A few upgrades

It’s been almost a year since I got my shop back, and things have changed quite a bit from the photo in my first post, “The Scene of the Crime.”

I’ve made a number of upgrades since that original photo and you can most of them in the new photo above.  In no particular order, they are:

1. The old plywood bench, which had once been a router table and then just a work surface with storage, has been replaced by my new router table.
2. The pathetic Tradesman drill press is gone; in its place is a Jet JDP-12 on a mobile stand that I made.
3. My trusty old Sears band saw died and has been replaced with a sweet Rikon 14-inch deluxe band saw.
4. One of the nicest things I’ve done for myself, and also one of the least costly, was to buy those anti-fatigue floor mats for the main working area.  My legs and lower back are much happier as a result.
5. That yellow reel on the left edge?  It’s a retractable 20-foot extension cord from Bayco.  I can’t recommend it — after only a few weeks the catch mechanism that keeps it from retracting when in use broke, so I have to manually slide the stop up and down to keep the cord where I want it.  Also, the end is starting to separate from the cord itself.  It was awesome when it worked properly, though, so I’ll likely replace it soon.
6. You can’t see it in the photo because it’s on the floor between the particle board table and the storage unit at the far left, but I’ve added a Kobalt 1.5hp, 3-gallon air compressor that my son Adam got me for Father’s Day.  There are some air tools in my near future, probably starting with a 23-gauge pinner.
7. On the far right, the laminate-covered tabletop for my knockdown assembly table.  I first built that so I’d have a surface large enough to assemble my computer desk on, but it’s been tremendously helpful on pretty much every project I’ve done since.
8. Behind the router table, I mounted a cutoff piece of T-track to the wall and now I have a place to keep T-track accessories where they’re handy and not falling down behind the router table.

But like any shop, mine is still a work in progress.  There are a couple more upgrades in the works:

• That wide open expanse of pegboard above the router table is going to receive a Portamate 6-shelf wood rack, which is already on order.  Ideally I want to be able to shove my cutoffs on that and store them horizontally instead of sticking up out of old computer boxes (back left of the photo) as they are now.  If reaching up that high proves too obnoxious, I’ll put plywood across every other support and have storage shelves for things I don’t get into often, like my electrical and finishing supplies.
• That particle board table is long overdue for an upgrade.  I’m thinking about something with a laminate or masonite top and some of that aluminum extrusion like on the router table along the front and sides and some T-track through the middle for clamping things down.  And usable storage shelves below so I’m not just shoving tools in cases on the floor to keep them out of the way.
• Not pictured anywhere is a big shelf unit made of plywood and 2x4s.  It’s next to the door, and is home to a bunch of automotive stuff and other non-woodworking things that are normally kept in a garage.  It’s also where I store new stock and project parts while I’m working on a piece.  And it’s highly inefficient, with lots of wasted space, and it’s hard to get to the lower shelf because I store sheets of plywood in front of it.  I’m thinking about replacing it with another shelf/drawer unit like the one in the photo and a separate wood rack anchored to the wall, and putting the storage unit on wheels so I can roll it out and store my sheet goods on the back side.

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Other than the Portamate rack I don’t have a timetable for these things.  It’s going to be a busy fall in non-woodworking ways, so I will have limited shop time and my first priority is to get started on kitchen cabinets.  We’ll see what the place looks like in another year.

 

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