Progress in my woodshop... (edited title)

[robinson46176]

WHAzzAT???temp.jpg

Not very exciting I'm afraid... There was a light weight zip-cord extension cord laying up on the table and the 3 way end had fallen down and was laying across the the vertical lock Allen bolt.


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[robinson46176]

Hold up your hand if you have a table or plywood on sawhorses sitting for some time over in a corner of your shop piled up with a lot of misc. crap that doesn't have a home...
Nope, my hand isn't up... Not any more. It bit the dust at 5 AM this morning. Two of those crappy plastic saw-horses and about 2/3rds of a sheet of 1/2" plywood. It's been sitting in that back corner for years now. Took me about an hour.

Friday was a good day, after all of the other testing my GP ordered earlier, my cardiac guy wanted an echo-cardiogram. Had that Friday AM and they called Friday evening and said that it was normal.

Shop cleaning and organization work will be slow again for a few days since we have out of state visitors but I will sneak in an hour or two.
Dragging my feet on my big shelves for the attic... Winter just won't let go. It should be running well in the 50's but under 40 has been the norm this month with a lot of nights still in the 20's. It's staying colder than a witches er, uh, broom stick in that attic. I've been avoiding the farm shop for the same reason. I still have plenty I can do in the nice warm basement shop.


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[robinson46176]

I said on the "April is woodworking month" thread that I was going to clear off my workbench and my tablesaw and make some sawdust...
OK, I cleared off my workbench twice and my tablesaw 3 times and right now my tablesaw has a big pile of my hodge-podge collection of clamps on it.
I have about worn out Pinterest and Google Image search looking at clamp racks trying to find something that I feel will work for me. Part of my problem is that a large number of the racks pictured are loaded with about $1500 worth of clamps, apparently all bought at once in large matching sets. I do have a few pairs but most of my clamps were acquired over 55 years, usually one at a time. I do have a motley batch of Pony pipe clamps and a half dozen or so that are not clamps yet. I'm removing some very nice black pipe gas lines that are no longer used. I just need to decide what lengths I want to cut them.
I've started hanging some C clamps and spring clamps from the ceiling joist above the bench but I really want most of my clamps on a mobile tower so I can move them to where I am working. That rules out a wall hung rack.
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The primary tablesaw is now in its hopefully permanent home. It's kind of cool there. Right now I can (by setting up a couple of support stands) cross-cut a 36' board in the center without moving anything. By pivoting the saw a few degrees counter-clockwise (on its wheels) I can rip a 25' board from end to end without moving anything else (just set up a couple of support stands).
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One quick and dirty wood item I need to make a few of are some special wood pallets. Not really like regular pallets that we are all used to. I do use those pallets a lot, usually moving them with forks on tractor 3 point hitches and can normally lift high enough like that to sit them on a flat deck trailer. I have also used forks on the front loader to go much higher. I can usually find those for free.
The ones I want to make are much smaller, usually about 18" x 28" or so and the support rails are normally about an inch high instead of the common 3 or 4 inches high. These are for use with 2 wheel hand trucks and are sized to fit through a common 32" door. I ran across them in use at a small factory and I find them quite handy for smallish batches of heavy stuff. Right now I have one under 3 bags of concrete mix in the farm shop and another under a batch of tractor parts. The two I have are just flat but I also want to make some that are a shallow box, perhaps a box with a higher back on the hand truck side. You can Google:
Mini pallet hand truck
to see more of the concept. I find it very valuable on the horse operation and in the shops.
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My next project needs to be a big rotating wheel with a spiral design that will hypnotically make horse clients want to pay their bill...


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[robinson46176]

I'm in the very early stage of converting an old but sturdy electronics stand into a mobile woodworking clamp rack. Lower center will be drawers and bins for C clamps, spring clamps and several other types. A row of Pony pipe clamps will mount across the back. This is a stand I picked up at a yard sale for a buck or two some time back with the intent of making a router table out of it before I changed my mind and decided to use a Shopsmith base instead. It is remarkably sturdy with a steel frame and steel "X" braces in each side.
The two upper side strips (a couple of brick mold scraps) have 1" holes drilled in them 1.25" apart for the clamp handles to drop in and I will add a notched lower rail for the lower end of those clamps.
I cut a couple of scraps of rough sawn tulip to make caster supports. I didn't bother to run them through the planer since they were short but they were uniform size so I just ran them over the jointer. I like to crowd casters out a couple of inches on such things for a bit of extra stability.
Before I go any farther on it I need to do a clamp round-up... I think there is a couple in the work van and I know there is still a batch in the farm shop. And maybe...
The paint I bought for the woodshop is a light yellow with a darker more gold yellow for most trim I have a light gray for an accent color. I may use some of that light gray to paint this rack.
I considered just starting from scratch with all new material but that just isn't me. I really enjoy adapting and modifying stuff. To me it's more fun than just making something.

Woodshop - Mobile clamp tower early stage.jpg (53.6 KiB) Viewed 9982 times

[robinson46176]

As I flit from project to project I'm doing a router tower from an electronics cabinet. This will follow the router table around wherever it happens to sit. This started life as one of a pair of electronic component shelves with a frosted glass door at the top and another solid door at the bottom. I cut it down in height about a foot and put it on casters.
The top shelf is for router bits. in trays with holes. I'll leave the bottom shelf empty and let the shop elves fill it up.
I figured that the black finish would suck up light like a black hole and it does. I'll probably paint it a light gray I have like the clamp tower.
I don't want any doors on it but I might find another use for the doors? (shrug).

Note that the camera angle made the first picture look like the cabinet is bigger at the top but it isn't. It's all just straight.

Woodshop - Router tower project.jpg (79.16 KiB) Viewed 9576 times

Woodshop - Router tower from electronics cabinet.jpg (48.66 KiB) Viewed 9576 times

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[robinson46176]

The shop is "slowly" coming along and will likely become more slow as the mowing season is just starting. We mow about 40 acres total. Some about weekly, some about every 2 weeks and some only about 4 times a year.
Then I am working on the farm shop too.
I will also be working more with the horse boarding operation and doing work on the buildings that I have let sit all winter while I was ill.
I need to spend a couple of weeks just running the sawmill cutting materials for the rehab of the other house.
It's a good thing I'm retired...

I'm keeping one small part of the woodshop "reserved" (it still keeps filling up) in the south east corner that is about 8' x 12' for a "semi-related" use. That is for leather-work, sewing and upholstery work. I have several commercial sewing machines. I have a folding work table that will sit next to that area to open up for a place to sit a chair etc. to work on it then fold it up and store it in the corner.

A farming friend / neighbor a little younger than I am is starting to consider retirement years... He can't imagine retirement, doesn't have any idea of what he would do. He has no hobbies at all. He considered some in the past but his wife wouldn't allow him a hobby. I, on the other hand have enough hobbies and interest for 20 people. It blows my mind when people say "I don't know what I would do if I retired..."


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[robinson46176]

I've been working back and forth between my farm shop and my wood shop, still sorting stuff out. Moving some stuff from the barn (farm shop) to the basement (wood shop) and some stuff the other direction, all the while trying to establish proper homes for it. That's the hard part. The two shops are still linked by a few activities, carpentry and general construction fits in both shops. A number of farm activities involve woodworking.
While I really love having 1500 sq. ft. of basement wood shop that is heated and air conditioned full time and I like going down there sometimes in the wee hours when I can't sleep, I could still get very excited about one shop building of about 3,000 sq.ft. where I could have everything in one big above ground shop divided about in half by wall but with the ability to "borrow" space from each other. That and it having loft storage for less used stuff and some wood storage... Not going to happen of course... I can enjoy the dream but reality and a practical nature dictate that I stay the course and make the best use I can of these existing shops and I am glad to have them. Diana would like to travel some more and the horses take time as does my antique tractor hobby and genealogy stuff. I need to get both shops in a better state of organization so that I can use them more functionally and enjoy them.
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On a side note I ran across one of these automotive creeper seats a few weeks ago at a Rural King store on sale for about $42. It followed me home. The seat is well padded and the drawers work smoothly. The little shelves on the ends will fold up if wanted and there is a small tool rack across the back. I have a couple of the older more conventional ones but I always forget some tools and getting up to go to a tool box for something gets to be work (not that I am over-weight or anything). This has enough permanent storage (and I have enough duplicate tools) that I can sort out a decent set of typical tools used in front end and brake work and keep them in this seat.
https://www.amazon.com/WEN-73015-Garage ... B0199R9VWM


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[robinson46176]

I record a lot of TV programing, mostly documentary and educational stuff, for viewing at times (happens often) when there is nothing on worth watching. I also often don't sleep a lot at night and I watch a lot then. I like a wide spread of stuff, Nova, Nature, This old house, The Woodright Shop etc. I also like what I call casual astronomy. I recently watched a whole series called "How The Universe Works". I also recently watched a sizeable series on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. I don't recall its exact title but most of those words were in there somewhere.
I just finished a series called "A Craftsman's Legacy" and the last show I watched was at the Gerstner factory making wooden machinist tool boxes. I've decided that a wood machinist tool box would make a good project... I will not try to make any kind of an exact copy, I just don't do that but I do want to match the quality level. I have at least 7 of that style machinist tool boxes in the farm shop but they are all steel except for one. I think 3 are Kennedy's and the others just copy-cats. The wooden one was my grandfather's first box when he was apprenticing back in the late 1920s. It is pretty simple and I have no idea if he made it or bought it. He was a tool maker for IHC (later Navistar) in Indy for a very long time.
I have many other mobile bases with drawers and chest with drawers on top but I don't call those machinist boxes though I guess they can be anything.
Here is a picture of my grandfather's first machinist box. I should probably make one like it before I do the Gerstner style. BTW, if you do a Google image search on
Gerstner machinist box
you can see the style. Most of the metal ones I have are the basic 7 drawer style.

Ted M Robinson first machinist box.jpg (115.94 KiB) Viewed 9161 times

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[robinson46176]

Here is another shot of the router tower I'm working on. This shows the foam bit holder I bought from Amazon. It will hold 60 1/4" shank bits and 50 1/2" shank bits. I don't have a lot of 1/2" bits nor a lot of large bits. For larger profile cutters like matched rail and stile, T & G and cabinet lip and others, I had bought shaper cutters instead of router bits. I also have a decent batch of molding cutters.

Woodshop - Foam router bit holder.jpg (54.94 KiB) Viewed 8631 times

This second pic is a bunch of bits that I have not "homed" yet. I tend to think of router bits as either 1/4" shank or 1/2" shank. The dozen bits at the lower left are 3/8" shank and the 2 in the center are 5/16" shank. I see that I can buy a 3/8" to 1/2" adapter for about $10. I could make one but by the time I dug out the metal lathe in the farm shop and got everything sat up I would probably lose a day. The larger blue bit in the center is 1/2" shank and I just stuck it in there for scale. Five of the 3/8" shank bits still have the protective goop on them.

Woodshop - Extra router bits.jpg (47.1 KiB) Viewed 8631 times

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