My Workshop / Garage

[slimpickins]

We did a bunch of work for our former landlord, and in exchange for all of the labor, he's setting us up with CENTRAL AIR AND HEAT!!!!

4-ton compressor. This is an R-22 unit, shipped "dry" (nitrogen filled). Cheaper than the R410 units, and the little use it will get, I'm just fine with that.

That's gotta be a welcome addition to the shop after what you went through when you were building it! Too bad you didn't have it back then!

Re: popping the breakers... I hate it when I wreck a good side cutter that way!!! I usually don't try to do it on purpose, but sometimes there's some goofy wiring and that's the only way to trace it... well not the only way, but the easiest!

I'd like to see more pictures of the work you do in your shop if you don't mind sharing. Might be a bit off topic but what the he.....ck.

 

[wbrian63]

We should be starting on a set of cabinets for Tin's folks here pretty soon. We're remodeling their kitchen, and there's some "coolness" to the design, if I do say so myself.
I'll be sure to post plenty of pictures.

 

[DaleJR88Fan]

When DaleJR88Fan was in town and we were "touring" the shop, he commented that the wall space above the entrance to the finishing room would be a good place to hang the scaffold. I had already built some hoist blocks on the west wall, but placement of some of the shop contents were making that location less and less ideal.

He even went so far as to suggest that I get an electric hoist to lift the scaffold...

Well, it just so happens that I already had such a device. It's your run-of-the-mill Harbor Freight Chinese-made 880# capacity winch:

Wow, you have been busy since my visit. Glad I could add to your to-do list and it turned out great. I finally finished up tiling our Master Bath Walk-in shower and Garden tub and I am allowed to start working on my shop again. I will post some pictures up in my album.

How's the weather been? It has rained here in Indiana it seems like every day but 4 or 5 this month and my garden is getting water logged.

 

[wbrian63]

You apparently have all of the weather up there. We haven't had rain more than a few drops in nearly 6 weeks. Water rationing will begin soon, I'm sure.

Being able to do "shop stuff" is a fair treat for all that hard work inside. Congratulations on finishing that amazing bathroom.

 

[mpire]

The big problem with the location of the rack is that it's adjacent to the main door, and at the corner of the doorway sits the gov't required safety beams - prime targets for a bad meeting with a heavy piece of plywood:

Solution? Build a solid housing to hold the sensors that can be screwed tight to the door frame. It's just a scrap of 2x4, cut 3-1/2" long (to match the width of the door trim).

Holes for mounting screws and the view port for the tell-tale LED used to indicate proper sensor alignment.

Hole in the end for the lens

Hollowed out in the back to allow a snug fit of the sensor

And mounted securely to the door frame:

Tell-tale still visible. The hole is a bit off, but I'm still looking for all my good rules, calipers, etc in ALL THOSE FRIGGIN' BOXES!

These kind of projects are time-consuming, but very rewarding. The first housing took about an hour, the second about half that.

Now that I look at it more closely, I think I'll notch out the door trim and recess the sensor further.

Well, tomorrow's another day.

Wow, I am so loving this. I will have to steal your idea.

 

[wbrian63]

Help yourself. It has worked a treat so far. I've banged the covers more than once and without them, I'm sure I'd have damaged the sensors.

 

[PureSilver]

This is just excellent - subscribed.

I hope you can either convince the landlord to extend your lease, or pay a fair price for your installations - disassembling all of this hard work would be an unpleasant exercise. How much time is left on the lease now for you to enjoy your nearly-finished shop?

 

[wbrian63]

2-1/2 years. The problem is our landlord is the primary lessor, and we're sub-letting from them. They've indicated when their lease is up, that's it - no more (they're not going to renew their lease). We are on our own with the building owner at that point, and I expect another digit would be added to the monthly price to stay.

Our plan is to find and buy and/or build a permanent shop within the next 1 or 1-1/2 years. If we're out buy the end of 2014, then there's no issue with dealing with the building owners.

Enjoy reading - I've got some more stuff to post soon, and we're going to be starting on a kitchen for Tin's folks in June. Lots of work that's more than just assembling the shop...

 

[wbrian63]

Time for another update...

When we finished adding the ducting system for the finishing room vent fan, it created a pair of "nooks" to the left and right up in the loft. A bit of work, and shelves filled those spaces. Shelves are key to the process that will "hopefully" see the end of all the clutter that besets the loft today...

Also built a set of shelves to run along the north wall of the loft. These are deeper - just shy of 24", and are 8-feet long each. There's a gap between the two to allow a path for conduit and stuff associated with the HVAC equipment that's all-too-slowly being installed. Still visible in this picture is more of that previously-referred-to clutter...

.

Completed the doors for the shelves in the finishing room, complete with relocating the light that was displaced by the installation of the shelves:

Will definitely need to paint the doors white - not just to match the room, but to reflect more light. Even the light color of the MDF drinks up the florescent light's output:

Needed a pair of handles for the doors. What better solution for a finishing room than a pair of paintbrushes?

I dipped the bristles in a 50/50 mix of carpenter's glue to stiffen them up - works well enough for the desired purpose.

After transferring the finishing-related contents of the wire shelves in the compressor closet to the new cabinet, room for more stuff still remains, but now more shelving is needed in the compressor closet. More compact shelves to allow for better access to the compressor:

The past couple of weekends have been spent installing the HVAC system. The compressor is on an elevated platform in the adjacent space. Elevating it protects it from **** being piled around it, and adds a measure of difficulty to the process of theft. There's 10+ feet of headroom above the unit, and we bolted it to the platform, just to make it more stable and less steal-able. With it in this spot, it's not visible from the street, which should help keep it away from sticky fingers.

The installation location is to the east of our shop, and is held by Tin's dad, who is "technically" our lessor, and who's just using that space for storage for a bunch of "****". He OK'd the installation, so we're good to go.

I was afraid of the exposed outside leg. No matter how securely we might attach it to the deck, some idiot with a heavy load on a dolly could easily knock it free, which would dump the condenser on the ground in short order. Solution was to bore 4 holes into the concrete around the post and insert 4 "pins" to allow a small concrete form to key the leg to the concrete. Isn't pretty by far, but it will do for the purpose intended...

We've added the conduit from the loft over to the adjacent space, and the 3/4" black pipe for the propane supply to the furnace.

.

The propane pipe runs along the roof of the space and will serve as the attachment point for the low and high-pressure refrigerant lines for the condenser. The copper of those lines is the most steal-able part of the HVAC system, and running them 14 feet above the ground will make them more secure. We'll add a cover coming down from the roof where the lines move to the condenser.

The plan is to store the propane tank - a 150# (if I've got the #'s right) on the deck next to the condenser. The deck is about 5 feet off the ground, so lifting the tank into place from the bed of the truck shouldn't be too bad for two able-bodied men - we hope. Here's the valve at the tank end of the propane line:

When I picked up the return air grille and registers for the HVAC, I ordered 5 12x12 return air grilles to provide inlet air to the finishing room. 4 go in the doors, and the 5th will go in the wall that connects the compressor closet with the equipment room, which will allow the compressor to draw air from outside the finishing room. Not good to have it pull mist-laden air when I'm spraying in the finishing room. Here are the grilles installed in the doors:

Here are more HVAC installation pictures:
Furnace and evaporator installed in the finishing room, complete with plenum on top:

In this picture, you can see the condensate pump. This is the easiest way to get rid of the evaporator run-off. This unit will lift 20 feet, so all that remains is adding the 3/8" line up into the loft and to the sink...

Here are the register grilles - 6x16 units. So much nicer than the consumer-grade **** available at the big-box stores...

This weekend, we got the holes in the loft wall cut for the registers:

And the ducts placed in the loft so we can mark the spots for the transitions from the registers to the ducting:

(Maybe the shelves should have waited until after the HVAC work was done???)

Finally, I found a too-cool (or is it too-hot) tankless water heater for the sink in the loft. Far cheaper than a standard under-counter tank, and it only heats water as we need it:

The only problem is it makes the water TOO hot, and when you mix enough cold to temper it, the flow drops to the point where the unit cuts off. I've got to read up to see if there's any sort of thermostatic control, but having hot water is far better than not having hot water...

That's all for now - thanks for reading. More updates as they become available.

Regards

 

[wbrian63]

Eeek - nearly a month since my last update??? How can it be??

Anyway - pics will follow tonight, but here's the dope to-date.

The A/C IS IN!!!! The final process to connect all the lines, evacuate and charge started on June 3, but failed in the final stages when it came time to install the expansion valve at the evaporator.

We did all of the "grunt" work (unit placement, running the lines, etc), and the technical parts of the install were handled by an HVAC guy. When he started to attach the valve, he found there were no seals where the valve attached to the evaporator. Looking at the fittings, it appeared that some sort of nylon seal would be needed, and not wanting to waste freon to test, we decided to abort until we could contact the vendor and see if there were parts missing.

Last week, the valve was returned to the vendor and compared against another one of the same model. The comparator didn't have seals either...

Last Friday, the HVAC guy came back, installed the valve and then opened the valves at the compressor, which allowed the nitrogen (the unit "dry shipped" with nitrogen, allowing me to avoid the requirement to have an R410 unit) to flow into the lines. That gave us about 30psi in the system, and the soapy water test revealed no leaks...

While he was making the final connections, I ran the output hose from the condensate pump up into the loft and over to the sink. Since the hose is just vinyl and the loft gets very hot, I made sure to support the line and leave slack at the corners to prevent it from sagging and kinking.

Evacuated the system for about 45 minutes and introduced enough freon to get 100psi and then used an electronic leak detector at every solder joint and connection. No leaks.

After more freon to allow start-up, internal temp at the thermostat was 96f. Ran the unit for a while and checked pressures, etc. After about 20 minutes, temp at the thermostat was 94, and the temps at the vents were right at 70f, which I am told is an excellent separation value.

During the first few hours of operation, I removed the condensate pump and let the unit drain into a 5-gallon bucket. Instructions that came with the pump suggested this to allow the pan to clean out of crud from when it was assembled. I wasn't suprised to generate nearly 2-1/2 gallons of condensate in just a few hours. Reinstalled the pump and tested it by filling the basin from a water bottle. Unit is supposed to be able to lift 20 feet and it had no problem pumping the test water up into the loft (about 12 feet to the roof) and to the sink.

The unit has a secondary float with a contact switch that can be used to shut down the compressor if the pump fails. I need to get a 24v signal lamp and set it up to illuminate if the override kicks in. It uses a NC contact switch that opens when the float rises. I'll wire that circuit in series with the hot wire of the compressor control circuit. There's a 2nd pole on the switch that's NO, so 24v will be present at that pole if the override trips.

While all this was going on, we had to leave the only entrance the space, the 10' wide overhead door, partially open. Once the installer was satisfied that everything was OK and left, I closed it up and worked for another hour or so, during which time the temp dropped down much further.

I'm pretty sure the system will have no issues maintaining a comfortable 80f working temp while I'm there. I don't want to blow too much $ cooling a space that's unoccupied 90% of the time, so I've set the thermostat to 95f. When I'm going to be there during the week after work (every-other-week), I'll set it to come on for a 3:30pm arrival. Weekends are set for an 8am arrival and 7pm departure.

The thermostat is supposed to "learn" how long it takes to achieve the desired setpoint and start cooling sufficiently early to attain that goal by the desired time. We shall see how well it does in this effort.

Right now, the return air grille is a 20x25 unit, but when the shop is in full-blown operation for woodworking, I expect that filter will last about a day. I am paranoid as hell about getting **** into the evaporator, as this unit has no easy way (as in none) to gain access to the inlet side of the evaporator without taking things apart...

The grille is mounted on the wall beneath my hanging tool cabinet, which stands out from the wall about 14". I'm going to build a frame around the base of the cabinet and use that along with some washable filter elements like are used in more commercial environments. The current filter is 500 sq/in. The pre-filter setup should have about three times that surface area, and will be very visible to allow us to see when the elements need to be swapped.

Other projects that are complete or nearly so are a man door at the top of the stairs to the loft. Made this one "from scratch" as the dimensions were not normal - 28" x 70". Even added a 12x12 window. It is my intention to use the loft for work involving caring for my old car (bead blasting, powder coating, parts washing, etc.) and keeping the dust of the shop away from all the car parts, and vice versa. The door will make that more possible.

This last weekend, we completed most of the effort to install a man door adjacent to the overhead door. There was already one in the west wall of the space, which we'd been unable to use ever since the new tenant moved in last July. We removed that assembly entirely and covered the hole with more metal siding, and now the door is in place next to the overhead door.

We've got to pour a new concrete threshhold, and add seals to the frame. It has a 8" x 48" window, which is spray-painted over right now. I'm going to make a lockable cover for the window so potential robbers won't be able to just break the glass and open the door.

Rather than just covering the wall where the man door was, I decided to build some shelves in that opening, which is about 73" x 36" x 13+" deep. Started framing the bottom support that the shelves could sit on on Friday while the AC guy was working. Then Saturday AM, I remembered I had 8 drawers I'd built for an entertainment center at home which was deconstructed when we decided to change a few things. The drawers are a-one in quality - 1/2" baltic birch sides, with dovetail corners, and 3 coats of gloss polyurathane. 7" tall x 16" deep x 12" wide each. Full extension drawer slides, of course. Cobbled together a quick MDF carcass to hold the drawers, which has an almost 8" wide "cubby" between the banks. 31" tall and fits snugly into the door opening with about 3" projecting. Will build a shelving unit to sit on top, and having 8 more drawers to lose (ahem - store) stuff will be great.

Pics tonight when I get home.

Regards

 

[luv2diy]

Please take a bow!! This is great stuff! I've been reading online for days on ideas on how to insulate my ceiling in my steel shop and finally came across this forum. This is an excellent thread! Thanks again!

 

[wbrian63]

As promised, here are a few pics of completed work.

First, the loft door. Made it as a torsion-box, 2x inner frame skinned with 1/4" luann-core plywood. Inside is just done with staples, but I decided to use "exposed" fasteners on the outside, following a distinct pattern. Not planning to paint the door.

Here's the view of the doorway at the top of the stairs.

And with the door closed:

And the view of the door from up in the loft:

I've completed the trimming-out of the door and will paint the frame soon...

Now an updated pic of the HVAC air handler with all the plumbing in place for the condensate pump and the copper lines from the condenser:

Still need to complete the enclosure for the unit and install the vent for the furnace, but the vent can wait a while. Heating season's at least 4 months away...

Woo - hoo - the thermostat - exciting, no?

And the man door we added adjacent to the overhead door (if I could just figure out what the H$LL my stupid camera is focusing on...!@#$%^!!!)

Door closed. The window is painted over right now. Will need to add some sort of openable cover to prevent someone just breaking the glass and reaching in to unlock the door. (I really need to take the time to cut away the extra spray foam on the overhead door...)

 

[wbrian63]

Please take a bow!! This is great stuff! I've been reading online for days on ideas on how to insulate my ceiling in my steel shop and finally came across this forum. This is an excellent thread! Thanks again!

You are too kind. Thanks for reading.

 

[luv2diy]

I have been studying this thread like it's a mid-term exam. lol Trying to learn as much as possible. I have few questions and pics I want to share, however I don't want to hi-jack your thread, so I'll start a new one. If you have time please chime.

 

[wolflrv]

WOW!! Just friggin' WOW!! Thanks so much for taking the time to document and share all of this!! I could only dream of having that nice a shop! I really needed a shot of sawdust! My woodworking shop is packed up and stored in the corner for the last 6 months while I'm restoring a motorcycle, so this is more motivation to finish the bike, so I can get back to woodworking again!!

 

[wbrian63]

I hate keys. I carry as few as I can get away with.

The primary abode has a biometric-scan deadbolt - no key required there.

The gate at the workshop to get into the property has a combination padlock - no key required there.

The overhead door at the workshop has a jackshaft door operator and an external keypad - no key required there.

Now we've got a man door, what to do about locking that door? We have an old Weiser keypad deadbolt, but it's a 2-3/8" backset lock and won't fit this 2-3/4" backset door.

Did a bit of digging out on the internet and found a magnetic door lock at Smarthome.com that was on a great sale. 1200# locking force, plus for a few $ more a digital keypad control.

Installed - works great:

I was disappointed to discover the keypad is #1 - not exterior rated (nothing said about it being internal only on the website, the box or the instructions, but it's clearly not weather hardy), and #2, not hardened against vandalism. A would-be thief only needs to smash this unit with a hammer and the voltage to the magnet is removed and the door can be opened.

It's not visible from the street, so I think we're OK for a bit... (everything is insured...)

Since we added the lock, I found a battery-backup power supply by Honeywell that's designed to power security cameras during power outages. It will power this 12v lock for about 6 hours after loss of power, which should be enough to protect the space in the event of a blackout.

Need to figure out a way to guarantee power to the magnet if someone disables the keypad...

 

[wbrian63]

Boy - as this project matures, the updates sure do get sparse...

Here's a picture of the man door all trimmed out, and the Honeywell UPS/power supply that powers the door latch:

Also mounted a door closer. That took a bit of doing. The door is actually installed backwards. In order for the door to swing out, the inside of the door is actually facing outside. The closer would have to be mounted outside if the instructions were followed. Solution was a piece of 2" angle iron screwed to the door frame and the closer mounted to that. Works just fine.

My sister's first (and only) born celebrated her 3rd birthday recently. Lori (sister) asked me to make a step-like device she'd seen in a catalog. Elizabeth (niece) likes helping mommy cook, and putting her on a step stool is risky business.

Here's what we came up with. Used some more of the siding that came from my Great Uncle.

The side frames are 2-1/4" wide x 3/4" thick, joined at the corners with mortise and tenon joints:

I cut the cheeks of the tenons on the table saw, and removed the balance with this handy tenon jig (pardon the rust):

The mortises were made on the Steel City hollow chisel mortise machine. Very handy tool that is.

The step is a bunch of boards, edge glued to form a plank about 20" square.

The upper and lower rails that connect the side frames are through mortise and tenons, but rounded instead of the traditional square:

The tenons were cut in the same manner as the side frames, but square tenons don't fit well in round mortises, so I used a 3/16" radius bit on the router table to form the finished end of the tenon, and then a safety knife to clean the remainder:

The mortises were made with a 5/16" forstner bit, overlapping the holes, and only drilling until the point showed through the face, then flipping the piece over to drill from the other side - no blow-out this way.

Then VERY carefully, I used a 1/4" router bit in the router table with the fence positioned "just so" to clean up all the bumps left over by the too-small forstner bit (the mortises were to be 3/8" wide). This is where the Incra fence really comes into its own. Being able to tweak the position of the fence .001 at a time really comes in handy.

Once the sides were tidy, I clamped a stop on the drill press to position a 3/8" forstner bit exactly at the end of each mortise farthest from an end. I cut a spacer exactly the right length to shift the piece over to put the bit at the end of the mortise closest to the end of a piece. With this setup, I was able to drill the ends of the mortises exactly for 4 of the 8 mortises. Then I had to shift the setup to do the other 4, as the mortises were not centered on the side frames.

The end result was a set of 8 neatly formed mortises, accepting 8 neatly formed tenons.

The side frames were assembled and after the glue dried, the edges were rounded on the router table, and both assemblies sanded smooth. Then the upper and lower rails were installed, having been pre-rounded and sanded, and everything was clamped solidly to allow the glue to dry.

Once the glue had set, a little aggressive sanding where the tenons poked through and some final touch-up sanding made the frame ready for finishing.

The step was reinforced with a pair of stretchers front and rear. The side frames have 4 sets of holes drilled to accept the pins from 4 barrel bolts that attach to the stretchers. Right now, the top-most holes put Elizabeth at a comfortable working height. As she grows, the platform can be lowered easily.

Here's the frame in the finishing room after a several coats of rattle-can poly. No finish, just the clear poly. Really brings out the color of the wood, I think.

And the step:

And the birthday girl helping mommy...

The construction was slow fiddly work, but everything went together smoothly and the results were spectacular. Once the finish dried, I took some 0000 steel wool and knocked down all the roughness of the poly, and evened up the sheen to produce a polished result.

As I was sweating up a storm during the last of the sanding, Tin remarked that this type of work paid particularly well.

How's that? I asked...

"A hug and a kiss from a little girl"

He couldn't be more right...

 

[oiad]

You are a true craftsman!

 

[wbrian63]

Thank you sir.

 

[wbrian63]

A small update. Tractor Supply had a Hobart 187 on sale for $549, and I was lucky enough to snag one.

Of course, $549 isn't where the spending stops. The unit comes ready to weld, assuming you want to use gasless wire, and I don't unless I have to. Don't get me wrong - I'm no expert welder - far from it. I played around with a nice Mig unit at my consulting gig, and the beads I could lay down with .035 wire and gas were amazing - far better than any stick welding I'd ever done, with very little practice.

I asked the in-house welder what the difference was between using the gasless wire and what I'd just used. His response was the gasless was good when you had to work outdoors where the shielding gas would get blown away, but if you didn't have to use it, don't.

I know my first apprentice project will be to construct a welding cart, but until then, I needed something to move the unit around, so I made use of the Sears utility cart we have in the shop. When positioned in the corner, the side door on the welder will just open. Plenty of space in front of the welder to put gloves, extra tips, etc.

The problems? First, the short power cord wasn't going to cut it. I don't want to weld only within reaching distance of the power socket. A trip to my local electric supply house, one Benjamin lighter and I had a wall socket, a male plug and 50' of 10-3 wire. I had intended to buy a female socket so I could make a real extension cord, but they were out of stock, so I removed the factory cable, enlarged the hole with my Greenlee punchout kit and wired the cable in directly.

Then I made a holder to attach to the cart to hold the cord. Nothing fancy - several stacks of 3/4" OSB using a 5-gallon bucket as the radius, plus a larger piece to hold the cord in place. Attached the holder to the end of the car, right behind the welder.

OK - now I'm going to weld with gas, but where to put my new $175 bottle of gas? (See, I told you the spending doesn't stop with the purchase of the welder...)

I figured the weight of the welder would be sufficient to ballast the weight of the tank if I made a frame to hold it on the side of the cart. - - WRONG - - no where near stable.

Change of plans - put the holder on the end of the cart, and the wire on the side. To make sure the platform the tank will sit in is strong enough, make it from a piece of hardwood 3/4" plywood, with a second piece on top with a hole cut in it to position the bottom of the tank. Add a 1/2" baltic-birch plywood floor to the bottom of the cart to help spread the weight of the tank.

How to keep the tank from tipping over? Build a hinged collar out of 2 pieces of 3/4" plywood (this is a woodshop primarily...). Construct the unit intact, then cut it apart on the band saw. Add a hinge at one cut, and a latch made up of 3 wood-thread screw eyes, a 1/4" screw, a machine thread screw eye and a bolt with the threads cut off an 10/32 threads tapped in the end.

Add to this a $70 flow meter to replace the pressure gauges so I don't waste the gas, and we've got a semi-portable rig ready for welding.

I've used it a couple of times and I like the results I'm getting. I've got a primo Miller welding helmet courtesy a member here on GJ. Some good lightweight gloves for better dexterity, some work boots pulled from the back of the closet (tennis-shoes are not a good idea for welding - too many paths to tender skin through the top of the shoes), an old cotton long-sleeve shirt to prevent weld burn and "look what I can do!!!!"

 

[peelman]

the latch on the tank older is a slick little piece of cobble engineering (my favorite kind of engineering!) The only thing i'd do differently is drill the cut-off bolt for a piece of string or something to tie it off with, that would be something that would disappear quite readily (for me at least).

 

[wbrian63]

I enjoy cobble engineering myself. Nothing better than making something from nothing.

At the rate I use this machine, the person that inherits the welder will be the next person to remove the bolt.

My actual plan was to make the pivot point out of a block of wood with a slot for the eye-bolt and a cross-drilled hole for the "axle". The other side of the latch would have also been wood, with a slot for the thread of the eye-bolt and a flat for the bolt base to press against.

I don't describe things well sometimes - I've attached a .jpg with what I had planned originally. The blocks would be made from baltic-birch plywood for stability.

 

[oscar78]

is osb better than just plywood? i am looking into it cause m starting my garage build in a couple of months your project looks really awsome

 

[wbrian63]

Far as I can tell, the only thing OSB has going for it is price. When we were building the shop, OSB shot up in price from about $5.50/sheet to nearly $14.00/sheet in just a few weeks. That put it within a dollar or so of the cost of CDX plywood, and within $2-$3 of BC plywood.

I was really watching the spend rate at that point so I stuck with OSB. In truth, we probably gobbled up most of the price differential between OSB and CDX with extra costs in primer and paint. If we were having to pay for the painting, the difference in material savings would have been completely lost in extra labor costs.

Next time, OSB will not be allowed in the shop... (I hope).

It's an acceptable product for roof decking and siding underlayment on houses. They even have thicker versions that work well as floor underlayment in multi-story structures, but all those uses are covered by a final finish layer where you don't have to do anything to the OSB but install it.

 

[wbrian63]

Update time.

When we moved the man door from the west wall to the north wall adjacent to the overhead door, that created a gaping hole in the shop. Gotta fill it with something, as the depth there is too good to be wasted.

Had 8 drawers left over from a built-in entertainment center at the house that has been removed. A bit of scrap MDF and we have a base cabinet with 8 drawers, and a gap between to store cased tools.

Above the base will be shelves, and the supports for those are seen in this view:

Added the shelves with braces across the front:

The shelves will be enclosed behind a pair of glass-insert doors. Woodshops make a lot of dust, and things stored in open shelves tend to collect a LOT of dust. I don't like dust...

Frames are made out of that spare siding material I used to make my niece's 3rd birthday present, and have used many other places in the shop.

Half-lap joints at the corners:

Assembled, glass in and installed:

I put a center stile, attached to the shelves in the cabinet to provide a better seal - the edges of the doors are rabbeted to allow them to overlay the center stile.

As noted previously in the thread, our big project for this year (and probably oozing over into 2012) is a new kitchen for Tin's parents. The work has finally begun, and I'll start another thread on that project, as others have expressed interest in what we do in this space.

Wanted to add a digital readout to the tablesaw. This project gave me a good reason, and I've been very impressed with the DRO added to the planer - made by Wixey.

Ordered one from Amazon and it arrived last week. Installation called for attaching the rail to the underside of the saw fence with thread-cutting screws. Fortunately, the Dewalt Unifence already has a channel that fits a 5/16" bolt:

Here's the readout head on the rail - before I attached it to the fence.

The scale came with a universal mounting bracket - a little bending, and tapping the saw fence for #8-32 screws to hold it in place:

And in use:

Total install time was about 2 hours. Biggest problem was the one I got from Amazon was DOA, despite having a nicely signed QC tag attached to it. Really needed the unit for work this weekend, so on Saturday, I went over to Rockler and bought one there. Much to my surprise, the Rockler price was the same as the Amazon price, and with tax, came out less than the Amazon purchase (I added 3-day expedited freight...).

The Rockler unit, with the Amazon head, is going back to Amazon tomorrow.

The head attaches to the fence with a magnet, so the fence can be removed and replaced at any time without affecting calibration. My first attempt at calibration resulted in a part that was within .005 of what the scale said it should be. Not too shabby.

Scale resolution is .005, or 1/32 fractional. Initially I thought it only showed 1/32nd increments, but what they mean is it only shows fractions down to 1/32. The scale does show .005 increments.

Very satisfied so far. Just have to be careful not to slide the fence too fast. The instructions say less than 3" per second and the scale should keep up. Faster and you risk losing calibration.

Calibration is easy - slide the fence over until the teeth of the saw just graze the fence when rotated by hand, then press the On/Calibrate button for 5 seconds.

I need to trim the bottom of the bracket so it sits above the bottom of the fence. When I remove the fence from the tablesaw and set it on the table, I don't want the fence to rest on the bracket. I think I'm going to add another screw through the vertical section of the bracket, with a backup nut, to add rigidity. The bracket is 1/8" thick, but it's very soft metal and could easily be bent.

That's all for now. I'll start the thread on the cabinet construction in a few days. I'll add a link to that topic to this thread...

Thanks for reading.

 

[peelman]

LOL @ the 3 day express from Amazon. My Prime membership has paid for itself repeatedly; be it getting a birthday gift here Next Day for $4 or just ordering random stuff for around the house on the free two day shipping and not having to worry about making sure I get it when out and about. The upfront cost is expensive, but works out to be < $6/month. Considering the place is like a Walmart/Sams Club/Target/Meijer that delivers, I can justify that almost every day of the week.

 

[wbrian63]

I thought about the Amazon Prime membership, but so far I've been content to use their free shipping and just wait for those items. Rarely do I have to expedite things.

 

[wbrian63]

Started a new thread on the cabinets we're building for Tin's parents.

Read all about it here: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1733103#post1733103

Regards

 

[peelman]

I was finding myself ordering something for $15 then spending another $10 on stuff i didn't *really* need just to get the free shipping. At that rate, it didn't take much for me to justify the yearly Prime fee, and now that EVERYTHING is free two-day shipping, I go there before i even bother contemplating a list or my next store trip.

Just in the past 7 days: weird style batteries for garage door opener, jacket for my wife's birthday, window tint for my south-facing-with-no-shade office window, stuff that I normally would need to run out to get, but would put off until I was going out anyway, or had enough of a list to make a trip out of it, then I risk forgetting (something i'm notorious for doing). Now i can just jump on the blackberry from anywhere, or from the iPad or Mac Pro at home, and it shows up a day or two later. I pimp it like I was making money off of it, its just that good.

Another funny example: a friend recorded our wedding on his digital cameras this summer. From the honeymoon in Maui, I ordered a drive, had it two-dayed to him so he could offload the video (i hadn't really thought about how we were going to transfer almost a hundred gigs of 1080p video, and he needed his cards/cameras free because he was about to have a baby girl). The kicker is, the drive arrived and was broken. Thanks to my Prime membership, Amazon gave us a prepaid label to return it, and next-dayed the new drive to him. If we'd have done that with Free Shipping it would have been a 2-3 week process and I probably would have had to pay to ship it back.

Plus now they're doing the whole netflix-ish media streaming, which is bundled in with Prime. There are levels of it, like the subscription stuff, that I haven't even bothered to dive into yet, but probably will eventually.

 

[wbrian63]

What's the deal peelman? you get a commission from Amazon.com for every Prime membership they sell???

Just kidding. I'm interested in the streaming thing - I'll dig a bit deeper when I have a few moments.

I've heard nothing but positive things about the Prime membership from those that have it. Had I bought in when it was first offered, I'd have long since made my purchase price back - and then some...

Regards

 

[Kevin54]

I just read thru this complete thread and all I can say is WOW!!!

Your craftmanship is fantastic. What I can't believe is that all this has been built just to be dismantled on down the road. An amazing amount of work has went into it. It would be a shame to have to move it later on.

Again.....

 

[wolflrv]

+1 on the Amazon Prime membership! I couldn't survive live in the country without Amazon and the prime shipping is just serious icing on the cake!!

 

[wbrian63]

I just read thru this complete thread and all I can say is WOW!!!

Your craftmanship is fantastic. What I can't believe is that all this has been built just to be dismantled on down the road. An amazing amount of work has went into it. It would be a shame to have to move it later on.

Again.....

Thanks, Kevin. I fit the textbook definition of a Type-A personality. If I don't have something to do with my time, I find something...

 

[wbrian63]

Taking a small break from the cabinets. I'm at the point where it's time to cut dadoes for the backs, but some of the panels are very large and Tin's help is needed to ensure a positive outcome.

At the old workshop, the crosscut sled hung on the wall adjacent to the saw. Here, the stairwell is adjacent to the saw, so no joy there. Thought about building a slide-out tray for under the saw table, but the depth of the sled plus the thickness of the tray and slides was too much to fit under the saw table. Need to be careful with this fixture - it's all too easy to bump it into something and knock something out alignment.

Built a drawer to hold the sled. The drawer isn't as deep as the sled is wide, so I just left the back frame off and the sled hangs out the back. There's a cleat on the bottom of the drawer to catch one of the runners from the sled so it won't slide forward when the drawer is pushed home.

Here it is closed:

And open:

Opening the drawer and removing the sled is no problem. Putting the sled back in the drawer is an issue, because the drawer wants to close as you're trying to slide the sled home.

Solution was simple - a bit of "cobble engineering" (credit Peelman for the phrase):

A piece of 1-1/4" x 1/4" thick aluminum bar, a 1/4"-20 stainless steel panhead screw and a little effort. The wood screw above the latch is a stop so the latch can't be lifted too high. The small block on the front of the drawer keeps the latch from falling down when the drawer is closed fully.

The latch just lays on the drawer side as it is moved in and out:

When the drawer is pulled fully open, the latch drops into a groove cut in the side of the drawer:

To close the drawer, just lift up on the latch and push the drawer home:

Works nicely. Gonna build some more cabinets for beneath this drawer - one day.

Frequent readers will remember the construction of the table saw outfeed table back in January. The legs are adjustable via a 3/8" threaded rod that is fitted to a foot and slides loosely in the leg blank - you can see the foot at the bottom of this picture:

The only problems with this setup are:
1) The legs aren't fixed to the floor. There's no risk of them breaking off, but vacuum and air hoses play hell with the legs.
2) The gap between the foot and the leg is just large enough to catch and hold an air hose.
Today, finally got around to building and installing the saw table leg "cuffs" - these slide down over the gap between the table leg and its adjustable foot.

Only built these for the 11 exposed legs. 22 pieces 4"x3", 22 pieces 2.25"x4". Probably used more screws than necessary, but the "industrialness" of the fasteners makes the result look cool, I think. Cut a 30-degree bevel along the top edge - makes it look nice, and less of a ledge to catch dust on:

Before installing each cuff, I made sure the table leg stands vertically, making any height adjustments at the same time. Then I pilot-drilled and installed two screws through the foot pad and into the floor. No more bumping the legs out of position.

Here's one of the 11 cuffs installed.

That's all for now.

Regards

 

[wbrian63]

One of the big problems with building cabinets by yourself is making sure everything gets cut right. A 49 x 97 sheet of melamine weighs 82#. It very easy to damage the material by allowing it to bump on the edge, and even easier to hurt yourself trying to move it.

Part of the process of building cabinets is cutting dadoes in the bottom and sides for the back panel. That's not a problem for a standard 24"w x 32"t base cabinet, but it is a problem for a large panel, say for a built-in pantry or oven enclosure. The sheets used to make large cabinets can distort and bend under their own weight. Once the cabinet is assembled, any minor distortions are removed, but minor distortions aren't tolerable during construction.

Cutting an accurate dado requires two things - the material must be pressed tightly to the saw fence, and simultaneously tightly to the saw table. This ensures a dado that is of consistent offset vs the edge of the material, and consistent depth vs the face of the material. Inserting a back panel in a cabinet that is 30"+ wide x 92" tall (typical oven cabinet) is difficult. Even if the dado is the proper width, the friction of the back sliding in the groove gets more pronounced as the panel is forced home. If the dado isn't consistent in depth from start to finish, you can find yourself in a real mess when the back suddenly stops it's progression and locks in place. I've had to disassemble cabinets before to solve this problem.

The solution when you have a helper is to have them press down on the material as it passes over the dado blade. This is problematic and somewhat risky, as having two sets of hands controlling material going through a saw can result in unintended movement.

The "UniFence" on a Delta Unisaw in our shop attaches only at the front rail. The aftermarket fence insert has a T-slot to allow items to be attached to the fence, but pressing down isn't something a fence attached only at the front excels at.

The solution is a fence "hold down", and here's how it was built:

Start with a 1/4"-20 threaded insert.

We're going to install this in the outfeed table, just off the back side of the saw table. The problem with a threaded insert is unless you drill the installation hole all the way through the substrate material, sawdust and debris will collect in the hole, and you'll have to clean it out every time you want to use it.

Solution - install it such that a 1/4"-20 flat head screw can be inserted when the hold-down isn't in use:

The hole to accept the threaded insert needs to be just undersize from the root diameter of the insert. Softer materials need more undersizing, and harder materials less. In this case, the outfeed table substrate is MDF, and the frame below is yellow pine. Needed to install the insert deep enough to bite into the yellow pine, so that when we use the hold down, we don't risk delaminating the MDF and causing the top to bulge.

Installing threaded inserts requires a firm hand and a drill or impact driver. This one in particular accepts a hex shank bit, and an exact match was found in the tool chest. If you don't provide consistent force down as the insert is threading in, if it stalls for any reason, the teeth that have engaged the substrate will lift and delaminate the substrate - a quick way to ruin a fun afternoon. Press firmly and drive the insert in slowly.

Drilled the hole until we saw pine shavings coming out of the flutes, plus a little more. Then used a countersink to cut a relief in the table to allow the flat head screw to sit below the table surface when properly installed:

The hold down is made from scrap soft maple. Cut a .275 wide x 1.0 slot in the horizontal piece, to allow for adjustments left and right to allow for varying dado offsets. Simply screwed together at the corner. A piece of 1/4" all thread with a couple of nuts jammed together at the end to keep the rod from threading in too far, and a fender washer and SAE 1/4" washer under a 1/4" wingnut complete the setup:

Why all this? Because we need a set of helping hands to hold the material tight to the saw table as we push it through the blade. These plastic "finger boards" made by BenchDog are just the ticket:

 

[wbrian63]

place holder

 

[peelman]

Stuff like this makes me glad that guys like you are out there. MDF and particle board are two things I couldn't imagine working with.

Indeed, one of my projects coming up is redoing a closet in our house to make it more of a pantry, and getting the pre-drilled Particle Board / Melamine shelf risers is incredibly tempting, but working with the flaky (literally and figuratively) is so tedious I am hesitant to do it.

Leaning instead towards replacing a base and corresponding upper cabinet in the kitchen with a single pantry cabinet. The problem being, this pantry cabinet would be right next to the stove and the wife is worried about heat/splatter. I have 15" of room from wall to edge, and I could cleanly remove the two cabinets in question without affecting any of the others.

Ok, just realized I'm hijacking your thread, I'll shut up now

 

[impala_631]

Very impressive finish job!!

 

[Lomotil]

Good lord.

You have successfully slapped everything I've worked to attain in my garage, straight across the face, in a single bitchslap.

Nice job!

 

[rmckee]

Absolutely incredible work. It kills me to think that in 2014 you'll have to tear it all out and bring it somewhere else. The attention to detail (especially in the smaller pieces) is unparalleled.

Best to you! I look forward to seeing what else you come up with.