Von's shop tour and setup log


Von

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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 :-)

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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.

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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

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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.CleatClampRackV2(22).jpg.7b5e0e40ba851a149facf104443d36b2.jpg

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.

 

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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

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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...

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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