Pasting Table Mods, a Temporary Autonomous Workspace!

I've been working on lots of larger lightweight projects of late. You might have seen the hot air balloons I'm designing and building from large tissue paper panels but I'm also working on some larger cloth wing designs and more. I often don't have the length I require for the work on my shed workbench or regular bench in the house. So I went and bought a wallpaper pasting table. They are CHEAP! But with cheapness comes lightness and some lack of rigidity. However, for lightweight tissue paper or cloth work they are perfect in many ways and create a great Temporary Autonomous Workspace (been reading a lot of anarchic stuff lately and this name has stuck in my mind!)

There's one problem for me though, they are built way too low! Even doing light work standing at one of these for half an hour causes my lower back to start to grumble, I needed to raise the table, but equally I needed the mod to not stop the table folding away. 

So off to FreeCAD! (ICYMI here is a free to DL book I wrote on FreeCAD) The solution is pretty simple, there's enough room to add an adaptor to the 20mm square-ish legs and still allow the legs to fold away inside the table. I quickly CAD'ed an adaptor which had a square hole for the original leg on one side and then had a circular hole to receive some 25mm diameter dowel I had knocking around in the shed.  Once printed up in some PETG filament I epoxied the adaptors to the table side and then they live permanently attached and fold away with the legs. 

I then chopped a few dowels to length to bring the table up to where I need it. The 3D printed adaptors are a press fit on the dowel side which means I can insert the leg extending dowels and turn the table onto it's feet without them falling out. In turn the dowels can sit inside the table when folded, I should probably create some kind of storage strap or mount to stop them clattering about inside the table, but it certainly does the job. Available widely for around £15-20 this is a really handy tool hack for me!

Nextool Vanguard; a £32 Multitool Review

 

A while back in issue 58 of Hackspace magazine I reviewed a small folding scalpel the "3 Coil crane" and it's a fabulous tiny tool. I ordered that scalpel from a company I've used a fair bit over the years, Heinnie Haynes, who are based down in South Wales. Heinnie sell lots of outdoor equipment, clothing, shelters, packs etc, but they specialise in bladed tools and have a huge range including multitools, bushcraft knives and more. 

I sent them the link to the Hackspace article and they told me to mention anything I saw that I thought might be good for a review, that might be of interest to makers. Recently they've started stocking some interesting multi tools that sit at the budget end of their multi tool offers. The Nextool range is pretty affordable and one in particular stood out, the Nextool Vanguard as it has a built in adjustable spanner. I wanted to take a look and Heinnie were kind enough to send one out to me. It's been in circulation for a few duties over the last couple of weeks and I've put together this little video review. Hope you enjoy the video and do check out Heinnie Haynes, they've always given great service over the years and I'd genuinely recommend them,