I need as couple 20-25 footers too. I hate to have to take 100' of cord to reach 20 feet. The trip over the excess cord and make a mess out of it.
I plan on making a few even shorter, Rog. 6-15' is what I'm going to try.
I’m thinking that’s what I need. Before I retired I had readers on the bottom with clear at the top. I could see to make wood cuts then see to walk away without staggering lol
Sounds like once I get done with all the lasering crap, that's what I will have, readers at the bottom, no prescription on top. I would like some like Marty was talking about with readers top and bottom, but I bet they are big money. Could have used a pair like that today!
I cut a piece or two of the wire insulation and wrap it around the cord where it gets clamped to increase the pressure.
When I first retired I got so frustrated because most of my cords were too long. I went to HF and bought a bag of their male and female ends. I got one of my long cords and made three shorter ones. Now that’s about all I use.
I ended up using wire. Story below.
Nice enough day where I figured working with the overhead door open so junk can be taken off the lift and rolled outside would be good.
Took the tree trimming trailer a motorcycle jack and pressure washer off the lift and rolled them out along with the generator and snowblower that stay on the floor this time of year.
Took the little HF floor jack and moved all 4 tractors over. Gave me space to stand on the lift to work on hanging the cord reel.
Raised the lift up to a good working height and marked out where I wanted to bolt it on the I-beam. Had already drilled the bracket for the reel and slotted one hole so it could be squared up. Hadn't marked it yet in the pic.
Now the drilling. It sucked bad for awhile! I'm too wimpy anymore to put upward pressure on the drill to get a normal bit through something that thick! Started with 1/8" and planned to work it out bigger with 4 or so reaching a little bigger than 5/16". Didn't even look at the size---LOL! I wanted some "wiggle room". That was going nowhere. Almost gave up but then I thought about some "rivet" bits. That's what I always called them anyway.
Only have 1/8" left any more, and only 3 new ones. Make that 2 now. Used to have 3/16" too. Probably used them up on racecars after getting away from building electric sign cabinets. They used mostly 1/8". That little bit made short work on drilling a first pilot hole! Then just kept stepping it out with 4 other sizes after that.
Bolted the bracket on and squared it up. Of course I put it on backwards first---LOL! Took it back off and reversed it. Hung the reel.
I had already wrapped wire between the reel cord and the hoist in the pic. Lowered the hook to pull it over and it seems to work fine. It does have enough spring to pull the hoist back a bit but it's not as much resistance as Aaron described earlier.
Started getting cold and windy so hurried up and raised the lift back up and tipped the waste oil barrel over in the process! Fortunately there was just a small amount of oil that leaked from the cap vent. Glad I keep that thing close to empty all the time!
Brought junk back in and closed up the door!
DAC