Day 64, Protective Gear
Today's gems fall into a category which you might find boring, but which are pretty important: protective gear.
Power tools are a potential hazard to your eyes and ears. That means that you should view protecting your vision an hearing as completely "not optional". Sadly though, we can all get into bad habits, where you think to yourself "I just need to make this one cut with the table saw, and I don't see my hearing protection/protective goggles, but I'll be fine." To combat this, I find that you need to make finding and using your protective gear as easy as possible, and this means making them within easy reach every time you enter the shop.
To solve this, I bought some cheap wire hanging racks from the Dollar Tree, and attached them to the wall right inside the door to my garage. I then populated them with multiple copies of all the protective gear I can find, because if you can't find your pair of goggles when you need them, the default should be to grab another pair, not just make "that one cut" without them.
Most of the gear I have isn't that expensive. I got most of them from Harbor Freight, which despite their cheap price are often considered to be pretty reasonable protection, despite costing less than five dollars a pair. I like to have these around, because they are inexpensive and fit over my glasses, but I also have a few pairs of these as well, and also a cheap full face mask that you can flip up.
I also have a several pair of these little $4 ear muffs to serve as hearing protection. Having extra pairs is good for when Carmen comes to help out in the shop. They are reasonably comfortable, and do a pretty good job of dulling out the noise from saws and other heavier machinery. I also will wear them when using my lawn mower or weed whacker outside for short jobs.
But for long tasks, I sometimes like to have music or podcasts playing, and for those, something a bit fancier are useful. When I am going to be doing longer mowing jobs or working more consistently with power tools, I dust off this pair of ISOtunes noise cancelling ear muffs.
Many people prefer ear buds, and there are many good options, but I (probably superstitiously) cling to the idea that the ear muff style provides better noise reduction, and I don't need to look cool: I'm in the shop. These aren't particularly inexpensive but they have excellent performance and long battery life, and can be either recharged or powered by 3 AA batteries. They are comfortable enough to wear for long periods.
In addition to hearing and eye protection, you should be concerned about your lungs as well. My solutions for that problem will come in a future episode.
Happy 4th of July!