Sandpaper organizer

This is a much needed addition to my shop.  It's a mutt build in that I used a bunch of random types of wood.  It's part white oak, red oak, walnut, poplar, and maple.

Large movable lumber rack/cart

I finished my shop wall bump-out minus some drywall on the inside.  I up-cycled the old wall and made this lumber cart.  This was a much needed addition to the shop.  It has casters but it's pretty heavy and not very easy to move.

I need to add another row of these half shelves.

Storage for sheet goods.

Storage for tiny stuff and things that roll.

Shop update

Projects have slowed because I received approval from management to expand my shop by about 4'.  As you can see from the picture below, my shop is a disaster area.

Here's the new wall.  Thanks Dad for helping me stud this out.

The electrical from the wall still needs attention.

Old wall left (still somewhat standing), new wall right.

Grizzly dust collector

Here's my assembled dust collector.  I finally got a chance to fire it up tonight.  I had to run a 30amp, 220v line.  My breaker box is officially full so no more 220 volt tools unless I can piggyback off something unimportant, like a water heater or AC.

I have to build a stand for the filter.  That green canister above the filter is a 'muffler' that was not designed very well to fit this machine.  It is an add-on, but still.  There is no way to properly install this with the included filter brackets.  You would have to twist the gray flex tube into a pretzel which impedes good airflow.  

Anyway, you can see how big this monster is.  It really moves a lot of air.  Next step is to somehow build some duct work to all my machines.  The inlet is 7" but it's hard to find hvac or plumbing material that size.  More to come on that...

Workout

Tuning these hand planes can be a lot of work.  They're fun to use when they operate correctly.  Before you know it you're wore out.  Today I got my smoother razor sharp, did a few test cuts, then flattened  what will be the book covers for the humidor (in the background below).

New jointer plane

Got a new toy the other day.  It's a 22" jointer plane I got from Grizzly.  This was only $60 but the good ones are easily over $300.  The sole wasn't flat when I got it but about an hour of sanding later it's close.  I sharpened the blade and gave it a test run.  Worked great as you can see from all the paper thin curls.

Hand tools

I'm starting to have a real appreciation for hand tools.  Mostly because they're the only thing I can use while the kids are asleep.  Second, they do a whole bunch of things a power tool (at least the ones I have) can't really do.  

The piece on the bottom is the seat of yet another rustic bar stool that I'm building.  The concave seat had all sorts of band saw marks, glue, and 2 uneven halves.  I took a card scraper and cleaned up the hold thing.  I could have done this with a belt sander but my shop would have been covered in a (another) layer of dust.  Now I just have that small pile of shavings.

The piece on top is what might be the binder of a book shaped humidor.  I shaped this entirely with my Stanley smoothing plane and WoodRiver block plane.  More exciting posts to come on that.

Shop stool

I'm going to make new bar stools for the kitchen so I thought I would start with a prototype.  I made this from 2x4's and some very cheap pine.  I didn't sand it, wipe off any glue or apply any finish.  It's certainly nothing to look at but it is very light and sturdy and will work well for a shop stool.  I used no nails or screws, just dowel joinery and glue.

Some wood storage

I was able to take advantage of some space under my out feed table for wood storage.  This works well for anything under 4' and has cleaned up thing quite a bit.

Cordless tool rack

This will probably not be the permanent location for this shelf, but it will help with the organization.

Clamp rack, finally

DIY lathe tool

There's a guy I subscribe to on YouTube, Eddie Castelin, who has some great videos on wood turning.  He also sells lathe tools and cutters.  I ordered one of his bars and carbide cutters as they are about 1/3 the price of anywhere else.  The only gotcha is it doesn't have a handle.  You have to make your own, which is part of the fun I guess.

Here is the bar as it arrived.

Here is the handle.  It's a thin strip of cherry sandwiched between poplar.  The copper piece at the end is just a plumbing fitting.

Here is the assembled tool.

I like my version better.

Hope it's big enough.

Craftsman quality...err, junk

It seems the bunk bed build was a bit too hard on some of my lower quality tools.  Guess I'll have to head over to Harbor Freight (or Harbor Frank as Avery would say) to replace them with some disposable tools.

It started with my planer.  It was acting like it was running out of gas, however it's of course electric.  It turns out the switch was going bad.  See the fried black connector below.

The planer is now hard wired to bypass the switch.  When I plug it in, it takes off.  This piece of crap seems like a fire hazard so I'll have to keep an eye on it.  

The second item to bite it was my Skil random orbit sander.  Well, now it just orbits, there's nothing random about it.  The bearing in the picture below is completely seized up.  The sander just spins like an angle grinder... not good for fine finishing.

Next we move up to the kitchen.  When we built we spent some extra money on 'top quality' Krapmore appliances.  Our $900 microwave is now nothing more than a white noise generator.  It runs and spins food, but doesn't heat it.  We're now using our $35 Kroger microwave that will probably last long enough to go to college with Drew.  I'm starting to learn that everything built anymore is junk.  Even though it has a different name tag it's all from the low standard factory.

New outfeed table

My table saw outfeed table always turned into a storage/assembly/paint table. When I wanted to cut something on the table saw I had to go through a time consuming cleanup. Here's how it would look after a while.

Here's the new one.  The construction is the same as the old, but I took some time to stain and poly the top.

That dust collector bag is bigger than it looks.