# Shop Cleanup, Catch-Up, and Redo



## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

*Getting Started*

After four years in the shop it is time to take the lessons learned, advance in skills, and just plain ole time to make some adjustments, fix something's that just didn't work out as planned, thought of, or over-engineered along with a smattering of small projects that I have been putting off. Fix the duct collector runs, the Air Compressor Lines, drawers that will not stay closed or sticking. Small projects including the Revolving Tool Station, a rebuild of a bird house, finishing up a year old end-grain cutting board. I hope to have this all done by the end of September. So I can get started on the rest of the Christmas gifts I plan to make this season.

Wish me luck!


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## DamnYankee (May 21, 2011)

sIKE said:


> *Getting Started*
> 
> After four years in the shop it is time to take the lessons learned, advance in skills, and just plain ole time to make some adjustments, fix something's that just didn't work out as planned, thought of, or over-engineered along with a smattering of small projects that I have been putting off. Fix the duct collector runs, the Air Compressor Lines, drawers that will not stay closed or sticking. Small projects including the Revolving Tool Station, a rebuild of a bird house, finishing up a year old end-grain cutting board. I hope to have this all done by the end of September. So I can get started on the rest of the Christmas gifts I plan to make this season.
> 
> Wish me luck!


Good luck


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Getting Started*
> 
> After four years in the shop it is time to take the lessons learned, advance in skills, and just plain ole time to make some adjustments, fix something's that just didn't work out as planned, thought of, or over-engineered along with a smattering of small projects that I have been putting off. Fix the duct collector runs, the Air Compressor Lines, drawers that will not stay closed or sticking. Small projects including the Revolving Tool Station, a rebuild of a bird house, finishing up a year old end-grain cutting board. I hope to have this all done by the end of September. So I can get started on the rest of the Christmas gifts I plan to make this season.
> 
> Wish me luck!


Thanks!


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## Kristoffer (Aug 5, 2009)

sIKE said:


> *Getting Started*
> 
> After four years in the shop it is time to take the lessons learned, advance in skills, and just plain ole time to make some adjustments, fix something's that just didn't work out as planned, thought of, or over-engineered along with a smattering of small projects that I have been putting off. Fix the duct collector runs, the Air Compressor Lines, drawers that will not stay closed or sticking. Small projects including the Revolving Tool Station, a rebuild of a bird house, finishing up a year old end-grain cutting board. I hope to have this all done by the end of September. So I can get started on the rest of the Christmas gifts I plan to make this season.
> 
> Wish me luck!


Good luck to ya. I'm not sure if this would come in handy, but I found it recently and have been playing around with it. 
http://www.grizzly.com/workshopplanner.aspx
We've finally gotten a closing date for the house that we are buying (Sept. 30) and the garage is 27 1/2' by 25 1/2'. I've never had so much room and I think that the planner will be a big help.


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## PurpLev (May 30, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Getting Started*
> 
> After four years in the shop it is time to take the lessons learned, advance in skills, and just plain ole time to make some adjustments, fix something's that just didn't work out as planned, thought of, or over-engineered along with a smattering of small projects that I have been putting off. Fix the duct collector runs, the Air Compressor Lines, drawers that will not stay closed or sticking. Small projects including the Revolving Tool Station, a rebuild of a bird house, finishing up a year old end-grain cutting board. I hope to have this all done by the end of September. So I can get started on the rest of the Christmas gifts I plan to make this season.
> 
> Wish me luck!


sounds like a mighty project to take on - good luck.


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

*I like it when a plan comes together*

I know it been two weeks but I have been a bit busy with work. I did spend last weekend tearing things down and pulling the bench off the wall. Aye, what a job and a mess!

So I started the improvements in the left corner of the shop where the Revolving Tool Station lives.

My Air Compressor line comes down from the loft in this corner so that was the first thing that I worked on. 








I am using a RapidAir based solution here.

I then proceeded to clean up the Tool Station itself and finished up securing the electrical run up under in the storage area. Next up was the Dust Collection for the station. This one was tough, I spent a good amount of time noodling this solution in my brain. Here is what I came up with, with this just being the hard line. 








I attached a hose from an old, burnt up shop vac and I am supporting it with a tool balancer that I picked up on the cheap from a liquidation sale from shutdown of the Dell Assembly line here in Austin. 








When I need to use the line on the station I can just pull it down and when it is not needed it up and out of the way. You may be saying where is the blast gate? Well that is next on the list of improvements. The main line for my dust collection is down underneath the bench. 








Well here is where the blast gates will live. They too will be up underneath the miter bench. Note that I am using no clog Blast Gates, I found these at Woodcraft a while back, I like the idea, and I'll let you know how they work over the long haul.

Other items of interest is that I have pulled the copper grounding wire from the inside of the pipe. I am still planning on wrapping the outside of the pipe with the copper wire again just to keep the static electricity away. I now know static electricity will not start a fire in a wood shop, I just do not like getting zapped! I managed to get the left bench backup against the wall and leveled before running out of time this evening. Here is how things look at the end of the day.








You can see the threaded rod running up from the blast gate center right of the picture. I will detail this solution once I am done working out the kinks.


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## NormG (Mar 5, 2010)

sIKE said:


> *I like it when a plan comes together*
> 
> I know it been two weeks but I have been a bit busy with work. I did spend last weekend tearing things down and pulling the bench off the wall. Aye, what a job and a mess!
> 
> ...


Looks wonderful. What a great idea for the set up


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *I like it when a plan comes together*
> 
> I know it been two weeks but I have been a bit busy with work. I did spend last weekend tearing things down and pulling the bench off the wall. Aye, what a job and a mess!
> 
> ...


Thanks!


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

*Slow Progress but the Air Compressor line work is done (mostly)*

Been busy and my Air Compress is very problematic at best I was hoping by putting it up in the loft that I could just leave it be and when the money came around I would replace it. However it had other plans and spent a good part of one day getting it mostly working. After that set back I got back to work on get the lines for the Air Compress. For those who don't know I have a loft in my shop and I have moved my air compressor up there. I originally ran PVC for the airlines but I wasn't happy with them after I had a piece of wood fly in to one under pressure. Nothing but a loud hiss but still scary. So I as a part of this project I am replacing the lines with Nylon based tubing from RaipidAir. One of the improvements I am making this time around is due to the location of the Air Compressor, with it being up in the loft I can't see how much pressure I have in the tank, I can't use the Pressure regulator, and the cleaning the filters is a bit challenging. So this time around I moved all that down within easy reach. 








and here is the end of the run.








I cover the blast gate soultion next….


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## daltxguy (Sep 7, 2007)

sIKE said:


> *Slow Progress but the Air Compressor line work is done (mostly)*
> 
> Been busy and my Air Compress is very problematic at best I was hoping by putting it up in the loft that I could just leave it be and when the money came around I would replace it. However it had other plans and spent a good part of one day getting it mostly working. After that set back I got back to work on get the lines for the Air Compress. For those who don't know I have a loft in my shop and I have moved my air compressor up there. I originally ran PVC for the airlines but I wasn't happy with them after I had a piece of wood fly in to one under pressure. Nothing but a loud hiss but still scary. So I as a part of this project I am replacing the lines with Nylon based tubing from RaipidAir. One of the improvements I am making this time around is due to the location of the Air Compressor, with it being up in the loft I can't see how much pressure I have in the tank, I can't use the Pressure regulator, and the cleaning the filters is a bit challenging. So this time around I moved all that down within easy reach.
> 
> ...


Life is so much easier without an air compressor ..or power tools 
Looks like you've got a great solution now!


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## degoose (Mar 20, 2009)

sIKE said:


> *Slow Progress but the Air Compressor line work is done (mostly)*
> 
> Been busy and my Air Compress is very problematic at best I was hoping by putting it up in the loft that I could just leave it be and when the money came around I would replace it. However it had other plans and spent a good part of one day getting it mostly working. After that set back I got back to work on get the lines for the Air Compress. For those who don't know I have a loft in my shop and I have moved my air compressor up there. I originally ran PVC for the airlines but I wasn't happy with them after I had a piece of wood fly in to one under pressure. Nothing but a loud hiss but still scary. So I as a part of this project I am replacing the lines with Nylon based tubing from RaipidAir. One of the improvements I am making this time around is due to the location of the Air Compressor, with it being up in the loft I can't see how much pressure I have in the tank, I can't use the Pressure regulator, and the cleaning the filters is a bit challenging. So this time around I moved all that down within easy reach.
> 
> ...


Life without power tools… egads..


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## lilredweldingrod (Nov 23, 2009)

sIKE said:


> *Slow Progress but the Air Compressor line work is done (mostly)*
> 
> Been busy and my Air Compress is very problematic at best I was hoping by putting it up in the loft that I could just leave it be and when the money came around I would replace it. However it had other plans and spent a good part of one day getting it mostly working. After that set back I got back to work on get the lines for the Air Compress. For those who don't know I have a loft in my shop and I have moved my air compressor up there. I originally ran PVC for the airlines but I wasn't happy with them after I had a piece of wood fly in to one under pressure. Nothing but a loud hiss but still scary. So I as a part of this project I am replacing the lines with Nylon based tubing from RaipidAir. One of the improvements I am making this time around is due to the location of the Air Compressor, with it being up in the loft I can't see how much pressure I have in the tank, I can't use the Pressure regulator, and the cleaning the filters is a bit challenging. So this time around I moved all that down within easy reach.
> 
> ...


"Some times I think Tim the Toolman is a wimp. POWER POWER, give me more POWER!!!


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Slow Progress but the Air Compressor line work is done (mostly)*
> 
> Been busy and my Air Compress is very problematic at best I was hoping by putting it up in the loft that I could just leave it be and when the money came around I would replace it. However it had other plans and spent a good part of one day getting it mostly working. After that set back I got back to work on get the lines for the Air Compress. For those who don't know I have a loft in my shop and I have moved my air compressor up there. I originally ran PVC for the airlines but I wasn't happy with them after I had a piece of wood fly in to one under pressure. Nothing but a loud hiss but still scary. So I as a part of this project I am replacing the lines with Nylon based tubing from RaipidAir. One of the improvements I am making this time around is due to the location of the Air Compressor, with it being up in the loft I can't see how much pressure I have in the tank, I can't use the Pressure regulator, and the cleaning the filters is a bit challenging. So this time around I moved all that down within easy reach.
> 
> ...


The man from Dallas now retired and has the time to push the plane accross the board to get it flat….


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

*Blast Gates - It works! It really does!*

I was not very happy with my dust collection run and blast gate solution the last time around. So I put some thought into how I would make it better this time. First was I wanted gates that wouldn't get clogged, and second I wanted to be able to easily open and close them without reaching under the bench. The first part was easy, I found some no clog gates a while back at WoodCraft.








As you can see I have drilled a hole on the side of the gate opposite of the wall. I am using a 2ft length of threaded rod and I have used three nuts to capture the rod on the gate. I then put the top back on the cabinet frame and drilled a hole through the top for the rod to go through. So you can guess my thinking is to use the rod to lift open and push close the blast gates. The challenge is gravity, when you lift up on the on the rod the gate it works as expected , but when you let go of the rod it falls back down and closes the gate. So I thought about several different solutions but this is the one I came up with. I bought 4 small Bessy spring clamps from the blue borg. I opened the clamp up with a piece wood that made the jaw roughly parallel to each other, and I then drilled a 15/32 hole as close to center on the end of the clamp as possible. 








I then repeated this on the side of the clamp. You now should basically have a hole through the clamp. You should then open of the jaws of the clamp and place it over the threaded rod. I used my test clamp to keep the jaws open. I then pulled the rubber grip off of the bottom handled and then used a 1 1/2" screw with a finish washer through the hole in the handle. On the jaw end of the clam I used a flat washer and a Pocket Hole screw to hold the end of the clamp down onto the work bench. The main thing to be careful here is to make sure the bottom hole is not touching the threaded rod. 








As you can see in the picture with the jaws closed the threaded rod is now in a bind.








To open the blast gate you would press down on the handle of the clamp and then use the handle on the threaded rod to lift up and open the blast gate, you would then let go of the clamp handle which would close and bind keep the handle in the up position, to close the gate you would just press down on the clamp handle and the threaded rod will fall closing the blast gate.








Let me know if you have any questions!


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## PurpLev (May 30, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Blast Gates - It works! It really does!*
> 
> I was not very happy with my dust collection run and blast gate solution the last time around. So I put some thought into how I would make it better this time. First was I wanted gates that wouldn't get clogged, and second I wanted to be able to easily open and close them without reaching under the bench. The first part was easy, I found some no clog gates a while back at WoodCraft.
> 
> ...


nice! I noticed in previous posts that you have quick a long run of DC pipes. I just rearranged my shop space today mainly because of poor DC performance that was caused by long runs of pipes (will post when done). ended up with a lot of LV blast gates (maybe use them in the future) hope this solution works for you. I reverted to relocating DC to right next to the machines.


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## degoose (Mar 20, 2009)

sIKE said:


> *Blast Gates - It works! It really does!*
> 
> I was not very happy with my dust collection run and blast gate solution the last time around. So I put some thought into how I would make it better this time. First was I wanted gates that wouldn't get clogged, and second I wanted to be able to easily open and close them without reaching under the bench. The first part was easy, I found some no clog gates a while back at WoodCraft.
> 
> ...


I have blast gates to all my machines… above…and have a cyclone… it all works great…
If I had my run under the bench then this would be a great addition…


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Blast Gates - It works! It really does!*
> 
> I was not very happy with my dust collection run and blast gate solution the last time around. So I put some thought into how I would make it better this time. First was I wanted gates that wouldn't get clogged, and second I wanted to be able to easily open and close them without reaching under the bench. The first part was easy, I found some no clog gates a while back at WoodCraft.
> 
> ...


It is one straight run about 20 ft long. When done I will have only 4 blast gates. I am trying to keep this a simple as possible.


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Blast Gates - It works! It really does!*
> 
> I was not very happy with my dust collection run and blast gate solution the last time around. So I put some thought into how I would make it better this time. First was I wanted gates that wouldn't get clogged, and second I wanted to be able to easily open and close them without reaching under the bench. The first part was easy, I found some no clog gates a while back at WoodCraft.
> 
> ...


Thanks larry! Next up is the plenum box for the Miter Saw based off of yours and Blankman's solutions.


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## Bearpie (Feb 19, 2010)

sIKE said:


> *Blast Gates - It works! It really does!*
> 
> I was not very happy with my dust collection run and blast gate solution the last time around. So I put some thought into how I would make it better this time. First was I wanted gates that wouldn't get clogged, and second I wanted to be able to easily open and close them without reaching under the bench. The first part was easy, I found some no clog gates a while back at WoodCraft.
> 
> ...


Only problem I can see down the road is when you will need the table space and the dang clamp and rod are in the way! Good idea otherwise but I think I would have put the rod at edge of table?


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Blast Gates - It works! It really does!*
> 
> I was not very happy with my dust collection run and blast gate solution the last time around. So I put some thought into how I would make it better this time. First was I wanted gates that wouldn't get clogged, and second I wanted to be able to easily open and close them without reaching under the bench. The first part was easy, I found some no clog gates a while back at WoodCraft.
> 
> ...


Bearpie, They will be behind the board supports, this is Norms Miter Bench…..


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## PurpLev (May 30, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Blast Gates - It works! It really does!*
> 
> I was not very happy with my dust collection run and blast gate solution the last time around. So I put some thought into how I would make it better this time. First was I wanted gates that wouldn't get clogged, and second I wanted to be able to easily open and close them without reaching under the bench. The first part was easy, I found some no clog gates a while back at WoodCraft.
> 
> ...


Sike, I had 2 separate ~20 feet runs, 1 with a single large 90 bend, and 1 with 2 large 90 bends. I am now "downgrading" it to a 5ft-10ft run with blast gates per machine. I am interested to hear how this works for you down the line. for what it's worth my run wasn't very good, it went up above ceiling and back down to TS… performed pretty bad.


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Blast Gates - It works! It really does!*
> 
> I was not very happy with my dust collection run and blast gate solution the last time around. So I put some thought into how I would make it better this time. First was I wanted gates that wouldn't get clogged, and second I wanted to be able to easily open and close them without reaching under the bench. The first part was easy, I found some no clog gates a while back at WoodCraft.
> 
> ...


Sharon,

My main problem was that my suicked  really …

I did a lot of reading on the topic and at the time was concerened about the fire hazzard all the books talked about. So I dropped a nice dime on braided copper wire and ran it on the inside of my run. Just to let you know, all this did for me was to cause clogs. At the end of my run I used 45º elbows with 8" of straight pipe between them, then it is a straight shot up and then another long sweep 90 degree elbow. It of course is at the end of the run and is only for the belt sander and drill press. Neither produce copius amounts of saw dust/chips. The other devices are the RAS, Miter, Table Saws. The table saw solution is still forming, as for the RAS and Miter Saw I am going to deploy a plenum chamber based solution for them.


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

*Dust Collection for Miter Saw Part I*

After reviewing many a magazine and multiple solutions for dust collection with this beasty, I decided to roll my own based off of BlankMan's / Degoose's designs. the designs both include plenum chambers to spread the suction across a small horizontal opening. Both solutions have the mainline for the DC above the bench, mine of course is below. With this all in mind and since I had pulled the benches off the shop wall, what I decided to do was to build a separate plenum box and integrate it in to the top of the bench itself, and then size the opening in the top to the dimensions needed for the current miter saw. I cut the center section out of the bench where the saw lives and left a 6" 2×4 support stubs on the back of each bench. I then built the plenum chambers length to make up the difference which was 29 3/8" in length. After having a chat with BlankMan I decided to make the interior of the chamber 6". Since I am using ½" ply wood that meant exterior dimensions would be a bit under 7" (since this ply was .490 thick). I then ripped the sides and bottom. Centered the hole for the DC port.








I made a mistake here with a wandering jig saw and had to use a decent amount epoxy to fix. The fun part was since the port is at a 45 degree angle I went ahead and put a small drum sander on the end of the cordless drilled and shaped the outlet to the dust port exactly. I then attached and glued the sides on. 








Next up was the plenum divider board. I am still playing with the its final height but I think the hole placement will work long term. 12.5 sq. Inches was the goal in total "hole" space. After scratching my head for a bit, I grabbed the laptop and started inputting the diameter of my forestner bits to get the area of the circle. Once I got these figures, some division and addition later I came up with the hole sizes and counts. I end up with 2 - 2" Holes on each end, centered and 5" from the end. I then cut in 8 - 1" holes between them (used SketchUp to divide the holes up even across the space).








For testing I taped on some pieces of hard board to simulate the top with a centered ¼" slot.








I plan to play with the layout at bit more but at this time it works beautifully.


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Dust Collection for Miter Saw Part I*
> 
> After reviewing many a magazine and multiple solutions for dust collection with this beasty, I decided to roll my own based off of BlankMan's / Degoose's designs. the designs both include plenum chambers to spread the suction across a small horizontal opening. Both solutions have the mainline for the DC above the bench, mine of course is below. With this all in mind and since I had pulled the benches off the shop wall, what I decided to do was to build a separate plenum box and integrate it in to the top of the bench itself, and then size the opening in the top to the dimensions needed for the current miter saw. I cut the center section out of the bench where the saw lives and left a 6" 2×4 support stubs on the back of each bench. I then built the plenum chambers length to make up the difference which was 29 3/8" in length. After having a chat with BlankMan I decided to make the interior of the chamber 6". Since I am using ½" ply wood that meant exterior dimensions would be a bit under 7" (since this ply was .490 thick). I then ripped the sides and bottom. Centered the hole for the DC port.
> 
> ...


I also still need to add a way to support the plenum board in the middle.


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## BlankMan (Mar 21, 2009)

sIKE said:


> *Dust Collection for Miter Saw Part I*
> 
> After reviewing many a magazine and multiple solutions for dust collection with this beasty, I decided to roll my own based off of BlankMan's / Degoose's designs. the designs both include plenum chambers to spread the suction across a small horizontal opening. Both solutions have the mainline for the DC above the bench, mine of course is below. With this all in mind and since I had pulled the benches off the shop wall, what I decided to do was to build a separate plenum box and integrate it in to the top of the bench itself, and then size the opening in the top to the dimensions needed for the current miter saw. I cut the center section out of the bench where the saw lives and left a 6" 2×4 support stubs on the back of each bench. I then built the plenum chambers length to make up the difference which was 29 3/8" in length. After having a chat with BlankMan I decided to make the interior of the chamber 6". Since I am using ½" ply wood that meant exterior dimensions would be a bit under 7" (since this ply was .490 thick). I then ripped the sides and bottom. Centered the hole for the DC port.
> 
> ...


Howdy, how'd it work out? And got any pictures of it in place?


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## sIKE (Feb 14, 2008)

sIKE said:


> *Dust Collection for Miter Saw Part I*
> 
> After reviewing many a magazine and multiple solutions for dust collection with this beasty, I decided to roll my own based off of BlankMan's / Degoose's designs. the designs both include plenum chambers to spread the suction across a small horizontal opening. Both solutions have the mainline for the DC above the bench, mine of course is below. With this all in mind and since I had pulled the benches off the shop wall, what I decided to do was to build a separate plenum box and integrate it in to the top of the bench itself, and then size the opening in the top to the dimensions needed for the current miter saw. I cut the center section out of the bench where the saw lives and left a 6" 2×4 support stubs on the back of each bench. I then built the plenum chambers length to make up the difference which was 29 3/8" in length. After having a chat with BlankMan I decided to make the interior of the chamber 6". Since I am using ½" ply wood that meant exterior dimensions would be a bit under 7" (since this ply was .490 thick). I then ripped the sides and bottom. Centered the hole for the DC port.
> 
> ...


It is in place but that project is on hold for now, I have a couple of more project that I am having to work around for now…...


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