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HARBOR FREIGHT DUST COLLECTOR

Harbor Freight Dust Collector Mod

House, Tips + Tricks, Uncategorized Courtney & Brent

In this tutorial we will show how we upgraded a Harbor Freight Dust Collector with the Super Dust Deputy XL from Oneida Air Systems.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

My latest undertaking helped our garage look and function more like a woodworking shop.

There comes a time when you work on enough DIY woodworking projects that a shop vacuum just won’t cut it anymore.

I was finding it was inconvenient because I was constantly having to unhook it from my table saw and then wheel it across the room to hook it up to my miter saw and then unhook it from my miter saw and wheel it back across the garage to the table saw.

It was also fairly ineffective because quite often the filter on the shop vacuum got clogged because the bin filled up so fast.

Well, that might be on me because I never cleaned it out, but when you are in the middle of a project, who wants to stop the fun part to clean out a vacuum after every few cuts? Obviously not me. So much sawdust would end up on the ground that Courtney joked she could make sawdust angels.

I would procrastinate cleaning the floor until I started a new project which meant if I ran out into the garage to get something, I most likely definitely tracked in a good amount of sawdust on my socks.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

It became clear to me that I needed to build a dust collector so I finally built one for the Gray House Studio shop by taking a Harbor Freight dust collector and upgrading it to a 2 stage cyclone dust collector.

I did this with the Super Dust Deputy XL Cyclone Separator. Oneida Air Systems was kind enough to send us one to use and it made a huge impact.

My goal for my dust collector was to have it service multiple tools at the same time. Since the tools are separated by 10 to 20 feet I needed more power than the Harbor Freight dust collector could provide. It just wasn’t cutting it so I modified it with a larger impeller so that I could use a six inch duct.

Also, the filter bag that came with the Harbor Freight dust collector didn’t filter out the tiniest particles. What I really like about the Super Dust Deputy XL Cyclone Separator is it separates the wood chips and the dust so only air and very fine particles pass through the blower to the filter. This prevents any microscopic particles from entering back into the air in the shop.

Alright, enough talk, here is how I upgraded my Harbor Freight Dust Collector.

How We Upgraded a Harbor Freight Dust Collector

SUPPLIES

Shop the products we used for this project in one place.

FYI: This post contains a few affiliate links to products we used to make this project. Gray House Studio does receive commissions for sales from these links but at no extra cost to you. We appreciate you supporting this site. Read our privacy and disclosure policy. You can also easily shop our recommended products here.

TUTORIAL VIDEO

STEPS

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

1. The dust collector build started with a stock 2hp single phase Harbor Freight dust collector.

To seamlessly connect to the Super Dust Deputy XL I’m going to upgrade the impeller. The stock blower can’t push enough air to support a 6″ opening. I removed the impeller using a puller tool.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

2. The stock harbor freight blower has a 10″ impeller so the new 12″ impeller should boost performance significantly.

Plus, the stock Harbor Freight impeller as a forward-inclined fans whereas the larger Rikon impeller has a backward inclined.

Forward inclines provide more flow but lose power when pressure increases. The backward incline provides more consistent performance as the pressure increases.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

3. Using a jigsaw and sheet metal blade the intake port was widened from 5″ to 6″.

A 6″ duct collar was then attached to the intake faceplate with rivets.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

4. To hold the blower to the wall we made a mounting bracket with 2x4s anchored to the wall studs.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

5. After mounting the blower on the 2×4 bracket the outlet port was converted to a 6″ outlet by attaching a duct transition with 1/2″ sheet metal screws
 and liquid nails.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

6. Before mounting the filter to the blower I used a jigsaw to open the closed side of the filter.

Then, cut a donut shaped mounting plate out of sheet metal to mount the 6″ collar and secured the mounting plate to the filter with 1/2″ sheet metal screws.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector
7. I made a U bracket out of 2x4s to hold the filter in place against the wall. The filter attached to the bracket with screws from the top.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

8. The Super Dust Deputy XL cyclone is designed to mount directly to the lid of the barrel.

The opening at the bottom of the cyclone is roughly 6″, so I cut out another 6″ hole with a jigsaw in the top of the barrel lid.

The cyclone comes with hardware to mount the cyclone and a gasket. Since I misplaced the hardware I used construction adhesive and large rivets.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

9. Once connected to the barrel lid the cyclone was attached to the inlet of the blower with 1/2″ screws.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

10. To seal the bottom of the filter I attached two latches to the filter allowing me to secure and remove a plywood donut and plastic bag.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

11. The bag will catch any particles that makes it though the blower to the filter. Once particles accumulate they can be easily cleaned by emptying the bag.

Harbor Freight Dust Collector

12. Before turning on the dust collector I taped all the joints with foil duct tape.

I tested it out and it was nice to have it work just how I wanted and not be near as loud as my old shop vacuum.

I am looking forward to the connivence and having a cleaner shop.

The Cyclone Separator made a huge difference in taking my dust collector to the next level and making it more powerful and effective. I was also excited to attach the ONEIDA Dust Sentry Level Sensor.

I can’t wait to work on my first woodworking project with my new upgraded dust collector.

PIN FOR LATER

A tutorial showing how to upgrade a Harbor Freight Dust Collector with the Super Dust Deputy XL from Oneida Air Systems for your shop.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack with Bench

House, Organization Courtney & Brent

Our latest DIY storage project was to build a wall-mounted bike rack with a bench in our garage to store our bikes.

A unique way to store your bikes in the garage - a DIY wall-mounted bike rack with a bench. It takes up little space depth wise, you can store two bikes, it gives you a place to sit down AND the front is painted with chalkboard paint so the front design can always change.

Operation organize garage/shop is currently underway. We completed making over one wall in the garage with a large DIY storage project so we are making progress.

We covered one of the large walls in the garage with more of the faux brick panels. (Like we did in our home gym)

This time we painted the faux brick panels white. We are painting the other walls with Sherwin-Williams Gauntlet Gray.

We also finished our wall-mounted bike rack DIY project! We are excited to give you the scoop on how this project came together.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

Last year we got bikes for Christmas which have been really fun to ride around our neighborhood and to the park but we didn’t have a great place to store them in the garage.

When planning the design of our bike rack storage project we had the following criteria:

1. The bikes needed to be easy to access
2. The bike rack needed to accommodate two bikes
3. The bike rack needed to take up as little space as possible depth wise
4. The bike rack needed to have a fun design and match the rest of the garage
5. BONUS: The bike rack could have additional functionality of an attached bench

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

We entered our DIY bike rack project in the Rust-Oleum Creator’s Studio Blogger Challenge. They sent us a box of different types of spray paint and stains and we choose this chalk board paint to use on our project.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

Since this was one our “make it up as we go because we don’t have anything to reference” projects, it took a little while to find our groove and some trial and error experimenting.

These types of projects are always frustrating when you are in the middle of problem solving but are always the most rewarding when you see it completed.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

Below is our process for building our wall-mounted bike rack with a bench.

2022 Personalized Christmas Ornaments
*** Thanks so much for supporting our small shop – Moon Rock Prints – this holiday season! ***

How To Build a Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

SUPPLIES

FYI: This post contains a few affiliate links to products we used to make this project. Gray House Studio does receive commissions for sales from these links but at no extra cost to you. We appreciate you supporting this site. Read our privacy and disclosure policy. You can also easily shop our recommended products here.

TUTORIAL VIDEO

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STEPS

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

1. To build the bike rack we started by cutting our boards on our miter saw and making two V shapes at a 70 degree angle with 2″x4’s.

Then we connected the V shapes with horizontal braces. This made the structure 16″ wide. After adding vertical 2×4’s to stabilize the V structure, we loaded a bike to check the fit.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

2. Once the bike fit, we created another V shaped structure and used our drill and screws to screw it into the end making a large W shape.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

3. We wanted to incorporate a bench on the end of the bike rack so we built a box out of 2″x4″s.

We built the box to be 18″ high and attached it to the end of the W shape with screws.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

4. Before lining the outside of the bike rack with wooden slats, we attached 2″x4″s to any of the recessed sections of the braces to make one consistent and level surface.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

5. We used cheap 1″x2″ pine boards for the slats and cut them to be just longer than the bike rack is tall.

After leveling and attaching each slat with our brad nailer and brad nails, all the boards were cut to the correct height with a circular saw.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

6. We lined the top of the bike rack with OSB sheets. It took three sheets to cover the entire rack and provided a significant cost savings over plywood.

Plus, it creates a unique industrial aesthetic that we were going for with the design.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

7. Finally, we painted the slats with chalkboard spray paint.

Typically we would roll large surfaces with paint but due to all the gaps between the slats we opted for spray paint and were impressed that it only took two cans.

To complete the design, we added two decorative stripes with chalk. Extra 2x4s made for a great straight edge for the lines.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

We decided to paint the slats with a chalkboard paint so we can switch up the chalk design and it will go much better with what we have planned for the garage.

Wall-Mounted Bike Rack

We are happy with the results of our DIY wall-mounted bike rack. We were able to check off all of our must-haves for the project and included the bonus bench too!

I am happy to finally have some seating in the garage and like that it is built in rather than just having a random old chair stuck in the corner!

PIN FOR LATER

A DIY tutorial showing how to build a wall-mounted bike rack out of wood to store your bikes up against the wall in a garage. The bike rack also includes a bench that could be used to store additional bike supplies. This DIY bike rack step by step guide includes a video tutorial.

Electrical Outlet Install: Tool Charging Drawer

House, Tips + Tricks Courtney & Brent

In this electrical outlet install tutorial, we demonstrate how we added an additional outlet in our garage and installed an electrical outlet inside a drawer to charge tool batteries.

Electric Outlet Install

This week we are excited to bring you our first project to kick off our garage makeover, adding electrical outlets. An electrical outlet install might seem like a small project, but having only one outlet in the entire garage/shop is inconvenient.

Currently, our solution for only having one outlet is to run an extension cord from inside the house which allows us to plug in one 15amp tool and a vacuum for dust collection. This is far from an ideal situation so an electrical outlet install was on the top of our to-do list for the garage.

The outlets in this tutorial are ran from the existing outlet but soon we will also be adding outlets from new breakers. Plus, while we are at it, we decided to add an outlet inside a drawer of one of our new cabinets to charge tool batteries so it keeps the counter clutter free.

Important: Use caution when working with exposed wires! Exposed wires can shock you. All tips below are based on our experience and if you use any of the techniques shown below, you are doing so at your own risk.

VIDEO TUTORIAL

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ELECTRICAL OUTLET INSTALL: TOOL CHARGING DRAWER

Add new wire to existing outlet

Electrical Outlet Install
1. Before starting a project involving electrical outlets, I turn off the breaker that supplies power to the outlet. I double checked the power was off by using a voltage detector. The voltage detector beeps and turns on a light when it senses electrical current.

Electrical Outlet Install
2. I used a stud finder to locate the wall stud and marked where to cut the hole in the wall with a pencil. I used a jab saw to cut the hole for the new outlet.

Electrical Outlet Install
3. After removing the face plate, I double checked one more time that the power was off and removed the plug by unscrewing the top and bottom screws. Using a flat head screw driver and a mallet, I popped out the bottom tab in the existing electrical outlet.

Electrical Outlet Install
4. To run the new romex cable for the bottom plug, I pushed a fish tape down through the hole in the bottom of the existing electrical box.

Once the end was pulled out of the hole cut in step 2, I taped the romex wire to the end of the fish tape and pulled the wire up through the top electrical box.

Electrical Outlet Install
5. To strip the wire it is only necessary to cut the end of the cable 1/2″. The white plastic tears away from the inside wires. To remove all of the wires inserted in the back of the plug, I used a small flat head screwdriver and released the wire by pressing a tab next to each wire.

Electrical Outlet Install
There are only two places to connect wires to the electrical outlet. The existing outlet already had two sets of wires connected so we couldn’t connect the third wire.

Electrical Outlet Install
The diagram above illustrated how we used push connectors to combine the wires.

Electrical Outlet Install
6. Using a wire push connector, I combined the two existing sets of wires making room for the new wire.

Install new electrical outlet

Electrical Outlet Install
7. Before installing the bottom outlet, I cut the romex about a foot from the wall and fed it through the back of the box. The box attaches to the wall with tabs that clamp the drywall between the tab and box when each screw is tightened.

Electrical Outlet Install
8. The bottom plug was installed by stripping each of the wires 1/2″ on the end, inserting the white and black wire into the back of the outlet, and securing the bare wire under the ground screw.

I turned the breaker back on and tested each plug with a light.

Install drawer electrical outlet

Electrical Outlet Install
9. To allow us to charge our tools in a drawer and keep the work surfaces clutter free, we removed a drawer and marked where the outlet would go by tracing the outline of an electrical box.

Electrical Outlet Install
10. I cut a hole for the electrical box by drilling holes in each corner and then cut the straight lines with a jigsaw.

Electrical Outlet Install
11. Unlike the electrical box in the previous steps, this electrical box screwed through the front. The cable I used is recycled from an old computer. Since the wires are stranded I hooked up the outlet using the screws located on the side of the plug.

Electrical Outlet Install

12. To prevent the cable from pulling away from the back of the electrical box, I used a plastic cable clamp to keep the cable in place.

Electrical Outlet Install
13. Finally, I plugged in the drawer outlet. Now I could plug my battery chargers in the drawer and they are hidden out of the way.

Installing electrical outlets is oddly satisfying. It is a messy process but once all the faceplates are screwed back on, the results are really nice.

Let us know if you have any questions about our process.

ROCKING CHAIR BASE BUILD

How to Build a Rocking Chair Base

Furniture, House Courtney & Brent

Stylish upholstered rocking chairs can be expensive so for our son’s nursery we purchased an accent chair, removed the legs, and built a rocking chair base. In this DIY rocking chair base build tutorial, we will show you how we built a custom rocking base for the chair.

Rocking Chair Base Build The rocking chair is a staple piece of furniture in a nursery. It has to be comfortable, functional but let’s face it, it has to look good too. Oh and if you are in rowing in the same boat as us, it has to be affordable. We put a lot of effort in the design of our nursery to blow it on a mismatched rocking chair or blow our whole budget on one we couldn’t really afford. We shopped around. We even went so far as to try out rocking chairs at Pottery Barn Kids. When the nice sales lady asked if we were interested, we played along knowing good and well we couldn’t drop over $1,000 on a chair. If we had the money, I would have taken the one I liked home in a heartbeat. But we don’t so we had to improvise. I feel our DIY projects that turn out the best are ones where the price of a piece of furniture we like is way up here (picture my hand way above my head) and our budget is way down here (picture my other hand below my knees). It forces us to think of a solution that is a good compromise between style and price. That is what we did for our rocking chair base build and I think it was a home run. We were able to take the exact style accent chair we liked (that was in our price range) and turn it into a rocking chair by building a custom rocking chair base. Watch the video tutorial or follow along with the steps below to see our rocking chair base build tutorial.

How to Turn an Upholstered Chair into a Rocking Chair

SUPPLIES

FYI: This post contains a few affiliate links to products we used to make this project. Gray House Studio does receive commissions for sales from these links but at no extra cost to you. We appreciate you supporting this site. Read our privacy and disclosure policy. You can also easily shop our recommended products here.

TUTORIAL VIDEO

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STEPS

Rocking Chair Base Build 1. To start the rocking chair base build, we first tested the rocker radius on our upholstered chair by cutting a 38 inch radius from two scrap sheets of masonite and screwing the masonite rockers into the stock legs. We did quite a bit of research and used the formula below to determine the radius. Seat Height(12″) x Pi(3.14) = Rocker Radius (38″) After sitting in chair with the test rocking chair piece, we decided the seat height was a bit too high but the rocking motion was perfect. Our solution was to shorten the legs on the new rocking chair base. Rocking Chair Base Build Building the Chair Base 2. The new legs for the rocking chair were cut from 2″x2″ pine boards with a miter saw. We matched the angle of the legs and shortened each leg by 2″. The chair apron is made from 1″x3″ pine boards. The original legs screwed directly into the base of the chair but we attached the legs together using an apron design. This makes for a stronger base. Plus, we like the aesthetic. Rocking Chair Base Build Rocking Chair Base Build 3. We used a Kreg Jig to drill pocket holes. Then We connected the four 1″x3″ apron boards to each leg with two 1-1/4″ pocket hole screws and wood glue. Rocking Chair Base Build 4. Pocket holes were drilled in the top of the left and right apron boards to allow the base to be attached to the underside of the chair. Rocking Chair Base Build 5. Before moving on to the rocker rails, we test fit the rocking chair base with the upholstered chair and it fit great! Rocking Chair Base Build Making the Rocker Runner Template 6. To trace the rocker runner radius we build a giant compass. Using a scrap piece of aluminum we drilled one hole to anchor one end of the compass and drilled two holes to draw through with a pencil. One hole was drilled at 36″ (top of runner) and 38″ (bottom of runner). Rocking Chair Base Build 7. To measure where the ends of the rocker runners are, we used the chair base and traced around each leg to indicate where to cut the template to make the ends of each runner flush with the legs. Rocking Chair Base Build The rocker runner template fit perfectly! Rocking Chair Base Build Cutting the Rocker Runners 8. We used select pine 1″x6″ boards for the rocker runners but needed to combine two boards together using wood glue and clamps to match width of the 2″x2″. Rocking Chair Base Build 9. Once the shape of the rocker runner template is traced on the double thick 1″x6″ board we used a jigsaw to cut out each runner. Rocking Chair Base Build 10. The runners were attached to the rocking chair base with wood glue and 2″ pocket hole screws after using our drill to drill holes to countersink the screw heads. Rocking Chair Base Build 11. To finish up the base we coated it in a polycrylic protective finish to preserve the light tone of the pine. Rocking Chair Base Build 12. Once the clear coat on the base was dry, we attached it to the upholstered chair using 2″ pocket hole screws, making sure they anchored into the wood substructure.
After rocking Connor for three months in this rocking chair, I can confirm that it is super comfortable. The fact that it does not have arms actually makes it more comfortable in my opinion to hold him and feed him because I can lay him on his pillow and it has more room across my lap. In case you were wondering about the sturdiness, I tested it out by rocking Brent on my lap and while my legs felt like they were going to break, the rocking chair did not. It feels safe and secure. It also gives off a smooth rocking motion. We have it on our laminate floor so we added felt strips to the bottom to keep it from scraping and moving too much. Several people have asked where we purchased our rocking chair which makes us feel good that our accent chair to rocking chair transformation turned out just like we had in mind.

PIN FOR LATER

A how-to home woodworking tutorial showing how to turn an upholstered chair into a rocking chair like we did for our son's nursery rocker. Building a rocking chair base is not as hard as you may think! A video tutorial is included.
RUSTIC CHRISTMAS MANTLE

Rustic Christmas Mantel

House, Seasonal Courtney & Brent

This holiday season we are sharing our simple rustic Christmas mantle with greenery, berries and DIY wood trees we cut out of pine and cedar.

Rustic Christmas Mantel

We welcomed our son a little over two months ago so we have been living in baby town for the past 10 weeks. We are happy to report that while the blogging has been a little slow the past couple weeks, we are not only surviving but thriving with our new baby centered schedule.

Ha! Just kidding, we’re just barely surviving but we can’t complain. Life is hectic but awesome. We are so in love with our little Gray House intern. Boy, does he keep us busy!

I applaud those moms out there who have babies near Christmas and still manage to decorate a house full of beautiful Christmas decor and do all the normal Christmas time activities. I am unfortunately not that mom. Oh well, there is always next year.

We put up our Christmas tree in our library and decided to focus on our mantel this year. Our goal was to keep it very simple. We wanted to pick out and make a few new pieces to give our mantel a makeover for Christmas.

Rustic Christmas Mantel

Our first step was to build a fireplace mantel cover to go over our existing white mantel. We wanted one that would better match the wood plank wall in our reading nook. We purchased a 48″ wreath to hang above the mantel.

We bought the greenery from Hobby Lobby. We then added in strands of berries and little string lights to the garland.

2022 Personalized Christmas Ornaments
*** Thanks so much for supporting our small shop – Moon Rock Prints – this holiday season! ***

Rustic Christmas Mantel

SOURCE LIST FOR RUSTIC CHRISTMAS Mantel

PRODUCTS PURCHASED

DIY PROJECTS

  • Wood Trees
  • Mantel Cover

DIY Wood Trees

We had been eyeing marble trees at Target to use on the fireplace mantel but we wanted quite a few. We couldn’t afford to buy eleven of the marble trees so we decided to make them out of wood instead. I am so glad we went in this direction because it fits with the rustic aesthetic much better and hardly cost us anything at all.

We have become big fans of cedar fence planks as a material for projects. Sometimes it takes a while to sort through the pile of cedar fence planks at the hardware store to find nice planks, but the color variation looks great and you can’t beat the price.

We made templates for the three different sized trees (download our template below) and cut them out using a jigsaw.

Rustic Christmas Mantel

FREE TEMPLATE

If you are interested in making your own DIY wood trees, feel free to download our template below.

Download Free DIY Wood Trees Templates

Download Free Wood Trees Template

Rustic Christmas Mantle
Rustic Christmas Mantel

We might not have went all out this year when it came to Christmas decor but sometimes shopping for Christmas decor overwhelms me so it was much easier to focus on one area of our home. A rustic Christmas mantel makeover was the perfect way to add a little coziness to our living room this winter.

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Rustic Christmas Mantel

Shorten Christmas Lights

Shorten String Christmas Lights

House, Tips + Tricks Courtney & Brent

In this tutorial we will show how to shorten string Christmas lights.

Shorten Christmas Lights

Have you ever found yourself in a situation while decorating for Christmas where you need a shorter string of Christmas lights?

Maybe you need to finish a small section on your roof or you would like to add lights to your fireplace mantle but don’t need 30 feet to get the job done.

Today we are sharing how to shorten string Christmas lights to the exact length you need.

Follow the simple steps and the second diagram below and you will be able to shorten string Christmas lights in no time.

Important: Use caution when working with exposed wires! Exposed wires can shock you. Don’t plug in the lights until you have all the exposed wires covered with wire connectors and always use outdoor/waterproof wire connectors if your lights will be outdoors. All tips below are based on our experience and if you use any of the techniques shown below, you are doing so at your own risk.

2022 Personalized Christmas Ornaments
*** Thanks so much for supporting our small shop – Moon Rock Prints – this holiday season! ***

SUPPLIES

Shop the products we used for this project in one place.

FYI: This post contains a few affiliate links to products we used to make this project. Gray House Studio does receive commissions for sales from these links but at no extra cost to you. We appreciate you supporting this site. Read our privacy and disclosure policy. You can also easily shop our recommended products here.

Tutorial Video

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Like our video? Subscribe and help us reach our goal of 100k subscribers.

Steps

How to Shorten Christmas String Lights

One way to determine how the lights are wired is to completely remove one of the bulbs.

If all or a section of lights turns off than the lights are wired in series. If all the lights remain on then most likely the strand is wired in parallel.

Lights Wired in Series

How to Shorten Christmas Lights

Most mini Christmas lights and LED Christmas lights are wired as multiple sections of wired in series.

Start by locating both sides of each series section of lights that turn off when a bulb is removed. You should see that the Christmas lights change from having 3 wires to 2 wires then changes back to 3 wires.

Shorten Christmas Lights

The best way to shorten lights wired in series is to remove an entire series section of lights by cutting lights apart where there are only has two wires, with the lights unplugged.

Then, simply cap each of the two cut wires with a wire connector. If the lights go outdoors be sure to use outdoor/waterproof wire connectors.

Risk of removing individual lights from lights wired in series

If your goal is to remove one or two lights off a strand wired in series it is possible but not ideal.

Christmas lights wired in series spread 120 volts coming out of the plug across all the lights.

Each light that is removed increases the voltage to all the remaining bulbs.

As you can see, removing a few bulbs isn’t a huge deal but remove too many and risk burning out all the lights.

Shorten Christmas Lights

Notice as the bulbs are removed and the volts/light increase the lights get brighter

120 volt / 40 bulbs in series = 3 volts/bulb
120 volt / 35 bulbs in series = 3.4 volts/bulb
120 volt / 10 bulbs in series = 12 volts/bulb

How to remove individual lights from lights wired in series

Shorten Christmas Lights

1. With the lights unplugged, cut the two wires that enter the last light in the series strand with wire cutters.

Shorten Christmas Lights

2. Use wire cutters to strip the ends of the two wires cut in the previous step. Twist the two bare wire ends together.

Shorten Christmas Lights

3. After twisting the wires together secure with a wires connector. Then, cut the third wire to match the length of the other two wires and cap it with a wire connector.

Wire diagram for series Christmas lights

Shorten Christmas Lights

This diagram shows how Christmas lights wired in series are wired. There are three different wires.

Each colored line represents a different wire. The blue line connects all the lights together in series and supplies power to the light bulbs.

The yellow and red wires are both connected to the blue line on either side of the light bulbs.

Shorten Christmas Lights

The diagram above shows the CORRECT way to connect the spliced wires. By connecting the wires this way, the lights will turn on when you plug it in.

As you can see the blue wire (the wire connecting the lights) must always be connected to one of the loose wires.

Shorten Christmas Lights

The diagram above shows another possible way to connect the wires. If you connect the wires this way the light bulbs are only connected to one side of the power and they will not turn on.

As you can see in the diagram, the red wire is not connected at all. You must switch the wire coming from the light bulb to connect to the other loose wire.

Shorten Christmas Lights

This diagram shows that if you connect the wires this way it will short circuit and throw the breaker for the outlet.

Don’t attach the two loose wires together. Only one loose wire and the wire coming from the light bulbs should be connected together.

Shortening Christmas lights wired in parallel

The lights are designed so each bulb receives all 120 volts and each bulb has a direct route to power, meaning they can be cut to any length without overpowering and burning out bulbs.

Shorten Christmas Lights

With the lights unplugged cut wires with wire cutters between the bulbs and cap each end with wire connectors.

We hope this helps you adjust the length of your Christmas lights so you can now you hang up you custom length string Christmas lights!

Now that you know how to shorten string Christmas lights, you can fill in any small gaps of lights on your roof or create custom length string lights to decorate with in your home.