Shopsmith Forums

Like I said in the title, slow progress...
I was just wondering this morning if I am the only one here who for some reason cannot keep a clean bench-top?
On a really good month I can keep it clear for maybe two days in a row. It's like a huge magnet that draws anything and everything to it during the night.
The ironic thing is that for all of my working life I was fanatic about organization in the work place. A place for everything and everything in its place. Coming from a family of hoarders doesn't help.

On the upside we finally got a handle on our big spider invasion. It got so bad that I couldn't walk across the shop without seeing 8 or 10 ducking out of sight under something, ranging in size from quarter sizes up to the size of a half dollar. There were a few about silver dollar size. We bought a ton of sticky traps and they worked well. After a lot of bombing, spraying and trapping we still couldn't get ahead of them until a hard freeze killed them outside.
It got funny watching them trying to get in. They are really smart. They would sit at the corner of the patio door and when the dog or cat wanted in or out they would make a mad dash into the house and along the baseboard toward a bedroom. We keep a sticky trap sitting along that baseboard and they would zip right into it. At the peak we were replacing that trap about every few days because it would get so full that some could get through it by walking on the bodies of the bottom layer.
I have not seen any at all for about a week now. Neither of us are especially fond of spiders in the house but we cope. A couple of Diana's brothers would have picked up and moved by now.


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Thee are not 'alone'.

When I walk through my basement and find a canning jar upside down on the floor, I know my wife has caught another spider that I have to dispose of. They don't really bother me but she absolutely hates them. If we had the infestation you had she probably would have torched the house.

Re:bench debris - you are not alone...my bench has become an archeologist's smorgasboard.

It is a known fact that benchtops are for long term storage of any item you don't know where else it should go.
The old myth that benchtops are for working should have died many years ago. My benchtops are proof of that.

garys wrote:It is a known fact that benchtops are for long term storage of any item you don't know where else it should go.
The old myth that benchtops are for working should have died many years ago. My benchtops are proof of that.

Self discipline, man.

Bench tops are not for storage and the shop is not a coffee bar.
No liguids on the saw or router table tops.
If you can't remember the last time you used it, you don't need it.

The list could be a lot longer but these are all good things to preach.

PS: Computers belong in the office, not in the shop. (bench top is not large enough).

If we cannot remember the last time we used it is the criteria for 'needing it', then we all either have a shop full of unneeded stuff or dementia has started or we do not intend to do something we have not done before.

Now about all them 'duplicated' tools thy offspring had questions about a while back. Can thee remember which one thee last used?

A little more progress against chaos...
This basic shelf unit was originally a store display cabinet out of the old Men's Store here in Shelbyville. The store owner had them stored in his garage after he had closed the store. I bought 2 of them from him I think about 1980 or so. They had been well built but the shelves were just particle board on standards and brackets mounted to the back wall. OK for clothing but too light and flimsy for any real weight.
I removed the shelves, brackets and standards back then and reconstructed them with rigid support cleats all of the way around under each shelf. We have used them for many things over the years since including books. Books are really heavy... More recently they had been just storing misc. "stuff". We removed all of the "stuff" and I cut about 16" off of the bottom of them so we could move them into the basement woodshop. It originally had a bottom section with sliding doors. My basement shop ceiling is reasonably high for a basement but this shelf unit was pretty tall. I wanted it to be mobile including where it would have to pass under the main beams. After cutting the old base off I made a frame for a new base and mounted a good set of 3" casters on it and attached the unit to that base. I made the base a little bigger than the shelves so that it would be more stable when rolling it around. I wanted it to be easy to move because there will be a small base behind it where I will store some less than full sheets of sheet goods (plywood etc.) and I will need to roll the shelves out for access.
The next stage is a nice coat or 2 of paint.
I haven't decided completely yet what all will be kept on each shelf. I have 5 chainsaws that will sit up on the very top. Where I put them they will need something like plastic boot trays etc. to catch any oil drips.
That is a 6' crosscut saw across the top It is reasonably sharp and has the proper set. I just need to polish off the surface rust. I find it useful to spray such saws with a light coat of graphite paint. Not recommended on saws used for finish work, leaves black marks. On the end is a good one-man saw, a pruning saw and a broad-axe. Still residing in some secret location is another broad-axe and a carpenter's foot adze that goes on that end. I also have a few broad-hatchets. On the outside of the other end will be about 10 conventional axes on a rack.

Here is basically what I have in mind but there will be racks and hangers and small shelves involved.


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I think there was a song about this. "I fought the chaos and the chaos won, I fought the chaos and the chaos won ...."

As I was shuffling some stuff around in the shop this morning, some of it for about the 27th time it occurred to me just how much this old puzzle game symbolizes how I work organizing the shops.

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