The Dirty Old Barn

[Delirious]

I really should wait until I have set up my computer to start posting, but I just cant help myself. The phone will do just fine for now...

Also untill now I really have not documented my work untill recently. This forum has changed that for me.

A little back ground and an explanation of my goals.

My wife and I are still quite young (23 at the moment) but we both agree that we belong to the 40+ age group. We just purchased our first home mortgage free; in our home town. Unfortunatly its roughly 20 mins from my workshop on the other side of town...

But its really not right to complain, because that means we have TWO garages to play in!!!

I just started working for the county full time but only 4 days a week! I am used to working 70-80 hours a week 7 days a week so I still trying to adjust to actually having a life...

Hopefully this extra free time will result im some interesting content for you guys and fun for me.

At the moment I think I will just try to clean and organize my shop and home garage, and I will throw in some of gramps and my own peojects if you guys are interested.

Shot of our new home and garage:

Here are the last couple of projects I had the pleasure of doing with my wife supervising:

Garden for her, 4 yards of "organic" soil hauled in via 1 cuft bags by yours truly...

Tiled the entire house alone and added some flare ro the bedroom, new colonial trim, paint, wood wall thing, crown. Trimming out the window thwn moving onto the bathroom next.

Sory about the hgtv blurb, I know its not shop related but I cant resist.

Shop stuff from here on out, scouts honor!

In the coming months I intend to finish what my gramps refers to as Sick Sally.

Continue to upgrade my baby (Ladder bars incoming). We just moved from vermont back to FL 2 weeks ago, most recent pic I have of her just before we left.

But the first thing is first! Really need to being my shop back up to snuff.

I had to sell my table saw when I left Vermont due to lack of room in the tiny moving trailer we got.
I went yardsailing last week and snaged an older craftsman 113 nearly identical to my old one for 25$. The guy said the fence was lost and that the blade was not true to the table. He had given up on it and was just going to scrap it!?

Only took a fresh blade, new belt, and some gentle tapping of the trunions with a BFH ro get it cutting nice with a 2x4 I clamped to the table as a temp fence.

After doing a bit of research on here and on other forums I purchased a 50" Vega Pro rip fence for the rediculous price of 298$!!! But I needed a fence, tapping and truing the 2x4 got really old while making my wife an endgrain cutting board.

In the end im into the saw for ~350$, which is the price of a decent entry level contractor saw. BUT my saw is MUCH more capable, just as accurate, and better built.

Win!

Now I just need to make infeed and outfeed tables haha.

Sory for the massive post, but now that its out of the way, we are all up to speed?... for the most part.
More to come!
Stay tuned.

 

[Delirious]

I didnt get a chance to really clean up anything today, but I did do a little experimenting with the new Vega fence.

My wife asked me to make some floating shelves for our wedding photos.

I have never attempted to make a floating shelf and all I had available was some rather wet 2x6x16 yellow pine. I figured I could make 3 shelves with 1 board so they werent too costly and If she does not like the I can just hand them in the garage.

If you are unfamiliar with southern yellow pine, it is not anything you want to use to make pretty things with. And as it drys it can and will get up and walk all the way out the door.

With my router still packed up somewhere, all I has was the table saw to work with.

I started by drilling the holes for the 3/4" dowels that will hold the shelves to the brackets.

I really need to get a few forsner bits.

After I cut and riped the wood to the appropriat lenghts. (No measuring was done, they are roughly 4' in length) I started to cut some T&G's on the pieces. The Vega micro adjust is so helpful and accurate, no more tap tap tapping!

Beater chisel did just fine, still need to unpack my good ones. I managed a tight fit just by eyeballing it.

40 mins later, I ended up with 3 decent shelves. The next batch will be of better quality, but I am happy with these.

Tomorrow I will have to fill the knots, sand ,prime ,and paint

 

[BuickFarmer]

You did all that on your PHONE, can't wait to see what you do on your computer!!! Looking good so far, keep us posted.

 

[Joe13]

Awesome work! I need to pick up a table saw again at some point. The older craftsman are great saws.

 

[48RON54]

Nice work!

 

[Delirious]

Awesome work! I need to pick up a table saw again at some point. The older craftsman are great saws.

They really are, so many people just chuck them because they are old and harder to work on...

Best part about them is that they are cheep! If you are willing and get the oportunity to, pick up an old 113 and a "REAL" fence. It will cut just as good as one of thoes 2k+ cabinet saws.

I have been pretty busy with the house and pre employment testing, so no shop work.

But I plan to head down there today to build a power rack for my wife and I. I was given an ungodly amount of red steel while I was working for DeBartolo Dev. In Orlando a year or so ago.

Im talking like 8 or 9k in 8-16' flats, angle, and 12x8 tube! FOR FREE! I also ended up with 9 bundles (16') if that ceader T&G that a paneled my bedroom wall with. AND a large quantity of old growth heart pine beams and boards from the original Mills & Nebraska lumber co. buildings, tho not as much as I would like...

 

[Delirious]

Well yesterday I did one thing to the barn, or rather outside the barn.

The paint has been peeling from my sign post for years, I couldnt take it any more!

Nice and brown now.

Then I got distracted from working "on" the barn to working "in" the barn.

Lately my wife has shown an intrest in fitness, I used to have a home gym, and really do miss lifting at home. Soooo I decided to make a simple power rack and go search for an olympic bar and weights afterwards.

By simple I meen REALLY simple, maybe one day I will build a fancy cage but for now a simple T bolted to tge floir to hold a bar will be fine. At most it will only be required to hold 400lbs.

I drug up some angle from one of the storage barns, the small angle will be for a bench, just the big stuff today.

Normally I would just cut it with the Scotsman but I dont have enough infeed/outfeed space for a 20'er. No waste in this project, the material was free but I hate to waste it.

So I drug out the band saw.

No pics of the cutting, the gas strus is shot so I had to hold the arm up while oiling and catching the drops on the back side haha. I found out how hard ot is to man handle a 7' long piece of 4"x4" angle with one hand...

I ended up with this.

Then I warmed up my Scotsman and changed the punch and die out to 1".

Tried to be artistic.

The mess is much easier to clean up than a drill press too, that alone makes this machine worthit haha.

Rounded over the corners. (In reality I just wanted to use the new gun and hose)

Clamped it up.

I ended up using the smaw machine, I also ended up running a tad too hot and too fast... I should have used a test piece to dial it in first rather than just shooting from the hip. No excuse for bad work...

It was getting late and I was in a hurry so not many more pics.

Bolted down with my wifes curl bar for spacing, I will have to unbolt it to paint it but the paint wont make it work any better.

Im going to thread a piece of pipe to use as a spreader/pullup bar today.

Also can you catch my screwup? Hehe thats what happens when im rushing so I wont miss dinner lol. Oh well.

 

[jcgresham]

Also can you catch my screwup? Hehe thats what happens when im rushing so I wont miss dinner lol. Oh well.

A mirrored mirror; still functional!

 

[theoldwizard1]

Awesome work! I need to pick up a table saw again at some point. The older craftsman are great saws.

ABSOLUTELY ! Best bang for the buck !

Make sure to get a belt drive model like the OP !