Shopsmith Forums

I'm sure you are as anxious to finish this project as anyone could be but don't rush it.

There is truth to the old saying "Haste makes waste". If you seriously doubt that, I'll send you some photos to prove it.

When you start making sawdust again - do it safely.

Hi dusty,

I have to confess, the next part of the project has nothing to do with making sawdust. I need to get up on a ladder and start marking out where I want the 2x4s to attach to the ceiling, which means a lot of time playing with squares and tape measures and marking pencils and whatnot. It doesn't sound very fun, and so I admittedly haven't made time to go do it. It's a lot more fun down on the ground playing with the Shopsmith than standing up on a ladder trying to figure out if your marks are even, square, etc.

Once I know where the studs run, I guess I'll just hold the 2x4 up against the ceiling, mark the 2x4 where the stud is, then find a volunteer to hold the 2x4 against the ceiling while I drill and lagbolt at three points along the stud.

That reminds me, I wonder if the lag bolts I chose were up to the task? Each shelving unit will have six lag bolts, three on each side. I'll need a total of 8*6=48. I bought a 50 pack of 1/4" by 4" lag bolts from Lowes (made in China, boo). I figured that 1.5" of the length will be used up by the 2x4 and another 1/2" will be used by the ceiling sheetrock, so that least 2" or so into the stud. I don't think the shelves will be any heavier than can be borne by a 1/4" lag bolt, but maybe I should bump it up a notch? I was going to use washers under the lag bolt heads to spread the load a bit across the ceiling-mounted 2x4.

Any good rules of thumb to determine proper pilot hole drill bit size for a given lag bolt size?

- Chris

chrispitude wrote:...Any good rules of thumb to determine proper pilot hole drill bit size for a given lag bolt size?
- Chris

Just a bit smaller than the shank of the screw.

Well, I finally got some time to spend on the shelving project again. First, I spent some time with a router and a roundover bit to round the edges of the shelving slats (click on pictures for larger version):

[ATTACH]1809[/ATTACH]

By rounding the edges, it should be easier to slide things up and onto the shelving. This is important since these will be ceiling-mounted and require some overhead lifting to load/unload them. The next step for the shelving slats is to put a coat of polyurethane on them.

To clamp the slats together, I first clamped them together loosely, aligned all the edges, then clamped them tightly. Even when clamped loosely, I found it was difficult to simply move them inward/outward due to the pressure from their neighbors. However, I found if I wiggled the board up/down while putting pressure inward or outward, I could accurately walk the board into the alignment I wanted. Hopefully that makes sense, I'm not sure if I explained it well. I also found it was important to always ensure there are no uphill ridges in the direction of router travel which would catch the edge of the router plate. I made sure all the joints were totally flat or went slightly downhill (if the boards were slightly wavy).

Next it was time to do some more marking on the ceiling. I've already marked the studs right by the front wall by using a Rotozip to draw "I-beam" markings around the stud. The next step is to also mark the stud 30" away from the wall (the position of the other support). Here are the tools:

[ATTACH]1810[/ATTACH]

It's just a cheap 24"x36" square, a long thin piece of scrap wood with a marking at 30", and a pencil. First I went to the existing stud marking by the front wall:

[ATTACH]1812[/ATTACH]

I used the pencil to mark the center of the I-beam marking, then rested the square against the front wall and drew a line perpendicular away from the wall. This line will allow me to see where I need to install the lag bolt when the 2x4 is held up against the ceiling.

Next I held the long piece of scrap wood exactly along the line, and made a "T" marking 30" away from the front wall:

[ATTACH]1811[/ATTACH]

I'll come back to these markings with the Rotozip to determine the stud locations with no uncertainty. I don't like to take chances when things are mounted to ceilings, especially when they are mounted to ceilings over my cars.

Next I cut a notch in the end of a 2x4x8:

[ATTACH]1813[/ATTACH]

I'm an electrical engineer by day (the semiconductor/microchip kind). They always say a good engineer is a lazy engineer because he finds the easiest solution to a problem. Well, I have to say I'm pretty lazy. Holding up the 2x4x4 shelving supports up against the ceiling and trying to install lag bolts dead-center sounded a lot like work to me, so I'm going to use a floor jack and the notched 2x4 to hold the supports against the ceiling for me. That way, I'll have plenty of time to mark my drill location, make sure the drill is square, soap up the lag bolts, and ratchet each bolt/washer in. The notched 2x4 will press against the support at an angle, pushing it both up and forward at the same time. I'm going to cut out two 2" spacers which will keep the first support exactly 2" away from the front wall, and two 28.25" spacers (from bird house project scrap) which is the needed spacing between the first and second supports. I will probably cut a single 28.25" piece out of 1x6, and rip it in half to practice my ripping skills.

I thought about buying some of these FastCap 3rd Hand clamps for this purpose. They are really nice because you can adjust them just under the needed length, then use the convenient trigger while standing on the ladder to expand it tight against the ceiling. However, I already own a floor jack and a 2x4x8 is cheaper, so I'll try that first.

...continued...

Since the last project update, I've received my dust collection cyclonic separator designed to fit onto a RIDGID shop vacuum. On the particular model vacuums it's meant for (WD1665/WD1670), the motor is detachable to use as a blower. They made use of this and provided a way for the motor to attach to the cyclonic assembly like so:

[ATTACH]1815[/ATTACH]

The nice thing about this is that it reuses the vacuum's collection canister so it can be easily rolled around the shop on its casters. The cyclone separates the collected bits into the canister, and the clean air is pulled straight up and through the U into the filter chamber. Since virtually everything has been sent into the canister except for clean air, the filter in the filter box doesn't get dirty and doesn't clog up.

Here is a view from a different angle:

[ATTACH]1816[/ATTACH]

You can see the big square box which is the filter box. A standard RIDGID filter mounts in that box and provides final filtration for air being pulled into the motor and exhausted into the shop. I put a fine filtration filter in there since I don't need to worry about plugging it up with sawdust. There is even an observation window on the top of the filter box:

[ATTACH]1817[/ATTACH]

although it's not much fun to look in since the filter stays clean all the time.

How well does it work? Well, I generated about 1/3 a canister's worth of sawdust during the birdhouse project. There is not a spec of dust, not even fine dust, on the filter in the filter box. The cyclonic separation works exceptionally well. As cuts are made, you can actually see the spiral of sawdust make its way down into the collection canister. It's really neat to watch. The end of the hose slips right into the dust collection port on the Shopsmith. It probably doesn't have the collection power of larger dedicated dust collectors, but it works extremely well for me. The cyclonic separator is designed to be hung by the PVC U pipe on the top, so I put a bike hook on the ceiling by the Shopsmith and I hang the separator out of the way while the shop vacuum performs its normal shop/floor cleaning duties.

You can read more about the RIDGID Conversion Lid at this link.

- Chris

Chris - Thanks for the report! I never would have believed this system would be so efficient. Wow! What a change from your first shop vac!

Hi all,

I wanted to choose a drill bit which would work well for the 5/16" lag bolts. I couldn't get my digital calipers straight into the grooves of the lag bolt too well, so I did the next best thing - took a picture with my digital camera and zoomed in:

[ATTACH]1818[/ATTACH]

There are two drill bits next to the lag bolt. The 7/32" bit on the left seems to have the exact same diameter as the lag bolt shaft within the threads. The 13/64" bit on the right is 1/64" smaller, meaning it will compress the pine 1/128" around the circumference of the hole. I drilled test holes for both into a piece of 2x8 scrap, and lag bolts went into both holes snugly with a ratchet/socket without any drama. I am leaning towards the smaller bit since pine is soft. There is about 2.5" of threaded interface into the ceiling joists, so I don't think I need/want to stress the wood any more than necessary. (I've read that for longer lag bolts, you want to keep the pilot hole slightly larger.)

Next I assembled all the posts and supports to get ready for glue & screw:

[ATTACH]1819[/ATTACH]

I am going to paint the exposed end grain in the joints with a mixture of half glue, half water to seal them up, wait two minutes, then glue and screw the joint. The end grains to be treated will be the ends of the vertical 2x4 supports, as well as the sides of the dadoes. After screwing, I will hammer the galvanized strapping across the joint while it's wet. (I didn't want to due this when the joint was cured for fear of cracking the joint.) As each frame is assembled, I will stack it on a new pile like these, ensuring all joints are precisely square for drying. I will put a sheet of newspaper at the joints between the frames so leaking glue does not bond the frames together.

I will probably ask my wife help me with the glue-up since it would be a bit of a race to try to do all of this by myself without getting wood glue all over myself, the drill, and the framing square! We have nitrile rubber gloves and small foam paintbrushes, so I will ask her to be on glue duty during the assembly process.

More to come soon...

- Chris

For what it's worth - my thought is the pre-treatment with 50% mix of glue and water is a useless step. I've always been taught to believe a diluted yellow glue will not have the same bonding strength as non-diluted. If you are using yellow glue like Titebond just apply glue to both pieces of the joint and screw them together. The bond from yellow glue is both physical and molecular. I believe the 50% diluted glue will weaken the molecular bond as well as the physical.

Pre-treatment with glue has been used on miter joints, however the first coating is allowed to dry prior to assembly. This is at least a couple of hours. Curing time is a day or so longer.

You can do a simple check to see if the frames are square. Just measure corner to corner. If the two measurements are equal, it is square.

With the size of lag bolt your using, try a 3/16 drill size. And see how that works. Use washers to.

Hope that notched 2X4 isn't going to carry any weight, I'd be concerned that it would split at the notch if it carries any weight.

Hi beeg,

I agree. I made the shelving according to the plans in Workbench magazine. If I were to do it again, I probably would have made the dados shallower because now I realize they are only there to center the vertical support at the right place. I have hammer-on tie straps to help keep things strong.

I tried a 3/16" bit and that also seems to work well. It's a bit tighter but it's not "squeaky-tight" to the point where snapping the lag bolt will be a concern. I'll probably give all the lag bolts a quick wipe-down or spray-down with some kind of lubricant to help them go in. I do have washers to help spread the loading.

Hi Chuck,

Thanks as always from the feedback! I actually had a used copy of Nick's Woodworking Wisdom book which has a suggestion about pre-treating the end grain. Ironically, I gave my copy of the book to Jim as a gift (to foster his interest in woodworking and to encourage him to join the Shopsmith fold) in the hopes that at the completion of this project, I could score an autographed copy of the same from the man himself. He lives about four hours away, but I'll ask him to look up what the suggestion was and see if it applies to this joint.

- Chris