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Thread: Dealing with Aging and Other Challenges

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    SoCal
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    866

    Dealing with Aging and Other Challenges

    One simple tip for dealing with declining vision:

    Get a flat tape and lay the square across it to mark. No parallax errors and easier to make an easy to see mark.

    Tip.jpg

    If your vision is declining and you have not heard of Derek Cohen;s Blue Tape trick, I urge you to go to his website and learn about it.

    If you have a tip for overcoming challenges, please post them to this thread so that we have one place to accumulate them (unless there already is oen and I missed it)

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    South Coastal Massachusetts
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    Put tools away when you're finished with an operation.

    It is preferable they always go to the same places.

    Store things you rarely use on the wall you face, when standing at your bench.

    Consider hiring movers for anything heavier than a suitcase.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Matthews View Post
    Put tools away when you're finished with an operation.

    It is preferable they always go to the same places.

    Store things you rarely use on the wall you face, when standing at your bench.

    Consider hiring movers for anything heavier than a suitcase.
    Jim,

    Funny but true.

    I can remember lifting the back end of a VW and now I'm pushed to get a 8/4 board out of the wood pile without MsBubba's help.

    ken

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    DuBois, PA
    Posts
    1,897
    My vision is helped immensely with my magnifying safety glasses. My issues are arthritis in my hands, and using my Western joinery saws aggravates the pain. Japanese pull saws are easier on my hands, but getting a Leigh DT jig and a Festool Domino was the biggest help!
    If the thunder don't get you, the lightning will.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Location
    South West Ontario
    Posts
    1,502
    A six inch ring lit magnifying glass and quality tweezers for my splinter station is a big time saver. Can’t imagine why I did not do it before!
    ​You can do a lot with very little! You can do a little more with a lot!

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Mt Pleasant SC
    Posts
    721
    Put the small tools you use a lot on a tray and keep them handy. Easy to move the whole tray when needed.

    Don’t put the machines any further apart than necessary to eliminate a lot of unnecessary walking.

    Go into the shop around 9pm to setup a machine, organize and plan the next days work.

    Keep a nice rolling office chair nearby to take breaks in.

    Put notes in your phones note app for things needed and jobs to do.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    DuBois, PA
    Posts
    1,897
    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce King View Post
    Put the small tools you use a lot on a tray and keep them handy. Easy to move the whole tray when needed.

    Don’t put the machines any further apart than necessary to eliminate a lot of unnecessary walking.

    Go into the shop around 9pm to setup a machine, organize and plan the next days work.

    Keep a nice rolling office chair nearby to take breaks in.

    Put notes in your phones note app for things needed and jobs to do.
    I have at least 3 mid-sized magnetic trays (Harbor Freight) near my bench! Huge help!
    If the thunder don't get you, the lightning will.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Fairbanks AK
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    1,566
    Lighting!! I was looking for a reputable source online about how we need morelight to see with the acuity we used to have, didn't find an easy reputable link. I can say I took my shop up to 100 lumens per square foot of work area in my early 50s and should have done so sooner.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    South Coastal Massachusetts
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    6,824
    Quote Originally Posted by ken hatch View Post
    I can remember lifting the back end of a VW and now I'm pushed to get a 8/4 board out of the wood pile without MsBubba's help.

    ken
    Did you have a volume knob installed on that new ticker?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    On the edge of Pisgah National Forest
    Posts
    236
    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Winners View Post
    Lighting!! I was looking for a reputable source online about how we need morelight to see with the acuity we used to have, didn't find an easy reputable link. I can say I took my shop up to 100 lumens per square foot of work area in my early 50s and should have done so sooner.
    Two cheap, easy, and invaluable lighting methods:

    LED headlamp.

    One of those cheap clamp on lamps with a 1/2" tenon that goes in a clamp. The clamp went in the garbage (they always slip); I drilled 1/2" holes every 12" along the back of the bench top so the lamp can be moved to where the light is needed.
    Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Michiana
    Posts
    3,046
    Bifocals and bright lights. Just saying....
    Sharp solves all manner of problems.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Orange Park, FL
    Posts
    1,110
    The older I get the better I used to be.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SoCal
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    Quote Originally Posted by William Fretwell View Post
    A six inch ring lit magnifying glass and quality tweezers for my splinter station is a big time saver. Can’t imagine why I did not do it before!
    "Splinter Station" made me laugh. I have a too-small-for-much-else drawer in the shop that holds all my splinter removal goodies. It is a small but, often helpful thing to have a place to go where you can get invaders out of your skin quickly and easily. Different things help different people in the battle against Father Time. Good diet and exercise helped dad celebrate his 95th a couple days ago (he still walks 1-1/2 miles around the neighborhood every morning). I follow suit with a daily workout and physical therapy routine. Easy habit to start but, quite difficult to maintain. Arthritis and a soar back from ignoring my age sometimes sets me back BUT, I always re-start .
    Last edited by glenn bradley; 01-01-2021 at 10:28 AM.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  14. #14
    +1 on the above - The Japanese pull saws help and I just ordered a Japanese smoothing plane to help my wrists, which decided I was doing too much pushing with them! Also just ordered a ring magnifying light and am thinking about adding more lights to the shop as well.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    SF Bay Area
    Posts
    330
    More light! More light!.... and magnifiers of all sorts around everywhere (esp. near sharpening station and on workbench). Happy New Year to all.

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