OK time for a shop tour

I've been writing nearly two months about my time in my shop, but for the most part I've avoided posting photos of the inside, mostly because I'm embarrassed by the clutter. I'm horrible about keeping things neat and tidy in my shop. However I did a bit of a brush up yesterday, so here goes.

A reminder, my shop is only 12'x20' so this will be quick:

This is from the far end, looking back at the south end of my shop. On the left you can see my newfangled clutter collector. workbench. on the right there in the corner is an old tambour door mag tape storage cabinet. I have shelving in there and some of my clutter is festering there.
Just in front of the cabinet is my Harbor Freight 14" bandsaw with riser kit, and just in front of that is my Shopsmith DC3300 dust collector.

 And here is the view to the north end of the shop (where the siding is going up). Sharp eyed viewers will notice a window on the inside, but none on the outside. I was given a window, and it is framed in, but not sealed, so I haven't cut through and finished the install. oh well.

In the distance is my Delta Midi lathe, left corner has my shorts/turning blank storage tower, just before that is my other clutter collection, er Bench with my Delta benchtop drill press. Yeah, as you can see, I'm running off of extension cords still... one tool and a light at a time.  Lumber storage is on the east wall, my jointer lives under that and my rolling Ultimate Tool Stand is currently in front of that.  Just overhead above the UTS is a lumber and stuff rack which both hangs from the Loft rafters and the east wall of the shop. It only looks low, I can easily walk underneath it and it is 2' of vertical storage. for those concerned about it failing, it's held up for 6 years so far, I don't see it going anywhere soon.

 Looking up, you can see the home made trussses and the loft section of the shop. Lord only knows what's up there anymore, I haven't been up there in years. (remember that whole ladder thing...)
 The top sill of my side walls is 10' up, and the floor of the loft is a 2x8 above that. The loft joists primarily keep the walls from bowing out, at least until I build the ships ladder I've been planning.

 The green insulation is going to be my drop ceiling this winter. I'm going to close off the loft area, bringing the ceiling height down to a mere 10' or so.

There's my favorite power tool as I have mentioned before Circa 2001 or 2002 (whenever the Borg sold off all of their Emerson built Ridgid saws) It still works great, and has been through a lot.










No, I'm not going to focus on the clutter, until I get rid of more of it.

There's the back of last years attempt at a solar collection system. I'm about to rip that out and make a new entry to the shop. Look for that in the next month or so. Fall is fast approaching and I have big plans for Solar Heat in my shop this year.

In the meantime, I have a quickee clamp rack, and a couple of table saw jigs up on the wall.

 There's the 'tool wall' to the right of where my table saw lives. The dovetail jig is one I picked up from someone on LumberJocks (where I rarely go since they went so over the top ad intensive but that's another post). I think I overpaid when I gave him $25 for it. Rockler or whichever. I've never used it, and probably won't.
Below that is my small crosscut sled, on the right is my other clamp rack.
The 'first tool' I ever put in the shop is just below the dovetail jig, an el cheapo pencil sharpener.

 this is one of two pieces of shop art

that's a close up of the other piece, made of cutting board blank 'ends'. I was batching them out earlier this year, and came across several pieces of cherry marked with the name of the piece:

20" Cherry

That ought to be enough for now. I've got several plans for the shop in the coming weeks and months. And The holidays are fast approaching, I"ll be making loads of cutting boards, and several shop additions/upgrades before the snow flies. 

 Thanks for looking. Please leave a comment below!

updating my newfangled bench & other tool thoughts.

Hi folks,
 up 'til now I've been writing about what I've done and/or experienced in the past.  My shop is an utter disaster right now, but I thought I'd better actually get out there and DO something today.

 There's my existing Newfangled bench. Up until now it has mostly been a dust and clutter collector. I've decided that needs to change. As designed it has the two main bar clamps that run width wise. I never made the two cross pieces that allow it to clamp items, so one of my tasks is to take the piece of 2x6 on the bench top and cut two slots allowing it to rest on top of the bars. Still working on that, as my bandsaw is clogged with cutting board strips on its table at the moment.

I picked up two vises long ago, I'm guessing off of a craigslist ad. Here's the one that I want to mount on the left end of the bench. That wasn't originally in the design, but hey, it's My bench after all. It is a Morgan model 106A, which has a quick release action. I just cleaned it up with some PB blaster and a bit of WD-40 to keep the rust off of it.



I plan on putting a 12" wide set of wooden jaws to line the face. If I need to I'll put some leather in there as well, but that's down the road.

I'm going to add on to the left end of the bench, putting about 12 to 14" of laminated hardwood (ash, maple?) with dog holes in line with the vise.  There will also be a birds mouth so that I can add a planing board to the lower section where the vertical pipe clamps are, this will allow me to hold larger workpieces on end, for planing or routing tasks. I want to add two dog holes on the moving face of the vise.

I also picked up a belt sander the other day, nothing fancy, but hey, it's a new tool. I used it to smooth down a couple of small cutting boards, and only on one of them did I leave it in one place too long, dishing out the board a bit. I'm going to use it to get boards 95% smooth, then put them through for one light pass through the planer to level things out, at least until I pick up a drum sander.