Let there be LEDs! A shop project.

Welcome back to the My Motorbike Obsessions blog! Checking my post history shows that it has been a little over a month since my last post. Some of that was unintentional as I meant to have content ready to publish this month. Some of it was due to the holidays and work that kept me away from home and off the bikes. Either way, as I enjoy some time off with the family it is time to get back into the shop and play with my tools.

For this first return post, I had some time and cash to make a shop upgrade that has been a long time coming. Here in Southern California our winters can be considered "very mild", but it is just chilly enough that I want to keep the garage door shut when I'm out in the shop. The problem is that the open garage door is one of my major sources of light for my work. I found a product at the local Home Depot that should help take care of that issue.

Here is a "before" picture of the garage. Nothing special just a single car unfinished garage with some built in storage shelving. The house I live in is a military base housing unit originally built in the 1960's. They were renovated in the 90's to remove all of the fun stuff like lead paint and asbestos insulation. The garages were left unfinished as was the style back then. The walls have dark pressure treated wood studs and black tar paper that really suck up the light from the two 4' flourescent light fixtures mounted in the ceiling. I added a small 40W equivalent LED bulb over the tool box work bench and have made do for the last three years with these dimly lit environs.

I found these at the Home Depot while looking for a holiday project to do with my daughter. They are 3', plug in LED shop lights. The are chain mounted with a pull chain switch. They were $29 and change when I bought them, but I was able to get 10% off with my military ID. I bought two at the start of the project and returned a few days later to get a third since they worked so very well.

Today's shop time was indirectly sponsored by Sam Smith's Organic Chocolate Stout. I was turned on to this beer as it was part of the payment for when I sold the V-Strom. Smooth and pleasant it helped quench my thirst while toiling away with my tools. I was excited to tell others about this magic elixir, but everyone I told made a face that told me I was the only one on the planet that had never tried it.

Here is a shot of the LED light on my bench with my original bench light illuminating the way. The LED shop lights are light and easy to hang with just a couple of cheap eye hooks screwed into the rafters of the garage. I adjusted the hanging chains to suit my head clearance and to make sure I wouldn't be staring into the beam while working. I removed my original bench top light and plugged in the new one.

A quick pull of the shop light chain and this is the result. By comparing this picture to the one above you can readily tell the difference. The light is bright and white and it just seams to fill in all of the details of the tool box bench top and the surrounding area. With this success I went about hanging the second shop light to the garage door opener support beam in the ceiling. This would allow me to place the new light in parallel to the existing lights at the same height minimizing any distracting shadows from the all lights being at weird angles to each other.

Here is the shop with the new lights on for the after picture. Again you can see that the new lights spread the light further into the recesses of the shop giving me a much better and brighter work area to work in. This will mean fewer lost nuts and bolts and a cleaner shop. I liked the results so much I went out and got a third shop light to mount inline with the one in the center of the garage hanging off the garage door opener beam. I had to adjust the outlet that powers the garage door opener in order to provide the new light with power, but all in all this project only took about an hour to complete with all three lights. No power tools were needed. All of the lights must be turned on seperately from the original garage lights, but the good thing is that when I move I can take them all with me since they are plug in lights.

If your man cave is looking a little too cave like for quality shop time, take a look at lights like these. For the $85 and hour of time I spent on them I have a much improved shop ready for the bigger and better projects I have planned for 2017. Thanks for patiently waiting for blog updates. Stay tuned for more soon!

Blue