Shop Tour


Click on the images below for a larger view

  The shop building looking North. The building is an 18' X 18' frame building built in the 1930's as single car garage with a utility space for washer, dryer and hot water heater. It sits on a concrete slab, on grade.


 

     SE corner and East wall of the shop, just past the walk in door. This corner, besides hosting a drill press and planer, is used primarily for clamp storage and the most frequently used hand tools.

 


 

  Looking NE from the garage door and across the bench and table saw to the cabinets recycled from the kitchen in the house that was on the property before we started building. After hanging the cabinets, I built the corner work bench into the wall, with storage shelves underneath. I like having a taller, wall mounted bench where I can sit to solder electronic components, draw up plans, and do other close work. The bench top is 2' deep and holds my collection of Dremel, electronic, and carving tools.

 


 

   A better shot of the work bench. I found the basic plans for the bench in a shop book, modified them a bit, added a solid core door as a top, some recycled kitchen cabinet drawers and a Record woodworking vise.  A smaller hardwood top for the bench, with an added end vice, is in the future plans, along with a good finish. The bench also does double duty as an out feed table for the cabinet saw.

 


 

  North wall showing the 14" Delta bandsaw (with the riser installed) and the BenchDog router table, which permanently houses a PC 7518 router. While the BenchDog setup is first rate, in hindsight I would have been better off building the table myself, or better yet, mounting the router in the cabinet saw extension table. The construction of the BenchDog table, with the wide front apron and low height, makes it a bit awkward to get to the router for height adjustment and bit changes, as well as to turn a router on and off in the stock configuration. A router lift and side mounted switch would solve both these problems, but it still takes up a good deal of room in a small shop and doesn't lend itself to secondary uses.

 


 

    West wall and NW corner. A Delta Belt and Disk sander, small lumber rack, 6" Powermatic jointer, and a miter saw station for the Makita 1013LS. 

 


In my opinion, Jack-Of-All-Trades, one of the denizens of the WREC recently described this "shop thing" succinctly:

"My shop helps me relax, makes me feel better (more "up" I guess you would say), and helps ease the headache. It is enough sometimes just to know it is there, that it's mine. Sometimes I go out there for hours making something, sometimes I just piddle around, sometimes I do a little and then just sit for awhile, and sometimes all I do is just sit, listen to music, smell the sawdust, watch the birds and squirrels, and don't think about anything much at all."

Thanks JOAT, that pretty well describes it for me!

KAC ...

 

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