Handy Garage Tips-

Do you have a smaller garage or do you have a garage that needs some straightening up? Here are some good ideas to get your shop in order and some ideas to re-use scrap and trash and save money.

1. Save your baby food jars and other small jars with screw on lids. These come in handy for holding screws and small nails or anything else that will fit in them. If you have any wooden shelves, using a wood screw, screw the lid of the jar right to the underside of the shelf. Then fill your jar with whatever you desire and screw the jar to the lid.

2. Save all your sawdust. Saw dust is free and it works well as a sweeping compound and as oil dry. Just sprinkle it on oil or a wet spill and let it soak up the moisture then just sweep it up.

3. Buy a 120v AC output thermostat for your multi-fuel forced air heater (salamander). If you add a thermostat to your salamander it will make a tank of fuel last at least twice as long by not running the heater once a comfortable temperature is reached. This will also save you from worrying about unplugging and plugging in the heater all the time.

4. Save all your old laundry soap containers, these are great for getting rid of all your old oil. Just fill them up and take them to your local place of oil disposal. Most auto parts stores will take it and most auto repair shops love to take it because, they usually have an oil burning furnace that they can burn it in. They will filter it and burn it up as a free fuel source.

5. Save an old oil bottle for use as a funnel in a pinch.

6. If you happen to get gasoline on your hands and want to get the smell off of you, wash your hands with Listerine. It will take the smell completely away.

7. Save your old toothbrushes. Old toothbrushes are great as parts cleaners and for cleaning hard to reach crevices in projects.

8. Save an old serpentine belt for making a handy strap wrench. A strap wrench comes in handy for a lot of things, namely round hard to grip objects like an oil filter. Just take an old belt and a pair of vise grips or channel lock pliers, wrap the belt around the object you are trying to loosen and grab it with the pliers and turn.

9. I f you are going to have to mess around with fiberglass insulation or any thing with fibrous fiberglass, coat your arms and hands with baby powder. The baby powder will prevent the fiberglass form getting into your skin.

10. If you have a hard to turn screw, use a pair of pliers to turn the screw driver while applying downward pressure.

11. If you happen to strip the screw file the round edges into two flat edges on the head of the screw and use an adjustable wrench to remove the screw.

12. For extra leverage when using a standard open and box end wrench use a slightly larger wrench and lock the box end of it into the open end of the wrench you are trying to turn.