Getting the shop back in gear

Hi folks,

 I've relocated back to NY from VA, as a result, I get to re-open my woodworking shop.

 IN no particular order.. this view shows the pile of boxes I have to sort through , plus my relocated wood racks.

 cherry and mid length mixes species

 cherry shorts

 Lathe land... my Delta Midi on it's stand with turning stock in and around the stand.

 the loft

 looking back from the far NE corner

 Looking at the relocated and promptly filled lumber racks.... before the boxes got stuffed under there.

 lumber racks, shorts in the foreground, longer stock in the far corner.

here's a view as I'm cleaning...

Actually making some sawdust

Hi gang,
 I'm in the middle of actually Building something! When Lori and I moved down to VA last summer, our platform bed got disassembled... and never got put back up. Yep, doing the college/newlywed thing all this time with the box spring and mattress on the floor.  Finally bought some lumbah this week, and I'm about 60% done with building a new bedframe. It's going to be one of my 'signature' 2x material specials... overbuilt and sturdy with a couple of arts & crafts touches to it.

and since I know some of my Family Woodworking buddies wouldn't ever let me live it down, here are pics to prove I'm actually doing something...

Change is good, right?

Well faithful blog readers... and you Must be very faithful given how long it has been since I posted, it has been a very busy time the past 7 months. I gave up my job with the Costar Group, moved to VA and have been trying to get my life in order ever since.

Here it is the end of 2011, and I"m fairly healthy, living near my parents in my grandfather's house and currently coping with not having a shop. Work has kept me too busy to notice the lack of a shop, but the holiday season is upon us at Olan Mills, so I'm in the middle of a 2 week down-time and I'm currently pondering my new shop options.

I had hoped to turn this carport into my shop. Finances and not wanting to deal with the town over a major renovation (we're not buying the house, just living in it, don't think we want to /can sink major money into a reno right now).

It would have allowed me to have an 11x20' shop. HOwever there would have been significant  upgrades required... such as closing in 3 walls, running new power to the building and so forth.
Instead of that I believe I'm going to move into the dungeon, er, um, basement.

Here is the basement staircase...

Not all that conducive to easy access to the shop... but it will have to do. Next is the view from the foot of the stairs.

Here's the view to the immediate right

And then the view from the opposite corner

The ceiling height is about 7' or so, which means I won't have to duck... much... and as you can see there are no ducts or major pipe runs in the middle of the room.

Astute readers will note that there is Knob and Tube wiring, as this house was built around 1914. I am Hoping that it simply was not removed. but suspect it might be active.

I have to discuss some things with my parents and aunt & uncle, who are the executors of my grandfather's estate.  I'm pretty sure they don't Want to rewire the whole house, but they Might go for updating or adding a couple of circuits here and there.

Lots of new stuff

Here's my latest shop addition:

This is a bench which is based on John White's Newfangled bench design originally published in Fine Woodworking.

another pretty important albeit simple project was to finally free up some badly needed floor space. I hung the drywall from the rafters:

there was some concern about weight issues, but that's about all I'm going to put up there, and I hope to be using some of the drywall in the house soon, replacing the kitchen walls, which will eat up a LOT of that stash in a hurry. At which point that rack will turn into sheetgoods storage.

More to come 'soon' now that the warm weather is here, I'm trying to spend more time out in the shop.

New Jig in progress

With my interest in turning growing, I needed a way to keep my turning tools sharp. I was given a grinder last spring, but I need to learn how to sharpen. One popular way to speed up that learning curve is to use a jig, and the most popular one is the Wolverine. Unfortunately I don't have the $90 plus shipping to buy a wolvie. Luckily there are plans available online to make your own.

I still have to bolt down the grinder and make another smaller jig which holds the turning tool for the grind.

Lots of progress

I've continued the small shop shuffle, and here is how things 'stand' for the moment

I moved the storage cabinet to its semi-permanent home next to the main doors. The 'man door' will be just there to the right of the cabine where the bandsaw is at the moment. I'm thinking that will be a 'springtime' project.

Looking up into the loft, where Adam was a big help getting the gear up the ladder. I handed him the items as he stood on the ladder.

A whole lot of clutter, but I'll get it sorted out eventually.

Looking from the doorway down the left side of the shop. As you can see I have to clear up my benchtop a bit. I moved the power strip to the middle of the wall, eliminating one extension cord up to the 4' shop light

yeah, that light!

Moving in almost complete

Well, at least the storage unit has a lot more elbow room in it, and the shop a lot less. I brought up the remainder of the wood from the unit, as well as several boxes of cut-offs and assorted old projects which I never got a chance to finish in the Madison Woodsmith shop.

I also did the small shop shuffle, moved everything away from the end wall there in the photo and popped open the insulation batt package. Emphasis on POP. I still have one whole batt left over plus a thin strip after I cut a couple of batts to fit under the window opening. I also had to slice three batts in half to get full coverage above the 8' long batts. Quick and easy to do, and minimal itchiness thanks to the paper backing.


One of the boxes fell apart on me (poor taping job when I packed in a hurry two plus years ago). Here is some of what I found in there. A few scrollsaw fretwork portraits and some chunks of Mahagony and Oak. I have three more entire boxes of short cutoffs. THankfully I now have a lathe, and I'll be able to use them for bowl blanks, and/or cutting boards etc...

truck down!

Labor Day weekend is passed, where Did the summer go?

Lori was busy all weekend at the fire house, well, at the field days at the fire house to be more accurate. Bridgeport VFD has their annual field days every Labor day weekend, and she's the treasurer there, so has to handle all of the cash. Normally I spend the weekend there too, but this year, I decided that if they seemed like they could do without me, they would. Sure enough, I went to help out on Friday, and got a polite 'thank you' and got to make a few fried fish and french fries. Pretty soon however, the ladies auxiliary member whom I relieved came back and took over again. Well, I've set a move out date from the storage unit, and that date is fast approaching, so I decided that I would do my best to get a few truckloads out of there each weekend day. Good thing I did so on Saturday & Sunday, because monday Grizz convinced me that my driveline vibrations needed to be taken care of now, vs 'someday'.

The third U-joint on the shaft was shot, and Grizz took excellent care of the truck and me, getting it fixed for a lot less than a garage would have charged. Yet another big favor I owe you buddy, your day will come! The day ended with us needing to take the driveshaft to a shop to get the bearings torched to get them out. We tried hammering on them, but to no avail. Tuesday he was off, and got the job done while I was at work. Night and day thanks to this timely repair.

Progress, lumber racks and more

I'm on a major kick to clear out my storage unit and move all of the gear up to the shop. Here was one trip's worth of lumber... I still have a bit more to come up, but it is mostly shorts and cut offs.







Speaking of shorts, I had to move the short stock I had on the lumber rack above the miter saw station, I think I need to install a couple of more brackets, that's a tad overloaded for my taste.





There's that truckload of wood up in the racks. The top level holds mostly butternut, the middle is all cherry and the lower level is maple. Most of it is still rough cut lumber, but there's a few pieces which have been dressed S4S (surfaced 4 sides for the non-woodworking reader)










This is the back end of the shop, note the sheet goods temporary storage area. along with the reflectix insulation which is going on all of the walls.

















view of the far corner of the shop, showing the wall which will get insulation and plywood installed this weekend. Might even get ambitious and put in the window, since the storage unit is almost empty!

bench reassembly

I decided that my workbench, which is in two halves needed to be just a bit lower. I originally built them to just below elbow height, which for me is 42" high. That makes it convenient for not having to bend over and such, but it is a bit too high for good hand tool usage; planing and so forth.

Here you can see the torsion box and legs before the top stretchers get put on. The torsion box is 1/2" plywood with SYP for the 'meat' in the sandwich. Very sturdy, and makes for a nice solid workbench. The legs are hemlock glued and screwed into the classic 'L' style leg.

I made the lower bench just 35 3/4" tall which lets it serve in a pinch as outfeed support for my tablesaw.










Here's a view showing the stretchers in place. that 6" difference in height makes a big difference. I think the taller bench is going to get a similar reduction in height. once I have a lot more of the moving done.

Man its dark in there!

Howdy folks, got a little more progress on the shop this weekend. As regular readers well know it’s been a long project, and I’m far from done. This weekend was spent avoiding the last summer blast of heat, and hanging the doors on the shop…

















This may seem like a small step, but for me it marks when I can truly start moving in equipment and stuff into the shop. I made a couple of trips to the storage unit. The first trip was to get the drywall and cement board which I scored this spring. For a mere $20 I got 5 sheets of moisture resistant drywall, plus numerous cutoffs from a friend of Mark's who was clearing out his garage.














I forgot to get a photo, but I'll grab one tonight after work.

The second trip brought my lathe and benches.
















Starting to get a little crowded in there, but that’s the nature of the beast… at only 240 sq ft I’ll be doing the ‘dance’ a lot as I get things ironed out.

Here's my first bench. And my midi lathe:

Here’s the first of my old workbench’s to be reassembled: I’m 6’1, and this bench is 41” high. I’m going to lower the other half after measuring my mini lathe on there:
As it sits now, if I were to use the other half of the bench the spindle would be at 57” high. I think I’m going to lower it about 7” just for good measure.

I’ve still got the other half of the bench, plus a benchtop drill press, a storage cabinet and a bandsaw to stuff in there as well. Not to mention, lumber, and so forth.

One Door Hung.

I was out of town on Saturday, meeting up with my friends Tom & Cathie, whom I haven’t seen in about 10 years. On the way home from Buffalo, I stopped at the woodcraft store in Rochester, where I picked up some turning supplies. I got a micromesh sanding kit, as well as a few pen and pencil kits and some HUT brand wax for pen turning.

Sunday saw me back out in the shop in the morning, while the family was sleeping. I was busy building this:


It’s intended as a temporary rack, but it’ll likely wind up as semi permanent fixture of the shop. The location will certainly stay the same at least. I have to start putting some thought into what will go where in the shop. I’ve got a ton of stuff and not a lot of floor space to put it in. What I do have a relative ‘lot’ of is vertical space thanks to the 10’ sidewalls. Those racks are going to be right above the initial location of my CMS. I’ll add two more racks above those. When & if I fill those up with lumber.

Sheet goods will be another issue altogether, at least in the beginning. I’ve got at least 8 sheets of various materials to cope with. In the long run I’ll only be ‘storing’ cut-offs from whatever current project I’m working on.

Later on Sunday I started working on hanging the doors.

I trimmed back the OSB from the doorway, which was fun. I got to use the saws-all and the router. Bet you didn’t know that a PC 690 was really an overgrown laminate trimmer. Had to use it one handed from the ladder, but it got things cleaned up in short order.

James helped out, steadying the door while I installed the hinges. Everything was going ‘well’ until we opened the door…

And it hung up on the top step of the stairs, not quite opening halfway.
































SO… after a few ‘bad words’ were uttered, we removed the top step to see just how much space we had…






































and a close up view or two















My first impression was to cut the riser back and lower the top step, which would probably catch me every time I tried to walk into the shop. It’s only held on by a dozen or so deck screws, so I think what I’m going to do is hang the other door and then remove the stairs, dig out the bottom step area just a bit, level it off and then screw them back onto the building.

if you click on the inside view, you can see there is a bit of a gap around the door, but I'll put trim on it later, once all the tools are in and working.

And it can be hard to find ‘good help’ Lucky for me, I did just that…




Thanks James!