Ever blast your eye with an air nailer exhaust?

[Robatoy]

I find that once I don my safety gear, I can concentrate on the task at hand, without having to look sideways at a saw spitting out chunks of material... I have mentioned here before, that I get a lot of comfort from a leather shop apron, simply because I don't care what hits it.. simple chips or saw-dust..all fine by me, and I know that a stray router-bit (and my work is very router dependant, some bits quite large) won't cut me. It also keeps belt-buckles, cell-phone pouch out of the way.. and my pockets don't fill with chaff. I have converted a few fellow butchers to wearing them, and they couldn't imagine walking into their shop without an apron now.

[DAC]

Are the T8's the way to go in a new shop? I've had the fluorescent lights before...just the el-cheapo from local borg. Never really gave it much thought but have a new shop waiting for the house to get built....

DAC

[Lee Michaels]

I used to wear a cloth apron. But the pockets would rapidly fill up with sawdust and chips. Then I started welding and used a leather welding apron. That was better, but I missed the pockets. I mentioned this to the guy at the welding store. He took me in back and showed me his apron.

He had taken leather from an old apron and sewed up some pockets that fit inside the apron along the top. He could put pens, etc. into these pockets. And since they were on the inside, they did not fill up with air borne junk.

I broke out an old leather sewing awl and made up some pockets for my welding apron. And bought a new one for woodwork and did the same thing.

[Markem]

One hangs at the ready just inside the door to the garage. I have a interesting scar looks like an M. Playing catch with the tablesaw bad idea.

Mark (sixoneeight) = 618

[Jim Behning]

[Robatoy]

Sorry I missed your question last time I looked here. Yes.. the T8 are more efficient, start in the cold and supposedly last longer. T8 will fit in a regular fixture (with two pins on each end) but flicker more. Then you can change the balast designed for t-8 and the flicker goes away and in my case the humming all disappeared too. The cold start is what got me going on T-8's... the rest was just a bonus.

HTH

r

[HerHusband]

I installed four T8 fluorescent fixtures (two 48" bulbs each), with electronic ballasts, in our garage when we built it a few years ago. Compared to all other lights I've used in the past, they are wonderful!

They come on instantly, with no flickering, even in cold weather. If it's really cold, they may be slightly dimmer for a few minutes, but they're usually up to full brightness by the time I turn on the heat and radio. :)

Mine are low profile so they fit snug against the ceiling giving me more room to swing boards around and whatnot. They also have nice covers to keep out dust and protect the bulbs if I get careless and smack one with a board.

The fluorescents also provide much more even lighting than the incandescent bulbs I was used during construction, and use about a third of the power. They've been in place about six years now and I'm still using all eight original bulbs.

The only downside was cost. I paid something like $80 per fixture, plus the cost of the bulbs. But I'm very happy I spent the money to get the better lights.

Anthony

[Bill Stock]

Put's a whole new light on Table Dancing. That's an image you won't get out of your head for a while, Swingman Table Dancing. :-)

Glad it all worked out OK though.

[Swingman]

In retrospect, it was probably as funny as that image is grotesque. ;)

Thanks ... still shudder to think of two eyefulls of thin slivers of glass.

[B A R R Y]

All the effort I put in to protect my eyes, and you go ahead and make me blind!

Bastard!

[Robatoy]

HEY!! I'm trying eat my lunch here!!!!!!!!!!!