Official Luthiers Forum!

I recently noticed that I have a lot of kitchen and office supplies in the shop. Here's an incomplete list of some of the things. What do you have?

Kitchen supplies:

• Wax Paper
• Aluminum foil
• Plastic wrap
• Ziploc sandwich bags
• Plastic drinking straws
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons
• Digital cooking thermometer
• Drink warmer
• Bamboo skewers
• Plastic peanut butter jars
• yogurt cups
• Soda bottle caps. (for mixing small batches of epoxy
• Popsicle sticks

Office supplies:

• .5 mm mechanical pencils
• Colored markers and jell pens
• Binder Clips
• All kinds of tape
• Paper clips (rarely to clip paper)
• Spiral notebooks
• Post-it notes

I use these things all the time and often for purposes that I never imagined when I put them in the shop.

Off the top of my head...I'd add packing tape and clear Rubbermaid plastic boxes, with lids. I'm thinking of adding a free standing water cooler.

And don't forget the school grade pencil sharpener!

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

You got that right Mike,
Tools and materials come in all forms and from many sources.
My Wife instinctively knows to check my shop if she is missing a favorite kitchen tool. Or if she needs a pencil.
Not that she will ever find it even if it IS in my shop.

When we go grocery shopping, I spend way too much time in the kitchen supplies isle.
Also, I can never seem to buy enough double sided sticky tape.

Wade

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Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

-dead knives turned into scrapers
-salad tongs (metal ones for holding tool steel bits in the torch)
-coffee cans, one for water and one for oil
-post it notes
-dry erase board
-paper party cups for mixing epoxy etc.
-small thermometer in the hide glue pot
-small plastic dipping sauce containers (wings anyone?)
-egg crates for sorting and counting runs of bridge pins
-tape gun for sealing up boxes
-small Tupperware boxes for keeping track of screws, truss rod covers etc. with clients name taped to the top.

probably some more stuff too....

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- Louis Freilicher

Oh No! Not another learning experience!

* Clothes iron
* Scissors
* Freezer boxes
* Spatulas
* Plastic cups
* Shirts (for rags - but Hon, it was ready to be thrown out anyway)
* And of course the real fluffly bath towels

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John Ressler

Shelf liner for covering work surfaces
TV for tennis matches

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

I have only one to add but it is invaluable to me so much so that I am going to actually purchase a couple of these.

A stolen tape dispenser for masking tape and our beloved brown binding tape:

Plastic beer cups make the best glue and paint pots.

I guess that, if pressed, one COULD use them for beer. But only if you have too...

And tongue depressors make the most excellent stir sticks. Popsicle sticks are just too small for most tasks. Buy a box of 500 from health care supply stores for just a few $'s.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

We got one of those "Fruit Bouquets" and, while picking off some choice pieces, I noticed the "skewers" were made of PET (and numerous.) When I broke down the rest of the fruit for the fridge I pulled out the 20-30 skewers and washed them in the sink. I am still using them for a variety of purposes like mixing epoxy, spacers (that don't "glue" with common glues) and the like. If I had seen a box of these on sale, I might have bought 'em. But these were free-free-free!

I am using polycarbonate tubes used to shield fluorescent tubes from breakage to store fret/coping saw blades. I am using the T8 size. I wish they were a bit smaller, but I discovered that some PVC plumbing caps were "cork-sized" and it has been pretty easy to assemble them. I squished a little grey foam into the caps to give the tubes a little "bounce" and protect the blades. I cut the tubes with a razor cutter for PVC pipe that operates like a copper pipe cutter (spin it around, blade cuts) because the Polycarb is supposed to stay together, not be cut, and my shop-shears were not working well, like I thought they would.


I am using long "sweater" or "underbed" boxes to store thin wood. I am in SoCal, so retaining humidity is more of an issue than getting rid of it. The long boxes have been handy.

Gotta have my self-adhesive labelmaker. Yes, I can write, actually really well, but there is something calming amid the chaos about having the multitude of storage containers clearly and neatly labeled. The stickers can be peeled off and reused from PET type containers as needs shift. BORG sells the super-stick label rolls for good price, too.

When we had a plastic-bristled broom that was coming apart, I took a second look at it. the bristles were kind of bundled. So I pulled off the cover of the bristles (hard plastic shell) and pulled out the bristles (<1 min.) I took some galvanized wire (at hand) and bent a "U" shape and took some duct tape and wrapped both the wire and a bundle of the bristles. Boom, whiskish dust brush, but custom sized. I made six or so before I got tired and threw away the remainder of the broom, which would have probably made 6 more. (pic attach.)



(BTW, the wire made a large hang loop so I could hang 'em anywhere. I would do this again in a minute. I would even BUY a cheap broom from BigLots, if I had to!)

Craft stores sell poly-based screen for latch-hook use in sheets. Again, nothing but epoxy sticks to it, PVA peels right off. Even CA finds no hold. A couple times I was "dipping" some unstable wood and needed a place to "drain" the dipped pieces. This screen worked great. Not kitchen, I guess, but still....

I uses small "semi-disposable" plastic lid containers, like GladWare, etc. Lid is tight enough to preserve liquid for a day or two or long enough to recoat something.

At the moment, thats all I can think of. I'm sure there is more....

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Mark W. Lewis
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I'm tired of followin' my dreams. I think I'll just ask 'em where they are going and hook-up with 'em later - Mitch Hedberg

One more: All the "bag" companies are making GIANT-SIZED zip-lock bags now. Some are larger than a large bed-pillow. These are really handy (as are smaller ones, of course.) The big ones are tough enough to hold, for example, 100ft of HD air hose or large pieces of wood (with the guts to resist puncture), large plumbing parts such as dust control components. Shoot, they are probably strong enough to make a "one-off" vacuum bag, tho' I have yet to test THAT particular theory.

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Mark W. Lewis
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I'm tired of followin' my dreams. I think I'll just ask 'em where they are going and hook-up with 'em later - Mitch Hedberg

Bamboo chopsticks can be repeatedly sharpened to a chisel point on the belt sander and make excellent glue clean-up tools.

Kitchen and office supply stores are only the beginning...

Art supply places, such as Dick Blick, are treasure troves of all kinds of useful things. Jewelry making suppliers even more so!

And don't forget the hair cutting scissors - the tool of choice for cutting out clear pickguards!

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Here's a few I can think of: Paper towels + dispenser, clothes iron, gram scale, aluminum foil, walnut oil, gelatin, "squeegee", drafting supplies, notebooks, paper clips, scissors, and oh yeah; that big pencil sharpener with a crank.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin