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New Shop!!
The new shop's not as big as the old shop, but it's nearby (in the basement)
and warm.
It's 25' long by 11' wide and while that's not a bad amount of floor space,
it's on the narrow side and that's caused a few head scratches
There are lots of links on this page (and others) designed to help you find
the same equipment I have. I've purchased it through various sources but one
great place to start is
Rockler's catalogue.
All pictures on this page (as well as the others) are linked to larger versions
of the same shot. Simply click on the one you want to see, and a new page
will be produced with the image. And you may want to grab a beverage of choice
- this is a wee bit wordy :).
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Let's start the tour standing at the south end of the shop looking to the
northwest. As I indicated in the intro, this shop's a wee bit tight but after
several layouts, it's finally starting to work.
The shop's broken into two main areas. There's the machining/turning area
and the "work" area. In this view, you're seeing the "work" area. This
included the tool storage bench across the far wall (a Norm Abrahm’s design!),
the work bench itself and usable floor space. It also contains the Rigid
oscillating spindle sander, and my drill press. All power tools are stored in
the bench and in the shelves above are books, planes/scrapers, pneumatic
nailers/staplers, sharpening stones and divided bins that contain the various
fasteners needed. It's all easy to get to.
You can also see the two overhead bench lights and the gooseneck bench light
(all free - thanks Randy!). I like a lot of light when I work and will be
adding more.
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Looking northeast shows you the other side of the working area. This includes
the entry door, the rolling tool chest, access to the back side of the work
bench and storage for finishing materials etc.
Yes, that's a brand new JET 15" planer sitting there holding up the Delta
12 1/2" planer.
The JET has never seen power and is too big for this shop (I bought it just
before we moved). But the deal I got was too good and one day it'll be used.
Above the planer(s) is a JET air cleaner. Some argue that these machines simply
stir up the fine dust but I leave it on using a timer after I leave the shop
and I've hardly got any dust migration from the shop. More on the rest of the
dust collection further down.
That's a JET JBM-5 mortising machine poking its head out from behind the roll
cabinet.
I've made my own base for it to hold an XY vice and to give it more capacity.
The base works, but it's really ugly!
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Looking to the southwest (I'm standing with my back to Norm's bench), you can
see the "machining" area of the shop. The lumber storage rack will hold about
700 bd ft. if I really load it, but doing that makes it hard to find just the
right stick. so I store the rest of my wood in the family room (what - you
don't??). The rack is 3/4" black pipe into holes in uprights that have been
attached to the studs behind the drywall. The holes go through those too and
the rack is solid.
On the south wall is my Bessey clamp collection. I didn't mean to attract so
many and am looking for a program that will assist me in getting past the urge.
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Finally, facing to the southeast shows the last corner of the shop. There's an
exterior door tucked way back there but it's not used much. Above the lathe is
storage for all those plastic boxes that hand tool manufacturers seem to like
so much (and I just can't bring myself to throw out).
On the back wall is the drum sander my eldest son and I built (works great!).
Yeah yeah, those ARE pot lights in the ceiling. When we bought the house
this end of the shop was a bedroom and the other end was a combination
workshop/laundry room. I fixed that silliness pretty quickly when we moved in.
And yes - that's "A" calendar on the back of the door (thanks Cyril!) :)
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The heart of the shop - my trusty JET contractors saw (bought used). It's been
upgraded with a few goodies including a Link belt, a router table, improved
dust collection (next pic) and a mobile base. The base is critical in this shop
as the saw constantly is being moved side to side.
Under the saw you can see my Incra miter 2000. This thing is dead accurate and
a valuable addition to my tool collection. The bolts on top of the fence are
to hold Board Buddies and while I don't use them often their helpful when the
time's right. And to the right of the saw you can see the router table (that
holds a Bosch 1617EVS) and my "accoutrement" drawers. These drawers hold most
of the router bits, stops, wrenches etc.
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I posted this pic mostly to show the added "wall" at the back of the saw.
Look carefully and you'll see a horizontal split in the wood. The wall is
actually two pieces held to the saw with rare earth magnets. This makes for
efficient dust collection (hard to do with a contractors saw) and easy removal
for when I have to tilt the saw. Yes - I've forgot to remove the wall before
tilting and had to spend the next hour re-aligning the saw. Now the crank handle
that tilts the blade has been removed as a reminder to me that I have to
remove the wall before tilting next time.
Oh - the split in the dust collection hose under the saw makes for a branch of
2 1/2" hose that I run to my router table fence when I need it. When not
needed, the hose coils under the saw. Works well.
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Ahh the bandsaw. I bought this 14" JET used and sat it on a mobile base.
I used it "stock" for a while, but that didn't last. I soon bought the last
riser kit in Canada and a slew of new (longer) blades to work with it. Then
I "procured" some used aluminum extrusion material (thanks again Randy!) and
picked up the various bits/bolts I needed to convert it into a fence.
The rails are held to the table with through-bolts to the underneath of the
table. These have knobs on them so I can back them off, slide the rails and
snug them up again quickly. The fence itself is anchored via two thumbscrews
for self-squaring. More extrusion material sits on the fence if I need it to
be higher. The fence works well, wasn't bad to make up and was cheap!
The lamp is from a scroll saw and I bought it from the scratch and dent
section of the local hardware store. I drilled and tapped a couple of holes
in the saw's cast iron frame and now have a very handy light to help me follow
the lines when I’m cutting (remember - I like a lot of light!)
And lastly the dust collection. It sucked. Or rather it didn't suck. The
design you see is an evolution of a system on a friend’s saw (thanks Jeff!),
which is a variation of another friends saw (thanks JT!). It's sewer pipe
(no - it's not used!), plywood, a blast gate, a few magnets and some headless
screws. I drilled holes into the cast frame to accept the headless screws that
are installed in the plywood rings for use as alignment pins. The magnets hold
it in place. The blast gate is glued to the bottom and the top of the thing
is cut to wrap around the lower blade guides and snuggle close to the blade.
If I have to tilt the table, the whole thing pops off with a quick pull. The
improvement was dramatic and well worth the small effort.
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Old trusty. Boy I wish I could hate this thing so I could justify a new bigger
one, but I can't. It's a used, JET, 6" jointer and it's dead nuts-on accurate.
I've hogged material off, I've shaved material off, I’ve used it on burls and
other woods that should tear out, but they never do. The only complaint I have
with it is the dust collection. If I hog a lot of wood off (usually softwood)
I can overcome the ability of the resulting shavings to fall out from the
bottom of the blades. When this happens, I get a clog. I modified the bottom
plastic boot to be easy-off/easy-on and have a special stick that allows me to
clear the clog in seconds. The only other modification is a link belt, which
made it run even smoother.
Because I have room here, I'll chat briefly about the drill press over there.
It's a 17" Foremost "Big Red" and I bought it out the back door of the JET
factory warehouse. They used it for some reverse engineering and R&D I think,
and I got it cheap. I added link belt, put it on a mobile base and put the
chuck key on janitor’s belt-mounted retractable key chain. But that's all I've
done. Getting higher on the list is a decent table for it and I do have a Delta
mortising attachment that I keep for doing mortises in oddball pieces.
It rattles, but works, and the run out on it is virtually nil
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You've seen the guy at the wood show right? He's got the totally exposed drum
sander that does everything but make soup for lunch. You know the guy I mean.
Well, i liked the idea, but didn't want to cough up the $$. So a little bit of
time, and a little bit of sleuthing led me to a guy who was selling a few bits
and pieces. I bought them, and filled in the blanks with new parts from the
factory. Then I took a couple of design ideas from this set of plans and that
set of plans and enrolled my oldest son into helping me. Later that day, this
is what arrived.
It's handy as all can be and I've leveled more panels/boards on this thing
than I ever knew needed leveling. You can hog off material cross grain, level
it on the diagonal and finish it with the grain. The dust collection works
amazingly well and the simplicity of this machine totally gets me.
The only thing I don't like is the fact that I seem to catch a corner of the
sandpaper (held in place with Velcro) and the next thing I know I've got this
whirring noisy flap scaring the begeezus outta me and the paper's ruined
before it's worn out. And it's not cheap paper! So I'm going to try a few
things and see if they work. Stay tuned, if they do, I'll post them.
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This old Lathe. And before anyone gives me a hard time, yes, those are the
original colours!. But it's not the original paint. This lathe is a survivor
from a friends shop fire, which was caused by poorly stored oily rags and
spontaneous combustion occurred. The good news is the house was saved and
they were fine. The bad news is all his tools were written off and this
was one of them.
However - new bearings, a lot of clean up and a few new parts turned it back
into a useable piece. It's not the cream of the crop, but it spins, and it's
paid for. I've got an old Nova chuck on there and my tools are mostly used as
well. But when push comes to shove, it makes square things round.
The tool rack is made of some spalted cottonwood I milled with a couple of
friends (thanks Randy and Dan!) using an Alaskan mill. The verticals are
dovetailed into the shelves and it holds everything I need.
High on the to-do list is a tool sharpening station. I'll be installing a
swing-up shelf that will normally live under the lathe and hold a grinder
(etc.). This can be pulled up when I need it, stashed when I don't.
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Dust - the bane of woodworkers and the removal of said is a science unto
itself. This is not a study into how things should be done.
It's a little Grizzly 1hp machine that I upgraded (surprise!) with a 3-micron
upper bag, a plastic lower bag and a chip separator ahead of it. Interestingly
enough it keeps up with all my tools, though it only services one at a time
(blast gates control the flow downstream). I'll fill one of those garbage cans
about every 1/2 hour when I'm dimensioning wood, but the local "green" recycle
depot is more than happy to take the shavings away for free. Nice huh?!
In that same nook is the entrance to the boiler room through a louvered
bi-fold door. To keep it clean in there a rack of high-efficiency furnace
filters are in place. SO far, the room's nice and tidy and more importantly,
I don't have to worry about sawdust and open pilot lights.
What are the plans? That window is going and right outside it wil be a small
shed. I've got all the hard pipe and fitting I need to mount a main trunk
along the ceiling with drops to all the machinery. This will then enter the
shed where my bigger (2hp) dust collector will live. The air will be filtered
through 3-micron bags and further filtered through a HEPA filter before being
returned to the shop. Sounds like overkill - but I hate sucking dust when I
breathe and taking care of it is a high priority.
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Well, here we are at the other end of the shop again. The workbench was built
from a design featured in Fine Woodworking magazine a few years ago. It used
to be festooned with pipe clamps for vices and was 8' long. This new shop
changed that - the pipe clamps are long gone (replaced by a conventional vice)
and it's now 5' long. But it's a good solid bench that I have no problem
abusing. That said, the maple for a new one is in the bottom of the lumber
rack.
You can get a better view of my mortising machine here too, along with the
custom base that holds the XY vice. When I need it I just pull it onto the
bench.
The cabinet in the corner is for my finishing supplies and up against the
ceiling you can once again get a view of the air cleaner.
The Swede saw hanging from the rafters is used for fine-tuning miters.
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And finally, we see the tool storage area. The scroll saw has been used once
and is a horrid piece of machinery. The Miter saw has a good blade on it and
can be set-up on the bench in seconds and the sander can be moved, but gets
used a lot right where it is. Above is storage for small clamps, misc. motors
and my sticker collection used when I'm stacking project lumber to acclimate.
So - there you have it. That's my "new" shop. As I said earlier, it's gone
through several iterations (frustrating ones) to get this far but as of now;
it's a nice place to work. Because it's small, there’s no room for clutter so
it tends to actually get cleaned up after every project and because it's in
the basement, I find I spend more "I'll just be five minutes" I there than I
used to in the satellite shop. But it's far from perfect so I'll always be
changing it.
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