Von's shop tour and setup log

[Von]

On 1/3/2024 at 2:27 PM, oldman_pottering said:

I did watch a Youtuber who explained his process of organising his shop by just making projects and working out his workflow rather than working out the area and placement  by diagrams, this made semse to me

I agree - I'm making tool holders and shop furniture :-)

[Von]

Got the saw till out of the clamps today and put a coat of poly on it (photo is pre-finishing). Glued up a couple 6" boards to make the 10" wide combs which will attach to the top of the two braces (you can see the pre-drilled and recessed holes in the braces for the screws in the photo). Should have time tomorrow to cut the slots on the combs and actually try it out.

 

 

[gee-dub]

On 1/3/2024 at 11:27 AM, oldman_pottering said:

I too have a seat for 'deep thinking' which I call the metric conversion of 'where the hell do I start' .

I missed this before. Coffee on the monitor now  

@Von  The till is coming along. I’m anxious to see it installed.

[oldman_pottering]

On 1/4/2024 at 9:26 AM, Von said:

I agree - I'm making tool holders and shop furniture :-)

Von, I was using the deep thinking chair yesterday in my shed while having a few beers and watching YT, looking around I realised that my french cleat system leaves a lot of unusable space. I think cabinets on those cleats might be better for tools that don't get used a lot

[Von]

Cut the combs today. I just marked the lines and eyeballed the cuts. I did use the shim you see to keep things aligned.

Installed the combs into the till, got a cleat installed, and took it for a spin before it went to the finishing table for a coat of poly on the combs.

Happy so far.

The upper comb was a PITA to install because of the tight fit between it and the lower comb. If I did it again, I'd probably say to heck with hiding the screws, used some brass screws or something not ugly and attached it from the top.

Jury is out on...

I spaced the comb cuts at 1 3/4" apart. Trade off of space versus ability to easily grab a saw. It does strike me that saws with handles going up and down could probably be interwoven closer together - i.e. the little flush cut saw could easily fit between two saws with handles at the bottom.

The horn on the Veritas saw is proud of the bottom of the till. Will see if it gets in the way of the measuring stuff below.

So far, I'm happy with the approach of using a dowel mounted on the front. My thought is that it lets me get to the saws on the end more easily and it reduces the depth of the sides and lightens the piece.

I was going to install a second cleat on the back towards the bottom to keep it in place, but I don't think it will need it. I think it has got enough mass and length it won't go anywhere.

[wtnhighlander]

Saw till looks good. Leaving room above for handles of pull-type saws was a good call. I made mine longer to handle some carpenter's hand saws I inherited, and it is too close to the ceiling for the pull saws to hang that way.

[gee-dub]

Looks excellent Von.  If you have any fixtures that may lift off the cleat if bumped while what it is holding is being removed / replaced . . . A simple pin that pokes out under the lower lip of the cleat can add some confidence.

I do this for clamp holders due to the nature of removing and replacing the clamps.  Likelihood of a fixture jumping the cleat is very small but clamps are very heavy and I have things below them that I would hate to have crunched.

Here I use a double headed nail cut to length.  It pokes out under the cleat but does not hit the wall.  The hole is drilled at a slight angle.

I live where the ground does the Watusi so I take a few extra steps when mounting items.  We just had a pretty good rumbler yesterday.

 

[oldman_pottering]

On 1/5/2024 at 8:31 AM, Von said:

I was going to install a second cleat on the back towards the bottom to keep it in place, but I don't think it will need it. I think it has got enough mass and length it won't go anywhere.

I found this out with french cleats the hard way, I made smaller holders without any length because of the size of the tool they were holding and the holder would just tip up and out of the cleat.

The saw till looks terrific and your french cleats look much neater than mine

[Von]

Been a busy week, but I finally got the till off of the finishing table and onto the wall.

I noticed it racked a little bit - ~1/8" just enough I can rock it if I try, but not enough to matter in practice AFAICT. It does tell me my design would benefit from another lower brace (the dowel is just attached with smaller dowels and not adding much structurally).

Finally, the design is, let's say, very awkward for my gent saw. But I kinda figured it would be and having bought the Veritas saw, I expect I'll be passing this along.

Unrelated, with temperatures expected to drop below zero here early next week I brought water-based stuff and batteries into the house to prepare.

 

[Von]

Made room today for a car in the garage (more on this later). Having the bench on casters is great, it makes this fairly easy. I used the opportunity to gauge how much space I have for an assembly table. I continue to think 4'x4' would be a stretch, but a 2'x4' table with a fold-up extension to 4'x4' seems easily doable.

I like how it's a decently usable shop in this state. The vac/dust collector station is in the way of the miter saw and the router table is blocked by the folding assembly tables, but when I get around to getting my NW corner squared away, I should be able to put those there.

 

[Von]

Sold our Yakima clamshell car top carrier yesterday. So now I've got some empty ceiling space and an unused pulley. 

Thoughts on using the space are lumber storage. lighting), storage for folding tables, and boom arm/track for dust collection. None of these really excite met. Anyone have any interesting uses for small shop ceiling space?

BTW, when you put a car top carrier on a car in a garage, consider if the car will fit through the garage door with the carrier on it first, or at least before you drive the car out.

[wtnhighlander]

I'm a bit leery of hanging stuff over my head. I would probably go with the overhead DC duct, as it is lightweight, and can be a fixed mount.

[Von]

It's been single digits here for 24+ hours, and I was curious how my unconditioned garage shop was doing: 27F. Not sure if it's at equilibrium yet. Got a couple days left here before we get back up into the 20s.

[legenddc]

You could hang a MFT table up there. 

[Von]

Looks like temperatures in my garage are staying above freezing when the outside temperature is above 10F and dropping into the 20s when the weather gets into the single digits. For context, I have an attached garage, but only one shared wall with the house and I'd rate my insulation a 2 on a 1-10 scale with the exception I have a fairly modern insulated garage door.

I recall hearing Cremona say his garage in Minnesota didn't drop below 40F, but from what I recall he has two shared walls and, probably most importantly, conditioned living space above.

On a semi-related note, my track and level holders have performed flawlessly with the cold and garage door being used frequently, so I'd like to give them kudos. These are the FastCap Track Racks and the StealthMounts level mounts, all attached to the door with some rubberized magnets.

[Mark J]

Have you given any thought to heating your space (when in use)?  A 240V electric heater might raise the temp significantly, and can be turned on and off as needed.

[Von]

On 1/19/2024 at 11:03 AM, Mark J said:

Have you given any thought to heating your space (when in use)?  A 240V electric heater might raise the temp significantly, and can be turned on and off as needed.

I have a mini-split I use for heating and cooling. Probably doesn't work as well as a dedicated heater when it is this cold, but it does keep me from sweating on my projects during the summer.

[Chestnut]

On 1/19/2024 at 9:42 AM, Von said:

I recall hearing Cremona say his garage in Minnesota didn't drop below 40F, but from what I recall he has two shared walls and, probably most importantly, conditioned living space above.

I think it was just 1 wall but the other wall was underground. It was very sheltered from wind and faced south so he had a lot working for him.

My attached 3 stall garage that shares 1 wall hardly drops below freezing with no heat but the walls are all R-15 and the ceiling is insulated to a R-60. It's probably not feasible but bumping your insulation to a 7 or 8 out of 10 would make that mini split work wonders all seasons of the year. If you ever have to reside look into insulating from the outside, it might be possible?

[Von]

On 1/22/2024 at 10:07 AM, Chestnut said:

My attached 3 stall garage that shares 1 wall hardly drops below freezing with no heat but the walls are all R-15 and the ceiling is insulated to a R-60. It's probably not feasible but bumping your insulation to a 7 or 8 out of 10 would make that mini split work wonders all seasons of the year. If you ever have to reside look into insulating from the outside, it might be possible?

We just had the rest of the house remodeled in the Summer of '22. Last summer, when I considered pulling off the drywall in the garage, insulating and putting up plywood, I ran into lingering "house torn up" fatigue. In retrospect, I should have had it done when we did the rest of the house, but I wasn't planning on retiring when we kicked that off. Maybe in a year or two...

[legenddc]

Around here there are places that will drill holes in your siding or drywall and fill the cavities in the studs with insulation. Obviously not perfect and could be done DIY.

[gee-dub]

On 1/22/2024 at 11:24 AM, Von said:

I ran into lingering "house torn up" fatigue

I have a few things around here that resulted from that.  I have to remind myself that I decided to make peace with those decisions and that they were correct at the time.

[Von]

Had some shop time yesterday and went down a rabbit hole looking at a possible way to add some infeed support to my table saw spurred by this article, specifically Step 3. I looked and I do indeed have a handle on the bottom of each side of my table saw, which since I never lift it, aren't doing anything for me.

Some turns of a T-25 screwdriver removed the handles.

And revealed two 10-32 bolt holes that looked useful for mounting accessories.

However, when I looked at attaching some sort of frame for an infeed support, I figured out the frame would have to go down over two inches to get under the front of the fence structure and then do all sorts of gymnastics to avoid interfering with the fence and blade height controls on the front of the saw. Not seeming too reasonable.

However, as I was staring at the front of my saw, I realized I do have a 3/32" gap between the fence rail and the tabletop, which is bigger than I was thinking it was. Photo is me inserting a piece of 1/16" aluminum angle iron to confirm it fits comfortably.

So now I'm thinking a right-angle bracket that fits between the rail and the table, coupled with some push action clamps (e.g.) pressing against the front of the rail, all screwed to the bottom of an infeed support, might work well. Stay tuned...

[Mark J]

You could also support the infeed table with a removable leg, with or without the push action clamps.

[Von]

On 1/30/2024 at 6:39 PM, Mark J said:

You could also support the infeed table with a removable leg, with or without the push action clamps.

Thanks - very true. I'm envisioning a relatively short extension to support my sled and if I can avoid something I will trip over, I suspect I'll be happier. But I'll do a leg if needed.

[Von]

A prototype infeed support:

Attaches and holds its own weight, but isn't very sturdy. (Still need rabbeting to be flush with the tabletop and a mitre slot cut.)

The inline clamp I had lying around isn't very beefy and should be taller. So I ordered an other and will try again when it arrives. The 1/16" aluminum brackets seem to work well.