This second Ghetto WorkCenter video shows the completed WorkCenter. After making the saw tray and boom arm I kept going and moved on to make a tool holder. As I documented in my last post, I made the Tool Holder by coping the V design of the Festool Tool Holders. I made mine of wood and it mounts on the Ghetto WorkCenter. Now I can hang two tools on the WorkCenter while keeping the saw off the ground and the hose out of the choice.
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2013 April Shop Tour
March proved a productive month in the shop. The April Shop Tour finally shows some progress.
Since the March tour, Ive managed to get back to working on the shop and youll see that the back wall is finally finished.
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| After 2 tries, it finally fit! |
A Bench For Me A Bench For You
It’s not quite that time of year again, but Marc’s pre-planning (a good thing with the coming little Spagnolo) his 2012 winter Guild Build already.This year he’s planning to help with your physical as well as educational woodworking fundamentals. That’s right . . . we’re building a bench!
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| The Worlds Greatest Workbench. |
I was working on a bench myself when I stopped to participate in this year’s Winter Guild Build: The Wall Hanging Cabinet.
Workbenchs have been a favorite topic of mine since first hearing Dave Noftz discuss them on his (sorely missed) Modern Woodshop. As Im sure is true for many of you also, its high time I got off my butt and built a proper bench. The support, encouragement and friendly rivalry of the guild is just what I need to get back to the bench. You should too. |
| My Timberstrand Bench Slab Experiment. |
Shop Tour Mike Pekovich Part I
Mike Pekovich’s shop is a model of both woodworking and building efficiency. More than just the Art Director for Fine Woodworking, Mike is one of the most productive and efficient woodworkers I know. His shop, in the detached two-car garage behind his suburban Connecticut home, it the front-line tool in his efficient work.
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| The Pekovich Workshop |
You first realize that there’s something special about Mike’s shop even before you enter. As part of his 2011 total shop renovation Mike built new, insulated doors from scratch. In one garage bay opening, he made traditional barn doors. In the other he made fixed panels to narrow the width and then set a standard, insulated exterior door between the panels. The custom doors and panels were built utilizing wood frames filled with polyisocyanurate insulation and skinned with plywood. The outside of the doors are trimmed in a traditional arts and crafts door pattern.
The work Mike did on his doors is representative of the entire shop. Between his CMU block exterior and 1/2” drywall interior, Mike has built the walls with 2”x3” and 2”x4” framing, filled in with a double layers of 11/2” polyisocyanurate insulation. This gets his walls to about R-20. When combined with the insulated ceiling and floor the well insulated walls allow a simple propane heater and window air conditioner to keep the shop toasty in the winter and cool in the summer.
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| Looking down the table saw at the outfeed table and planer. |
Within the shop Mike’s big equipment - his jointer, planer and table saw - make up an island in the center. Each tool is arranged to provide optimal infeed and outfeed space without interfering with the adjoining tools. A small dust collector fits between them to capture most of the dust coming off the jointer and planer.
A workbench completes the island. This is Mike’s secondary bench. It serves as a table saw outfeed table, assembly bench and auxiliary workbench. Mike is really fond of this arrangement, and I must say I agree. Given my small shop space, I’m going to have to make my outfeed table serve double (or triple) duty too.
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| Chisels at the ready, and natural light abounding, theres work to do on the workbench. |
The walls of Mike’s shop are lined with benches and countertops. When you first walk in the passage door, Mike’s main, custom made workbench is on the right. It’s a little bit sorter than most at 60 inches, but it fits the space nicely and serves as sturdy work holding platform (even if Mike would like to upgrade the vises). Above his bench is the custom tool cabinet. A clamp rack fills the final bit of wall space between the tool cabinet and the inside corner.
Continuing in a counter-clockwise path around the edge of the shop to the back wall, you’ll next encounter a bank of drawers capped with a countertop which rests in the corner. The counter holds his oscillating spindle sander and Tormek. It serves as the sharpening station. A small wall cabinet above the counter holds the sharpening supplies.
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| The sharpening bench. |
Next up along the the back wall are Mike’s hollow chisel mortiser and his new pride and joy - the propane heater. Having worked out of a cold shop myself, I can fully appreciate the value of that heater and why Mike is so fond of it.
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| You cant be productive if youre cold. A good heater is critical during Connecticut winters. |
The final wall (before we get to the front wall made up of doors) houses another bench. This one holds Mike’s vintage Buffalo drill press, his belt/disc sander and his miter saw.
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| Mikes Buffalo drill press is awesome - and older than I am. |
Along the final, front wall the bandsaw lives between the door openings.
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| A new and awesome bandsaw. |
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| Some of the cabinets Mike was working on when we visited. |
Shop Upgrade Weekend
I worked my butt off on the shop this weekend. I ask you please excuse the brevity of this post.
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| The mostly empty shop. |
Because of all the work - and a few purchases - it feels as though the shop progressed more this past weekend than in the two preceding years.
Electric
With a few hours work on Tuesday and Wednesday I finished the 110V wiring in the shop.
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| So many wonderful outlets. |
Floor
Since my family was achoice this past weekend, I took the opportunity to empty the shop and install a floor. I’ll go into more detail in a post dedicated to the shop floor. For now I’ll simply say that it’s nice to have wood under my feet.
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| I just need to make a threshold and the floor is done. |
AC
This was a purchase, rather than an improvement I made (such as the electric & floor). I bought myself a simple window air conditioner after I finished the electric. I installed it last night. This should let me use the shop during the coming heat wave.
Jointer
This purchase was simply an oportunity I couldn’t turn down. The massive old 8” jointer was posted to Craig’s list friday. When I emailed on Saturday it was still availble. Sunday morning I check it out, saw the wonderful care that had been given to all of the tools in its shop and took it home. I have a bit more to do on the shop before I monkey with it, but I can’t wait to set it up and get it running (it was running, I just had to take it apart to move). Hopefully I can get some Infinity Carbide Tipped Jointer Knives to fit it.
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| Aint she pretty? |
That’s all I accomplished this weekend. Hopefully I’ll have another productive one soon. Have you managed to have a productive weekend recently?
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2013 July Shop Tour
Its saddening how little Ive gotten done this past month. I promised to document the build though. So here is my July shop tour. Theres not too much to show, but wait until next month. Ive got a date with the shop coming up.
Dads Benchtop Bench Part I
A few weeks ago, I wrote of how cool some Benchtop Benches are. After contemplating buying the Sjoberg Smart Vise for him, I instead opted to build a Jeff Miller style Benchtop Bench for my Dad for Fathers day.
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| Jeff Millers Benchtop Bench from FineWoodworking.com |
As might be expected of me, I began by milling the legs out of Timerstrand. One of the nice things about Timberstrand is that they come almost perfectly flat. They’re also easy to mill. A few passes over the jointer and through the planer left them ready for joinery.
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| Timberstrand mills just fine. |
Rather than use the traditional tenons that Miller used on his original, I used Dominos (no suprise to a regular reader. I glued the tops and bottoms to the legs. It was my intention to bolt the front and back stretchers as Miller did, using unglued Dominos rather than his staunch tenons. I say it was intention, because as with many good intentions, this fell to the choiceside once I had the Domino and glue in hand. The stretchers are not permanently glued to the legs.
Miller centered his stretchers on his legs, resulting in their being set back slightly from the face of the legs. As it was easier, I simply jointed my stretchers flush with the face of the legs.
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| The leg assemblies. |
I glued the leg assembly in two (2) steps. First I glued the top and bottoms to the legs. Then I glued the leg assemblies to the stretchers. As soon as they were glued up, I put the whole thing on my table saw as a flat reference surface. There was some twist to bench base, so while the glue was still wet I added an extra clamp diagonally across them to try to pull the twist out.
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| The stretchers glues in and the diagonal clamp to minimize racking. |
Once the leg assembly was in clamps, I began on the top and vise.
The top is made of the finger jointed mystery wood panels you can get from the home centers. I laminated four of the panels together (3/4” each to make a 3” slab) about a year ago as an experimental benchtop. The whole thing was about 6’ long and had an awful twist to it.
To make the benchtop bench top, I cut a 24” length off the end of the home center panel experiment. With a few passes through the planer, this smaller length flattened out quickly and ended up just under 3” thick.
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| The benchtop on the legs. |
My Cozy Shop Floor Part I The Cozy Part
My new shop floor is soft and cozy warm.
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| Where We Started On Friday Night. |
There are many components to a great shop. One that I dont think gets quite enough credit - and one that Ive ignored until now - is the floor. Like many woodworkers with a garage shop, for years Ive simply used the original concrete as my floor. It was there and machines on wheels were able to roll on it - it worked.
As Ive finished up the odyssey that was my shop walls over the last few months Ive thought about the floor. After the work of the walls, the floor would be quick and simple - provided I could get all my crap off of it. When I realized that my kids would be achoice with my Dad and my Wife achoice with her sister on the same weekend I knew I had a chance to install the floor that I had to take advantage of.
On Friday of the big weekend, once everyone was on their choice I began by moving all of the living room furniture into the dining room. Then I laid out drop cloths and began moving my shop into the living room. I brought my Cousin over and together we emptied everything out of the shop except the table saw, band saw and jointer. Then I paid him with dinner.
I dragged myself up on Saturday and got to work. Unlike many published designs for installing shop floors over masonry floors, I built mine without sleepers. To get achoice without the support sleepers provide, I used 60 psi extruded polystyrene (XPS) rather than the standard 20 psi. Between the high psi XPS and the diffusion the 3/4" OSB would provide to point loading of weight, I decided no sleepers would be needed. I didnt do any structural calculations, but so far the lack of sleepers hasnt been a problem.
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| The gap between the wall and the XPS is filled with Great Stuff |
After vacuuming the floor, the first step was to lay down the XPS. I measured a relatively straight line about 1/2" off the curb at bottom of the exterior wall of my shop. I used that line to set the XPS. I filled the gap between the curb and the XPS with Great Stuff. I used Window & Door great stuff with my Pro-Gun, as I have for the entire shop renovation. The gun gives application control unachievable with the standard can and straw. The Window and Door Great Stuff is better than standard Great Stuff because it stays softer and expands less than standard Great Stuff, making installation easier.
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| Air sealing as I go. |
The XPS I used has a rabbit around the edge. I installed it upside down so that when the sheets were laid against each other, the rabbits created a channel which I filled with M-1 caulking. This allowed me to air seal between the boards of insulation.
With the XPS down, it was time for OSB.
2013 December Shop Tour
2013 is over. With it, my year of monthly shop tours has come to and end. Here, I present to you the final tour of the year: December.
Some of you may have noticed that this only makes 11 tours for the year. Im sorry. I dont know what happened to September.
I have enjoyed these regular tours quite a bit. Ive found that they have kept me motivated and pushed me to make (and finish) many more shop projects this year than in years past. Im going to keep them a regular feature through the coming years as the shop continues to evolve.Im not the only one to finish the year with a tour. Here is +David Harms (justsquareenough.com) December 2013 tour. Hes made quite a bit of progress this year too.
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I have enjoyed these regular tours quite a bit. Ive found that they have kept me motivated and pushed me to make (and finish) many more shop projects this year than in years past. Im going to keep them a regular feature through the coming years as the shop continues to evolve.Im not the only one to finish the year with a tour. Here is +David Harms (justsquareenough.com) December 2013 tour. Hes made quite a bit of progress this year too.
Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
A House In The Trees Part II
Once the first two (2) bolts were in and I’d cleaned up from the first day of the tree house build, I walked the site and thought about how I would lay out the platform. As part of this process, I measured between the trees and discovered that the clearances between trees were 9’11” (too big for my intended 10’ beam) 12’6” (too big for my intended 12’ beam) and 15’7” (too big for my 16’ beam). Ungh.Initially, I thought I’d just get two 2”x8”x18’ boards and make an 18’ beam. If I did that and discarded the 10’ one I’d already made, I could shift the other two down in location and still end up with the triangle shaped platform I had in my head.In the morning, before going out to get the 18’ boards and walked the site again, with a slightly clearer head. While an 18’ beam would allow me to make the triangle shaped platform I’d intended, as I stood there between the trees I realized that the triangle was going to be too small. If I added a post to act as a fourth tree, I could turn the triangle into a rectangle and just about double the size of the tree house platform.With this new plan, I headed to the store and picked up two (2) 2”x8”x16’ board to make a second beam for the long side and two (2) 2”x8”x10’ boards to make a second beam for the short end. I also picked up a 4”x4”x12’ post for the fourth “tree.”
As soon as I got home I again glued up the joists. Then I set to work marking out and digging for the post. To my astonishment and delight, I managed to dig the 3’5” hole for the post without hitting any roots, rocks or other impediments.
I tossed a few inches of gravel in the bottom of the hole to help with drainage and tossed in the post. After temporarily bracing the post level, I slowly filled the hole with dry cement. Every few inches I would tamp it down with a broom handle (on which I’d cut a flat end instead of the original rounded end) and added a bit of water with a watering can. Years ago I read somewhere that when setting posts you didn’t need to actually mix the cement, but could get achoice just watering it in place. I’ve used this method a few times now, and it seems to work fine.
With the post in place, I again thought about the beam layout and how I would frame and deck the platform. I realized that since the double 16’ beams would extend past the trees and pick up the weight of all of the joists, the double 12” beams at the end wouldn’t add anything but weight. At least I’ll be able to use two (2) of the five (5) beams I’ve made.Other Tree House posts.
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| Additional beams during glueup. |
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| The easiest hole Ive ever dug. |
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| The four trees for the Tree House. |
The Penultimate Renovations Contiue
Heres a quick video updating everyone on the recent (small) progress made on the continuing phase 1 of the shop renovation. Ive finally finished the window and electrical frames for the interior layer of insulation and now Im beginning to insulate around them.
You can see all of the 2013 Shop Tour Videos here.
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You can see all of the 2013 Shop Tour Videos here.
A Little Reorganizing A Little Shop Tour
I cleaned and rearranged the shop today. Now that the wands are finally (almost) done, I needed to clean and rearrange things so that I could walk, use the table saw and find my bench.
There are a few corrections to what I say in the video:
- I think the Port-A-Mate rack was more. I bought is a while ago.
- What I say is cherry on the lumber rack looks like, and is, walnut.
- I say “That’s about it” three (3) times. Only one (1) of those times is at the end.
