Mopar / Wood Shop Cave

[moparfreak]

Finished up the last detail on the plano box storage rack, added a pegboard panel on door hinges, that could rotate in and out, and used that to put some of my more commonly used measuring tools, rules & squares.

Swings out of the way to access the RH side of the rack:

 

[moparfreak]

Using a piece of unistrut and some special brackets I got from my SFIL, made a real quick and easy and adjustable rack for garden tools such as rakes, shovels, picks, axe, sledge, etc.

Lagged into the studs and rock solid.

 

[moparfreak]

Finally also got a chance to put up some decorations / paraphanalia, y'know, some stuff to make it feel more like me. I'm into mopars, engines & beer, so it's not too hard to find stuff....

And of course the beer fridge...which is always well stocked.

 

[moparfreak]

That sorta catches me up. Currently active is this summer I want to take care of the royal mess of regular garage stuff accumulating next to our daily drivers on the RH side by the entrance to the house. I have some room there but right now it's just all piled up and messy. Going to make several pieces to make that area of the garage flow a lot better.

1st up is a compact place to store my power equipment. Going to use something I found on GJ again, and tweak the design for my particular needs. This is the picture I am using for inspiration (can't remember who's this is but thank you!):

Plans are for this to store the snowblower (1st level), push mower & broadcast spreader (2nd level), pressure washer & chain saw (3rd level) and all the long skinny tools like weed wacker, blower, hedge trimmer, etc on the pegboard.

Did the first two levels last night. Still need to do the third, then cut and install plywood panels to set onto the frames, then the pegboard side.

Fits the snowblower pretty good so far!

 

[moparfreak]

Spent some time this week and finished up the power equipment rack. Turned out alright, I think. Filled it up and boy does it hold a lot. Well on the way towards making that space a lot less cluttered and more functional.

Here's the finished product:

Also did a bit of organizing in one of my tool boxes, did the pliers using a rack from Amazon that I got for ~$12 or so. It's a bit too cluttered, I have some duplication that I need to weed out, but still much easier than before getting to what I needed. I also plan to eventually get the locking pliers out and store near the welding equipment, which will open up a bunch more space for standard stuff.

And then here is the new screwdriver drawer. Got the Dewalt set which is a really nice set, and supplemented with the others I had, put some of the other repeat ones in other areas of the shop. This is now my go-to drawer. I saw lots of interesting and complicated solutions out there but I went simple and easy with some pipe insulation and it really works out great. The screwdrivers really don't move around at all, very secure.

Next, onto the 8-wide wall-mounted tire rack!

 

[69RT3X9]

Starting at your July 5th post and on, I can't see any of your pictures? Weird... I love what you have done with your shop space. Great work!

 

[moparfreak]

arg, I switched my pics over to OneDrive cause I didn't have enough storage in Photobucket. It shows up on my computer and my phone and also on Tapatalk, if it's consistently not showing up then I'll figure out a way to migrate them back somehow, but hopefully it still works with this method....

 

[Power Sedan]

Wow, great looking wood shop and garage addition! Truly a complete custom built work and storage area.

I've debating to repaint my garage this year a gray shade, with a custom stripe, but unsure exactly as to the type of stripe. I have to say, as a Mopar guy myself, I'm digging the your idea!

Thanks for sharing!
Keith

 

[shortykorte]

Very nice update.

Guess who spent 4th of July in Milwaukee and Madison? Hung out in Milwaukee Thursday so I should have looked to see who was in the area.

 

[moparfreak]

Aaahhh, cleared out some much needed space by making an 8-wide tire rack. It wasn't perfect (didn't have enough height for the taller Caravan tires, so had to mix / match around), but this clears out some space so I can start organizing the rest of the garage / gardening ****.

Here's the build, pretty simple. Took basic ideas from many of those seen on here.

First built a basic 2x4 frame, and drilled to accept a long piece of 1" EMT (which I felt had sufficient rigidity). The EMT is secured with end-caps, as well as screws drilled / threaded into the pipe itself so that it can't rotate in the holes.

Next, mounting it to the wall, and the side cabinet nearby.

Finally, installing the chains, which I tied to the ceiling joists above. I originally was going to angle them back to a higher point on the wall, but I felt this was more solid. The main issue here is the bigger tires are just a bit too tall to rotate on and in straight. That means I can't put all 4 in the RH side like I want to, so it looks a bit funny. Oh well, still totally functional, and goal accomplished. Still got a little room above the fridge to put a few things too.

Next, for the space between the power equipment tower and the tire rack, I'm going to start designing and building a rather large shelf w/ sliding doors along the lines of this Family Handyman approach:

It will probably be a cross between this:

http://www.familyhandyman.com/garage/storage/giant-diy-garage-cabinet/view-all

and this:

http://www.familyhandyman.com/garage/storage/installing-large-garage-cabinets/view-all

 

[Lyndon]

It will probably be a cross between this:

http://www.familyhandyman.com/garage/storage/giant-diy-garage-cabinet/view-all

and this:

http://www.familyhandyman.com/garage/storage/installing-large-garage-cabinets/view-all

Adam

Really liking some of your ideas here.....

I'm really liking the simple idea of using the pool noodle for the screw drivers. That's very clever. Might borrow that, but for pliers....

And - in the family handyman pic - don't ya hate it when someone just randomly puts stuff on the bonnet of your car. I would keel haul them for that.

But the cupboard ideas are cool.

Lyndon
All the way down here!!!!

 

[1/2 Cup]

As above x 2, just awesome..

Regards

 

[moparfreak]

Lyndon those people look so darn happy in those pictures, I'm willing to overlook things like that..

I know I'll be happy once I get all the **** off my floor and organized. Not truly "shop" type projects but getting the front end orderly helps overall, and later on I'll be able to focus more on the shop stuff. As long as the family's happy (wife can find things, kids can get to their bikes and toys and stuff), then I've done my job.

For my screwdriver drawer I actually used the pipe insulation that has a split and adhesive on it. That way I was able to stick it down to the drawer and it doesn't move around quite like a pool noodle probably would. Not sure if it'd work for pliers, as those are a lot more varied in their form factor but for screwdrivers it works just great. I'll probably do the same thing for my files as well.

 

[shortykorte]

Great idea on the screwdriver organizer. Lyndon just wants to get a doodle for his dodad.

Spending some time to get some time. Getting organized does provide far more shop time in long run.

 

[moparfreak]

So no real garage updates but instead spent the last week getting the Charger ready for a car show we had here at work yesterday afternoon. Dealt with some coolant leaks and other typical things you find when the car sits for awhile. Stalled in traffic 3X on the way into work, and found a dry rotted and cracked rubber plug in the carburetor, replaced it with a nice silicone one from the lab and it ran "great" the rest of the way i.e. no stalls at the intersection anymore.

Had a good time at the car show. Didn't win my category, lost to a pristine 69 Camaro LS swap, ugh! I think I would have won the "I feel sorry for you and can't believe you made it here in one piece and we're worried for your mental health" award if there was one....

 

[shortykorte]

I'm not sure how you lost to the camaro.

 

[nmk_61802]

Using a piece of unistrut and some special brackets I got from my SFIL, made a real quick and easy and adjustable rack for garden tools such as rakes, shovels, picks, axe, sledge, etc.

Lagged into the studs and rock solid.

I may have to copy this. Looks to work well.

 

[On Edge]

Thanks for sharing! I've got a some good ideas from what you have shared that I will have to copy.

 

[moparfreak]

Well folks it has been a super long time. Work has been kicking my *** among other things, and I just have not been able to steal away some time for GJ. Sad, I know....

Anyways, that being said, I have been progressing with many things in the shop, so time for some updates!

Finally figured out what to do with that Hoover backpack vac my Dad gave me. I set it up as a dedicated vac system for the workbench. I figured it's good for sweeping stuff up, and hooking up the occasional sander to. Mounted it underneath the bench, piped the hose up to the top. I also added one of those really nice Rockler flexible rubber hoses to give extra length and reach.

Here's the vac itself, it comes w/ a bunch of nice attachments.

Mounted underneath the workbench.

Next I had to take care of this gaggle of hoses and vac attachments w/o taking up bench top space.

I took one of those garden hose swivel stakes and cut the stake part off.

Mounted it to the wall of the tool cabinet next to the bench.

Then using scraps, made up a board w/ some spots for the accessories.

Mounted it to the side of the tool cabinet, looks pretty good!

 

[moparfreak]

Picking up a project from forever ago, I finished up the ShopNotes workbench clamping system that I had started. Really just had to set aside some time and build the small bits and pieces of it per the prints.

First made up the phenolic pieces that actually slide into the groove.

Used those two make the universal clamp blocks as shown.

Also made a long one that works with the Lee Valley Veritas Bench Wonder Pup.

Also made a plane stop to go along with it.

Here they work together to clamp a board.

Also, with the standard 3/4" dog holes throughout the front, I can use various types of hold-downs w/ it as well.

Good to have this one done. I think I started making the bits and pieces on this little project over a year and a half ago, and the hardware and parts for it collected on the bench for that long! It's a nice quick way to secure something to the bench, though it won't replace a nice solid beast of a traditional WW bench. Hopefully I can squeeze one of those into my shop in the future as well....

 

[@e91kiter]

Some really cool ideas in the thread, thanks for posting!

 

[moparfreak]

Next up, I was determined that before winter, I would have the area by the van where the kids get in and out, cleaned up much better and free up elbow room and floor space by getting a bit cabinet up on the wall. In post #170 I showed a couple versions, both from Family Handyman magazine, that I was considering. Ultimately I went with the nicer version (second). It utilizes sliding door with roller wheels at the top, so I know it'll have good longevity (as compared to doors that slide with friction in tracks at the bottom).

Ultimately, I scaled it per my measurements (made it both smaller in both height and length) and started the build. First, made a base. I set it up so that it was high enough that I could put stuff underneath such as park the kids smaller bikes, scooters, my portable genset, hang helmets, etc.

Then, cutting right to the end, built up a frame for the walls, top, covered in MDF panels, installed shelf standards, and filled it right up! I also made sure there was the right amount of space above to be able to store the 3'x8' two-by panel carrier that I built for the van to be able to carry large amounts of sheet goods from the hardware store. That also freed up a LOT of floor space.

All-in-all, I'm very pleased with this. Cleaned up that area of the garage in a big way. I'll be putting some 1x pine trim along the front to spruce it up a bit, and then I'll set up the sliding doors. I'll get a sliding track, and hopefully two 36" doors. Haven't decided if I'm gonna use actual hollow core cheap-o doors from the store or just cut some plywood panels to fit. We will see....

 

[shortykorte]

Glad to see you're back at it. I enjoy the projects you work on. One day you'll need to give us a picture tour of the finished bench and accessories.

 

[shortykorte]

May your Christmas be peaceful and filled with love and the New Year be a time of rebirth.

 

[moparfreak]

Alright, it's been awhile. Been awhile since I've worked on shop projects too....too busy letting other life projects in the way. Anyways, time to give some updates as I'm gearing up for more shop fun.

In the meantime, here's what I've been doing for awhile, from early Dec to early Feb. Kids bathroom, I think it turned out really nice.

Turned this:

Into this:

Complete w/ night-light custom in-stud cabinet to keep the kiddies from tripping when they use it at night but not waking them up too much:

Now to the shop stuff. When I was cleaning some stuff up, I ran across my tangle of bungee cords and decided to finally do something about it. I happened to have a section of Rubbermaid wire shelving left over from a closet project a few years ago, and remember seeing an idea to use it for bungee cords. Super easy, and easy to see what I've got.

All I've got to do on this is hang it up on the wall somewhere in the garage area, so that it's not in the way but accessible when I need it for tying stuff down.

 

[moparfreak]

Next up on my project list is what I consider to be my first big shop project undertaking in a pretty long time. Since I got the bathroom done I've got a window here before spring starts to get something significant done, so I'm starting to look at the miter saw bench. As you can see, it's a total mess, and I use it a ton, so that means it just gets even worse. It is also one of the worst dust producers, as those with big miter saws know....

Man, look at all that dust....

As you can see, I also have a hard time throwing out wood scraps. I have started going through the wood and have gotten rid of some, but still this miter saw bench needs to be able to handle a lot of wood scrap storage. It really needs to be very multi-purpose:

1) Miter saw bench
2) Long worksurface to support 8' pieces adequately w/ fences
3) Dust collection hood that can accommodate full swing of the SCMS
4) LOTS of wood storage (above and below)
5) WW Benchtop drill press stand along w/ dust collection for it
6) Drill bit / DP accessory storage
7) Drawers for storage of other suppliers (sanding, hand tools, etc)

So, I've started by starting to remove the tools and re-arranging the bottom shelving units. They are metal units reclaimed from a local hospital that went out of business. Scored them for $5/ea. Not quite perfect for storing wood scraps but they do well and have a lot of dividers that come in handy. These will serve as the base for the station.

They are arranged for there to be exactly 8' from the wall to the end of the first metal cabinet, so that I can rip some of the worksurfaces based off 8' sheets. I'm planning a small alcove on the RH side where I'll build some sliding drawers to use for drill press accessories. Also an alcove underneath where the saw sits to put more storage for something not sure yet what...

Probably the most challenging part of this, is trying to maximize usefulness and utility of the miter saw station while also accomodating the massivness of the sliding saw. This particular SCMS is a Kobalt unit, and I find it to be actually a very nice saw. A lot of really nice features and all around utility for a very reasonable price ($300). This is compared to the $450 - $700+ often seen on SCMS from other name brands. The big downside, however, is this thing is simply massive. Some saws are a bit more intelligent in overall footprint, and setting up the slide bars in a way that reduces the overall size of the saw, but this one has the full depth of the slide rods sticking straight out the back, which makes it even worse when you tilt or rotate the saw for an angled cut....

In any case, I'll make the best of it. It clearly looks like the saw bench especially in the middle will have to protrude into the walkway a bit more than I'd like.

I'll have to move it forward a couple inches even from this position to have a decent dust vacuum hood behind it.

Any thoughts out there on the miter saw station? I'm working through the details this week of figuring out my approach for construction. It'll kind of be built as I go along, with many modifications along the way I'm sure.

 

[shortykorte]

Bathroom turned out great. Not sure what was wrong with the old one.

Here are a couple miter stations that might be of interest

 

[Aspen RT]

NICE place!!!!!!!!! Sorry I missed this tread till now! Hows the Charger coming along? Here is a shot of my 73.

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[moparfreak]

AspenRT, not much movement on the Charger lately. Been so focused on either projects in the house, or in the shop. I keep it runnable so that I can enjoy it a bit in the summer but I haven't really dove into it yet. Hopefully w/in a year or two I can start giving it the attention it deserves. Your '73 looks freakin' awesome, is that an Air Grabber Intake I see???

Working on taking care of open little projects as I get ready to dive into the miter saw bench station. Picked up several sheets of MDF so I'll be making sawdust on that pretty soon. At the same time, working on a bunch of trim/moulding projects in the house at the same time....hopefully not overextending myself....

Anyways, got the bungee cord "rack" finally hung up and out of the way, I like it on the wall cause I can see what I have and easily pull off what I need. Sorry for the bad lighting, it's kinda hidden in the shadows:

Since this space functions as both a garage and shop, next up was to deal with the growing mass of kids transportation toys that are starting to pile up as they do every spring once the weather starts to turn. Between bikes, skateboards, Razor scooters, etc I just start tripping over these, so I decided to figure out places to hang / park these assorted things finally.

Found a nice spot underneath the large storage cabinet I recently built and found spots for the kids scooters and my oldest son's skateboard:

Then using 1" PVC I built a sort of bike rack to serve as a place to park the smaller bikes, so that the 6 yr old and 3 yr old bikes could have a place to live:

Note: the racks I modeled this off were typically longer and larger footprint. This one was not very wide so in order to have enough stability to support the bikes and keep from tipping over, it needed to be bolted to the wall.

Finally I was able to make a place to store my ToughBuilt series workbelt stuff. I find this system to be really awesome for sustained working on projects, and I like it a lot better than a typical leather workbelt that has a certain number and configuration of pouches and you can't change it. With this, I can lock in whatever I want to carry with onto the belt. I have both a regular belt and one with shoulder support for when I'm carrying around more weight. Menards pretty much has everything for this product line so I can easily add stuff when I want to as well. The modules snap into a rack that I screwed to the side of one of my metal cabinets, they can be unhinged and snapped onto the belt in 3 seconds:

Then hung up the belts nearby on the other side of the door:

I know, these are pretty simple little things, but all contribute towards a nice clean shop where everything has its purposebuilt place.

 

[moparfreak]

A busy weekend with the family, but knocked out a small project I wanted to do, in getting ready for the upcoming summer (yeah, saying this as we are getting 6-8" of snow in Milwaukee as we speak...). I saw the idea on Pinterest or Etsy I forget, but thought it was a good simple idea for a place for the wife and kids to throw their sunglasses, as they were getting thrown everywhere inside in the kitchen and getting lost or stepped on.

Built it completely from scraps around the shop, found a piece of pine, drilled holes for a bungee cord that seemed about the right length and I cut the hooks off. Threw some random dark stain I had (Miniwax PolyShades, I don't recommend it) on to clean it up a bit, and then installed the bungee cord using a hog ring. I think it worked out pretty good! Now that they're all up there I told my wife she needs to pare down from her 4 pairs lol!

Next up, while doing a bit of trim work inside the house, starting to build the base up for the miter saw station.

 

[shortykorte]

Sometimes the small organizational projects provide the biggest satisfaction. I need to check out the tool belt. I like the modular idea of it.

I'm so stealing the spouse sunglasses holder. I hope I can find a long enough board.

 

[moparfreak]

I think those things were going for $40+ on etsy. Sure, they were nicer & more artistic versions and such but I made this with scraps for $0 + a half hour of my time (which I think is also pretty close to $0.00)

 

[moparfreak]

Got the shop cleaned up a bit and started paying attention to the miter saw bench again. On my last trip to Menards I had picked up some MDF sheets (oh, so heavy....), and made a layout of how I wanted the base for the bench to look. Due to the awkward shape of the Kobalt saw, and how deep it is, I need to have the bench jut out a bit.

I'm actually making a small frame for this, and cut two base pieces. It'll raise the saw up a bit, but it'll also give me a ton of storage space in between the two base panels and I'll build simple pull-out drawers for them.

Used the Grizzly track saw to chop up the two sheets, doubled them up and cut them at the same time so that they are perfect matches. Made a lot of dust since I haven't hooked it up to a shop vac yet, but the track system just works so nicely. Used an oscillating saw to get into those strange shaped corners and break the scrap piece away from the base.

Got some strange shaped offcuts but I'll be able to use these for a lot of the dividing pieces between the two base pieces.

 

[shortykorte]

Looking forward to miter station build. I have to redo mine so I'm looking for ideas.

 

[moparfreak]

I wish I made more progress recently, but so many things have been stealing my time away in the evenings. Getting ready to have a bunch of family and friends over next week.

Just to get a sense of the size / shape I put one of the base panels into place, and it looks good, big footprint but still allows for easy movement around it:

Looking forward to getting back into this project.

Also with spring & summer around the corner brought this test unit home from work for the summer, a dry sump EFI 37HP on a 52" deck, so probably a bit overkill . Added a tow hitch to drive the garden trailer around the property and help with landscaping projects. My 5'0 wife couldnt' reach the pedals on the garden tractor so I'm hoping the handles on a ZTR work out better.

 

[moparfreak]

Made some slow progress in framing up the base panels. I set the frame up so that I can build in 5 drawers. At 8' by 32" deep, is going to be a huge amount of nice orderly storage space for various misc tools & supplies. Then I'm going to have a second layer of drawers in the wings since those have to be built up to flush up to the miter saw table, so that'll be even more yet. Going to be spending a good chunk of time on this project just making drawers....

Anyways, here's the base panel with the dividers starting to go in....

I've had issues in the past with screwing into MDF, the countersunk screw heads mushrooming and exploding and splitting, often even with predrilling, so I looked into a countersink predrill screw, that could actually consistently control the countersink depth. I have a normal set w/ no depth stop, and then my countersinks were all over the place with sometimes the screw head proud, sometimes counterbored deep into the panel. I ended up picking up this bit from Garrett Wade of all places, with a free-spinning stop that doesn't mar the worksurface and actually does a really nice job. Screw heads all set nicely just flush to the surface and looking good. So far good marks on that one.

Got the lower panel flipped over and started fastening it into place on the wall and on top of the lower metal cabinets that are serving as the base.

More securing to do and then I'll get the upper panel screwed into place, and then I'll put the saw into place, bolt that down, and start measuring & designing out the next layer. Each portion of this is kinda design as I go.

 

[moparfreak]

Spent some more time on it, and got the second base layer installed, looks good so far...

The disadvantage of designing this as I go, is progress goes slower, cause now that I put the saw onto the base, I'm just still taken aback by how NOT space friendly this particular saw model is, it's just so long. When swinging it through it's entire 45deg/60deg swing both ways along with bevel, I'm going to need a massive hood to cover all that ground, that it'll take up easily more than 50% of the 8' bench.

That being said, part of the goal of this bench build is still to have awesome dust collection on it, as this thing flings dust every which way otherwise.

Internet searches for ideas have shown a lot of different approaches to miter saw hoods. Some of them sacrifice the ability to collect at angles, to be able to have better DC when it's at the 90 degree position which is probably 80%+ of the cuts. I think I'd like to be able to accommodate the swing angles of the saw within the dust hood.

I'm thinking of basically 3 sources of vacuum on the saw:

1) Largest opening vent in a general space behind the saw to put a vacuum on the general space around saw table, and try to pull the fine dust mist that gets sprayed up

2) 2" vacuum hose on the throat dust outlet, as the saw blade kicks the majority of larger dust up that opening. Also plan on putting some additional scoops / funnels to help the dust up into that throat as it comes off the saw blade teeth

3) Smaller crevice tool type of suction from the slotted area underneath the table, to pull a slight vacuum on the dust bits and chips that fall down through the cracks under the table.

For the bigger saw hood, I'll form the back with a gentle sweeping curve using a flexible material based on the travel of the back of the saw. Thinking either Lexan or maybe even some metal sheeting from the HVAC department. More to come in the next week or two.....

 

[shortykorte]

I was able to get a 10" sliding compound saw thinking bigger is better. It was great for the occasional wide piece but the depth of a counter for a miter saw station was bothersome. I haven't needed to make many wide, long, deep cuts lately, so a standard 10" works for a stationary saw.

Learning more about crosscut sleds, would that serve for wider cuts?

 

[moparfreak]

It would, I haven't built a big crosscut sled yet for the table saw. Even with a crosscut sled I can't imagine I'd be comfortable pushing along a 8-10' piece with it, while only supporting 30" of it or so. I do enjoy the massive capacity of the 12" slider from time to time. I suppose I could sell this one for ~$250 or so and plunk down another $500-$600 on the more compact ones such as the Bosch Axial Glide, but the frugal in me just won't stand for it. I'll make something work, just need to get somewhat creative.

I'm looking at using some HVAC components to build up the dust hood, should be able to share my ideas on that over the next few days in the shop.

 

[moparfreak]

*sigh* shop projects took a backburner the past few weeks again. Built a bunch of outdoor stuff for a garden area in the backyard. $500 worth of cedar later, we've got raised beds, two massive trellises (trelli??) and an obelisk....





Other than throwing some Thompson's on, and spreading dirt around, I'm done with that one, so I've returned to chipping away at the miter saw bench project. I flipped the saw over, as one of the areas I want to pull a vacuum on is the underside through the table. In looking at it, the bottom casting is fixed, with a webbing for strength. My thought is to plug it all up and then feed my vacuum source into one of the holes.


Also unfastened the sliding wing supports. Nice feature to have when the saw is stand-alone, but not necessary once it's permanently fixed to a table that will have full support on either side. To plug up the webbing holes so that my vacuum source pulls entirely through that space, I used cardboard pieces cut just to size and duct tape to fasten and "seal". Yes, I know this is not a production jobber like you'd see many of the craftsmen on this site do....but hopefully effective.


Here it's plugged up except for one opening. I've got to pick up a few plumbing fittings to figure out how I want to come out of this spot so a DC vacuum hose can be connected. The good part is this portion of the table stays fixed no matter what bevel / miter it's set to, so it doesn't need to move with the rotating part of the table.