Above 1200 Sq/FT Blue Bomber's Garages

That looks like Chevy pickup rear brakes?

RSr said:

Nice, I was a decade behind you at tech but my brother did his time at state college PA.

Click to expand...

Excellent--always great to run into a fellow Hokie!

MrSurly said:

That looks like Chevy pickup rear brakes?

Click to expand...

Yes, indeed, a Chevy Silverado 3/4-ton four wheel drive. It's my winter commuting vehicle and estate sale vehicle of choice.

Nice work!
I recently also installed a lift, and the difference it makes is amazing.
But I also completely agree with working with your arms above your head!

Quick: what's this a picture of?

It's my garage with my truck not in it! I got back to the brakes today and replaced the rear brake lines. I also discovered the replacement rear brake rotors were rubbing against the aftermarket disc brake shields. A little percussive persuasion bent the shields out of the way, and I just finished a noise free test drive!

Next wheeled garage project: repairing the pictured wheel barrow. I won't need the lift for that. :->
Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

After putting a new set of handles on the wheelbarrow (only had them on hand for two months!), I decided to have a start at planing down the old oak fence boards I'm going to use for my workbench surface.



These boards had been sitting out in a field on my parent's farm for nearly 15 years. They were under a tarp, and so somewhat protected from the weather, but the tarp also held in the ground moisture. The boards had started to rot, and my Mom wanted them in the dumpster. However, as my son and I started to go through them, I saw many of them, though covered in fungus and mildew, still had solid wood. I cut the 16-ft boards in half and filled my truck bed for the trip back to Mass.



I ran the first board through the planer, and it cleaned right up. It also put all that mold and fungus in the air for me to breathe--not good. I stopped and got some safety equipment on.





Much better. I ran about 14 boards through, planing both side and taking the boards down to a uniform 3/4" thickness. This was my first big test of this estate sale-scored Craftsman planer, and it handled the boards just fine. It could stand a new pair of feed rollers, but otherwise, I'm impressed.



The planer made a huge pile of shavings, and this is only a quarter of the boards I have.



I think I'll take the boards I planed and go all the way to butcherblock with them to see how well it will work. I'll split the six inch boards in half lengthwise, and after cleaning up the edges, I should end up with a bunch of 2-3/4" x 3/4" x 8' sticks. Then I'll square the ends and start assembling a ten-inch wide by eight-foot long chunk of butcherblock.

BB: great save on the fence boards. I've never known anybody to use OAK for fencing so i'll have to take a closer look at the torn down free fencing from now on. since i'm thinking of making my own support beams for my deck out of old good wood i'm very curious to see how your BUTCHER BLOCK idea works out.

so you are going to make sections 10 inches wide and are you just clamping the 3 inch 3/4 inch oak boards and glueing or are you planning on using nails or screws too?

the garage has been looking great and sorry I don't post as often on your thread as I do on others, but I do usually read what you post and love the pictures.

cheers and best of luck on the oak butcherblock bench project!!

drivesitfar said:

BB: great save on the fence boards. I've never known anybody to use OAK for fencing so i'll have to take a closer look at the torn down free fencing from now on. since i'm thinking of making my own support beams for my deck out of old good wood i'm very curious to see how your BUTCHER BLOCK idea works out.

so you are going to make sections 10 inches wide and are you just clamping the 3 inch 3/4 inch oak boards and glueing or are you planning on using nails or screws too?

the garage has been looking great and sorry I don't post as often on your thread as I do on others, but I do usually read what you post and love the pictures.

cheers and best of luck on the oak butcherblock bench project!!

Click to expand...

Drives: thanks for dropping in and the well wishes!

In Virginia, at least, my parents have used 16'x6"x1" rough-cut oak boards for fencing as long as I can remember. They would also creosote coat it to extend the longevity, so I'd examine any pile of used fence boards closely and consider your application before reusing.

Regarding the butcherblock workbench, I need mine to be thirty inches wide.
So, I figured I'd make three ten-inch wide sections and biscuit-join them together. For each ten inch section, I will glue, nail and clamp the individual boards together and after the glue dries I can still feed big slab through the planer for any final smoothing (if I can get a slab that big to move through it!).

Nice job!


Sent from my iPad using The Garage Journal mobile app

BB: sounds like a great plan on making a very nice OAK butcherblock benchtop.

you might need to make something similar to these stands to keep that heavy 10 foot section of oak going through your planer or maybe you already have some metal ones?

best of luck and i'm really looking forward to seeing how your butcherblock turns out. I know it's not always easy to take pics during or before or after projects, but I for one would like to see some if you have time to take and post a few.

How's the remote control on the air compressor working?

Nice job saving those boards!

drivesitfar said:

BB: sounds like a great plan on making a very nice OAK butcherblock benchtop.

you might need to make something similar to these stands to keep that heavy 10 foot section of oak going through your planer or maybe you already have some metal ones?

best of luck and i'm really looking forward to seeing how your butcherblock turns out. I know it's not always easy to take pics during or before or after projects, but I for one would like to see some if you have time to take and post a few.

Click to expand...

Yes, I will need to make some kind of roller stands to help keep the big slab from sagging. I'll do my best to photo-document the process as I go.

cbacres said:

How's the remote control on the air compressor working?

Click to expand...

Fabulously! I really dig being able to flick a switch in one building and have the air arrive from the other. The blue LED indicator light is a great reminder to shut it off as I'm closing up shop.

BlueBomber said:

After putting a new set of handles on the wheelbarrow (only had them on hand for two months!), I decided to have a start at planing down the old oak fence boards I'm going to use for my workbench surface.



These boards had been sitting out in a field on my parent's farm for nearly 15 years. They were under a tarp, and so somewhat protected from the weather, but the tarp also held in the ground moisture. The boards had started to rot, and my Mom wanted them in the dumpster. However, as my son and I started to go through them, I saw many of them, though covered in fungus and mildew, still had solid wood. I cut the 16-ft boards in half and filled my truck bed for the trip back to Mass.



I ran the first board through the planer, and it cleaned right up. It also put all that mold and fungus in the air for me to breathe--not good. I stopped and got some safety equipment on.





Much better. I ran about 14 boards through, planing both side and taking the boards down to a uniform 3/4" thickness. This was my first big test of this estate sale-scored Craftsman planer, and it handled the boards just fine. It could stand a new pair of feed rollers, but otherwise, I'm impressed.



The plane made a huge pile of shavings, and this is only a quarter of the boards I have.



I think I'll take the boards I planed and go all the way to butcherblock with them to see how well it will work. I'll split the six inch boards in half lengthwise, and after cleaning up the edges, I should end up with a bunch of 2-3/4" x 3/4" x 8' sticks. Then I'll square the ends and start assembling a ten-inch wide by eight-foot long chunk of butcherblock.

Click to expand...

BB, that's quite a pile of chips, good job saving those boards for a workbench top. Looking forward to seeing the finished top. Free is a very nice price!
Jay

I got a few hours on Saturday to finish planing some more fence boards and started ripping them into 3/4" x 2-5/8" sticks. I put quite a bit of dust in the air and another wheelbarrow load of chips onto the driveway. The result would have exceeded my width requirement of 30" to build the butcher block workbench top. However, at least half of this batch is unusable due to wood root on some or most of the board. The last picture shows a representative sample. I'll cut out the good wood and see how much I have. The good news is that I still have a bunch of fence boards to harvest from yet.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

BB: are you trying to make all the boards 6 or 8 feet or use the shorter pieces you are cutting the rot out and glue them all together?

nice work so far and I can see a very nice workbench in your future soon.

good luck

Drives,

Ideally, I'd like full length 8-ft sticks, but given this sample, I probably won't get enough from my whole pile of fence boards. I plan to cut out any good sections and glue them together to make the bench top. I'll concentrate on making 10"-wide sections of 8-ft long butcher block, saving the strongest pieces for the front section of the bench.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

BB: since you only need about 20 or so GOOD to GREAT boards since you are cutting the old fence boards in half maybe you'll find enough to do as you plan. if not having a few half length so you can keep the rot and damaged ones out might not look too bad either.

I can't imagine how heavy each 10 inch wide section 8 foot long of oak would be, but guessing a tad heavy so lift with your legs or maybe you have a helper handy for those days of planing and working on the bench.

I found my Saturday afternoon unbooked so I put some more work in on the workbench butcherblock.

I went thru the 3/4" x 2-5/8" boards and cut out any sections that had significant rot, either thru more the 10% of the thickness or on the face that would be glued. I also cut out any flaws like knots and cracks. I was left with a bunch of 8-footers that needed no trimming and a bunch of "scraps" lengths from 12 to 72 inches.

From here I started laying out the butcher block, alternating full 8-footers with two scraps cut to add up to eight feet in length. I also tried to alternate the **** joints from left to right so as to spread the weak points around. I was able to dry fit two 10-in wide by 8-ft long sections of workbench top before I determined I would not have enough to finish.

So, back to the planer I went. After another couple of hours, I planed about 15 more fence boards. Nearly all of these boards yielded good, healthy oak with little sign of wood rot. I hope to rip them in half like the others in the coming week and get started at gluing them together.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

The big Craftsman planer's feed rollers are deteriorated and are slipping quite a bit trying to feed these dirty, scum-covered boards through. After surfing a bit amongst the various Sears parts sites, I was delighted to find that the OEM, The Belsaw Company in Santa Clare, CA, is still in business. They have a web store, but I called to order the parts. I spoke with Jim, who was a delight and full of helpful advice on other wear items besides my two roller feeders. For $130, I have two new rollers on the way and a helpful resource if I should ever need anything more.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

BB: great news on the replacement parts!!

GEESH that's a giant pile of shavings from those boards. I wonder how big a pile i'll get after I plane the cedar pile in my backyard with my DeWalt planer? good think i love the smell of cedar is all I have to say.

good luck with your cool project and it looks like it's coming together nicely.

GEESH right back at you--that's a lot of cedar! What do you plan to do with all of it?

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Drives -
I’m looking at that pile of Cedar and thinking that DeWalt is going to have a nervous breakdown before you get halfway through the stack.

BB: the CEDAR is for my deck and new fence and yep it's going to smell like CEDAR around here next spring and summer.

Jake: I'm hoping cause CEDAR is so soft that my DEWALT will survive without too many blade changes, but you might be right I might need to get a bigger plane.

BB: i'm sure a lot of members would love to see how you make your bench top so if you don't want to make a separate thread about it maybe just keep taking lots of pictures and putting up pictures of it on various threads like the SHOW YOUR WORKBENCH thread in general garage section.

one of my favorite workbenches is this one that a member had some old metal kitchen cabinets and he was looking for used butcher block and I mentioned to him to find some old 4 by material and he found some sitting in an old barn. he actually hand planed the old 4 bys and put on about 8 coats of POLY. once he finished it he didn't want to drill a hole to put his big old Holland's vise on it.

good luck

You'll definitely have a cedar-y back yard with all that infrastructure going in. Even though it may not be directly garage related, I hope you document you build on here somewhere.

Speaking of documenting a build, I will endeavor to better document my workbench build on this thread like I did for the other garage steps. I've been very busy with a lot of interfering activities (work, yard, family) so I haven't been able to dedicate the weekends like I could for completing the garage. Nevertheless, getting this workbench done is a key event that will allow me to move in to my next goal, restoring my '60 Impala. I'll bring you all along for the ride as best I can.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Drives, that is a really great looking bench top! Even though it's not yours, I appreciate you showing it off just the same.

BlueBomber said:

I'll bring you all along for the ride as best I can.

Click to expand...

That's what I'm counting on!

BB & ALL: I actually started a thread on ORGANIZING & MY DIY PROJECTS so here's the link if any of you want to check it out and maybe post a few good words or tips:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=381433

CF: you're welcome and as you might know i've read and posted on more than a few threads and there is a lot of cool stuff here on GJ if we look. it's nice to be reminded too about the special ones.

speaking of special have you seen DON LONG'S paint job on his old 1962 VETTE? He posted up pic on his PARTY GARAGE THREAD in this section and his Vette thread in the fabrication section since he has practically rebuilt his entire old Vette now.

BB: best of luck on the Impala and I recall my grandma used to drive her 1964 or maybe it was a 1962 when I was little down the highway about 100mph cause she was a cruiser.

cheers

Thanks for the link, Drives--I'll check it out, and will also go see Don's new paint job. Talk about living vicariously through others!

My daughter and I have been working on her '65 Malibu the last few weeks. It started out as a "simple" task to change a broken motor mount that grew along one of those "well, as long as we're in there" lines to where the motor is now dangling half out of the car as we change the oil pan gasket. Given the look on her face last night as I realized the second one piece oil pan gasket I had ordered was also incorrect, I don't know that she'll ever let me touch her car again. We'll re-attack tonight to try and have an evening where the car does not end up more apart at the end than when we started.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

BB: I know if I was younger and my dad could have fixed some of my issues on my car i wouldn't complain that it took him an extra day to fix them. sounds like your little girl has a cool car too.

you're welcome for the links and hope you like the stuff you find. yep i totally enjoy looking at other members stuff and garages. even though some days i wish I could eat off the floor of my garage like other members could I'm a ways from that with all the STUFF I OWN and of course my FSD (flat surface disease) that seems to put stuff EVERYWHERE.

cheers and keep up the great work and of course we all love pictures so take more when you can and post them when you get time even if days or weeks later.

We got the engine back into my daughter's Malibu. It even started and ran, which was gratifying. However, spraying antifreeze out of the radiator neck because I left the cap off put a, ahem, damper on the victory dance. We still need to put the rear window and bumper back in place, plus some other details, before she takes it back to school. She had to be back Saturday, so, she drove my Mustang down to Mass Maritime until she comes back next weekend to finish putting it back together.

So I spent today putting more time in the garage on the work bench lumber. I decided to go ahead and plane down all the remaining oak fence boards, about ten, that I had hauled up from my parents' place in Virginia. They were cluttering up a corner of the new garage, and there were still bugs living in them. Literally. I had to shake off a bunch of rolly pollies so they didn't meet their end in a ride through the planer.



The big Craftsman/Belsaw planer is a beast. I started feeding single boards through...



...at 1" thickness and then made multiple passes on both sides down to 3/4".



Here's a rotted, fungi-filled board going in...



...and this is the same board out the other side.



Then, I decided to try two boards at the same time. The Beast didn't even grunt...hahaha, what an animal!



Next up was final finishing on the Delta table saw. I trimmed one raw edge at 5-1/2"...



...and then the other side after sliding the fence over an 1/8".



Finally, I set the fence at 2-5/8" and split the board in two. This left me with two nearly equal boards.



Check out the beautiful tiger eyes on this board. Because I'm cutting through the middle of each board, I'm effectively getting quarter sawn edges that, when stacked together in butcher block form, will hopefully show those tiger eyes all over the work bench.



I now have more than enough 2-5/8" wide boards to make a 30-inch wide by 8-foot wide workbench. I can't wait to start gluing them together and making the slabs!

Lots of stuff going on in the garage, none of it workbench work.

I removed and sharpened the blades on the riding mower. Hey, if the lift arms will reach.....why not?!



I discovered my daughter's Malibu had developed a radiator leak sometime during the oil pan gasket replacement. It took five attempts at reworking the solder fill under the upper radiator neck and a set of magnifying loupes to finally visualize the crack so I could get it to seal under pressure. If at first you don't succeed, curse the part and try again.



My Mustang picked up a screw in one tire, so I got to try my hand at patching it myself. Usually, I buy the road hazard insurance when I buy new tires, but I couldn't find the paperwork.



Finally, I cashed in a birthday voucher from my daughter for garage labor to clean up the far bay of the new garage enough to get the Impala back under cover. We cleared out the spare lumber that's been leaning against the wall since garage framing time, lined up the wood working machines, and shoved the '60 into its winter sleeping birth. We even got the Christmas billboard finally put away from last year. Now that it has a place to go, maybe it won't take 8 months to get put away next year....



We did move the workbench oak boards over one bay so that it is now in the way of using the lift. Hopefully, this will motivate me to get it finished so that I can use the lift again!



Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

BB: sounds like your little girl's old classic car is back up and running thanks to you!!

what did you use to fix the tire on your mustang? did you pull the nail or screw or whatever and then put in something and what is it?

Yep whenever you get a chance to do more work on the bench take plenty of pictures and i'm sure i'm not the only one that will enjoy seeing it finished cause it will be COOL.

good luck

Thanks, drives. The rear window still leaks, despite our best efforts, but she loves it and took it to school anyway. She bought a car cover to minimize the water damage.

It'll be a bit until I get back to the garage workbench. We just got back from a week-long vacation, and the next several weekends are spoken for. I'll have to sneak some time in out there during the week.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Still no progress on the workbench, or even much activity in the garage over the past three weeks. My excuse? A week long vacation with my wife and friends cycling 360 miles across New York state along the Erie Canal. It was a great six-day adventure!



Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

That sounds like it would be fun to do! With my luck, it would start raining an hour after beginning the trip & not stop until ten minutes after we got back.

BB: the workbench oak will be cured nicely and aired out when you get back to it. i'm sure if any new bends occured in your oak a nice glue and clamp job will straighten it right out.

looks like a few days up on the wooded trails of New York. what really surprised me about New York (not Manhatten) is all the trees you have.

carry on and hope you get your little girl's old car's leak figured out.

Thanks, gents! It was a lot of fun, but as if 6 days and 360 miles wasn't enough....

...my "little girl" asked her brother and I to run a Spartan Beast obstacle course race with her that very next Saturday (the day after we finished the ride). It was 13 miles up and down the ski slopes at Killington, Vermont. We finished and had fun, but I could barely bend my legs for three days afterward!

Here's a link to a description of the race:
https://www.spartan.com/en/race/detail/3618/overview

aand here are a few pictures...
View media item 87046View media item 87047View media item 87048
Since then, I've been on the run with work or our local Boy Scout troop for the last two weeks. I hope to get back to the garage for a little bit this weekend. We'll see...

I would like to go on one of those cycle touring events. Did you have scheduled over night stops at motels and restaurants? I imagine a day of riding you would deserve a hot shower and good meals for dinner and breakfast the next morning.

How many muscles reminded you that you haven’t used them in awhile?

captain14 said:

I would like to go on one of those cycle touring events. Did you have scheduled over night stops at motels and restaurants? I imagine a day of riding you would deserve a hot shower and good meals for dinner and breakfast the next morning.

How many muscles reminded you that you haven’t used them in awhile?

Click to expand...

We had planned stops at the end of every day, with a bed and a hot shower every night at a hotel. Meals were a pick up game every day at whatever restaurant was convenient.

My thighs hurt the most, by far. Between the six days of cycling and three trips up and down the ski slopes over 13 miles, my legs were screaming the next day anytime I bent them. It was worth it, though. Good memories with my wife, friends and kids!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Finally got a chance to spend the day in the garage working on the workbench top. As Drives indicated above, the many weeks since the last update allowed the oak strips to be bone dry--perfect condition to begin gluing them together.

My first step was to set up a temporary workbench. Some extra 12-ft 2x6s and three saw horses did the trick.



I started with a line of glue and used a scrap block to spread it out to maximize contact and minimize seepage out the edges.



Then it was stack, straighten, tack with brad nailer, and repeat. I decided to make my slabs 7 inches wide to be more managable to move. Once a full stack was done, I clamped it down as tight as I could with various pipe clamps.



Despite my best efforts, I still ended up with a few gaps between boards.



I also had a little cupping that the planer will take care of. I now realize I should have alternated my clamps top and bottom to minimize any cupping due to clamping. However, I think most of the height difference is due to not getting a consistent stack as I went along.



Good thing the window is out of the Impala driver's door!



Here's the second slab clamped up.




At this point I realized I wouldn't have enough clamps to independently clamp all four slabs, so I started laying them out on the floor and clamping each subsequent slab to the first. I put the slabs aside to dry overnight and turned to another project I've been wanting to make for a while--a mobile cart for my big planer.

You see, the planer is a heavy beast and is awkward to get out of it's corner and set up for use. Plus, it puts a ton of dust in the air, so I'd like to be able to move it out into the driveway when I need to use it. So, I dug into my stash and managed to find everything pictured below either in leftovers from prior projects or in buckets of stuff I've brought home from estate sales for cheap.

I made the base frame out of 2x6s. I wanted to elevate to planer a bit, as I found myself hunched over a lot when using it at the factory height. I used the biscuit joiner to add strength to the 45-degree corner joints.



I swear I took more pictures than this, but it was getting late and I was rushing to finish the cart. I created two hinged wheel boards that can fold down and lift the platform about an inch off the ground. The wheels are four casters with a locking brake on each. The hinges were also out of a stash of sale finds. The board is held down by a hinged strut, connected to another strut, that is screwed-and-glued to the frame. When the wheel boards drop down, the strut swings in and holds it in place.

The next morning, I used the lift to get the planer up high enough to slip the platform under it.



However, after horsing the planer around the garage, I decided the little glued-and-screwed 2x4 corner platforms would not be substantial enough to support the planer feet, so I cut some 4x4 scraps and attached them under each platform with another four deck screws per block.



Much better...



Here's the moment of truth....and it held!






It also rolled around just fine. However, after the glow of accomplishment wore off, I realized I needed to figure out how to lower it to the ground so I could plane my slabs! A slick built-in pivoting mechanism may be in the future, but for now, it was time for the giant estate sale pipe wrench to find an additional purpose.



By prying on the edge of the 2x6 wheel board, I could generate enough force to pivot on the wheel and lift each side up enough to free the strut and lower the whole thing to the ground. I suspect this method will eventually fracture the 2x6, so I may redesign it with some steel boots or even replace the 2x6 with a piece of steel plate.

On to planing! First, I flattened the bottom of each slab.



Then I planed the top of each of the four slabs.



Overall, I'm very pleased. The slabs planed down great and will have a lot of character. I am open to suggestions for how to handle the gaps between some of the butcherblock boards. I could squeegee wood glue down into them, and then sand down the surface to get back to raw wood for the BLO finish I plan to use. Any other methods you all would recommend?

I've used a sawdust/glue paste to fill in gaps. Keeps the color uniform.
Nice work!