Tooling organization

[7echo]

Off topic a second..

Hi kruegdr, I like the avatar you have. I see a sign like that almost daily.

 

[lilscorpion]

Nice job! I've considered going the HDPE route. How much did the slab cost?

I think I got a 12x48 sheet for $80 all said and done. This first tray is 12x16 so I won't get three out of it.

 

[kruegdr]

7echo, do you happen to work in the vicinity of Waverly AL? PM me so we dont hijack the thread. The CofG is near and dear to my heart, as is the Frisco and the Santa Fe.


Lil scorpion, that's not so bad a price for a slab that thick.

I think I got a 12x48 sheet for $80 all said and done. This first tray is 12x16 so I won't get three out of it.

 

[lilscorpion]

Re: Tool Organization

Got a little more time to spend on the pliers rack. Had a little misfortune with the 5/8-inch end mill on a .250 plunge cut. Been cutting plastic and aluminum with it for maybe 7 years now. Guess it was bound to happen some day. Kinda wish I coulda got another few years out of it.

This tray is for the pliers under 9-inches in length. Was tempted to make the slots a little closer together than the bigger tray so i settled for 3/8-inch. Laid out the setup and got to cutting. Took a little longer for this tray because I was cutting with an undersized end mill and had to cut rectangles instead of slots.

After trimming it to size, dropping it in, and loading it up I'm liking it. Plenty of room to grow. Only downside is I didn't have any of the knipex pliers yet so I don't know if the comfort handles will fit the slots.

 

[kylefitz]

One of the best threads on this site!

 

[sideroad]

Re: Tool Organization

Neat setup for the pliers. Having them on edge is a top move. I hate my plier draw in my tool chest. Every time I close it they all slide to the back and eventually even bunch enough to jam the draw. Thanks, will be doing this one.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[lilscorpion]

Re: Tool Organization

...I hate my plier draw in my tool chest. Every time I close it they all slide to the back and eventually even bunch enough to jam the draw. Thanks, will be doing this one.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Same deal here. I used to have to fix the drawer but I got so tired of it I started just tossing the pliers in and wherever they landed, so they stayed. It was my most disorganized drawer in the shop.

 

[nes999]

Re: Tool Organization

Just finished reading this whole thread in one sitting. I'm in awe of your set up. I think my router is begging for some use. I might have to try organizing with the cutting board material.

 

[paranoid56]

Re: Tool Organization

Got a little more time to spend on the pliers rack. Had a little misfortune with the 5/8-inch end mill on a .250 plunge cut. Been cutting plastic and aluminum with it for maybe 7 years now. Guess it was bound to happen some day. Kinda wish I coulda got another few years out of it.

you broke that cutting plastic? damn.

so i might be picking up a bridgeport clone for cheap with all tooling, what cnc conversion did you use for your setup?

 

[lilscorpion]

Re: Tool Organization

you broke that cutting plastic? damn.



so i might be picking up a bridgeport clone for cheap with all tooling, what cnc conversion did you use for your setup?

Yeah but to be fair I was running really fast, deep full width cut, and the 1 1/2" thick HDPE sheet 12 x 16-inches in size got sucked up out of the jaws of the vise and went for a ride until I got to the kill switch. I was glad the cutter hung on to the material. Having it tossed at me wouldn't have been cool.

So, that being said, the cutter coulda lasted a lot longer.

I used a Centroid conversion and sourced most of the parts from Elrod Machine. Turned out well.

 

[Cactus1]

An amazing job you're doing here! Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[Bunit98]

Thats sweet!!

 

[twertsy]

I've stolen many ideas from you! Here's my hold-down tooling drawer for my CNC Router table, which I used to cut this foam.

Before and after pics.

 

[LXCam]

Three nights....yup three loooong nights to get through this most awesome thread. Bud you do amazing work.

You made a comment within the last page or so about the garage becoming a place you work verses building what you wish too build..or sumttin to that effect. I just wanted to say when my shop became a living for a period or time it lost it's appeal. It's a great place to be when you feel like it. Keep up the fantastic work!!.

 

[MN4x4]

<snip> You made a comment within the last page or so about the garage becoming a place you work verses building what you wish too build..or sumttin to that effect. I just wanted to say when my shop became a living for a period or time it lost it's appeal.

This is the dilemma I have as well. I could make projects to sell, and use the money to acquire more toys - I mean tools. But then it becomes work instead of play.

What to do, what to do...

 

[hemdale]

Lilscorpion,

This topic is a joy to read a pure eye candy. Thanks again for all the inspiration !

 

[i4ni]

You just **** dude! You know why? From this point on whatever I do to organize my **** its not gonna be good enough and I'll know it. My life is now ruined so just go ahead and keep rubbin it in. I wish I'd never seen this thread!

 

[i4ni]

Re: Tool Organization

Had a little time today so I thought I'd knock out the clipboard rack I've been thinking about. Up until ow, the clipboard kinda floated between the top of the toolbox, the top of the lathe, the top of the mill...basically where ever I was last. It works well when I'm spending days in front of a given machine or location but ***** when I'm working all over the shop - either a project with many ops or a bunch of short projects. Anyway, I'd been planning on adding a rack to the center panel of the white door. iI's the first door I made when I thought I wanted white center panels and will need to be remade someday so it's perfect to try the rack idea on.

I grabbed some simple aluminum from the big box

Cut two 8-inch strips and attached them to the center panel.

Cut a piece of the rod and drilled and tapped the end.

For the button head screws

And attached it to the angle on the door.

Now the clipboard has a home. Easy shop upgrade.

Hope you didn't take my previous post seriously. Just my attempt at sarcastic humor although there is some truth to it .I truly do admire your skills and incredible attention to detail but having A.D.D my ability to stay focused and on task totally ***** so I tend to stay busy procrastinating. As others have said thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge and mad skills. On yeah i was just going to say an extension spring like from a screen door makes a nice retainer to help keep paperwork from blowing away.

 

[lilscorpion]

Re: Tool Organization

Hope you didn't take my previous post seriously. Just my attempt at sarcastic humor although there is some truth to it .I truly do admire your skills and incredible attention to detail but having A.D.D my ability to stay focused and on task totally ***** so I tend to stay busy procrastinating. As others have said thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge and mad skills. On yeah i was just going to say an extension spring like from a screen door makes a nice retainer to help keep paperwork from blowing away.

I did not! I'm buried at the moment on some home remodel projects do I've not spent a lot of time on the forum. The shop is a wreck but I've been taking s few picks as I go so hopefully when I get a moment I'll be able to share.

~ Matt

 

[Dick in Wisconsin]

i4ni ... That is a great idea. I'm going to do that in the race trailer. Consider putting a piece of channel aluminum on the bottom instead of angle so the clipboard doesn't fall out. My problem with this is the clipboard gets written on, put in there, and then never moved again!

 

[kstopsen]

Youve done an amazing job. Looks great!

 

[shortykorte]

And the pair of "Router Buds"

I like this idea, and using the cleat system just makes it fantastic. I'll lock this idea away for my own shop for later. Thanks[/QUOTE]

I assume a router bud is router buddy? also how did you square a plumb the portable bandsaw blade with the mount, with the table and t-slots?

Thank you for sharing your wealth of ideals and skills.

 

[gearhead1]

Is the 3/4 plywood thick enough such that it doesn't split when the screw goes in on the edge (like the two on the bottom) or do you drill a pilot hole?

Love your work!

Thanks!

 

[alpinewhite]

Is the 3/4 plywood thick enough such that it doesn't split when the screw goes in on the edge (like the two on the bottom) or do you drill a pilot hole?

Love your work!

Thanks!

For sure, there was a pilot hole. Personally, I would've used just glue and a biscuit.

 

[Kevin54]

Is the 3/4 plywood thick enough such that it doesn't split when the screw goes in on the edge (like the two on the bottom) or do you drill a pilot hole?

Love your work!

Thanks!

Drill it and countersink it. You can buy combo drill and countersinks at the box store. I have one made by DeWalt that came it a small blowmold case. It has the drill on one end, then you reverse it for the countersink. I'll take a pic later.

But you don't want to drill in the end grain of plywood without having a pilot hole because the screw will delaminate the plywood, or at least stands a very good chance of doing it.

Not my kit, but the same thing. The drill and countersink is on one end, then you pull the knurled part back, flip it end for end, and the Phillips driver is on the other end. Plus you can get single bits of different sizes for different size of screws

And here is a Makita

 

[sakurama]

Sorry to quote the whole thing but this is what inspired me to build my own cabinets for the garage. That gave me the confidence to build more and more inside the house. Happy to know the inspiration flows both ways!

Gregor

Thank you for your compliments. I've enjoyed documenting my projects more than I used to in the past because others are interested. As it turns out, this documentation has turned into a valuable way for me to work through the design and execution of my ideas.


Shadowing using foam is an excellent way to organize and I likely would have also gone that route had I not had this crazy idea that I'm now attempting to follow through to the end. I enjoying the machining process so using plastic is really just feeding that part of my addiction.

1. Jack's space is one of my all time favorites
2. Searching for organization ideas found his thread on GJ and I joined. He's the reason I'm here as far as I'm concerned.
3. Given the choice, I'd prefer steel cabinets for durability reasons
4. I very much respect his space optimization ideas and either considered many of them or used them as fuel to come up with my own

That being said:
I could not, no matter how I tried, adapt his type of solution to my space given space constraints. To have as much storage as I wanted I needed my cabinets to fit in every nook and crevice and you can't do that with a steel cabinet without heavy fabrication. Also, if a cabinet didn't work out as I imagined, I wanted to be able to change direction and build one that did fit what I wanted which makes fabrication more desirable to me. Also, assembling a garage like Jack's takes time. You have to find, and bring back to life, most of those treasures he has. I wanted a usable space as quickly as possible and, for the most part, labor was the only thing separating me from being where I wanted to be. Patience isn't one of my strong suits.


I spent many hours searching the net for ideas before I started down my path. I have found many inspiring ideas here and there and it was many of those seeds that helped me turn what I thought were crazy ideas into reality. If any of them can be used as fuel to feed someone else's idea engine, I'm all for it. In reality, something you may do may end up being what fuels my next idea so in many ways, I need you to get to work. LOL


This question may be difficult to explain until the weather improves and I can build, and document, a cabinet but I'll try. There's face frame construction, there's faceless, and there's the approach I took. Since you already know the difference between the first two, I'll just attempt to explain mine. One of my observations pertaining to cabinets is that most of the construction of the cabinet is never seen by the layperson, it's hidden. I started down the path of building face-frames but I quickly found that it was a time consuming process. If I leveraged the fact that most of the assembly is hidden, I could easily build a facade (false front) that looked like a face frame but was actually just well finished trim. Consider this photo:

95 - 99% of the presentation of this counter is the drawer faces. I knew I could get a beautiful finish with the HVLP. Because you can barely see the frames I even stopped spraying them because it was easier and faster to brush them in place and you can't tell the difference unless you get too close. So...back to the facade. Let me introduce you to the man behind the curtain.

The cabinets have a top, bottom, two sides, a back, and the face. I use 3/4" melamine for the top, bottom and sides. The sides are dado'd for two reasons. First, it gives the glue a place to bite and makes it stupid simple to pre-drill the screw holes before assembly. Second, they help locate the drawer slides and are used to add additional cross-bracing which add strength to the cabinet and prevents the drawers from pushing out the sides of the cabinets. The backs are all 1/4" melamine and, when cut to the perfect size, they ensure the squareness of the cabinet during assembly. Basically I glue, assemble, pull the frame square to the backing, staple the back in place, and then hammer down with the screws.

Next is the face frame/facade which is extremely simple and fast. I cut strips, glue, and brad/staple them in place on all faces of the Melamine. These trim strips add strength to the cabinet and give the cabinet the illusion of having a face frame. By leaving the picture in high-res and cropping it down to a small section you can basically see the whole enchilada. Red circles show the brad holes that have been filled, sanded and then top-coated. I try to get all of the trim pieces as flush to each other as possible but slight differences can easily sand out as long as the difference isn't greater than the thickness of the top ply.

This particular cabinet was a serious re-design. I originally planned for it to be a tooling cabinet with many yery short drawers. I had a difficult time getting the dividers to work out without losing a mess of drawer space so I decided to cut out the braces and double the depth of the drawers. Even though it initially pained me to know it was such a bastardized cabinet, I honestly had forgotten it's ugly on the inside because I never see it now that it's assembled and in use.

Oh...and I break the edges on the plywood strips after sanding with a 1/8" quarter-round bit on a hand router to prevent the ply from splintering.

I realize that pictures on the web can hide imperfections that are otherwise obvious in person. I'm proud to say that in person they look equally as nice if not nicer. 95% of the people that look at them say they're nicer than the cabinets in their kitchen. Good enough for me. The finish exceeded my expectations.


Pocket screws are a nice way to join a pair of boards together however there are two problems with plywood. First, when you attempt to sink the pocket screw I found that many times it separates the plys and essentially blows out. At that point you either pitch the board or have new finishing problems/considerations. I started down the face frame path and built one complete cabinet using them. In fact, this cabinet has a full face frame and isn't a facade.

After building this particular cabinet I realized that, though nice, building real face frames was going to be the longest part of the process. By going to the facades, I was able to do the construction part of the cabinets in 3 weekends if I recall correctly. Finishing was another story which ended up taking months considering three coats + dry time between coats + real job + family mad because they wanted attention.

 

[Scottwi]

Re: Tool Organization

This thread is very inspiring and is full of great ideas.
Got back to working with my CNC router table and tool foam.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[lilscorpion]

I assume a router bud is router buddy? also how did you square a plumb the portable bandsaw blade with the mount, with the table and t-slots?

Yeah, router buddy. Made up name.

Well so I made some assumptions (which appeared to work out for me). Since the plate I made for the saw was done so using the CNC and the slot that the mount fits in is cast into the dewalt saw, I assumed that they were square to the blade...are they? Turns out, they must be fairly close. When using the saw to cut aluminum the deflection isn't huge. It's less than a 32nd over 4 inches which is square enough for me. I could have just been lucky but if I was, I'll take it.

the slot for the aluminum T-slot was cut square to the hole for the aluminum plate which was also based on the assumption that the plate sits square in the hole. It's probably close. It's not DOD square but since I don't do DOD work, I can probably get away with it. So far the things I've done on it have turned out how I hoped. Luck twice??

Thanks for the compliments. These little things have turned out to be fairly handy. I can run two ops on routers if need be now. One on the big table and a second (like breaking an edge) on the smaller one. Been worth the scrap material I used on them for sure.

 

[lilscorpion]

Is the 3/4 plywood thick enough such that it doesn't split when the screw goes in on the edge (like the two on the bottom) or do you drill a pilot hole?

Yes and no. The primary reason I use a quality plywood is that it's more resilient to taking screws perpendicular to the plies. The stuff I'd buy at the big box stores will give you fits from time to time. That being said, I always always pre-drill and counter sink the holes. In fact I'd bet that the countersink took is the second most used tool in the garage next to the magnetic bit I use to sink the screws. Pre-drilling the holes allows only the threads on the screw to do the biting and prevents separation. Is it necessary? Maybe not completely but pre-drilling has resulted in much less splitting than not pre-drilling so I just do it.

 

[lilscorpion]

Sorry to quote the whole thing but this is what inspired me to build my own cabinets for the garage. That gave me the confidence to build more and more inside the house.

What an interesting twist. So my shop projects gave you confidence to build inside the house and your house projects gave me confidence to build inside mine. That's almost a little too deep. I think what it says to me is that those who don't share on GJ are probably not benefiting completely from the site.

Happy to know the inspiration flows both ways!
Gregor

It does my friend, it truly does. I don't get to work with metal as much as I used to and you throwing in some fab-treats of you working with metal from time to time really fills the void. I have nearly no need for a TIG but seeing your well managed puddles from time to time has made me start watching Craig's so I can get back in the saddle.

 

[lilscorpion]

Re: Tool Organization

This thread is very inspiring and is full of great ideas.
Got back to working with my CNC router table and tool foam.

Nothing keeps things nice and clean like a CNC. That looks perfect! What's the red stuff under? I can't tell if it has something to do with the light shining on it or if it's translucent in some way.

 

[Scottwi]

It is red foam, the sun light and reflection is making it look orange. I buy the multi layer foam from a local supplier. It is a bit more pricey but I am trying to keep the weight down because this box goes in the trailer. I also like that the foam keeps them from moving when it gets bounced around.

Love your tread and have used many ideas in the garage and plan on doing something similar to the slide out cabinets soon.

 

[littlebritishcar]

Some great ideas here. I have been struggling with ways of organizing my tools and just keep buying more toolboxes instead. Pretty soon I will have one drawer for each tool!

 

[lilscorpion]

I've been away for some time now and failed to update like I should have which leaves me with a lot of work to catch everyone up. After cutting the pliers tray (a page or so back) out of HDPE I got into my next organization project to make a tooling rack for my shop cart. What I basically wanted was a shop cart caddy that would allow me to hang my tools off the side instead of laying them in the cart. What I found is that when using my cart I'd always have to lay parts on top of tools and then need to get the tools out from under the parts. Dumb I felt...

The base of the caddy is a piece of 1/4 x 3 x 3 aluminum extrusion I got off of amazon (I think). I cut there evenly sized slots down the length of the extrusion.

cut some 16-inch x 3-inch pieces of 1/2-inch HDPE out of some scraps I've been saving. Three of these pieces will connect and turn into the surface that the tools will go through.

The ends are machined so they interlock. Though this wasn't necessary, they fit together to make a much cleaner and upped the fancy factor a little bit.

When pushed together the three pieces look very much like a single piece which was what I was looking for.

First piece is machined for my pry bars which created the initial need for the caddy in the first place. The longer of the bars don't fit in any of my tool box drawers (mostly because I've chosen to be cheap and stick with my 26-inch wide box). I machined recesses so that the handles would self align and prevent them from rotating slightly in the slots and looking messy.

There's plenty of room for the prybars I currently have but not quite enough for the others that are on the way.

I also wanted provisions for pliers and hammers so they can quickly be accessed and put out of the way when using the cart. After taking some measurements I settled on the larger tools and machined them in the plastic. It took me a couple of attempts to adjust the profile for the pliers given how different most of them are.

After loading the hammers and pliers I take a step back to see how it's coming along. I could have moved the tools a little closer together to conserve space but after pulling tools out to see how it works I actually like the spacing because it makes it easy to grab exactly what I reach for.

What's interesting at this point is I'm not sure what I want to mount into the middle space. I've considered ratchets and extensions...that's when I hit the wall with some ideas that will ultimately cause me to start completely over even before I finish. I realized that I could have made the HDPE pieces much wider than the aluminum which would have allowed me to hang additional tools off the side like my extra long 1/2 and 3/8-inch extensions. I also realized that I won't likely want to store my shorter pry-bars on the cart year-round since they also have a home in my toolbox...****. Neat idea but this will have to be Rev-1.

 

[lilscorpion]

As a subtle reminder - I tend to have a dozen or so projects going at any given time so I'll jump around a little...I'm thinking now that maybe I should have named the thread organization in general because I'm about to take it inside for a bit...

For those of you who have been following along for a while you know that I previously built some cabinets for the shop (some/lots). Some of you had asked how I went about making them. Though they were true face frame cabinets, they were made on the cheep using plywood for the face frames and gluing/brad nailing them in place. I did this because, at the time, I hadn't really been patient enough to learn how to build them the right way. If you really look close, you can see the filler for the brads.

Building cabinets the easy way in the garage was entirely different than doing so in the house. The primary difference was my wife's opinion of nice. "If you can't build them like the store makes them then I'd rather buy and have them today."

If you've been following along with Gregor's thread you've probably noticed some fairly nice looking woodworking tools known as Festools. The rage/addiction isn't much different than SnapOn (for those of you gear heads) but quite a bit different in magnitude. Imagine a company spent all of their R&D time trying to figure out exactly how they could build a series of tools that worked together and made projects with them many times less complicated -> well you don't have to imagine, you need to buy Festool if you're into woodworking (I'm not paid by them though I wish).

After much research, my first purchase was a track saw. Now I have a really kick *** table saw but I quickly learned that a good track saw can do so many things a table saw can't. Basically it's a circular saw on a straight edge and the possibilities are endless. The first project with my TS55 was to cut down a 5 foot tall under wear dresser (common about 50 years ago) in half and turn it into a night stand for my daughter. With the track saw it took only a few minutes and the rest required a little scavenging from the remnant parts to rebuild the base. I wish I had a before but in my haste to get things rolling I forgot to snap a before. Here's the bottom half (or what's left of it)

And here's the finished upper half (now a complete night stand).

It probably only took me a couple of hours to complete the conversion. What I hadn't anticipated is my wife's reaction to the completed project. Basically she realized I can build stuff for inside the house too. Stuff that looked as nice, if not nicer, than stuff we'd purchased for excessive dollar amounts in the past.

That night I was sitting here at my desk catching up on Gregor's thread (Mid-Century Moto Mecca Makeover) when I realized my office is a dump. Big desk (big for me) but we'd let junk piles accumulate everywhere. We had tried in the past to clean up but the space just wasn't enjoyable so piles would quickly return. It pissed me off. I'm seeing Gregor turn his space into something of a masterpiece when mine is a dive. I had always believed my shop was my refuge but like it or not, I had just realized that my house was where I spent most of my life. I walked out into the living room and told my wife I'd had it and we're about to remodel.

I spent about a week researching processes and found a fairly interesting tool called a domino (made by Festool). Basically it's machines loose tenon slots into material but in the convenient size of a biscuit joiner -- for $800!? Holy ****...that's some coin. I read maybe 2 dozen reviews on them and spent a week alone watching videos and research on how they work before I broke down and bought one. This little bundle is about $1300. It's a dust extractor and the domino on it's way home.

Before I could start building the cabinets I needed to wrap up a project I'd started many months prior which was the large assembly table (aluminum extrusion table similar to the much smaller, Paulk inspired, MFT that's under it in the picture).

Back to the Domino - Now this tool ain't just any tool. I soon found out that this extremely expensive tool is worth much more than I paid. What this tool allows you to do is lay out pieces of an assembly and then putting them all together at once (trial fit and then glue-up) like playing with Legos. It makes building wood assemblies almost idiot proof (I say almost because you still have to design and implement the layout correctly).

Add a few pocket screw holes and you can build a cabinet per a drawing very quickly as you get the hang of things. Machine all the pieces, push them into the slots

and fairly complete assemblies can become a reality fairly quickly in comparison to the way I used to do it (9 clamps attempting to hold the assembly together while I attempt to drill and screw them in place).

What really amazed me was how a few tools could transform my abilities from trying to figure it out to fully getting it done in a short amount of time.

 

[lilscorpion]

In the shop I used 3/4-inch Baltic Birch ply and sprayed it with poly. After reading some posts I decided to make these cabinets using some pre-finished Baltic Birch to see if the prefinished stuff would save me some time.

Having finished the first lower base cabinet I changed my plan and decided to get all of the upper cabinets done and hung first so I'd not have to work around finished lowers. With the confidence of a now known process I machined all of the pieces first and then assembled all of them at once.

The office was to consist of a grand total of 5 48-inch tall x varying width uppers and two angled uppers for the ends (I'll show you later). With all of the machine work done, I started the assembly process. Here's where the larger assembly table really pays for itself. Because of it's height, I was able to do all of the work standing up instead of hunched over.

I used my peg board drilling jig to drill the shelf pin holes in the upper cabinets. The pins in the plate lock tightly in the holes in peg boad which allows me to drill holes as tight as 1 inch apart.

Then each board was grooved in the pack for a 1/4-inch panel and they were ready to assemble.

Here's where I didn't do too good a job documenting the build. I failed to get a single picture of the face frame construction but maybe it's a good thing - over the course of building the cabinets I changed a few things to make them easier. I'll document a frame at some point in the future so you all can see how easy it is.

The face frames are made out of 3/4 x 1 3/4-inch Red Oak and they're stained what's supposed to look like espresso. After the 2nd coat it started to look black unless you can get it into the light. Unfortunately there's not enough direct sunlight in that room so they're going to look black.

So a few things to point out about the above picture. First, I use a 2x4 to mount large upper cabinets on the wall. Using such a support allows me to (a) get them very level and (b) be able to easily support them with one hand while I climb up and down the ladder with the drill to fasten it to the wall. If you use this trick, make sure the 2x4 is straight or you'll end up with some visual fun. Didn't take long and I had the entire wall setup as well as the first base and a make-shift top. The office was usable again.

In the bottom right corner you can make out the first of the end cabinets which I built next. This cabinet serves as the right side of the base desk and has the same angle as the entrance to the office. It was a really goofy cabinet to build and took maybe 3 times longer than any of the other bases because I had to do all of the figuring for the first time as I was building it.

What a difference the pre-finished ply makes in building cabinets. The finish is super professional and the reduction in labor makes the less than $10 more per sheet seem almost a no brainier considering the time it saves.

 

[Terranova]

Like I told Gregor, I used to work at a music store in the drum department and we would have professional, big name drummers come and do clinics. Upon reflection, I realzied that the clinics usually fell into one of two categories.
1. Those that made you want to go home and practice till all hours of the night to get better.
2. Those that made you want to go home, snap your sticks in half, turn in your secret decoder ring and burn your membership card.

You and Gregor make me want to go out in the garage and rip down everything (that I'm not even finished with yet) and sell my second child (due in June) to finance an impending collapse into festool/birch oblivion.

Please, continue. Lol

 

[lilscorpion]

You and Gregor make me want to go out in the garage and rip down everything (that I'm not even finished with yet)

We all have found ideas and complete threads here on GJ that give us the ideas that get the juices flowing, that's the beauty of the board. Our virtual club here allows us to find people more like us in both interest in talent. When I first got started it was me in my garage. Internet was real but nothing like this existed. Interesting ideas were sometimes replaced by more interesting ideas half way into a project or shortly after the project completed causing me to either start over or wish I'd done differently. I've always had a lot of ideas myself but nothing got my brain spinning faster than the collaboration of thousands in the comfort of my own home (kinda weird when I put it that way).

...and sell my second child (due in June) to finance an impending collapse into festool/birch oblivion.

<sigh> The damn tools just make everything easier which makes it extremely simple to justify the next one. I never have taken a liking to jigsaws and used them only when I had to. Bought Festool's and I use it all the time - it's a game changer. Now I've acquired game changing tools before but they came along every so often not in a wave like I've just experienced. Combine the game changing tool with on the spot dust collection which, in turn, reduces nearly all of the mess associated with wood working and all of a sudden I find myself stealing an hour or two here or there in non-shop clothes and my wife doesn't even know. What's that worth?! :thumb up:

I recommend you hang on to the kid and take out a loan for Festool. Experiences with the kid fall into the priceless category and don't compare.

 

[neilc]

Great thread from start to finish.

What's your member name on FOG? I'd love to check out some of your threads there.

neil

 

[lilscorpion]

Great thread from start to finish.

What's your member name on FOG? I'd love to check out some of your threads there.

neil

On FOG I'm Scorpion. Not a ton of show and tell, mostly questions and learning.