A very long time ago, I said that the purchase of a portable dish washer saved our marriage. It was a different time, and our first apartment didn’t have a dishwasher. Washing dishes was a point of, uh, discussion from time to time.
Our apartment didn’t have major appliances, but it did have live music every school morning; we got to listen to the Hart High marching band from across the street. Given that we were both working late nights at the time, it wasn’t a benefit, believe me.

The Sears Craftsman Dust Collector on a happier day.
But I digress.
Life has changed, of course, and we no longer need a portable dishwasher to add to our domestic bliss. The problem now is that I can be a dirty boy. Dirty, dirty boy.
I got cleaner, though, when I began to use a dust collector. The machine makes a huge difference in the amount of sawdust in the garage workshop air. And, if it’s not in the air, then I do not carry the sawdust into the house, much to Velda’s relief. I have an upgraded Sears Craftsman 1-1/2 HP, model 152.213370 that eliminates dust particles down to 1 micron in size. It is great.
Was great.
The dust collector gave up the ghost this week. The motor will no longer go: the on-board circuit breaker blows every time I hit start. I replaced the circuit breaker, hoping that was the issue … no joy.
This isn’t just a dirt problem, as I can’t use my drum sander or planer without a dust collector (those tools, you see, generate clouds of sawdust). I can’t easily build cutting boards without those tools. Using the other tools might be possible … but it would be dirty. Very dirty.
Luckily, I found a used, comparable replacement on Craigslist … and the motivated seller is delivering it to me today at 8am. And that, my friends, is a very good thing.
A portable dishwasher saved my marriage, too. We lived in a horrid apartment that first year.