Popular Post Denette Posted December 28, 2016 Popular Post Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 I thought it might be fun to chronicle the development of my workshop, see what you guys think, maybe get a few pointers, maybe give you all some ideas, and so on. So here we go! I'm going to just go ahead and do this chronologically. CHAPTER 1: BEGINNINGS We got a house in July of 2014, and my gracious wife gave me the whole 2-car garage as a workshop. The space is roughly 18' by 18' with a 16' garage door on the west wall, about 16' of pegboard on the south wall, two doors on the east wall, and the circuit breaker box on the north wall near the east corner. Prior to the move I had used my dad's garage, used my wife's dad's garage, and (laughably) tried to use the front porch of our apartment. Needless to say, I was thankful for a place to work. My attitude about setting up shop: The first major tool I acquired was a miter saw - a Hitachi 10" SCMS from several years ago. I got it for $300 from a relative of a friend in an estate sale, along with a metal stand. The saw itself was in pretty good shape, but the stock Hitachi blade needed replacing. Here's a good quality shot of the saw from the manufacturer's site: The first thing I did was get a laser line attachment for like $10 from Harbor Freight, and that little thing has been fantastic. Somewhere later along the line I replaced the blade with an 80-tooth Marples blade. The saw is still serving me well, though it's got awful dust collection. Anyway. Here's the saw, lonely in its garage without a friend in the world: The door on the left goes into the kitchen; the door on the right (kind of hard to make out in the photo) goes to our utility closet (heater, water heater, some duct work, and a little storage space). Shortly after we moved in I got a good starter set of tools - a DeWalt 20V Max drill and jigsaw, a DW621 router, a nice set of new Stanley Sweetheart chisels, a couple of plastic folding sawhorses, and a small but growing assortment of Bessey hand clamps. The next major addition was this beauty, a steal at $350 on Craigslist: As you can see from the goofy look on my mug, I was excited! It's a Ridgid R4512 with a 4-wheeled step-operated mobile base and dust collection attachment on the underside. This thing is worth twice what I paid for it. The first thing I did was build a cheap table extension to fill in the space on the right end of the fence. Strictly speaking, that was the first thing I built in my shop. Also, if you look on the floor behind it in the pictures, you can see the 1950s shop vac that my wife's grandpa gave to us. It had the suction strength of an old guy blowing on his soup, so it never saw any real use. Still neat-looking though. The first larger project I did in my workshop was a taper-seat bench for my wife's Christmas present. I did all the milling at my father-in-law's house, but was able to do the joinery on the table saw at home. It's an amazing feeling to have your own space and be able to walk out to it whenever you want to and have the time. Note the auxiliary starch-rich work surface (aka ironing board): It was very well received. CHAPTER 2: BUILDING IT UP Up to this point my workshop was just a sad little garage with some tools in it, though. It was clearly time to fix this problem. Blam! Thanks to a full day of work and some help from my dad and a friend, a beautiful miter saw counter was installed. Based on designs from an episode of New Yankee Workshop, this work counter is 8' long to the left of the saw, and the section with the saw and to the right is another 4' long, for a total of 12' in length. It's composed of 3/4" dividers below with 4" strips at the bottom in front and back, and another at the top in the back. Those strips in the back are screwed to the studs in the wall. The countertop is composed of three layers. The first layer is half-lapped 2x4 studs. Above that is a screwwed-on layer of MDF, and that is topped with a replaceable layer of hardboard. Having a work surface was a game changer. It was naked so I added trim shortly thereafter: Also, as seen above, I have acquired a decent shop vac. It's not Festool, but hey, I didn't even know what that was back then. And I certainly didn't have the money. (Still don't! ) The organizer you see on the far left of the miter counter is my own design and creation as well. It's got slots for up to thirty 1/8" hardboard shelves, but I have always kept just a few shelf inserts in place and repositioned them as needed to fit whatever it is I'm storing. That MDF strip is a fence that is bolted down the full length of the counter. The miter saw's section of the countertop is set down low enough to make the miter saw's table level with the rest of the counter, and the odd angle on the right of the saw is so that the handle has room to adjust to angles in that direction. That counter has been fantastic. It still needs either cabinet doors or drawers (one drawer got added as of the date of this post) but it's still so much better than just a bare wall. I still needed some sort of work holder, and knew that I wasn't about to build a serious workbench just yet. An eBay find, this is a cool oddity. It's a vintage vice from Sears before they made craftsman - it's just Sears-branded. Not good enough to be the primary vice forever, but that's okay! Good enough is good enough for now. Here's one of my favorite pictures of the Mrs., peeking in to see what I'm up to. She's just awesome. So thankful for that woman! She supports me in my pursuit of my hobby, and always listens when I want to talk about it, even if it's a little outside her area of expertise. This was taken while I was attaching the face trim to the miter counter. I think it was about this time that I found Marc's videos on YouTube - note the Wood Whisperer lumber rack. It's been nice, but at the same time I wish I'd consider metal options, because the thickness of the supports limit how much wood I can actually fit on the shelves. That, plus the ceiling is about 8'6", which limits my storage options pretty substantially. That said, the full-sheet storage rack is fantastic! I didn't realize that my garage floor sloped down toward the door, which means that Marc's plans to have it hinge from the wall weren't useful for me (If I did that, the hinges would break out of the wall as the wheels on the far end sagged down an inch with the concrete), so I put it on four locking casters instead. It's stable, just a tad tippy. Still haven't had it fall yet, though, so it must not be too bad! CHAPTER 3: FILLING IT IN At this point I was all in. The big purchases hit hard and fast in the spring of 2015. My first experience (and the first experience of anyone I know) with buying from an industrial tools company was when I bought the G0555LX Bandsaw. It was by far the most impressive tool I'd ever worked with. The weight, the construction, it was a real dream to work with. After purchasing some locking stem casters, the bandsaw was mobile and I played with it for a month or two making lots of bandsaw boxes. (Note to self, next time purchase DOUBLE-locking stem casters, because these are a tad wiggly when locked.) One silly thing I love about my bandsaw is how it has a few areas of the interior that don't get perfect dust collection, which then allows dust to build up in layers of colors depending on which species you were working with, which looks like this: (Of course, that was also all before I had a real dust collector...) Shortly thereafter I added the DW735x planer. All I had used before was my dad's lunchbox planer, so this was definitely a step up as well. While I was very impressed with the quality of the Grizzly bandsaw, I didn't go with an industrial planer because I wanted something that I could keep mobile. It temporarily lived on the old miter saw stand, until it could be relocated to its own sweet flip-top cart. Here it is atop its new home! The cart is basically plywood, with a hollow center to accommodate the all-thread rod which serves as an axle. You can see the acorn nut which caps off the all-thread in the center of the side. The black plastic handles tighten and loosen to allow the locking mechanism (eye bolts attached with carriage bolts through the eyes) to open and close. When all four corners are loosened and turned in, the whole top flips, planer and all. It works surprisingly well. I have to take off the tables and the black plastic dust collection port, but once I do that it actually rolls right into one of the bays on the miter counter so it doesn't take up floor space. Alternately, the underside of the planer cart surface makes a great mobile work table. Another thing to point out to someone who might be considering this planer: the warning on the package about needing dust collection is no joke. This thing slings chips like there's no tomorrow. I had to buy a 4" dust hose and jury-rig it to the little shop vac I had at the time. A real dust collector is a huge boon to this planer. The left side of the picture below shows the planer in its upside-down position on the cart, and on the right side...... ... is my one-of-a-kind kind-of-great MDF-with-a-hole-in-it router table! The edge guide for my router attaches with two 3/8" thick metal rods which can separate completely from the edge guide. They are held in place in a track on the router base, and I realized that if I could just make an opening the same shape and size as my router, and two grooves where those rods go, I could suspend the router from those rods. So that's exactly what I did. I needed a router table that took up zero floor space, and I did just that. The only down side is that I have to take the router out every time I want to adjust it because of the tension of the spring for plunge routing. All in all, though, it's a great solution. While we are talking about filling up the shop, that summer also brought me Flexio, my HVLP sprayer, which I like to imagine is Fabio's long-lost cousin. Oh, look at you, Flexio. You with your golden locks. So handsome. Oh, yes, Flexio, it is beautiful. Note the Greene & Greene influence, Flexio. It indicates that at this time I had actually learned a bit more about styles and was branching out from functional to beautiful, Flexio. Just like you, Flexio. ...ahem. That summer also brought me this G0656P, an 8" beast of a jointer, as the payment for a commissioned bed which I posted quite a bit about on the forums about a year and a half ago. At this point I was already really getting involved with learning the fineries of woodworking, but just starting to put them into practice. I STILL hadn't bought a dust collector at this point - can you tell? The (almost) finished project: (The clients wanted it stained, so I'll leave that to your imagination. In my memory the bed looks like this, haha!) CHAPTER 4: REFINING THINGS A BIT In the interest of organizing things in a way that makes sense, I'm fudging on the chronology to point out that I built a clear-front cabinet before I got the jointer. It got a twin shortly after the bed was finished, which I think really brought that end of the shop together. Before the cabinets: After cabinet 1, during the construction of cabinet 2: Shop-made scrap mahogany handles, anyone? The cabinets are about as simple as it gets. Plywood and dadoes, a hardboard back panel, a face frame and does with plexiglass windows (mainly because I can cut plexiglass myself), hung with a french cleat. The one on the left has a hole drilled in the bottom so the power cord for my battery charger can plug into the wall. More storage is always a good thing. More shop additions around this time include a small complement of Jorgensen cabinet master clamps (RIP Jorgy), a set of computer speakers to make shop time more enjoyable, a dry-erase board installed in the garage door, attic insulation (praise the Lord! Left is before, right is after), and, yes, finally, the picture earlier may have given it away, DUST COLLECTION! This thing really sucks! A bunch of other small improvements were made that I didn't take pictures of at the time. I added three single-bulb ceiling-mount light fixtures to dim areas of the shop and put ridiculously bright LED bulbs in them, and now I can actually see out there! I also removed the table insert from the table saw and replaced it with my jury-rigged router table, which has benefitted greatly from having a fence and a more permanent home in the shop. CHAPTER 5: RECENT CHANGES AND THE PRESENT The funny thing about woodworking is that you never know if a project will go wrong. One of those projects was a coffee table I was making for a girl I was dating in college. She dumped me when the table was almost finished. All it needed was a coat of finished and to be sized for the glass tabletop inserts. She ditched me and I ditched the project, and it just lurked around in my dad's garage for years, and then in mine for a couple of years. I tried to sell it, but to no avail - it was a vey old project, the workmanship wasn't what I'd do now, you probably know how it goes. I didn't feel right selling it anyway, because it isn't representative of my current abilities. So what to do? I've got this darn coffee table: And... hmm. This corner of poorly-utilized space: And I am a pretty handy guy. And I need somewhere better to keep my finishing supplies. And we never ride those bikes anyway. Well, a craigslist sale of two bikes and an hour in the shop later, and I have this awesome finishing shelf: Which pretty much brings things up to today! Here's a recent set of shots of the different parts of the shop: (Oh, yeah, I rather unceremoniously added a drill press too! Not the most thrilling purchase, but a much-needed one.) And that brings things up to today, when I have a pile of 8/4 ash sitting there waiting to become a Roubo... Anyway, this post might hold a record for being too long or too wordy - hopefully someone might read more than half of it. I just wanted to share my journey with all of you guys! Hope you've enjoyed looking at it. I'll add an update to this post whenever I have enough changes under my belt to make an update post worth it. Me in the shop: My current level of confidence, thanks to my wife, my dad, my wife's dad, Norm, Marc, Matt, Shannon, and of course the awesome advice of all of you here at the WoodTalk Forum: 20 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Bob Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 Well done. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephThomas Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 Thx for sharing, looks like you have a good setup now! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardA Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 Ya done good, but.....................It ain't never over! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradpotts Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 Thanks for the journey. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
estesbubba Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 Your shop has evolved nicely, but like Richard said, it will keep changing! Great work and keep it up. PS - it's too early to read all of that before coffee so I took the easy way and looked at all the pics 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denette Posted December 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 Your shop has evolved nicely, but like Richard said, it will keep changing! Great work and keep it up. PS - it's too early to read all of that before coffee so I took the easy way and looked at all the pics Ha! I don't blame you! It will indeed keep changing. I have plans to replace one of the pegboards with more cabinets, replace the shop vac and miter saw with a CT and Kapex (someday when I win the lottery) and replace the table saw with a SawStop (again, after the lottery). I'm going back and forth on whether I've got enough room to add an outfeed/assembly table, but I'm thinking about that too. And more drawers in the miter counter. Here's the first one: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 Nice! Its come a long way for sure. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneymack Posted December 29, 2016 Report Share Posted December 29, 2016 Wow that is one heck of a post. You could have just put a link to your e book. Lol. All kidding aside, looks awesome. Youve come a long way! Thanks for sharing all that with us. Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Brendon_t Posted December 29, 2016 Popular Post Report Share Posted December 29, 2016 Very nice. I actually read through it. My take aways in cliffs notes for others. Bought house Bought tools Some stuff happend Bought tools Showed off wife More stuff More tools Reiterated understanding wife Stack of wood porn Bam shop with another roubo journal coming. I like your style 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDave Posted December 29, 2016 Report Share Posted December 29, 2016 I just keep going back to the pic of the glue pattern. The precision in the pattern has me fascinated. Oh and I enjoyed following your journey. Always interested in seeing how people come to where they are and who they've become, whatever that might be. Perhaps in your case an excellent woodworker and glue applicator I'm still on my journey...haven't left the pocket screw stage yet 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat60 Posted December 29, 2016 Report Share Posted December 29, 2016 I like your thread also and your pics make up for the lack of mine. Thanks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elroy Skimms Posted December 30, 2016 Report Share Posted December 30, 2016 17 hours ago, SplinteredDave said: I just keep going back to the pic of the glue pattern. The precision in the pattern has me fascinated. So I wasn't the only one? You might consider getting some posters of that glue-up printed and up for sale on your Etsy store. -E 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Denette Posted January 1, 2017 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted January 1, 2017 On 12/30/2016 at 9:07 AM, Elroy Skimms said: So I wasn't the only one? You might consider getting some posters of that glue-up printed and up for sale on your Etsy store. -E Ha! I wouldn't ever have thought to sell my gluing skills! It was really out of necessity - I didn't have anything good to spread glue with at the time and was sick of getting it on my finger, so I tried to apply as evenly as I could. Can't say I wasn't enjoying making patterns, though! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post ClassAct Posted January 1, 2017 Popular Post Report Share Posted January 1, 2017 You can market it as "The Denette -- Your CNC glue-up solution!" 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldvogel Review Posted January 3, 2017 Report Share Posted January 3, 2017 Very Nice ! One of the things ive been fighting is my lumber storage\workbench tops. I took that standard 5 tier rack bolt free storage units, Lined the 2 halves end to end, and lined the top with 2x4's and attached a top. So i can store wood underneath, but have a top on it. Since the garage slopes, so does my work bench. It was a good Idea in theory, but i need to get rid of the concept and what ive wanted to build all along I want to build a long miter bench with the long t-track stop system. The fence will also be inline with my radial arm saw, which is pretty much exclusively for Dado cuts. I need to incorporate leveling feet this time. / Are you just shimming or using leveling feet? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denette Posted January 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2017 On 1/3/2017 at 10:55 AM, Waldvogel Review said: Very Nice ! One of the things ive been fighting is my lumber storage\workbench tops. I took that standard 5 tier rack bolt free storage units, Lined the 2 halves end to end, and lined the top with 2x4's and attached a top. So i can store wood underneath, but have a top on it. Since the garage slopes, so does my work bench. It was a good Idea in theory, but i need to get rid of the concept and what ive wanted to build all along I want to build a long miter bench with the long t-track stop system. The fence will also be inline with my radial arm saw, which is pretty much exclusively for Dado cuts. I need to incorporate leveling feet this time. / Are you just shimming or using leveling feet? It's just shimmed in place. I got things lined up properly when I built the miter counter, and it hasn't shifted since. Shims seem to do just fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldvogel Review Posted January 13, 2017 Report Share Posted January 13, 2017 18 hours ago, Denette said: It's just shimmed in place. I got things lined up properly when I built the miter counter, and it hasn't shifted since. Shims seem to do just fine. Did you glue the shims and then trim them AFTER or anything. The shims dont seem to shift? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denette Posted January 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2017 31 minutes ago, Waldvogel Review said: Did you glue the shims and then trim them AFTER or anything. The shims dont seem to shift? Actually, believe it or not, I didn't glue them in place at all. I did trim them so they weren't in the way, but only after installation. I used a crappy chisel and hammered right through the shim and into the concrete. The stability of the bench probably comes more from the fact that my counter was also screwed into wall studs after I knew it was perfectly level than from the shims. Probably not best practice, but this counter was one of the first things I built for my shop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted January 13, 2017 Report Share Posted January 13, 2017 8 minutes ago, Denette said: I used a crappy chisel and hammered right through the shim and into the concrete. I have some old Crapsman chisels that I use like that. No lie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denette Posted January 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2017 17 minutes ago, drzaius said: I have some old Crapsman chisels that I use like that. No lie. Heeeey, that's exactly what it is! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denette Posted January 14, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 14, 2017 Super minor improvement, but a necessary one. I have a Porter-Cable pancake compressor. It has two big problems. First, it vibrates so badly that it actually scoots itself around in a circle and eventually scoots so far that it wraps itself up in its cord and unplugs itself. I solved that problem by boring holes the same diameter as the feet in some 2x6 and cutting the 2x6 the right width to fit into one of the sections of the miter counter. It's new permanent home will be right there, third from the left. It's second problem is that it is LOUD. If it kicks on and I'm not wearing hearing protection it startles me. I'd hate to think of what would happen if it cycled on while I was using a hand chisel right next to my fingers. Solution? https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00TP7C9YY/ref=sxts1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484361003&sr=1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65 Soundproof that thing. I need more of the foam (and a door over the cabinet), but even just this much has cut the noise back significantly. I'm pretty pleased! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_r_ Posted January 19, 2017 Report Share Posted January 19, 2017 Awesome job youve done documenting this progression! Looks like youre having fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legenddc Posted January 19, 2017 Report Share Posted January 19, 2017 That really cut the noise down? I may have to pick some up, my Bostitch one is pretty loud. Same with my shop vac. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denette Posted January 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 19, 2017 That really cut the noise down? I may have to pick some up, my Bostitch one is pretty loud. Same with my shop vac. Yeah! The free decibel meter on my iPhone measures a 10-15 decibel drop in noise level. Not bad for a $15 investment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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