How to integrate DIY tools into your household

How you could still diy your own gear despite today’s rising living cost. 

Dang, prices of almost everything seems to be spiraling out of control these days. Well, except our salaries. 

More reasons why you should build your own audio gear. Or buy from folks like yours truly here where you know almost all the $$ you paid for goes to the product (and my tummy). You are surely not paying for my rental, my utility bills and my petrol expenses. (though I don’t mind receiving from you!)

Here’s a few tips to get you started on acquiring your desired DIY tools.

First tip : Budget your diy tools into your household budget.

Difficult you may think, but it’s actually pretty easy. You just need to be creative.

Why get this 

when you could have this? 

See my point?  Both are essentially the same thing, except that the one built for Him can do a lot more than the one built for Her.

“What? The dough is too hard? Your mixer can’t turn it? No problem!”

“What do you mean by wood shavings falling into the dough mix? It’s still organic!”

For example, if you use the all-so-useful heatshrink tubings, have you ever considered getting a hot air gun? Convince your better half,

why get this 

when you could have this?  

The latter is a lot more powerful. Guaranteed for even the thickest flock of wet hair.

Are you getting creative now? Think dual function.

This is how you could purchase your DIY tools without hurting the household budget. Convince your better half, if we are going to get some household appliances, might as well get the industrial version. More powerful, long lasting and thus $$ savings in the long run! You can’t lose!

Second tip : Think of creative uses of your new tools.

You need to get more usage from your tools, thus making it so huge a bargain, there is no excuse not to buy it! Again, put on your thinking cap, think out of the box… (ok, I’m done with cliches.)

Hee hee, I simply love using the palm sander. With different grits of sandpaper, you could sand/polish/wax off almost anything you could think of.

Why heck, with a 600 grit, plus some facial lotion, maybe you could convince your better half to try a facial! [just don’t tell her whom you got this idea from!] 

For a more powerful job, you can’t go wrong with belt sanders.

You could use it as a pencil sharpener, knife sharpener… why anything that needs sharpening!

Can’t find matches? All we need is some dry twigs…

Third tip : Justify, justify, justify.

This is easy. You just need to justify why you need the latest, most powerful gizmo. This is also good practice of “weaseling yourself out of trouble”. You never know when this “skill” may come in handy. If you are really good at this, maybe you should consider practicing law!

There’s no way I could justify to my wife that I “need” to buy this great-looking, awesomely-powerful compound sliding mitre saw.

Well, I designed a mini bar (sketch is more like it), showed it to her, explained how much a 100% solid wood hand made mini bar would cost, then justify that purchasing price of this mitre saw is only a fraction of the commercial mini bar. Might as well let me build one. Furthermore, we could customize it to suit our needs and fit our existing kitchen/decor nicely.

Of course she took the bait. And I got my mitre saw! [the fact that the mini bar turned out to be something else isn’t important here…]

Fourth tip : With so many tools, it’s a waste not to use them!

Ha ha! This has to be the easiest to pull off!  If you already have a mitre saw, sanders and other tools, it is just stupid to plough down hard earned money on commercial furniture that, most of the time, only looks good in the showroom, but not in your home.

Perfect excuse to build, build and build! Build racks, tables, chairs… Build for your friends, in-laws, pretty girl next door…

But how do you justify building audio gear?

I’m gonna give you a life saver here.

Fifth tip : Blame it on that yeo punk!

“Honey, can you believe what I read on yeo’s website?”

“That punk was proudly showing off his Hedlund horn, saying how great she sounds and insinuating how terrible our speakers are!”

“Yeah! He said that! That imbecile… ”

“He even threw down the gauntlet. ‘If you want to build a pair of speakers, build real horns, otherwise forget it.'”

“Yes! So arrogant!”

“Honey, we need to do better than him. I’m going to build a pair of these speakers.”

At this point, you DON’T show her your design. You show her the biggest, ugliest pair of speakers in the world. A design so ugly, she’ll definitely reject. [if she doesn’t, love is indeed blind.]

For sure she’ll reject! Th
en you show her YOUR design.

“Okay, how about this design? It’s a compromise from the other design. Much smaller and I could stain it to blend with the furniture in our living room.”

There you go! A few simple tips to get you started on getting your desired DIY tools.

Lastly, I’ll end with this truism.

“If it ain’t horn speakers, it’s not worth building.”

PS : Feel free to give more ideas! Write your comments!