The renovators work shop

[gasgas17]

The wife asked me to make a new clothes pin box the other day, so I thought I would share the journey. Not because the clothes pin box is all that exciting, but maybe share some shop techniques and or ideas. Some back ground on myself first I guess. I'm a career carpenter / renovation contractor. I don't typically do a lot of shop work. Just the odd cabinet here and there, or making the odd one off piece for a job. We will often do a bunch of ripping at the shop before we head out to a job too. But 95% of our work is on site, as I'm sure it is with most guys in my situation. With that being said my shop is 65% storage for tools and equipment. So that takes a big chunk of my 24' x 22' foot shop. But we function not too bad.

So back to the clothes pin box. It's obviously outside in the weather and pine dosen't last real well out in the weather around here. (I'm not sure about the US but all of our paint products are now no VOC and they **** for the most part). I do have a bunch of red cedar pointy shaped scrap boards left over from building these steeples a few years ago. The stuff is too expensive to throw away or burn in the wood stove.

 

[gasgas17]

So I jointed the tapered edges straight so I could glue them up into square panels. Yeah I know I could have ripped a bunch of narrow boards to glue up, but it's just a clothes pin box and the angled glue joint will be a "feature"!

Ready for scraping.

 

[gasgas17]

Some finished blanks ready to be made into something useful. All jointed ripped straight and sanded.

Next was to decide on the joinery to be used to make the box. I like to keep skills up by using techniques/tools that don't get used very often. For example I try and do at least a couple sets of hardwood stairs a year to keep the skills in practice. So we pulled out the dovetail jig. With some polyurethane glue, this thing will never fall apart.

I just get this thing figured out in time to put it away for a few more years.

That's it until next time. Dirt biking tomorrow, so be back later in the week maybe. Please feel free to ask questions along the way.

 

[twarren]

Going dirt biking in Nova Scotia on March 28th?? Seems somewhat unfair.

Warren......

 

[Richard Cranium]

looks like a good use of scrap wood, you have some nice skills

 

[gasgas17]

Going dirt biking in Nova Scotia on March 28th?? Seems somewhat unfair.

Warren......

We ride all year around Halifax area when conditions are right. One of the best days ever 3 weeks ago. Using trail studs of course. But I expect nothing more than some frozen puddles and sand today.

These help.....

 

[gasgas17]

looks like a good use of scrap wood, you have some nice skills

Thanks

 

[captain14]

Nice project with the scraps and detail work with the dovetails. Will the finish you apply show the dovetails? I would hate to see those "hidden ".

 

[gasgas17]

Nice project with the scraps and detail work with the dovetails. Will the finish you apply show the dovetails? I would hate to see those "hidden ".

Yes. Some kind of clear finish. Thanks

 

[gasgas17]

Made it back out to the shop for a couple hours this evening. Cut the slope on the top of the box to help shed the weather. Sized the bottom and assembled the box.

Installed the bottom with biscuits to avoid fasteners.

Glued all joints and biscuits with polyurethane glue.

Just picked up a new project for the shop. I need to raise the height of the work bench to match the table saw and then install the new vice. It is a 7" Jorgensen from Lee Valley. Very beefy unit with a really nice quick release.

I'm thinking of just picking up some 1 1/2" butcher block counter top and making a split top with a trough in the middle like a wood workers bench.

 

[kbs2244]

OK...
I will bite...
What is a clothes pin?

 

[spike99250]

OK...
I will bite...
What is a clothes pin?

You use it to pin your clothes to a clothes line outside.

 

[jimgood]

OK...
I will bite...
What is a clothes pin?

You use it to pin your clothes to a clothes line outside.

LOL...welcome to the world, kbs! Was that rock heavy you crawled out from under?

 

[gasgas17]

Give the guy a break. He may have grown up in one of those sub-divisions that don't allow clothes lines. Yes they exist........

 

[Greeny]

Isn't a clothesline a deterrent to dirt bikers?

 

[BikerDad]

Give the guy a break. He may have grown up in one of those sub-divisions that don't allow clothes lines. Yes they exist........

They may still exist, but I haven't used clothespins for clothes in 25 years, except maybe possibly while camping. It's not really a sub-division thing, it's a "hey, I've got a dryer" thing.

 

[gasgas17]

They may still exist, but I haven't used clothespins for clothes in 25 years, except maybe possibly while camping. It's not really a sub-division thing, it's a "hey, I've got a dryer" thing.

LoL. It's a fresh smelling clothes thing. Nothing beats crawling into bed with fresh sheets off the clothes line. Plus it saves some power. With 3 adult kids the dryer never stops.

 

[kbs2244]

Ah...
Now I remember!!

 

[gasgas17]

Well, I guess I dropped the ball on this thread! I think some of your guys must have more spare time than I do...... Haha. We did however do a cool project in the drive way at the shop a couple weeks ago. I bought a new Ram 3500 Promaster extended high roof van to replace our aging E 350 work van. It was completely unfinished inside the cargo area and did not come with the factory divider. Carpentry presents some unique requirements for moving materials and tools over other trades in that our gear is generally larger (Table saws, miter saws, compressors and an entire host of other tools, fasteners, saw horses, drop sheets........., well you get the picture. Personally, I like to have most of my gear on the job all the time. So the trick is to out fit the van to hold all the gear and still be able to haul materials and or large pieces of equipment like the siding brake at the same time.

Here is the van before I started

 

[gasgas17]

So with this blank slate, the idea is to create enough shelving/storage for most of the gear so you don't have a lot of stuff on the floor. This enables us to load materials at the same time. This van has a clear floor space that is 13'-4" at the floor from the back doors to that white riser to the cab in the above picture. It also has 16'-10" into the cab area if one were to slide materials in under the seats. We do this all the time in the extended ford to fit 12" materials into the dog house or up to 15 feet under the front passenger seat. 8-12 foot material is most common, but door casings come 14 feet and base boards come up to 16 feet. And of course drywall is up to 12 feet long.

The kicker is that I would really like to have a divider in this van to help keep the cab on the cleaner side. It all has to be quit driving down the road too! This is what I came up with...

I started by de-cladding the lower frame of the passenger seat and removing the jack under that seat as well. It has been relocated to the shelf above the cab.

1/2" spruce select on the walls. It bends pretty easy to conform to the walls. I had to build some sub-structure for the walls.
5/8" spruce select T&G on the floor.
The divider is 3/4" fir ply on the bottom 3rd and 1/2" ply on the top 2/3rds.
The wall cabinets/Shelving is all 1/2" fir ply with 1/2" x 1" strips on edge under all edges of the shelves and one side of most uprights with polyurethane moisture activated glue in all joints. It's not far off trying to finish the inside of a boat as there are no straight lines inside the existing van other than the floor.

I had this little vice in one of my previous vans and I missed having it in the last one. So it finds a new home in the Promaster. It comes in really handy when you have to cut a bolt or screw, or a framing hanger and the like. It will also swivel around to face the opposite side of the van.

It took a full gallon of water base clear finish to seal the plywood from dust. We have found over a long period of time it holds dirt like an old rug. Even the shop vac wont get it clean.

Sealed the floor with some grey epoxy latex floor paint.

 

[gasgas17]

All the edges are rounded off with the router as they just wear and splinter if you don't. The painted floor has glass bead shaken over the last coat for some anti slip. The floor behind the divider has 12'-6" to the back doors. In the first pic you can see a set of sliding doors in the divider. When open you can slide material longer than 12' into the cab. So you can carry 16 foot materials with the doors closed. A handy feature for interior wood products in inclement weather. I will get some better pics of the details the next time I see the van at work as an employee takes it home.

 

[gasgas17]

The old van for comparison. It was a 15 passenger van that I removed all but one row of rear seating from and installed somewhat the same kind of set up in the back behind the seat. It worked pretty well, but the kids all have their own vehicles now so no more need for a back seat. I still had all the interior and seats in the shed, so I reinstalled them and sold the van yesterday 12 hours after posting it on kijiji. Canada's version of Craigs list.

 

[Basher]

Meanwhile...

back at the washing line...

wifey may be wondering what happened to the peg box?!




Anyhow, good work & great skills
Keep it up

 

[captain14]

Looks great. How much design work went into the van before you started cutting and
fitting ?

How the clothes pin container holding up?

Thanks