My first real project - garage ceiling shelving

[chrispitude]

Hi all,

I'm starting my first real project - a set of ceiling-mounted storage shelves which I will mount to my garage ceiling. I'll install them above the garage doors, to turn otherwise wasted space into storage. The shelves are built with 2x4s for the primary frame and 1x4s for the shelving slats. The idea came from a recent special issue of Workbench magazine which featured storage ideas. It primarily involves crosscuts and dados.

Here is a link to detailed pictures in my photo album:

shelving project pictures

Below, each picture is actually a clickable link to a larger more detailed picture in my album.

The first picture shows my messy garage, and the Shopsmith rolled away from the back wall and prepared for duty. I don't have much space to work with, and I have to keep one of the vehicles out of the garage for the duration of the project. This is why I like the Shopsmith - when not in use, it takes very little space for the capabilities it provides.

[ATTACH]1273[/ATTACH]

Already, I learned my first lesson - make SURE the casters are raised and the Shopsmith is sitting firmly on the floor before setting up all your extension tube support legs! After setting up all the legs, I bumped the table and the Shopsmith rolled and I realized my error. I couldn't just raise the casters because then the whole unit would drop and the legs would be a bit too long, bending the extension tubes upwards. I loosened all the support legs, raised the casters, and then firmed up the legs. I took a 1x4 and laid it across the table sitting vertically to act as a straightedge. It was trickier than I thought to adjust the auxiliary table height and all the support legs to get everything just right, front and back.

You can also see my dust collection system. On the left is my Shopvac with a 2.5" hose. I have it hooked up and I'm testing its dust collection capabilities. On the right is an inexpensive $90 Harbor Freight mini dust collector that I borrowed from a friend. He uses it for his sandblasting cabinet. It has a 4" primary hose with a 2.5" adapter on the end. I will be trying that too.

I don't have any electrical capacity left in the garage to run dust collection at the moment. There is one 20A breaker which feeds the entire garage, including the 320W of fluorescent lighting (four fixtures, each with two 40W bulbs). Fortunately, the Shopvac's cord is long enough to reach an outlet down in the basement (my house is a split-level, so it's half a level down from the garage).

The next picture is a closer look at my Shopsmith, ready for action:

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You can see my brand new polyurethane caster wheels, along with my support leg knobs. Much to my delight, the knobs double as handy storage for ear and eye protection!

Once everything was set up, it was time to cut the 1x4s. They are 8' long and I wanted to cut them into three pieces. I decided to go on the conservative side and cut it into three pieces of 31.75" each. I used the rip fence with a fence-mounted featherboard as a stop on the far right extension table. I slid the featherboard forward and measured between the blade and the featherboard until it looked like 31.75". I then slid the featherboard back to the front of the fence.

I made a test cut, just barely nipping into a 1x4 board. When I measured the length to the nip, it was a hair over the target length (maybe by 1/16"). I unlocked the rip fence and slid it slightly, and relocked it. I put on my eye/ear/lung protection, flipped on the Shopvac, flipped on the Shopsmith, and made my first cut. After turning everything off, the measuring tape confirms that I have the length dead-on!

Side note - I really must have been a sight with all my protective gear. I have one of those dual-cartridge AO Smith respirators I picked up at Harbor Freight. Between that and the glasses/hearing cups, I probably looked like a space alien. I should have come upstairs to see if the dogs would have barked at me.

To make the cuts, I mounted the 24" miter gauge extension on the left side of the miter gauge. With this configuration, I was able to buzz off two 31.75" pieces from the right side of the stock. This left me with a piece which was longer than the target length which I'd need to cut on the right side of the blade, with the miter extension reversed. For the first pass, I just put these longer pieces off to the side, and I'll come back to them and trim them back down to length later. If I were to do it again, I would have set everything up and figured out the exact length which would have resulted in two simple cuts and no waste.

Here is the pile of exact-length pieces (2/3 of the slats done!):

[ATTACH]1275[/ATTACH]

Here is the pile of pieces I need to trim (1/3 of the slats):

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You can see the one piece on the floor in the rear of the pile where I accidentally slid the piece all the way against the rip fence instead of the featherboard. I realized this once I heard the blade sounding different. I think it was binding up against the fence.

Random note - one of the limitations of using the rip fence on an extension table, whether it's as a rip fence for plywood or as a stop, it is no longer guaranteed to be square. It depends on how square the floating table is when you snug it down on the tubes. With my setup this was okay because I ensured the featherboard/stop was moved forward so that the workpiece has moved past the stop as it meets the blade. The fence stop assembly didn't need to be square to the blade, it just needed to serve its purpose as a stop. But, it's something I hadn't considered until I ran into this binding.

Here is the sawdust which settled on the main table carriage after I was done:

[ATTACH]1277[/ATTACH]

Is this an indicator that the Shopvac has insufficient capacity for dust collection? Or is this normal and unavoidable when cutting? If I use a big honkin' dust collector like the big boys do, will this be completely eliminated or simply reduced by a large amount?

...continued...

- Chris

[chrispitude]

As I cut each piece, I would pull the workpiece away from the blade on the left-hand side, then walk a couple steps to the right (moving clear of the blade) and pull the cut-to-length piece straight to the right away from the blade. While pulling one of the pieces away from the blade, I guess I pulled it away too quickly. The upper guard was sitting on the workpiece and it pulled the guard into the running blade:

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When I checked the guard, I noticed there is a fair amount of side-to-side play in the upper guard itself even though the knob is tightly clamping the riving knife to its mount. It is something else to be aware of. I'm not sure if this much side-to-side play is normal. The play seems to be in all the pivot points in the upper guard arm and pivot points. Perhaps I can find a way to add some extra washers to remove some of this play.

Another thing I noticed while cutting was that the short side of the 24" miter extension was sometimes hitting the upper guard and causing the guard to go up and over the miter extension (very high) instead of the workpiece (only 3/4" high). You can see if I take a picture straight-on that the miter extension protrudes just barely into the path of the guard:

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This happened only sometimes. I think it depends on where the guard lands on the table from the previous cut, and if pulling the previous workpiece off to the right managed to pull the guard over enough to the right to miss the extension. I can't put the upper guard in the oven and heat it up to bend it narrower because there is a plastic slat in there which keeps it at a constant width. Maybe I'll pull the slat out and see if it can be narrowed. Or, I'll trim an outer bevel in the leading edge of the guard and/or sand/grind a bevel into the leading edge of the miter extension so that they move to miss each other when they happen to contact. I'll report back if I find a nice solution to this.

That's all for now! I have to get back to work to pay for all these toys.

- Chris

[osx-addict]

Chris --

Don't forget to take some pics of the rest of the work too! I'd like to do something in our garage as well and seeing what you're doing might give me some ideas.. Thx!

[dusty]

Chris,

When I look at your pictures I see one beautiful shop in the making. It's looking good.

I need to ask something though. In the second photo (IMG-1701), do I see that you are using the rip fence as a gauge in conjunction with the miter gauge. I see the red featherboard - is the the stop that you are using for length? Just don't let the "cutoff" get caught betweem the blade and the rip fence.

Your question about the dust collector. You ask if the dust around the saw blade is an indication that the Shopvac does not have enough capacity to function as dust collection for your Shopsmith. I have to so NO it does not because I have the same on my Shopsmith using the DC3300.

I believe this is a visual indication that the lower saw guard does not function well in its' capacity within the dust collection system. There is too much leakage in and around the lower saw guard. I have moved the lower saw guard in tight against the blade, opened it as far as it will go and all points in between. I still have an unusual collection of dust. The only real variables are two. Is there anything else connected to the dust collector and what kind of saw dust am I making.

You only have one port so it can't be that. When you empty the dust collector, you'll know how much dust you are collecting.

Now I am not saying that the Shopvac is as good as any other dust collector you might use. But I am saying that the Shopsmith DC does not get 100% of the dust - maybe not even 80% of the dust. I just don't know how to quantify it.

I do know that if I spend any time without the dust collector, I will spend a lot longer at cleanup.

ps -- I see your ear protection. Do you use eye protection as well?

[kalynzoo]

Wow, a place for everything and everything in its place. Nice project. Thanks for sharing, guess I'll I have to go out and clean up alittle. Won't be long before you pull more power into the garage...the neighbors might go dark, but...
As for dust collection. I use the SS collector. It works, and its not too loud. and bag replacement is easy...very infrequent, but easy.

[Bruce]

Is this an indicator that the Shopvac has insufficient capacity for dust collection? Or is this normal and unavoidable when cutting? If I use a big honkin' dust collector like the big boys do, will this be completely eliminated or simply reduced by a large amount?

I notice in your photo that the lower guard is not extended out all the way to the tie-bar guard (or whatever it's called). You might get a little bit better dust collection if you closed up that gap. You'll never get it all, however. That's why everyone should wear a dust mask.

This is an interesting post. The photos are great!

[chrispitude]

osx-addict,

Absolutely! I will be sure to update this thread as I make more progress.

dusty, you are correct about the featherboard. I am using it as a stop so that the workpiece is not in direct contact with the fence once it meets the blade. There is about 1" of forward travel as the 1x4 leaves the stop before it meets the blade.

Thank you for sharing your experiences regarding dust collection with a bigger/badder dust collector. I have been contemplating playing around with the lower guard, adding rubber flaps or other types of things to help eliminate gaps and improve collection. If I figure anything good out, I will certainly share it.

I do use eye protection. You can see it in this closeup hanging off the left front support leg knob. I have three types of eye protection - those open glasses, goggles (they fog, I guess I'm a heavy breather when I work), and a full-face shield. The open glasses are most comfortable, especially when wearing ear/lung protection.

kalynzoo, agreed. I am planning on adding additional electrical capacity to the garage. I think if I play around with things, I can find room to add one more 20A dedicated breaker for the Shopsmith. I had planned on going to 240VAC to handle dust collection until I decided to see if the Shopvac could be effectively pressed into service. I plan on combining the Shopvac with this Shopvac mini-cyclonic collector as a prefilter.

Bruce, you have keen eyes - great catch on the lower guard! I just assumed closer to the blade was better, but I never even noticed the gap that you described. I went back down and pulled the outer lower guard back out until the gap was closed. Hopefully this will help a bit!

Thanks all for your great feedback and encouragement. This would have likely been a frustrating prospect with the 500, but with the 520 bits it becomes easy, fun and enjoyable.

More random observations:

1. At least for 1x4 stock, the 24" aluminum miter extension works really well. I pondered buying/building crosscut sleds and whatnot but decided to see how well it went with what I had. I am happy to report that it went quite well. Heavier (or flimsier?) stock may prove more of a challenge, but a 1x4x8 was easy to cut straight every time.

2. With the 24" miter extension installed, the miter likes to tilt to the "long" side when the extension is pulled out in front of the table. I had to be sure to help the extension back up onto the table surface each time. The far end of the extension hanging down was scraping over my magnetic strip for the rip fence scale. Oops.

3. There is a surprising (to me) amount of rotational play in the miter gauge even when it's fully in its channel. All the miter gauge screws are tightened (including the ones holding the handle assembly to the rail); visually you can see the play is the rail moving around in the T-slot channel itself. I tried using transparent tape as a shim and it worked great and removed a lot of the miter gauge/table T-slot play, but quickly got scraped off.

4. One thing I noticed when attaching the 24" aluminum extension to the miter gauge face was that when I would tighten down on the wingnuts, the countersunk bolt heads would simply spin instead of catching so that the wingnuts would tighten on the bolt.

First, I took some coarse sandpaper and put some radial scratch marks on the extension bolt heads:

[ATTACH]1280[/ATTACH]

I also put similar scratches on the matching countersunk surfaces on the extension face. This worked very well, but the bolt still began to turn as the split lock washer was mostly flattened. Once I removed the lock washer, I was able to tighten and untighten the wingnuts completely by hand without the bolt slipping.

I'm going to run without the lock washers and see if they're really needed. I might be able to get by without them. I'll toss them into my "miscellaneous bolt/nut/screw" bucket, never to be seen again...

- Chris

[timster68]

When I was at a TA and Rick was doing his thing, I would said there was about the same proportions of sawdust that wound up on the floor as yours. I was rather surprised at the end of the day how much needed to be cleaned up. But the same thing happens with me as well.

[curiousgeorge]

There is one 20A breaker which feeds the entire garage, including the 320W of fluorescent lighting (four fixtures, each with two 40W bulbs).

Chris,
If I may make a suggestion. It would be best to have your lighting on a different circuit than your outlets. It can get rather hairy if you pop a breaker in the middle of sawing or whatever and everything goes totally dark. Not to mention dangerous.

[edflorence]

Hi all,


You can see the one piece on the floor in the rear of the pile where I accidentally slid the piece all the way against the rip fence instead of the featherboard. I realized this once I heard the blade sounding different. I think it was binding up against the fence.

Random note - one of the limitations of using the rip fence on an extension table, whether it's as a rip fence for plywood or as a stop, it is no longer guaranteed to be square. It depends on how square the floating table is when you snug it down on the tubes. With my setup this was okay because I ensured the featherboard/stop was moved forward so that the workpiece has moved past the stop as it meets the blade. The fence stop assembly didn't need to be square to the blade, it just needed to serve its purpose as a stop. But, it's something I hadn't considered until I ran into this binding.

- Chris

Hi Chris...Great post with excellent photos. Look forward to seeing how things progress in the future.

Only other comment I have is with regard to the binding you describe. You are correct that it could be a result of the fence being out of parallel with the blade when mounted on a floating table...But...the reason it is never a good idea to use the fence by itself as a stop when cross-cutting is that even if the fence is perfectly parallel to the blade, once the kerf in the workpiece is created there is the potential (read "extremely high likelihood") that the work piece will creep a bit, closing on the kerf and moving itself askew of the line of cut. This means that the workpiece will, along the diagonal, become longer than the distance between blade and fence, resulting in, if you are lucky, a binding sensation and an odd sound but if you are not so lucky a scary kickback. And remember, this can happen even if the fence and blade are perfectly aligned. Bottom line, maybe the fence was too blame, but please consider the possibility that it wasn't.

Thanks again for the photos. Looks like you have a really sweet shop space in the making.