Wall Paneling

I gave up on the idea of pallet slats as wall paneling.  Tearing down pallets and cutting the boards was a lot of work with very little payoff.  Plus, a friend of mine gave me a bunch of used 1/4" wall paneling.  I'm talking about that stuff popular in the 70's and 80's that comes in 4'x8' sheets and is supposed to look like vertical boards of varying widths and frequently used in trailer houses. Now I just need to get some shag carpet, and re-paint my tools Avocado Green or Harvest Gold. It was pulled out of renovated house, full of little nails, outlet cutouts, etc, but once again it was free and I happily accepted! Turns out it was just enough to do my whole shop - including ceiling.  Once again, this meant shuffling everything to clear a section of wall, putting up paneling, shuffling everything around again to clear another section of wall, etc.  But the only cost was time and a box of nails.

It also meant re-doing my end wall cabinet/work area again.  So here is my shop as it currently stands:

Standing in the doorway looking in.

My old Delta Milwaukee jointer. I haven't used it much lately as it needs a major overhaul (but not quite a "restoration"). The threads on the adjusting rods are gummed up so I can't adjust it much, and the knives are painfully dull. When I restored an old Craftsman jointer (which I no longer have), I just remember how much trouble it was to get the tables coplanar and set the knives and I just haven't felt like tackling that again.

What's left of a Shopsmith Mark 5, Model 510 I bought and parted out on eBay (which helped me reach my necessary budget to build the shop). Right now it just holds my planer and miter saw, and home made accessory shelf. I have plans to make it more of a functional stand for the miter saw and planer (with left/right and infeed/outfeed supports) rather than just storage space. Cleaning, stripping, and repainting the legs are very low on the priority list.

My 10ER sanding station/lathe/jigsaw. One day I'll build a better base for it, but that is also low on the priority list. The parts for my 3rd 10ER are on the lower shelf awaiting a full restoration.

Toolboxes, grinder, and designated area for my shop helper, Zakk. Although he prefers to be right under my feet wherever I'm at.

Main storage cabinets and a workbench area. Still need to get some pegboard hooks and finish the doors on the cabinets. Then I need to fill it up with MORE TOOLS.

My 10ER dedicated drill press and my entire collection of clamps. The stand for the 10ER came off my old crummy Craftsman table saw. I cut down the legs, reinforced them to hold the weight, and added casters to I could roll the 10ER in and out of the corner when necessary. I have an idea for a counterweight and pulley system to make raising and lowering the table easier. We'll have to see how that works out.

My Mark 5 newly converted to a "shorty." I took the tubes to my dad's last weekend and cut 14" off using his handheld bandsaw (which cut through them like butter). I was afraid to cut any more off, but now that I've assembled it, I think I could have cut off a couple more inches. So far, I really like the reduced length. 14" doesn't seem like much, but between that and moving the accessory shelf to the planer/miter saw stand, it really freed up a lot of room. It didn't make it in the picture, but right above this is a long shelf that has all my spray paints and stuff like WD-40, Kroil, glue, wax, etc.

My main table saw and outfeed table (which typically also becomes my main workbench area). Some more storage and my stereo (vintage 70's 8-track!) in the background.

Even though the table saw is rather crummy (but it was free!), I do like this setup with the outfeed table. I can easily slide the whole thing away from the wall if I need more space to the left.

So, there you have it. It's not much, but it suits me quite well. I still have a lot of tools to acquire, and there's a lot of room for improvement, but there's really not much I've really wanted to do but just couldn't with my current collection. 

Making a mess and an outfeed table

Right now my shop is a total mess. I got some free foamboard insulation that I've been working on installing. This meant clearing a spot on the floor to stack the 4'x8' foam boards. Then moving everything away from the wall, cutting the foam into strips to fit between the studs, then moving everything around to get to another section of wall and repeating the process. The main result seems to be millions of tiny styrofoam balls all over the place.

I also slightly redid my end wall. Since I had to take down the shelf and corner cabinets to put in the insulation, I put back up a full sheet if pegboard above my shelf. I also started on my internal walls while I had everything down.  I am recycling pallets destined for the landfill for my interior walls.  I have a couple sources for about as many pallets as I want.  At a truckload of pallets each week, it is going to be a lot of work and take a long time, but it is free. This shop is a study in cheap construction!



 

Before I had made such a mess of the shop, I made a new stand for my table saw and an outfeed table. The standard under the saw has room for storage, but I don't know what kind of storage I want/need at this point. Drawers or a cabinet with doors. I'll decide eventually. The space under the outfeed table is perfect for my shop vac. I even incorporated a port for a shop vac connection for dust collection on the table saw. It kinda works.



 

 

 

I now have a working door handle and latch on my shop door. I had a screen door handle/latch that I had bought for my screened in porch and ended up not using. Being cheap and not wanting to buy anything, I decided I want to use it for my door.  The thing is, it's made for doors up to 2" thick and mine is 4" thick. So, for a while now, I've been just using the inside latch and opening the window and reaching in to open the door.

I looked high and low for the screws of the proper side/thread that were at least 4" long. No luck. So I contacted a friend I know that works in the fastener industry and he supplied me with some lengths of all-thread of the proper size/thread along with some dome nuts.

I used a bit of welding rod to span between the outside button and the inside latch.





Also built a lumber rack this weekend. Just some 2x4 and 1x4 arms screwed to the studs.





Unfortunately, I don't have any "nice" lumber of significant size. Just some pine boards, small cedar cut-offs, and pallet scraps. But, it definitely helped clear up some space.

That thing in the upper left corner is a genuine antique. Although I'm sure it's really a footboard, my grandparents used it for the headboard on the guest bed for longer than I can remember. I used it as the headboard for my son's first "big boy" bed after he outgrew the crib. I've been hanging on to it for a long time now with no use for it but too attached to it to get rid of it but no idea what to do with it. But one of those "picker" shows on TV (the one with the two women) gave me an idea for it. I'm going to attach a bench seat to it and it will become the back of the bench. I'll put it in the girls' room where I'm sure they'll cover it with stuffed animals. But it hangs nicely where it is for now.

Shop Layout Planning

I took a step back in my shop layout planning.  I read a few articles online (which I can't seem to find now to link back to) and went with the "graph paper and scale cutouts" process.  I outlined my shop dimensions on a sheet of graph paper, and cut out scale representations of the major tools that take up floor space.  That includes my table saw, jointer, three Shopsmiths (one of which is a dedicated drill press) and the router table I mentioned in the last post.  Although I don't have them yet, I also cut out scale representations of a workbench and outfeed table.  I didn't even account for a dust collector and air compressor.  I hope to keep those outside the shop and run the appropriate hoses inside.

Conclusion:  I don't have enough room.  Or maybe I have too many Shopsmiths.  Nah, I just don't have enough room. 

Well, I do have enough room, I just need to figure out the best use of it. 

For one thing, the router table will either have to be a bench-top design that can be pulled out for use and stored (under my existing counter, workbench, or outfeed table) when not in use.  Or, I need to integrate it into another existing table such as a wing of the table saw or in the outfeed table or workbench.  I've been hesitant to do this because what if a setup I don't want to undo on one interferes with a cut I need to make on the other?  But I have the three Shopsmiths so with the proper planning and tool usage, this shouldn't be a problem.

Another idea is to make one of the Shopsmith 10ERs (The Black Baron) into a short shorty.  A "shorty" Shopsmith is one that has had the tubes cut shorter (typically about 18") but still long enough that the carriage and table will fit.  (A "mini" Shopsmith has had the tubes cut so short that only the headstock will fit on the tubes and is used just to power SPTs like the bandsaw or jointer.)  This still gives it room for the carriage and table.  It can still be tilted into drill press mode.  I could never cut the older, heavier, thicker, and more rare 10ER tubes so I would swap them out with the Mark 5 and cut it's tubes for use on the 10ER and make it a shorty.  Then I would put it on a short bench that would roll under the center section of the shelf I built against the back wall.  Hence a "short shorty."  That should free up some floor space, but I've only envisioned this in my head - I haven't gone out to the shop and measured everything to see how this idea might work.

Router table

I have so much storage and shelving and fixtures to build and organizing to be done that it's rather intimidating at times.  It was much easier in my old garage-based "shop" where I had acquired things gradually and found homes for them as they were acquired and just shuffled a couple things around as needed.  This "throw everything in the shop, then organize it" approach I've taken is a lot more difficult.  I'm paying for my earlier lack of patience and now spend a lot of time in the shop just standing around looking at everything trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it.

I tried to focus this past weekend on building some shelves for the things I was unboxing so I would at least have a place to put everything where I could see it so I could better plan additional shelving/storage as well as my tools and materials needs.  But I did stop to build a router table top.  Just the top for now, at the risk of getting ahead of myself.  I haven't decided yet if the router table will take its own floor space, or a bench-top design that I will clamp to my workbench (which I still don't have) when I need to use it.  Although, the more I've thought about it, I think a bench-top design will make the best use of the limited space I have.

I took a lot of inspiration from Kevin Brady and his router table he built using a Shopsmith drum sander/shaper fence which he documented here.  I used the top off of an instructional multi-media cart.  It is MDF with a Formica top on it.

Instead of t-nuts, I re-used the self-tapping screw-in threaded inserts that were already on the underside of the top (for mounting it to the steel cabinet it was used with).  But I did drill a through hole and screw them in from the underside like Kevin did.



I messed up a little when I was routing the rabbet for the router plate.  There are a couple of jagged, uneven edges, and the corners are a different radius, but the router plate still sits tight and flush with the top.  I did not add a miter gauge slot.  I can clamp featherboards to the table and can push stock through with a square block behind it and/or push blocks/sticks. 



I made a few test cuts with the table top sitting on a trash can.  Dust collection is going to be an issue I'll have to work out, but other than that, it works great.  The Shopsmith fence gives a lot of flexibility.  Future improvements will be larger fence faces, bolts with knobs on them to make moving/removing the fence easier, and of course dust collection.

Building My Workshop Part 11

Originally posted on Shopsmith Forums on 1/18/2012


After the kids were in bed tonight, and we watched Storage Wars and my wife was getting ready for bed, I sought her permission to go work in my shop some. I think she understands I'm like a kid with a new toy right now, so she gave her permission with the stipulation I not stay up too late.

I hope 1:00am doesn't count as "too late. "

But I did get the big shelf completed.



I screwed a 1x6 to the studs across the back wall, then screwed a 2x4 to opposite studs on he right and left walls and added some 2x4 legs. Then I squared and cut to length the studs I prepared earlier. I used a rubber mallet to knock them tight together alternating the end grain direction. I only put one nail in each board to allow for movement. Then I screwed a 1x6 to the front 2x4 placing it so the the top edge of the 1x6 was even with the top surface of the planks. I also added a small strip that was ripped off of the 1x6 to the back of the shelf to keep small parts from falling behind it.



It's not dead flat or perfectly smooth, but that isn't necessary here. It looks like it is not level, but my 4' level says otherwise. I think it is an optical illusion caused by the slat board that the tin is screwed to not being parallel to the floor. But it is very solid. I hopped up and sat on it and it didn't move. And at least I have a place to start getting stuff off the floor and start sorting stuff.

Building My Workshop Part 10

Originally posted on Shopsmith Forums on 1/17/2012

GREAT progress yesterday. Although, as typical, not as much as I would have liked. But great progress anyway!

This is my 8'x10' storage shed that I had everything crammed in to:



My main toolbox and a few power tools like my drill, circular saw, etc. has been accessible - once I move the air compressor. I haven't seen most of what's in that shed for over a year now! Unpacking the shed was like playing Jenga... pull out the wrong piece and the whole thing might come falling down!

And here's everything put in the new workshop. Nothing has been sorted or put in any kind of permanent place. Just brought it and put wherever there was a spot for it.



Here's an old friend I haven't seen in a long time and look forward to getting re-acquainted with!



Three of my four Shopsmiths. Another 10ER is disassembled with parts scattered around the shop (but mostly in the corner to the right of that bench grinder). I may end up giving that one to my dad once I get it cleaned up and put back together.



Nothing is organized yet, but I have everything out of storage and I'm well on my way!

First order of business is to build a shelf/counter/work area against the back wall. This will extend 2' from the wall and extend across the entire back wall. I'll probably add some shelves under it on either end, leaving the middle open so I can sit there with a stool or chair. I'll add some shelves above it on either end as well with maybe a pegboard above it between the shelves for hanging tools.

No time to do alignments on my machines - I've got to get to work on shelves so I can get organized! And this isn't really "woodworking" but "carpentry" so woodworking level of accuracy isn't required.

I was having too much fun making sawdust to stop and take pictures. My shelf/counter/work area will be 2"x4" supports and 1"x6" planks for the surface. I cut lengths of rough cut 1"x6" lumber to roughly 25" long (just using a circular saw), then used light passes on the planer to get them flat and consistent in thickness. This brought them down to about 15/16". Then I jointed one edge on the jointer, and ripped the other side parallel on my Craftsman table saw. I decided to use tongue and groove joinery between boards. I've never cut tongue and groove before, but this was a stunning success!

I wanted to use my Craftsman wobble dado (which I use when there is no benefit to using my stacked dado set over the wobble) on my Mark 5 to cut the tongues. But before I could do that, I had to make a dado insert. This was also my first attempt at making table inserts. It took me a few minutes of thinking and planning and a couple false starts to figure out the best way to go about making them.

My bandsaw is out of commission (just before I had to pack everything up for the move, I accidentally started the Mark 5 on a high speed with it attached to the bandsaw and the old tires were slung off the wheels in several pieces - scary learning experience!), so used the planer to plane a couple pieces of oak (?) to the right thickness. Then used my Craftsman table saw to rip them to the right width. I didn't measure anything - just set them on a flat surface with the existing insert to judge thickness, then used the existing insert to set the fence width on the table saw. I used the disc sander on a 10ER to round the ends.

Then I used the Mark 5 as an overhead router (along with the shaper/drum sander fence) to route the lip around the edge of the underside. Again, I just used an existing insert to set the depth and width of cut. Finally I used the Mark 5 in drill press mode to drill and countersink the screw holes. I made two inserts as I was going in case I messed one of them up. I figured if both survived, it wouldn't hurt to have that extra one anyway.



I then installed an insert, mounted the dado blade to the Mark 5, clamped a board over the insert, and slowly lowered the table onto the blade until I had the depth I wanted. Raised the table, added the sacrificial fence and adjusted it to the width I wanted then lowered the table back down to make the cut into the sacrificial fence. Width and depth of cut was just eyeballed. I don't know what the best practice is, but I wanted the tongue to be about 1/3 the thickness of the board. So I eyeballed a couple marks on the edge of a board and used that to set the blade height.

To cut the grooves, I used my Craftsman table saw. Again, no measurement. I used one of my boards to set the fence so the outer edge of the blade was even with the outer edge of the tongue and made some test cuts. Run a board through, flip it around and run it again, clean out any strip in the middle with my pocket knife, and see how the tongue fit the groove. A couple of tiny adjustments and I had a nice snug fit.



With the planks done (except cut to final length) I started framing out the platform they would sit on. I didn't get far with that until it was time for supper and my workday was done. All said, I think that was great progress but I would have loved if I could have gotten that shelf/work area finished.

Not a bad day! I got to use my planer, jointer, table saw, Mark 5 (dado, router, drill press) 10ER (disc sander). I did some things I've never done before (tongue and groove, custom zero clearance inserts). I made a lot of sawdust and made great progress on my first shelf/counter thingy!

I meant to add that I was concerned with rust on the machines after being in that storage shed for over a year. Before I packed everything up, I put a good thick coat of Johnson's Past Wax on everything cast iron and on the Shopsmith tubes and then just left it there. No buffing it off. I had hoped that would protect the surfaces against rust and it looks like it did the job. The worst cases of new rust I could find were on the quill feed handles and the table tilt lock handle on the 10ER. Easily cleaned. Some of the arbors have some slight surface rust spots, but I'm not too concerned about that.