Wall upgrade

Possibly the first time "wall" and "upgrade" have been used together?

One thing that I found very, very handy is a whiteboard in the home machine shop. I use it to to jot down Home Lowes shopping lists, measurements, etc. Since I hadn't permanently mounted mine to a wall yet, I would just lay it on the workbench where I was working. Doing that was so handy, I decided not to permanently attach it after all.

I've had this bit of sheet steel in my scrap bin since the engine rebuild. My Harbor Freight piston ring compressor was way too big for wittle VW pistons, so I had to cut this section off to make it work. Now I'm putting it to good use by drilling two holes and gluing it to the back of my whiteboard. I had to glue it because the sticky foam that came with the whiteboard didn't stick to metal.

I used the belt sander to clamp the glue joint until it dried:


The other thing that I use often is a chart that shows drill sizes in Imperial (inches) and Metric (mm) as well as the size of hole you should drill to tap a particular thread. I've gone through several of these because they get dirty and oily and wrinkled and lost. To solve this, I used "clear contact paper" (adhesive plastic laminate) to affix it to some sheet steel from Home Lowes.

The sheet steel came big enough to make two page holders, so using front and back I still have room for 3 more reference charts should I want to add them in the future.

Drilled another hole, put some brass hooks on the wall (I decided to risk hammering them into the drywall, time will tell if that turns out to be a foolish mistake if I have to remount them with proper metal spider drywall anchors), and done:



(Yes, that's a calculator stuck to the magnetic whiteboard with magnets. Also very handy.)

Oh and while I was having fun doing non-Jetta things, I decided to fix our broken lawn chair. I drilled a bunch of shallow holes for the JB Weld to grip. JB Weld seems to be strong enough for many tasks, but it's adhesion, especially on smooth plastic, has often left me wanting. The holes should let JB Weld make little "fingers" to keep the joint from pulling apart. I hope.

Not too pretty, but our lawn chairs are fading to white so I should probably paint them anyway.