Below 265 SQ/FT Legenddc's Shop

[legenddc]

Well I've been hanging out here long enough that I thought I should post my own thread. I'm always inspired by how much everyone else seems to get done in a year and often forget my own accomplishments.

Since this is Garage Journal I suppose we should start there. Sadly, I don't have a garage. When we were buying our townhouse in northern Virginia 11+ years ago the only places with a garage were small 1-car garage and a driveway parking space. That wasn't very appealing as we'd have to time who left first and got home last and at the time we had 3 cars.

Fortunately we got lucky with our townhouse and it still works for us and our two kids that we had a while after moving in.

With no garage I was lucky there was a small storage closet to put tools in. This used to be fairly empty but now it's packed to the gils. I need to go through it some more and get rid of some things but that's a low priority.




Plastic shoe-box containers hold smaller items when you first walk in along with my toolbox for drywall work and my tool bag that's used on most projects around the house.



In the back are two Dewalt ToughSystem boxes for electrical and plumbing work and an old Mac Tools top box.



Whenever there's not other projects going on I try to spend some time in my basement woodshed. Thankfully 1970s construction of townhouses keeps them fairly quiet so the neighbors don't complain about the noise. I do try and keep the milling of wood to the weekends during the day not after the kids go to sleep.






Finally is my lathe hidden in the closet behind the shop.


Next post I'll jump back in time to a year ago and try to hit the highlights of 2023.

 

[legenddc]

Similar to a lot of people I started woodworking after seeing a friend make a kitchen table from Ana White (farmhouse style and pocket holes). I’m not going to dig through years of pictures and post up old projects.

My first 'fine woodworking' project was this end table based on plans from The Wood Whisperer.



After that we spent a while trying to decide on a new TV stand. The design was inspired by a Fine Woodworking piece but my wife wanted it lower and wider. For some reason my wife doesn't like the 3 door versions of these so I made it 4. Here's the before shot:



And the after:



I worked off and on the TV stand for about a year. Last year in December while the finish was drying I painted the wall and added an outlet in the wall with the help of my daughter who was home from school sick. Hard to see in pictures but the whole case is mitered. Working on it was challenging moving around a 16"x64" piece in a 12'x13' shop.

 

[legenddc]

We didn't have a coffee table after selling ours before we updated our floors in the spring of 2022. Over the month of January I built this coffee table giving us a matching cherry furniture set and a finished room.

 

[legenddc]

In mid-February I finally made the time to run a water line to the refrigerator we bought back in October to replace the one that died while I was on a work trip. My first time soldering copper joints. I think I did okay most most of them, that one looks pretty bad. Also made more challenging by my daughter helping but that's okay.



The copper line goes out to our back hose bib. The shut off on the left was already there and the wood was already burnt. Borrowed my buddies pex tools and ran the pex line to our fridge. Everything I touched is in unfinished parts of our basement so if something does fail prematurely I can easily fix it.

March I tackled another much overdue project and replaced the copious amounts of corrugated dryer vents with a hard lines. Another first for me and not too much of a pain. Seeing how much quicker the dryer runs now I'm sure the parts and tools have already paid for themselves.

 

[Xti04]

Tables look amazing.

 

[legenddc]

In April I spent a bunch of time moving the shop and storage room around and setting up cabinets, etc. to what you see above.

I can't remember what month I started working on some jigs for the table saw. It appears I finished a picture frame miter sled in May and a spline jig for reinforcing the picture frames.

 

[legenddc]

June is the month that whooped my ****.

I thought the wheel bearing in my car was going bad so I bought some tools I might need and took a look. Thankfully it was just some rust/debris behind the rotor so I cleaned that up and was good to go.

Also happening was the leak above our kitchen that had been slowly forming started to drip. Here's what it looked like when I cut into the ceiling. This of course is directly above our stove in a galley kitchen.





Turns out the leak was in one of the pipes above in the walls going to our shower. Of course directly behind our shower is the other bathroom's bathtub/shower. So a leaking pipe between two tiled walls. Great.

I ended up replacing both supply lines and the shower valve with a new one all in the confines of a 4" hole in our shower. At least I had all the experience of that one soldering job under my belt. Of course all the movement broke the shower head pipe lose. I ended up having to replace that pipe after cutting open the drywall some because whatever genius installed the elbow decided to nail it to a 2x4 and then hit the too long nail down flat on the other side. At least I was able to raise my showerhead up so I no longer hit my head.



Further fallout from this was removing a hidden junction box in our kitchen ceiling and replacing one can light where water had dripped into the box. I literally finished installing the light and jumped on a plane to go to Madrid for work for a week only to come home and go on vacation for a week.

Being tired from all of that I hired a great guy to fix our drywall and paint the kitchen ceiling and bathroom.

 

[legenddc]

The plumbing repairs saw me add the Wera Tool Check plus to my tool collection. I had to remove 4 Phillips head screws from pipe clamps within the wall and needed a bit ratchet. After I picked up some Knipex twin grips and the 10" Cobras.

Also ordered all of this which came in while I was on my work trip.



Between vacations, school starting back up, my wife on a work trip, me slammed with work and a week long work
trip I was fairly unproductive for the next few months.

Towards the end of October work slowed down and it got warm again so I decided to power wash and seal the deck again.





Also added these shelves in what was empty space for cans of finish and battery holders.

 

[legenddc]

Last few weeks I’ve been busy in the shop. Finally got to try out my picture frame jigs on a frame.


Ended up making a second smaller one for my sister for a Christmas gift.

Took a day off recently and went to a lumberyard to buy some more cherry for a bookshelf for my daughter. While there they had some rough cutting board blanks so I picked up two. One well keep and the other will be another Christmas gift.

 

[legenddc]

Yesterday I took an hour or so and made this reindeer at the bandsaw for my mom for Christmas. She saw this one I made a couple of years ago at my house and wanted to know why I hadn't made her one yet.



Now the project that will be taking up most of my free time will be a a cherry bookcase similar to this one from Vermont Wood Studios for my daughter's room. It will be roughly 73"x36"x14" and have 5 adjustable shelves. Of course she picked a harder design and cherry so no big box store plywood and paint here.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a bunch of 8/4 and 4/4 cherry for it. My sheet of 1/4" cherry for the back and side panels should be coming today or tomorrow.



I've been able to mill up the legs already fairly close to final dimensions. They're just under 2" thick at the moment.
I still have a a bunch of unmade decisions with this that I'll figure out as I go. Most notably:

• How to attach the stretchers spanning the width of the bookcase
• Should I make one shelf non-adjustable to prevent racking
• How the back attaches to the frame
• Where to position the frame and panel sides within the legs

I'd like to keep the shelves themselves rectangular, not with notches to fit around everything, so I've been trying to think of the best way to do that.

 

[legenddc]

Well despite all my time off, last week sure went by quickly. Being the responsible, focused type I decided that one reindeer would be lonely so why not make some more at half the height.

We’re giving these away to family so the numbers have dwindled some.

 

[larry4406]

Very nice high quality output from a small shop!

Kudo's!

 

[Cris B]

Some interesting projects - that deck came up great!

Did you come up with any ingenious storage solutions for that closet space in the opening photos?

 

[legenddc]

Some interesting projects - that deck came up great!

Did you come up with any ingenious storage solutions for that closet space in the opening photos?

Thanks. The deck was a Covid project before doing decks during Covid became cool.

Maybe the only ingenious thing is the dry-erase duct tape I use to label some of the bins and toolboxes. The storage is just a set of adjustable closet-maid type shelves we got somewhere for free. Allows me to make adjustments as needed.

I used to keep everything in that room and put whatever I thought I'd need in a tool bag. I got tired of forgetting things so I put together this bag for things around the house. I also made a box for drywall repair, plumbing and electrical.

Not picture is the Wera Tool Check Plus metric, a Milwaukee 16' tape, some bandaids and a pair of nitrile gloves and those fabric rubber gloves. I'll usually grab a Dewalt 20v drill and drill bits to toss it in there.

I think if I were to do it again I would go with a smaller bag like this. With the Wera Tool Check I can probably get rid of the Milwaukee bits and also ditch the big pry bar as I don't use that much. The Knipex 13 71 8 would allow me to ditch a few more pliers. The hammer is too big but the 10 oz. one I have has too big of a claw.

 

[captain14]

Those are some very good woodworking projects!

Just about everyone here has dedicated tool bags for specific projects. They just too heavy carrying everything around.

In post #10, I see your lumber sitting on the floor. Is this only while you are working on a project? The lumber will collect moisture I believe. I do see a wall mounted rack on the left.

 

[legenddc]

Those are some very good woodworking projects!

Just about everyone here has dedicated tool bags for specific projects. They just too heavy carrying everything around.

In post #10, I see your lumber sitting on the floor. Is this only while you are working on a project? The lumber will collect moisture I believe. I do see a wall mounted rack on the left.

Yes, just while working on a project. I was trying to layout the boards to figure out what board becomes what part. There is some scrap 8/4 lumber that sits like that but it seems to be okay.

 

[legenddc]

Picked up this PB Swiss screwdriver set, two Milwaukee penlights and another Craftsman V-series 1/4” toolkit. Will keep one in each car.



Was at the Udvar Hazy air and space museum and saw their restoration workshop. Thought you all might appreciate some pictures of it.

 

[jar944]

Picked up this PB Swiss screwdriver set, two Milwaukee penlights and another Craftsman V-series 1/4” toolkit. Will keep one in each car.



Was at the Udvar Hazy air and space museum and saw their restoration workshop. Thought you all might appreciate some pictures of it.

We had our company Christmas party there a few (well 2015 maybe more than a few now) years ago. It was neat to get the place to ourselves and walk around and see everything with the catering handing out beer and hors d'oeuvres. I also looking now apparently only took pictures of the shop.

 

[BlakeTheCarGuy]

Great little shop area. I need to figure out my basement more once I get it cleaned up more and have more space for everything. You give me some ideas lol. Following your thread cause I love following all the garage threads and I like the limited space.

 

[legenddc]

We had our company Christmas party there a few (well 2015 maybe more than a few now) years ago. It was neat to get the place to ourselves and walk around and see everything with the catering handing out beer and hors d'oeuvres. I also looking now apparently only took pictures of the shop.

Was just there the other week for a company party. Now the third part I’ve been to there. Congrats on the Wrangler! We’re going to start looking for one soon.

 

[legenddc]

Picked up two of these at Home Depot for $28 each. One for me and one for my dad’s shop.


Forced myself to go clean up the shop after the reindeer project. Was amazed I got everything put away in only 20 minutes. Still working on cleaning the house after our New Years party and Christmas decorations.

 

[legenddc]

Sadly, despite it being a month and a half since my last update, not a lot of progress has been made. At some point last year I milled the legs and side panels for the bookshelf. I also mistakenly believed I would have the plywood pre-Christmas. I think I finally got that the first week in Jan.



Between being busy at work, my wife traveling for most of a week with work and snow, January sped by. I managed to clean the shop after the reindeer. Also got the extension cord reel mounted. In an effort to gain momentum in the shop I pulled out the lathe and made some Harry Potter wands for the kids. Fun project completed within a day.



The bookshelf still seems a bit daunting so I started working on figuring out adding another pullout drawer in one of our cabinets. I'm also replacing the euro drawer slides on the existing pullouts with soft close slides. Unable to find close enough size spacers for new slides I milled up some 8/4 maple to fit.



And then of course right after that I found the correct size spacers. This weekend I installed the new slides on the existing pullouts.



If you're going to install drawer slides you might as well buy the Milwaukee M12 installation driver.



I also started milling up some 4/4 maple I bought from a new local supplier the other weekend. They're more expensive than the two main places I usually go to but they're 25 minutes away instead of 90. Made a bunch of progress on the milling yesterday. Hoping to finish it up soon.

 

[legenddc]

I received this note on Valentine's day from my daughter.



After that un-intended guilt trip I really got moving on these cabinet pullouts. Finished milling up the wood on the 18th and was able to spend some time last week after the kids went to bed cutting the groves, dados and rabbets. I finished tweaking the fit of everything during a listen only work meeting.



Spent this weekend sanding the sides and cleaning up the shop some last night. Today and the remainder of this week I'll get the finish coats on it. Thankfully I bought pre-finished plywood so I don't need to find space for that.


I needed a new can of Arm R Seal as my last one gummed up. I'm tired of throwing away half a can of finish so I bought these Stop Loss bags to try.

 

[legenddc]

I completed the coats of finish on Thursday evening. For future reference to myself, I follow this process. I also installed the cabinet portion of the drawer slide in the one cabinet.

Friday I glued up a drawer and installed a drawer.



Saturday in-between cleaning up from having family over for my daughter's birthday and getting prepared for her sleepover birthday party I managed to glue up the rest of the drawers and install the drawer part of the slides.

Sunday once all the kids were gone I cut the center stile of the cabinet out with a multitool. Thankfully it wasn't glued in like I thought but after however many years it wasn't going to come out without being cut.





Found this oddity in the back of my cabinet.



Behind it revealed this.



Not sure why they felt the need to cover that up with another plate.

Final parts installed.



I used the cut center stile to make the part that covers the gap between the cabinet doors. Nice to have that part completely match on the front.

Total tally for this ended up at $438 including the $32 can of finish with loads left over. Certainly more than the $400 it would have cost to buy premade ones but I did upgrade the drawer slides which cost $200.

 

[captain14]

That’s a custom coverup for a hack job.

Are the wires behind the cover(s) still live, dead or removed?

 

[legenddc]

That’s a custom coverup for a hack job.

Are the wires behind the cover(s) still live, dead or removed?

I didn't check because there is an outlet directly above it over the counter. These cabinets are next to our galley kitchen and originally there weren't cabinets there. I'm assuming whenever the cabinets were put in they just ran new outlets above the old ones.

 

[Nolift911]

Great thread and awesome woodworking skills!!! I think all of us in the NOVA area have the workshop at Udvar Hazy in our threads as a the ultimate workshop. I would like to volunteer there just to be around greatness.

 

[legenddc]

Time to get caught up. After the cabinet drawers I got to spend some time working on the bookshelf. Not much progress and nothing worth showing pictures of yet. While in the shop I noticed some scrap wood and remembered I told my father in law I would make them a cutting board after he didn't get one during the Christmas white elephant exchange.

I glued up some scraps I've been keeping around for this exact purpose. My wife doesn't like cutting boards with different color strips but this wasn't for her so I created this board.


My dad has the Rockler cutting board juice groove jig so I used that and the corner rounding jig that he has.

On the car front, I noticed that my headlights seem to be getting dimmer and dimmer. Since covid my car has sat outside all day and not in a parking garage so the sun has really caused the headlights to get foggy. I ordered this kit and got to work. I should have spent a little more time on them but I was running out of daylight. Overall they came out a lot better and more importantly, I can see better at night.

 

[Nolift911]

"Juice Groove Jig"...

 

[legenddc]

It's official name is the Cutting Board Juice Groove Routing Jig.

 

[bj383ss]

Now you need to jet seal those headlights. I did on mine and they have stayed clear for 6 months now.

https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Guy...rotectant/dp/B001TFE38A/?tag=atomicindus08-20

Bret

 

[legenddc]

While I was making the cutting board I realized the screwdriver that came with my router lift must have been made by Wera.


Saturday I removed the shelves in my daughter’s room. We’re having some insulation installed next week that will require some drywall repair so might as well get it all fixed at once. I’ll hire out the drywall since we have a great guy for it and I don’t have the time.

When I installed the baseboard in my daughter's room just under 7 years ago, I was on the last wall when I realized the shelf brackets were going to interfere with the baseboard. When I removed these shelves in my son's room it ripped up a bunch of the drywall paper. At the time my wife was 7 months pregnant so I cheated and notched the baseboard out and left the shelves in place.

Had to cut the brackets out at the top of the baseboard and push them down some. Did it with my cordless multi-tool. Had it out anyway to cut the paint out of the flathead screws that were used in the brackets. Not sure when those shelves were installed, between 1972 and 2012. The brackets had "made in England" on the back so leaning towards pre-1993 when the lady we bought our house from moved in.



Just caulked the baseboard where I removed the shelves. New caulk gun works so much better than my old one. No drips!

Monday I ran a load of laundry during the work day. Went to change it and it wasn’t draining. Took everything apart and was able to tighten the belt for the pump. Had to replace the hose going to the bleach port as it was leaking

I’ll order new drain and supply hoses and get them replaced soon. Will probably need to replace the shut off valves as well, maybe even install a drain so it doesn’t go into the sink.

 

[legenddc]

Now you need to jet seal those headlights. I did on mine and they have stayed clear for 6 months now.

https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Guy...rotectant/dp/B001TFE38A/?tag=atomicindus08-20

Bret

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to check that out. Not sure how much longer we're keeping this car.

 

[legenddc]

I didn't take a lot of pictures over the past month. This is what your basement looks like when you have to pull everything out or storage for insulation installation. That was April 12th and we managed to get everything sorted and back in on April 13th. We also pulled out a LOT of stuff to donate. I repaired the drywall inside my daughter's closet and painted the closet that weekend. The rest of her room was just finished last week from our drywall guy. I'll be bringing all the paint down today.

I didn't take pictures but I also replaced all the burners and bars on our Weber grill that weekend under warranty.



My wife was gone for a few days for a work meeting and then we took her co-worker who was here from Italy to a Nats game on April 19th.



April 22- - May 9th we passed the flu around from person to person with a kid home from April 25 - May 2nd.

Somewhere during all of that I cleaned the throttle body in my Altima hoping it would fix an idle issue. It didn't. Now I'm wondering if I start throwing some parts at it or just wait until it eventually gives me a code.

The washing machine fix is still holding up. I haven't ordered any parts yet for it.

 

[legenddc]

After the insulation was installed the outlet in our outdoor closet wasn’t working. I finally had a chance to look at the light in that closet. The geniuses who installed this panel in the closet completely missed where the ceiling light box was so they just pulled the cable over to the whole. They must have just cut the cable because there was barely any stripped wire.

Ended up installing a box extender and just removing the light. We never use it.



Now just hoping the rain stops so we can get some mulch this weekend.

 

[legenddc]

The rest of the weekend certainly didn't go to plan. Our basement was clean but this is what happens when your laundry machine drains into the utility sink and something is left in it.


Fortunately the damage wasn't too bad. I did pull up a couple of the LVP planks that you can see above. Everything else has been put back in storage. I'll replace those LVP planks and molding soon. What also needs to happen is making a proper laundry machine drain that goes into this pipe. I'm not sure why that wasn't done by any of the owners who lived here the 40 years prior to us.


Did get out and go to a baseball game on Monday with the family.

 

[legenddc]

Managed to get the basement back together last week. We have a donation pickup scheduled for next week to clear out the pile of stuff we had left.

Last Friday before Memorial Day I was able to get mulch out in our backyard. Saw a snake but it got away before I could see if it was a copperhead. Went to the store after that with my daughter and she nearly hyperventilated seeing this guy right outside our front door.


Saturday of Memorial Day weekend we all went to our local cars and coffee. I liked how different these two cars were right at the front.


Never seen epoxy bullets and gears as a floor or door panel before. This was in a “rat rod”.


Some other sort of okay cars.



Was a fun Memorial Day weekend over. Went to the pool 3 times, had my brother’s family come up to surprise my mom and got professional family photos done Monday morning.

 

[legenddc]

On this weekend’s agenda is using some new tools to turn a maple board into a kitchen table legs for a client. It will get stained to match her chairs.




The bookshelf for my daughter is still untouched. She told me last night she just wants it before middle school. She’s about to finish 3rd grade so I have some time.

I also get to replace the rear brakes on my wife’s Mazda CX-5. The squealing it’s been doing apparently wasn’t noticeable. Thankfully I took it to get the maple and heard it.

 

[legenddc]

Was headed out to Home Depot to buy jack stands and my check engine light came on. Bought new camshaft sensors and replaced them. Only drove 25 miles since clearing the code. Fingers crossed the light stays off.

Now down to the wood shop like I intended on going 3 hours ago…

 

[legenddc]

Saturday afternoon I managed to get an hour and a half in the wood shop before my in-laws arrived. For the first time I bought S3S lumber instead of rough because I was only getting one piece and it was a whopping $8 more. I cut it to rough length, ripped it to width and lightly jointed/planed it. Ended Saturday with this.



After that I stopped to do the brakes. My father in law is a deliver driver a couple days a week at an auto parts store to stay busy in retirement. He was working Friday and able to pick up the parts. It worked out really nicely since they happened to be coming here anyway. Took us two hours to replace the pads and rotors including a 45 minute trip to get a new caliper bolt that snapped on reinstallation. Had a torque wrench set, no idea how it happened.

Sunday I was able to get another hour in the woodshop. I cut everything to length and pulled out the new doweling jig. The jig happens to be 2" wide, the exact width of my boards.

I marked all the parts with blue tape to keep track of which side the dowel jig should go on.

To do the right angle parts you simple move one of the stops up.

At the end of the hour I have 1 of the 3 rectangles for the table legs built. Hopefully today I can get the other two done and then start connecting the 3. They form a capital I shape, or H using this font.