I Continue Killing my Traffic With Tool Posts

Tool Man never gets a day off. Today I had to help put new bulbs in the brake lights of my father's SUV, and I created an aluminum bracket to hold a drinking water filter in the engine room of his boat.

The bulbs were not exciting, but I am pretty proud of the bracket. Tools used: dry cut saw, impact driver, vise, Proxxon rotary tool, scribe, square, and file. Probably some other stuff I forgot.

I got a long piece of aluminum angle "iron," and I used the dry cut saw to slice off a 2 3/4" piece, after measuring and using the square to scribe a guideline. I know you're not supposed to use a dry cut saw on aluminum with a blade meant for steel, but I figured it was okay for a few small cuts, and it turned out I was right. I then shortened one side of the resulting L-shaped bracket, after scribing two parallel lines to guide me. That left me with an L bracket with a 2 3/4" side and a 2 3/8" side. I shaved one side down in the other direction, toward the crease, so the bracket would fit in the hole on the boat. I then used the Proxxon to cut off bits of excess metal that were waving around, and I deburred the whole thing with a file, and I drilled four holes for bolts, after C-clamping the bracket to the old filter cap for guidance. The bracket came out perfect, and it will fit right in the hole the old one came out of.

It's amazing how precise you can be with a 14" dry cut saw. I used it like a milling machine.

You would not believe the mess I made. When I was done, there was aluminum everywhere, and the whole bench was covered in tools. I see now that I need some kind of table beside the bench, or maybe a board that slides out to hold stuff. A straight bench is not enough; it needs to be an L, with an extension to the right of the user.

I also realized I really need a drill press. Oh God. Did I say that?

The drill bits wandered around a lot while I was putting those holes in. That's all I'm saying.

I got a lot of satisfaction out of this job. I could have cheesed it up with a piece of wood hacked up with a handsaw, but it would have been awful. It's great to be able to do it right.