An essential item in the Blokes Shed arsenal is the soldering iron. Even before my grey cells started dying off at an accellerated rate, remembering to turn the iron off was a bit of a challenge and many times, a day later after using it, I'd find my 40w iron merrily chewing up electricity and wearing out the tip. Finally I decided to do something about it. After checking out the price of solder stations, I thought I'd build one mainly out of junk box spares. The only expense for me was the delay timer which I picked up on Ebay. The exact item is listed here:-
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/AC-220V-Power-Delay-Timer-Time-Relay-1-999-Seconds-/300553670611?pt=AU_B_I_Electrical_Test_Equipment&hash=item45fa650fd3

The conversion rate at the time meant I paid about NZ$21. The rest of the stuff including the plastic box was out of the junk box. The time is adjustable for 0-999 seconds (about 7.5 minutes). I used an old light switch to re-set it if I was soldering for longer periods.
Here's a couple of pictures.