After a long, stressful 2018 season, its time for us to relax and prepare for 2019. Winter projects big or small help everyone improve operation efficiency, and make life a little easier on the course. I wanted to start a thread that everyone can ad to and maybe stir up new ideas that everyone can implement at their course.  Shop organization, homemade or purchased items that help your operation, anything is welcome. Help me make this thread grow by adding a few of your favorite projects.

1) Homemade Cup painting jig (as seen from Chris Tritabaugh on twitter) Works great, the crew and I LOVED it. 

2) Homemade berber carpet drag mat. Cheap, easy to build, works great on DRY sand, and gentle on plants. I even used it to stand up grass to work on density. 

3) Homemade traffic stake holder. Easy to build, quick to load/unload many stakes into cart, take them on course and store when not needed. 

Lets see what everyone has come up with this winter!

Although I didn't build either of the things in the picture below, they have made shop time a lot more efficient. We had recently completed the new maintenance shop and I knew I was done walking back and forth for the air hose. Although the new shop isn't that big, having compressed air piped to three locations really helps efficiency. We hung two 50 foot air reels, one located by the overhead door so we can blow equipment off outside/inflate tires outside, and the other located in the maintenance area of the shop. Right above the bench and vise we piped in one with a coil hose to clean off whatever we were working on the bench. I got the piping in kits from Bomgaars, but Northern tool has them as well as amazon. The next thing I found to be handy were the air tool holders, air tools tend to walk off all the time, get set on the compressor and rattle off, these have really helped keep them close, we put one by each 50 foot hose reel to have each type of tool where you need it. 

What has everyone else found to buy or build that has improved your operation or work life?