Parking Feet

An article on making parking feet

   I am quite an ambitious wood worker.   (In my mind anyway.)     I subscribe to a few woodworking magazines.   I even subscribe to be a member on some digital sites.   90 percent of my e-mails come from companies that either sell woodworking tools or provide woodworking tips.  I could (should) say that a third of my day is working in the shop and 2/3rd's of my day is spent in reading up on things that I could be working on in my shop.

The hardware I purchased at the store.   

     Lots of times if I see something that I think I want to work on someday I print off the article and save it in my pile of "projects to build".   (That is one big pile of ideas of things that I plan to work on someday.  It's okay to dream isn't it?)  
     So this week's project is one of those things that looks good in print, but once completed I questioned if this turned out as well as I was thinking it would.  You will need to check my review at the end.

My homemade air filtration system

       A few years back we replaced our furnace with a more efficient model.   In that process I asked if I could keep the old furnace fan.    They were glad to give it to me as that was just another item they did not have to carry up the basement steps.    
      I took that old furnace fan and boxed it up.  I set it up so it would have double filters on the draw side.   My idea was that when I am working on something in my basement area that could generate a little dust I would turn on the fan which would draw air through the filters and in turn blow clean air out the discharge side of the box.
    It works quite well.      When I change filters in my furnace every three months and I take the filter that I pulled from the furnace and recycle it by replaying the outside filter on this boxed air system that I built.
    I had saved some wheeled casters from a chair that we had disposed of and I mounted those on the bottom of the box.  This way I could rolled the fan to any part of the shop where it would be need.     Later on. because of a lack of space, I set my router table on the top of this box.    Which also worked well as I could roll the router to different work areas of the shop.

Parts for making the parking feet. 

        Because of the tight space in my shop I need to be able to roll tools in when I want to use them and roll them out of the way when I am not using them.

Four parking feet

     In this case, my problem was that once I had moved the router table to where I wanted to use it, it would not stay stationary.   As I pushed wood past the live router bit, the box would roll around the shop.   I would stack little homemade blocks in front of the casters which worked some of the time, but not all the time.


       I knew I could open my billfold and buy some locking casters to replace the ones that I was using, but there must be another way.  (I needed that money for snacks.)
       I once read this article that indicated you could build your own parking feet.    So that is what I tried to do.
    I used epoxy glue for holding the wood parts to the metal parts.    I am impressed with how well that adheres.    We will see if where and tear will eventually break that bond down.

   I mounted a parking foot on each corner on the air filtration box.   I put a screw on the top of each foot and I use my cordless drill to raise and lower each foot.   So far, that part works well.  

   My review:      A cheap set of locking casters would have probably cost me $40.00 for a set of four.    The threaded rod, rubber tips, and connector bushings costs me $13.00.    The wood was free.    Screws I had on hand.    These parking feet definitely work.   The experience was priceless.  (Yeah right.) 

   I'm thinking the next time that I will be looking for a way to make a moving tool temporary stationary, I will probably watch the ads to see if locking casters are on sale this week.