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Shop
Tour
Click on the images below for a
larger view
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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