PHASE III : STORAGE

Phase III deals with the drawers, there will be 8 drawers in total which will be located on the 2 sides. The drawers increase size as you go down the cabinet starting at 4”, 5”, 6-1/2” and finally 8”.

Here is the steps I took in making them

1. Cut all drawer parts to size.

2. Joinery

3. A little sanding

4. Dry Assembly

5. Drawer Glue Up: Assembly

6. Drawer Installation

7. False Fronts

8. Drawer Pulls

9. Cabinet Pull out Trays

10. On board Paper Roll Holder

CUT PARTS TO SIZE

The most exciting part of this phase of the build is that I actually get to use the assembly table to build the drawers.

Using my plans I cut all plywood parts to size, I used a mix of birch plywood and regular sanded plywood for all the drawer parts (needed to get rid of some scrap plywood, that’s why I used the sanded plywood. With the exception of the drawer bases all materials were 23/32” thick, the drawer base was 1/2” thick I needed very robust bases as I will be putting heavy tools in them.

I used my table-saw to rip cut all the drawer parts and cross-cut most of the drawer parts on my chop saw with the exception of the drawer bases which I used my crosscut sled on the table-saw.

Drawer frame cut to size, since I am using 4 different heights of drawer that is why there is 4 lots of parts.

I was so happy that I left this final part of the build for last as I get to actually use my assembly table for its first project, its drawers. Its extremely handy having a longer work surface.

Here are the 8 drawer bases all cut to size.

JOINERY

I chose to use the same joinery method as “The Wood Whisperer” did in his build for the drawers and that is the rabbet joint, with a dado for the drawer base.

Basically cut a rabbet on the front and back drawer pieces which is where the drawer sides are captured and then I use glue and brad nails to secure all the parts together, the drawer base just sits into a dado that is 1/2” up from all 4 sides and I made it 1/4” deep.

This method is extremely quick and I banged out all 8 drawers in about 2 hours.

My first step was cut 2 rabbet’s on each side of the front and back drawer piece, its a 1/2” deep and 23/32” wide, I installed a sacrificial fence to my table-saw fence and then also installed a dado stack in my saw to get the job done. I only placed rabbets on the front & back pieces of all the drawers, the sides do not receive the joint.

Here is a close up of the left side rabbet, that 1/4” front piece is what hides the joint on the front when it is all glue together, it also enables you to have more glue surface for a better bond on the drawer.

Here is what the drawer front& back pieces should look like.

My next step was cut the dado for the drawer bottoms on all drawer pieces, I placed the dado 1/2” up from the bottom and the dado is 1/2” wide and 1/4” deep, I also used my dado stack for this step.

Here is a close look at the dado which is where the drawer base will be housed, this panel will float in here so no glue will be needed during the glue-up phase.

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A LITTLE SANDING

After all the joints are now cut in all the drawer pieces I sanded them with 120 grit sand paper using my random orbital sander. I usually only sand the inside faces of the drawer parts and then sand the outsides of the drawer once all the glue has dried.

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DRY ASSEMBLY

Now that all the drawer parts are ready for the glue up I usually do a dry assembly to make sure that I rehearse the order in which I assemble the drawer, I also make sure that the drawers are square, which they were.

Here are the drawer parts al laid out for assembly, I place glue on the drawer back & front and then assemble the drawer and secure the corners with 1-1/4” brad nails.

Here is one of the assembled drawers

Here is a close-up of the rabbet joint on the front of the drawer

All 8 drawers are assembled and ready for installation

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DRAWER INSTALLATION

Installation of the drawers was pretty quick and easy, I used 18” long side mounted drawer runners on all the cabinet drawers and I came up with a quick installation method for them, I made a quick jig for the drawer slides to help with alignment. The drawer runners I used had 2 parts to them, one part gets screwed to the case and he other gets screwed to the drawer there was a 1/2” overlay between the 2 parts so a made a offset jig that I could align the drawer part so as that they were uniform on every drawer.

STEP 1: I used a 1/4” spacer so as that I could sit my drawer slide on and keep an even reveal.

I used 1/4” thick piece of MDF as a spacer

I lay the drawer slide on the 1/4’ thick piece of MDF and secured it to the cabinet case

STEP 2: Used a shop made jig to align the drawer part of the slide

With the jig butted up to the base of the drawer I just lay the drawer slide next to it and screw it in place with 3 screws.

Here is a close up of the jig, its basically a scrap piece of plywood with a fence on the side that is 1-1/4” wide which when butted next to the 3/4” thick plywood gives me the required 1/2” offset to install the drawer slide.

Here are all the 4 drawer box installed on one side, I repeated this on the other side of the assembly table.

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DRAWER FALSE FRONTS

I made sure to use a single plywood panel for all my false fronts so as that I could cut them sequentially and maintain the grain pattern for all the fronts, I really think it adds that cohesive look to the bank of drawers. The installation of the false fronts was very easy.

• Apply glue to the back of the false front

• Secure in place on the drawer using 2 clamps

• Drive a few brad nails from inside the drawer holding the false front in place

• Finally secure with 1-1/4” screws from inside the drawer.

Applied glue to the back of the false front

Held the false front in place with clamps while I secured brad nails from inside the drawer, after that I secured permanently with screws

2 false front installed, as you can see the grain matches up as you look at the drawers.

Here is a picture of all the false fronts added on one side, I repeated this on the other side, it looks great, next up is attaching the handles.

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ATTACHING THE DRAWER PULLS

If you can remember I made my own solid oak drawer pulls a little while ago and it was time to install them on the drawers and doors.

I purchased a Kreg jig some time ago while I was making my drill press cart and it was time to use it again, this is a great little jig if you install drawer pulls, and it works great every time.

With the center of the drawer marked I lined up my Jig and predrilled the 2 holes required to secure the drawer pulls.

Holes predrilled, all that was left was to secured the pulls with 2 screws from the inside of the drawer.

Here is the first drawer pull installed

Here are all the oak drawer pulls attached, still need to sand the pencils marks .

With all the drawers done I turned my attention to installing the pulls on the cabinet drawers.

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CABINET TRAYS

The Wood Whisperer design had some shelves on the inside of the cabinet doors but I didn’t think that would work in my situation, so I came up with a plan deviation and that was install pull out trays , they are basically very shallow drawers and are installed as drawers because they operate on drawer slides.

They allow my to utilize all the empty space behind the cabinet doors but have easy access to all contents instead of reaching into deep shelves and having a hard time finding what you are looking for.

I installed 4 pull out trays behind the left cabinet door, and I will be storing anything from my power tools that are too big to fit inside the drawers, I will also be storing my wood finishes and glue.

I made them the same way that I made my drawers except they don’t have false front and are only 3” deep. They work great and have so many uses, I have used them in my kitchen on more than one occasion.

The trays are very shallow, but the design and joinery method used are the same as the big drawers we just installed.

Here is one of the trays installed, works like a charm.

Since the tray operate on drawer slides it allows me easy access to the back of the tray

I made a total of 4 trays and loaded them up with all my stuff.

The name of the game is access, these work great ad better than any shelf in my opinion.

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PAPER ROLL HOLDER

On my last outfeed assembly table I had made a home for my 36” long roll of resin paper, I used this to protect the top of the table when I was either gluing up a project or applying finishes.

I found this design on Jays Custom Creations, I will include a link below to his build video, although mine is very similar I didn’t use finger joints for the joinery method, I basically used glue and screws and rabbets to hold everything in place and it came out great.

Rosin paper all attached and works great, simple effective and cheap

Parts Needed

1” thick dowel, 3 pieces of plywood (2 sides and a top mounting piece.

A quick sketchup plan

A little shaping

I used my new oscillating spindle sander to shape the the sides

Side pieces before finish sanding

Side view, all attached

Phase III is all finished and we have a very functional assembly table with tons of storage with a variety of storage methods and a large assembly work surface.

My final stage of this huge build is to apply the finish and I will do that soon, this will probably take me a week to fully finish as it takes a while to apply polyurethane while sanding between coats, but when that is done I will post a finished article on the build.

See you next time and thanks for reading this long project blog, I really hope you got something out this project.

Phase II: THE TORSION BOX TOP (AMENDED)

Here is a layered view of the torsion box

Phase 2 of the project deals exclusively with the Torsion box top that will be installed on top of the cabinet base that we made in Phase 1. 

A torsion box top is extremely functional in that it’s basically a shallow box with a grid work inside that provides a very flat stable surface to work on. 

The torsion box is made with the following materials:

• (2) 1/2” thick MDF panels for top and bottom skins

• (2) 3/4”  thick x 3” high outer frame long pieces

• (2) 3/4”  thick x 3” high outer short pieces

• (1) hardboard sheet (which will make up the replaceable top

HERE ARE THE STEPS

• Built some saw horses

• Staging area

• A little Prep

• Assembled the torsion box frame

• Installed the torsion grid pieces

• Added the skins

• Added the hardwood trim (just added)

MADE SOME SAW HORSES

In order for me to assemble the torsion box I needed to take down my old outfeed table so as that I had some room to work, but you needed an assembly table to make an assembly table.

So I went to my big box store and got a couple lengths of 2x4’s and I also got some metal saw horse brackets that were really cheap and quick to make into saw horses.

It took about 15 minutes to make these, not bad.

Here is a close up of the actual bracket, crude but effective.

STAGING AREA

So now that my saw horses are made, its time to make my makeshift staging area so as that I can start to assemble the top. Below you can see that I added 4 long work supports this was done to make sure that the MDF sheet that I will be put on this is dead flat, there was no point going through all the trouble of shimming the saw horse legs and make them level If they top that the mdf skin was sitting on wasn’t level.

Everything nice and level

This is the MDF skin that I through up onto the saw horses, this will be one of the surfaces of the torsion box, but for right now it is my temporary assemble table.

A LITTLE PREP

Before I get started making the outer torsion box frame I applied a coating of paste wax to the MDF panel that I will be making the torsion box on so as that glue will not stick to it as this will eventually be the top surface of my top.

TORSION BOX BEGINNING

I broke PHASE II :- Torsion Box Top into the following sections

• Torsion Box Frame

• Torsion Box Grid

• The Skins

• The Replaceable Hardboard Top

• Solid Wood Trim

THE FRAME

To describe the frame I am referring to the pieces that go around the torsion box grid, as show in the image below, the grey pieces represent the torsion box frame, these pieces wrap the torsion box grid pieces and later in the process I will attaching solid wood trim to them.

These pieces are cut to 2 lengths

• Two long pieces for the sides

• Two short pieces for the top and bottom of the torsion box.

Here is an image of the frame pieces

I used glue and screws to secure the long frame pieces into the shorter ones.

THE GRID

The grid was the most time consuming part of the torsion box top, mainly because of the number of parts that needed to be cut, glued and brad nailed into position.

The grid consisted off: 45 short grid pieces and 8 longer pieces. There were 9 rows of small grid pieces that measured 7-1/4” wide. My process was simple enough but took a while to complete.

I used a spacer strip to line up all the small grid pieces to try and keep everything aligned but that was not really absolutely necessary your goal is to make it flat and it doesn’t really matter how the grid looked because once the skins go on the grid will never see the light of day again, but it must be flat or it defeats the whole purpose of the torsion box

In the diagram below you can see the long grid pieces (blue) and short grid pieces (magenta)

Here is an image of the grid completed.

I used clamps to keep the mdf panel flat as I was conforming the inner grid to that surface, it does not have to look pretty but it needs to be flat

Here is a close up of the grid

THE SKINS

The skins are what make up the top and bottom surfaces of the toson box, I used 1/2” thick MDF pieces as they are one of the most flat panels you can purchase and they stay flat as well.

Here are the steps I took to install the skins

1. Applied glue to the tops of the grid pieces that were completed in the last step.

2. Laid one of the MDF skins on top

3. Marked out by drawing lines with a long ruler where the long grid pieces were located so as that I could attach the skin into these pieces, almost like clamps until the glue dried.

4. After the glue had dried after a couple of hours I flipped the torsion box over and added the other skin in the same manner.

5. I left the skins a little oversize so I came back with my router and flush cut router bit and made the skins flush with the outer frame.

Added glue on top of grid pieces.

Using my drywall framing ruler I draw visible lines to show here my grid pieces were located, that way I could anchor the top with brad nails .

Getting ready to nail the skin in place

After the skin is installed I also added a few screws and then using my router I flush trimmed the top making sure that all edges lines up.. I will be attaching my solid wood trim to the outside of the torsion box by the end of the project.

THE REPLACEABLE HARDBOARD TOP

Now that the torsion box is built it was time to install the hardboard cover, this is only getting screwed into the skin no nails or glue was used because as time goes by the top will be beaten up and I will want to replace it.

Hardboard top installed, just needed to flush trim it and the box is almost finished, I need to go to my lumber supplier and get some red oak for the outside edges of the torsion box.

With the torsion box completed it was time to marry the torsion box with the base cabinets, it was very easily done but help from a friend will be needed as the torsion box is not light.

I moved the torsion box from the saw horses and attached it to the cabinets using screws from the underside of the stretchers that we added in phase one.

Torsion Box attached to the cabinets.

A close up of the cabinet base, the oak will look awesome on the top once I get it, there isn’t any hurry.

ADDED THE SOLID OAK TRIM

I just completed this today and figured I would just add it to my original phase II post … here are the steps I took to completing this final build phase of the torsion box

1. Cut my solid oak parts to its final dimensions

2. Layout & Drilling holes

3. Securing the trim

4. Time for some dowels

5. Router Time

6. Sanding

PARTS

I needed 4 pieces of solid oak, two long pieces for the sides and 2 shorter pieces for the ends. I purchased a total of 20 feet of 1x6 solid oak and ripped it down to its final sizes.

Here are the 4 pieces of oak

A LITTLE LAYOUT

I decided to do a little layout to keep all the screw holes in the same location as yo went around the table, so I used my measuring tape to position the holes and my combination square to mark the center points for the holes. Then just used m drill with a countersinking bit to drill the holes.

Phase 2 is a wrap next up is Phase 3 which will be making the drawers for the cabinet base. I really hope you are enjoying this lengthy project but we are in the home stretch.

Here you can see the lines that I drew to locate where the holes where to go, they are in the same distance apart on all sides.

SECURING THE TRIM

Now that all my holes were drilled I needed to secure the trim , I used a trick that The Wood Whisperer used when installing the trim when you are along and that was to add clamps to the torsion box so as that the trim can balance on the clamps when you need to screw the trim place and it worked great, I also added glue to the back sides of the trim and the torsion box sides.

Here you can see the trim balancing on the clamps, just need to add screws.

ADDED DOWELS

I wanted to use a contrasting wood for the dowel plugs so I picked up some walnut dowel rods and chopped them up into little 1/2” plugs. My process for this was very straightforward and I really love how they come out.

• I cut the 36” long dowel rod into little plugs

• Added glue to the counter-sunk holes and tapped in a dowel, I left the dowel proud so as that I could trim them flush after the glue dried.

• Flush trimmed all the dowels and sanded flush

Dowels are flush cut and sanded smooth and really like the look.

Here is the walnut dowel left proud, just waiting for the glue to dry.

I trimmed the excess dowel, but still proud. Need to and them next

Dowels all finished.. look great

ROUTER TIME

I decided to also add a router profile to the trim so as that to remove any sharp edges from the oak, I decided to use chamfer profile bit in my handheld router to this. Really glad that I went with this profile as it also adds a nice characteristic to the trim, I could have used a round-over bit but I thought that would be a little boring.

Finally here is the finished Torsion box with solid oak trim.

Here is the chamfer bit I used on the slid oak trim

Here you can see the chamfered edges, I did this to all outside edges of the oak trim.

All that was left was to sand the trim and break the other edges of the oak trim with 120 grit sandpaper and I called it a day.

I have to say that I really love this torsion box and glad I spent the little extra in choosing solid oak for the trim , the walnut plugs also add a nice look to the top.

NEXT:

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Phase III : The drawers

Torsion Box Assembly Table : Phase 1

ACTIVITIES

• Cut down sheet goods to manegeable pieces

• Cut Vertical Partitions to size

• Place Dadoes in Vertical Partitions

• Cut Toe-Kick notches

• Assemble Cabinets

• Attach Castors

• Attach Stretchers & Toe Kicks

• Made solid oak drawer/cabinet pulls

• Attach Cabinet Doors

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The below diagram shows you the section of the project I am working on at the moment the base frame consists of the following:

• 4 Vertical Partitions

• 2 Cabinet Base’s

• 3 Top Stretchers

• 2 Toe-Kicks

So with the cabinet bases cut to size it was time to switch my attentions to the vertical partitions.

VERTICAL PARTITIONS

There are 4 partitions in total that make the sides of the cabinets, each vertical partition gets the following:

• A dado groove measure 3/4” wide x 1/4” deep positioned 3” from the bottom of the pvertical partition which goes from the front to the back of the vertical partition so as that the base can fit inside and then I will glue and screw into position.

• 3” x 3” notch cut out so as that I can place the toe-kick which spans the entire table base but more on that later , I used my jigsaw to cut out the notches.

NOTE: I needed to measure the plywood thickness as nowadays plywood is not the advertised 3/4” it was actually 23/32” of an inch I used my dado stack inside my tablesaw to cut out the dadoes.

Make sure that you orient each vertical partition the right way as only the inside faces of the them will receive a dado, if you don’t you will put a dado on the wrong side and the base will not fit into the cabinet

Here is the measurements needed to perform all the tasks on the vertical partition

Here you can see the toe kick notches cut out and the dado groove running from the left to right side.

A closer look at the vertical partition

Although Marc Spagnulo didn’t add screws to secure the base I will be using screws and glue, this line indicates the center line of the dado I will be counter-sinking 1-1/4” screws into this outside face of the panel I will also come back later and plug the holes with probably oak plugs.

Here you can see the pre-drilled counter-sunk holes.

Here is an image displaying the toe-kicks all cut out they measure 3” x 3”

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ASSEMBLE CABINET’S

With all the components cut to size for the cabinet bases it was time for some assembly. Here is the order I did the assembly:

1. Started working on the left side cabinet by placing glue on one of the vertical partitions dadoes

2. I also cut some temporary stretchers to balance the base of the cabinet while I secured it with screws that I Pre-drilled holes for.

I added glue to the Dado in one of the vertical partitions

Here you can see the temporary support stretchers I screwed to the cabinet side. This way when I lie the base on the sides Dado it can rest on the supports as I secure the base with screws

Here is what the cabinet carcass frame looks like all assembled, just checking for square and everything looks great.

Right side cabinet all complete as well. Starting to get places.

I positioned both cabinets with the space between them for the bank of drawers I will be placing in there, just making sure everything lines up.

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GETTING MOBILE : ADDING CASTERS

Almost every piece of furniture in my shop is mobile as I think that is extremely important, because you never knw when you need to move things around. Especially with projects this big it takes a lot of staging space so as that your comfortable when in the assembly stages of big projects like this.

I will be adding a total of eight 3” casters, 4 on each cabinet.

Here are the steps I took in attaching them:

• Attached 3” high glue blocks which are basically 2 pieces of 2x4 glued together then Predrilled and attach to the underside of the base cabinet.

• Using hex head bolts I will be securing the 3” casters to the the glue blocks.

Here is the 3” thick glue blocks, you see if I didn’t add the glue blocks I would not have enough clearance to get around the toe-kicks when they ae eventually attached.

Finally here are the casters attached

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ATTACHED STRETCHERS & TOE KICKS

As you can see from the above diagram the cabinet carcasses are held together by 3 stretchers that go over the top of the cabinets, and using the toe-kick pies to securing the unit from the bottom.

THE STRETCHERS:

The stretchers are positioned on the front and back of the cabinets and one in the middle, before I cut the 3” wide stretcher pieces I cut a series of rabbets at both ends of the workpiece and then 2 in the center. Make sure to measure accurately the distance from left to right side of each cabinet and then measurement will be transferred to the 3/4” workpiece.

Next using cut the rabbets and dadoes, I used my dado stack inserted into my table saw. Once all these grooves are cut , I cut them to final size of 3”. Finally I predrilled the top side of the stretchers and secured them to the cabinet frames.

These piece are vitally important for 2 reasons.

• The attach the 2 cabinets together into one unit

• They also keep the cabinets plum and square.

Here you can see the ends of one of the stretchers with the rabbet cut out and secured in place.

Here are the 3 stretchers attached to the cabinets.

THE TOE-KICKS

Usually most cabinets receive toe-kicks for decorative reasons, but I decided to use as part of the structure of the cabinet, the other reason people design toe-kicks is so they don’t stub their toes when at the cabinet, but I really didn’t need the toe kicks as I have the cabinets up on 3” casters, but as I said I needed the structural convenience of this piece.

The easiest way I attaching the toe-kicks was to put the cabinet on its back that way I could have easy access to securing the toe-kick.

Here is the image of the cabinet in proper orientation with the toe-kick attached and in place.

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MADE DOOR/CABINET PULLS

Shop projects are a great way of experimenting with lots of things, I decided to make my own cabinet pulls because to be honest I didn’t like the once at the big box stores and I had some solid oak on hand and figured that wood would give a nice contrast to the birch once all completed.

I went online and found a great article on how to make them and you can find the article here

Here is my plans that I made on Sketchup.

All finished, looks great, I needed t make 12 of these as I will be using them on my doors and drawers

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ATTACHED CABINET DOORS

I know that I stated that doors and drawers would be dealt with in Phase 3 but I just got the Kreg concealed hinge jig and was itching to try it out, the jig was that awesome I attached all the doors in like 60 minutes. If you use a lot of Euro 35mm concealed hinges and don’t always have access to a drill press this jig is great.

THE JIG

Here is a stock image on the jig

Lined up the jig so the left side was flush with the door, then clamped in place

The jig comes with a stop and drill guide to keep the hole straight and plum and the stop prevents you from not going through the door.

Hinges all attached and doors work great.

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OUT WITH THE OLD & IN WITH THE NEW

THE OLD

My old assembly table served me well for more than 5 years but it is all beat up and it didn’t satisfy my storage needs anymore.

NEW

PHASE ONE: FINISHED

Next I will be moving onto Phase 2 : The Torsion Box I am really excited in starting this as I have never made one before. But I probably will not start it until the weekend.

PS: I posted this blog post on Saturday but when I actually saw on my site I realized that the post didn’t save right and I had to redo the post over… but this is Phase 1 in its entirety.

Catch you soon.

Torsion Box Assembly Table : Phase 1

ACTIVITIES

• Cut down sheet goods to manegeable pieces

• Cut Vertical Partitions to size

• Place Dadoes in Vertical Partitions

• Cut Toe-Kick notches

• Assemble Cabinets

• Attach Castors

• Made solid oak drawer/cabinet pulls

• Attach Stretchers & Toe Kicks

• Attach Cabinet Doors

The below diagram shows you the section of the project I am working on at the moment the base frame consists of the following:

• 4 Vertical Partitions

• 2 Cabinet Base’s

• 3 Top Stretchers

• 2 Toe-Kicks

So with the cabinet bases cut to size it was time to switch my attentions to the vertical partitions.

VERTICAL PARTITIONS

There are 4 partitions in total that make the sides of the cabinets, each vertical partition gets the following:

• A dado groove measure 3/4” wide x 1/4” deep positioned 3” from the bottom of the pvertical partition which goes from the front to the back of the vertical partition so as that the base can fit inside and then I will glue and screw into position.

• 3” x 3” notch cut out so as that I can place the toe-kick which spans the entire table base but more on that later , I used my jigsaw to cut out the notches.

NOTE: I needed to measure the plywood thickness as nowadays plywood is not the advertised 3/4” it was actually 23/32” of an inch I used my dado stack inside my tablesaw to cut out the dadoes.

Make sure that you orient each vertical partition the right way as only the inside faces of the them will receive a dado, if you don’t you will put a dado on the wrong side and the base will not fit into the cabinet

Here is the measurements needed to perform all the tasks on the vertical partition

Here you can see the toe kick notches cut out and the dado groove running from the left to right side.

A closer look at the vertical partition

Although Marc Spagnulo didn’t add screws to secure the base I will be using screws and glue, this line indicates the center line of the dado I will be counter-sinking 1-1/4” screws into this outside face of the panel I will also come back later and plug the holes with probably oak plugs.

ASSEMBLE CABINET’S

With all the components cut to size for the cabinet bases it was time for some assembly. Here is the order I did the assembly:

1. Started working on the left side cabinet by placing glue on one of the vertical partitions

2. I also cut some temporary stretchers to balance the base of the cabinet while I secured it with screws that I Pre-drilled holes for.

I added glue to the Dado in one of the vertical partitions

Here you can see the temporary support stretchers I screwed to the cabinet side. This way when I lie the base on the sides Dado it can rest on the supports as I secure the base with screws

Torsion Box Outfeed & Assembly Table

Hello Everyone

I have just embarked on a new project for the workshop, I am replacing my current outfeed/assembly table with another that has a few features that my current one doesn’t have I will go into that in a little while. Since I am now working full time this project is likely to take a while to complete and will probably only get some quality shop time at home during the weekends and possibly a few nights as well.

PROJECT SUMMARY

• Project Sequence

• Outfeed / Assembly Table features

• Inspiration & Plans

• Materials

• Cabinet Carcass Section

• Torsion Box Section

• Cabinet Drawers & Doors

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PROJECT SEQUENCE

I am tackling this huge project in a series of sequences which will be

• Build the carcass frame (Phase 1)

• Build The Torsion Box Top (Phase 2)

• Build & Install Drawers & Doors (Phase 3)

PHASE 1: BASE CARCASS FRAME

PHASE 2: TORSION BOX TOP

PHASE 3 : DRAWERS & DOORS

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Outfeed / Assembly Table Features

This table will have the following features as you can see in the diagram below which is an exploded view of the entire table, also remember that whatever you see in the base as far as doors and drawers will be copied on the other side of the cabinet

• 4’ x 6’ long torsion box top (basically a torsion box can be described as a table top with a honey comb insides that provides the structure needed for a very flat and non movable surface. Below you can see the structure of the torsion box on one of my plan pages that I created.(I will make the plans available after the project is built just in case I have to tweak them here and there)

• It will also be portable as I will be adding a total of 8 casters which will be mounted to the cabinet ends of the base

• The base cabinet will have 8 drawers (4 on each side) and 4 cabinet 2 on each side.

• Overall there will be huge amounts of easily accessible storage to fit tools that I currently don’t have room for especially a dedicate cabinet for my air compressor

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INSPIRATION & PLANS

Inspiration for this table came from Marc Spagnulo (AKA The Wood Whisperer) I came across some YouTube videos that go into great detail for the build, he also has a rough set of plans available that I will post links too below. I needed to tweak the dimensions for the table to suit my table-saw height.

Basically his design broke the project into two sections which were

• The Cabinet Build

• The Torsion Box Build

How to make a Torsion Box Assembly Table. A method learned from David Marks at http://djmarks.com When assembling projects, nothing beats a wide and spacious dead flat surface. And one of the easiest and most efficient ways to create a dead flat surface is by constructing what is known as a torsion box.

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MATERIALS NEEDED

There are a lot of materials to be purchased for this project and can be considered and expensive build but if you break the project down into sections the cost will not hit you all at once, at least that is what I am doing. Below is what you will need to build this table. Since I am talking the cabinet base first I got the 3 full sheets of plywood as that will be enough to build the cabinet base, you will need to get a 1 sheet of 1/2” plywood for the drawer bottoms but that can be gotten later on.

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PHASE 1: BASE FRAME

TODAYS ACTIVITIES

• Broke down the 3 sheets of plywood to more manageable sized pieces, I used a number system on broken down panel’s so as that I knew what each panel was to be used for

• Started working on the base cabinet , this will have a lot of work and probably will be the lengthiest part of he build. I cut all 4 Vertical partitions to final size

Announcement!!!

I have been a stay at home dad fro the last 6 years and now that my youngest son is about to embark on his Elementary School education it is now time for me to return to full time work.

Back in December I started looking and I am lucky to say that I am starting a new career in the woodworking industry. I got a job with a very experienced woodworker and he has agreed to take me on as a full time employee.

What does that mean for Ed's Custom Woodcraft's?
This craft will always be my passion but with dealing with working 40+ hours a week it drastically reduces my spare time, so although I will not be making it down to my basement workshop as much going forward I will still keep the blog going and also still do my personal projects probably on the weekends.

So for now take care and I will talk to you soon.

Thanks for all the support 
Ed

Table-Saw Dust Collection

Back at the start of the month I purchased a new dust collection system which was the Dust Right System from Rockler and it works out great, the cart I also made for the unit is also working out great but the last time I left the Dust Collection shop upgrade project I had not hooked it up to any of my power tools as I needed to figure out that process.

Well today I went to my nearest Rockler store to purchase what I needed to hook the dust collection system upto my table-saw and I detailed it all below:

MATERIALS

• 4” Flexform Hose

Flexform Hose ; This hose runs from the elbow underneat the table-saw dust shute and into the Quick Connection for the dust collection system

The Flexform hose is the middle component

• Dust Right® Quick Connect 4'' Elbow

Just in case you want to purchase it here is the box it came in and a link to rockler to purchase it online

Here is the elbow this attaches directly to the table-saw dust shut and is held in place using the metal hose clamps, this really does provide an air tight seal around the dust shute where the saw dust is collected before being sucked up by the Dust Right collector.

• Dust Right® Quick Connect 4" Hose Port

Here is an image of the port, this is the port that I needed to attach to the Flex-form hose and is what I attach the dust collector hose that runs from the Dust Right Collector, it completes the dust collection loop from the table-saw to the dust collector

Here is the order of assembly The Quick Connect Dust Ports attaches to the flex-form hose which then attaches to the elbow and the elbow attaches directly to the table-saw dust shut under the saw.

HOOKING IT ALL TOGETHER

I will try and explain this the best way I can using layman’s terms.

Step 1: The Elbow is first up and I needed to get under saw to attach the elbow to the dust shute, the rubber end of the pipe is awesome because it allows you to fit it easily without wrestling with the OD of either the shute of elbow then you simply tighten the hose clamps until its nice and right.

Below is a picture I got of the internet this is not my saw but you can see the dust shute with the table-saw upside down

The dust shute is the 4” hole you see here in the center of the underside of the saw. This is where the elbow gets attached.

STEP 2 : The next step is to connect the 4” flex-form hose to the end of the elbow, I was surprised to pen the box to this part and not find any hose clamps in the box but luckily enough I still had some left over from when I purchased the dust collector, I used 2 one at each end to attach the hose to the elbow and the next step as well.

Here is the flex-hose and another link to its description

Here is the hose clamps I used and a link to its description

STEP 3 : My next step was to attach the Dust Right Quick hose port to the end of the flex-form hose, this is where my dust collector hose connects with the pipe and thus completing the circuit for dust collection to happen. I again used another hose clamp that I used on the other end of the hose , as seen above.

This recessed port allows the flex form pipe to connect to one end and the dust collectors hose to the other.

The only problem that I had to figure out was how to attach the this hose port to the left wing of the table-saw at a convenient height to connect my hose from the dust collector, I cam up with a temporary solution by tying the hose port to the left wing using twine but I will need a better solution, perhaps making a housing out of wood or something.

ALL CONNECTED

Below are some pictures of the finished assembly and I have to say that it works great, I fired up the dust collector and for the first time I am very happy to say that “it sucked” I ran a few test cuts through the table-saw and I didn’t see and saw dust after the cuts were completed, finally a dust collection system that works and my lungs will thank me for it in the years to come.

Here is the dust collector connected to the quick port that I have tied to the tablesaw.

Here is the entire set-up and it works great.

One more item that I purchased for down the road was a dust separator which I will definitely need when planing wood, if you would like to learn more about this check out the below video. I can use it in connection with either a shop vac when using smaller hand power tools or the dust collector when hooking it up to the planer, it basically takes all the large wood chips out of the saw dust and puts it into the dust separator providing you with multiple benefits which are

• Saves your filter on your shop vac so as that it doesn’t fill up or clog as often

• You don’t have to empty your dust collection bag as often.

Fits nice and conveniently on my cart, if you want a link to this click here

Flip - Top Cart

INTRODUCTION

So as I stated at the start of January I was in a major workshop reorganization phase and I had planned on getting some much needed tools for the shop, one of these tools was a planer (thickness-er) and then realized that I had no where to put the tool and from what I had researched this planer is quite heavy, so I decided to build a multi-tool cart and the best way to do have 2 tools in cart is to make it a flip top cart.

I was also going to put my oscillating spindle sander on the cart as well, until it met a horrible accident and fell and broke in a million pieces, so the money that I was saving was now being used to buy a new spindle sander, and I decided to upgrade the spindle sander that I had which was the Wen sander and decided to get the Rigid Oscillating belt/spindle sander.

My old Wen Oscillating Spindle Sander, this served me well over 3 years but I badly needed a oscillating belt sander as well and that is another reason I upgraded to the Ridgid version.

This is a major upgrade to the Wen I had and absolutely love having 2 tools in one, you can remove the belt sander attachment and turn it into a spindle sander in a matter of seconds, with plenty of power and on board storage compartments for all the accessories that I got with this tool, cant wait to put this through its paces.

GETTING STARTED WITH THE FLIP-TOP TOOL CART

1. Inspiration & Plans

2. Materials

3. The Build

   • Cutting Parts to Size

   • Pocket Hole Time

   • Assembling main carcass

   • Adding Casters

   • Whoops!!!! Forgot Something

   • The Drawer

   • The Flip Top

4. All Finished

   INSPIRATION & PLANS

On this project I actually purchased the plans for the build from “ Fix This Build That” and then actually sourced a video from a different YouTube favorite of mine “Crafted” and his build video is below. I did not make plans for this and I have included a link below to purchase the plans from Fix This Build That below I paid $9.00 for the plans and they are excellent.

2. MATERIALS

Here is what you need to build this cart:

• (1) Sheet of 3/4” plywood

• (1) Half Sheet of 1/4” plywood

• (2) 1” x 2” dimensional lumber

• (4) 3” Casters

• 1-1/4” wood & pocket screws

• 3/4” wood screws

• Lag screws (sized to tool)

• (1) Drawer Pull

• (4) 5-16” x 3-1/4” long eye bolt

• (4) 5/16” fender washer

• (4) 5/16” threaded knob

• (1) 3’ x 3/4” steel tube

• (4) 3/8” x 2-1/2” long hex bolt

• (8) 3/8” flat washer

• (4) 3/8” nut
  

Here are most of the supplies needed to make the cart

Here is the 5 star knobs that are used in the flip-top mechanism, I have to say that his engineering concept for designing this is first class, and it works flawlessly

THE BUILD

CUTTING PARTS TO SIZE

As most projects start I needed to break down the plywood sheets that I got , so using the cut-list that was in the plans I purchased I cut the following parts to final size on the table-saw

• The sides

• The Bottom

• The shelf

• The drawer Parts

• The top parts

Here are all the main cart parts cut to size

Here are the drawer parts cut to size

POCKET HOLE JOINERY

I chose pocket hole joinery for the majority of this build for a few reasons, its quick sturdy and avoids the need to have tons of clamps.

I took the base and the shelf and placed pocket holes on the left and right sides making sure to keep the pocket holes out of sigh I placed them on the bottom face of each part. The screws are then used to attach the cart bottom and the shelf to the sides of the cart, I needed to do it this way because there is no back to the cart.

Here is a picture of my Kreg Pocket Hole Jig, getting started placing the holes, I spaced them every 4 inches.

ASSEMBLING THE MAIN CARCASS

So now that I have both the shelf and the bottom of the cart pocket holed its time to assemble the main cart carcass.

I positioned the base of the cart between the left and right sides and screwed the base in and also used glue as well, I positioned the pocket holes out of sight.

Here is the base clamped to the both sides and I’m getting ready to insert screws to attach everything together. I like using pocket holes because once the screws are inserted I can remove the clamps and not worry about glue drying.

Next I moved on to attaching the shelf and this was a bit tricky because the shelf was only 4-1/2” off the base and again I used pocket holes on the bottom face of the plywood panel to screw it in, to help keep the shelf in position I placed 4 spacer blocks to support the shelf while I screwed everything in place.

Here are the spacer blocks clamped to the sides so as that I can sit the shelf on them any maintain an even panel.

Here is the shelf sitting on the spacer blocks, this was tricky getting to the pocket holes located on the underside of the shelf but luckily enough my drill could fit

While I just installed the shelf it was now time to secure the narrow piece at the back of the drawer cavity to enclose this part of the cart, its basically a 4-1/2” piece of plywood with 2 pocket hole positioned at each side of the piece, then again getting to the pocket holes to secure the piece into the sides was difficult as it was a very limited space.

ADDED CASTERS

I added 3” locking casters to the base, so as that I could move it around if necessary and to be honest almost every workshop furniture. I also used some self taping screws to secure them in place.

3” casters

The cart is now mobile

WHOOPS!!!!! Forgot to do something

Well in the very detailed plans that I purchased I forgot to do 2 things before assembling the main cart and they were:

1. Drill 3/4” through holes for the metal pipe to slide through that pivots the entire flip-top

2. Secondly I also forgot to cut out the notches for the locking mechanism to prevent the flip top from moving.

So my fix for this was to do it while the cart was assembled and to be honest it wasn’t that difficult with some careful measuring and a jigsaw, drill & a speed square

Here you can see the the 2 3/4” holes that the metal pipe will go through, you can also see the notches that I cut on both sides which is where I install the locking mechanism.

Using my speed-square to guide the jigsaw to cut the notches out.

So here are the notches and the pipe hole finally cut out.

THE DRAWER

Next up was to assemble the drawer and again I used pocket holes as the joinery method, I positioned pocket holes on the front and back pieces of the drawer and attached these parts to the sides using pocket holes. With the drawer frame assembled it was time to attach the base and I used 1/4” plywood and just glued and screwed the base in position.

Drawer frame parts, everything except the drawer bottom

Drawer all assembled, next up is installation into the cart

With the drawer made it was time to install it into the cart, I needed to attach the 20” full extension drawer slides into the cart

• first and to do that I used 2 pieces of scrap lumber of about 1-1/2” thickness and placed it into the drawer cavity, this way I was assured that the drawer slides would be positioned correctly from left to right,

• I then sat the drawer slides on the spacers and secured the runner on both sides of the cavity

• Then I sat the drawer on a 1/8’ spacer strip to lift it off the cart base and pushed it into the cavity and while moving the drawer out with the drawer slides I secured it one screw at a time, to install the final screw I removed the drawer with the sliding part of the drawer out of the cart and secured the final 2 screws in the back.

Here you can see the spacer blocks I used to position the drawer slides on.

Here is the full extension drawer slides in full effect, I love using these slides as they allow storage access to the back of the drawer.

The finished drawer, with the false front attached with 2 screws from inside the drawer. I also had some left over drawer pulls that I made during the drill press cart project so I used one.

THE FLIP TOP

So the flip top on the cart could not be easier to make but it does take a couple of steps. Basically the flip-top is a sandwich of plywood top and bottom panels with 3/4” thick pieces positioned at the front, back and sides. You will also need additional pieces for the center of the top to use for securing whatever tools you will be mounting to it, this hole assembly then has a 3/4” metal pipe go right through the middle of the panel that positions the top into the cart from the previously drill holes in the sides in a previous step.

• POSITION ALL PARTS

I positioned the bottom panel and laid out where the 1x2's needed to be placed, I glued and screwed these in position

Using the 3/4” pipe as a spacer to determine where to place the middle 1x2’s and then simply secured these in place with counter-sunk screws and glue.

In this picture I am gluing the longest pieces in position there are 4 long pieces that I need to glue and screw to the plywood panel.

Here is a look at the inside of the top, as I said its a sandwich with 1x2 material positioned on the front,back and sides, with a metal pipe running through the middle.

Here is the metal pipe in position with the 1x2 either side.

SOME TABLE-SAW WORK

I will describe this the best I can, the front and back 1x2’s need a notches cut out of the center of each end of the work-piece, these notches match up with the notches all ready cut into the cart sides, so as that when the locking mechanism is ready to be installed the-eye bolt slides around to the front to open the flip top to move and then slides to the sides when you need to lock it.

To cut the notches in the lumber I used my tenoning jig on the table-saw to cut away the middle section of the work-piece.

Here is the front of the tenoning jig, its basically an auxiliary fence that supports a tall work piece and rides along you table saw rip fence,

Here is the tenoning jig, I use a clamp to go through-the hole to secure the work-piece while running it through the blade,

Here is what the notch needs to look like after all the cutting is done. You need to do this on the 2 pieces that are positioned on the front and back of the top, the notches also need to be placed on each end of the work-piece.

Now that everything was cut I could finish making the top by securing the other side of the flip top, by attach the panel to securing it with screws, I didnt use glue because I will probably need to gain access to the center section of the table top in the future when I need to install another tool.

LOCKING MECHANISM

I wanted to take a little time is explaining the locking mechanism on the flip top table, I will do my best to describe it

• There are a couple of parts that make up this function, first before you have to deal with all the nuts and bolts I needed to cut notches in the sides of the carts (all 4 corners) and then the top also had a matching notch cut into the front and back corners of the top as seen below.

Here is the notch cut out of the sides and top, its important that they line up or the locking mechanism will not work.

• Next we deal with the nuts and bolts that make up the mechanism. These are the parts

  • 5 star knob

  • Eye Bolt

  • 2-1/4” lag bolt

  • 2 washers and two nuts

• Basically the eye bolt is slid into the notches then the 2-1/4” lag bolt slides down the hole created in the top , at the end of the eye bolt you can screw on the 5 star knob.

The parts that make up the locking mechanism

This is how the bolt is placed in the notch, it slides all the way and this is why we needed to cut the notch in the top so as that eye bolt could be housed inside.

This is a close up of the entire mechanism, its extremely simple but very effective

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

So I added a few organisational upgrades to the cart, which were:

• On board power cord management, I purchased a roll of velcro straps to organise the power cord for the sander, this could not have been easier I basically put a screw and washer through the Velcro and wrapped the power cord up in it, pictures below.

• I also added a power strip to one of the sides so as that I could plug the tools in directly there and not worry about power cords running over the whole shop.

Here is the Velcro strap that I can use to the power cord up, this is useful because when you are in the process of flipping the top over you don’t want the power cord getting wrapped up or in the way.

Nice and tidy and out of the way.

ALL FINISHED

Well I finally finished and I am very happy about how it turned out , its portable, easy to use, a great working height and above all I dont have to worry I am going to put my spindle sander and planer once it arrives.

Thanks for reading this post and look forward to your responses.

A picture of your truly with the new addition to the shop.

Finally an image of the cart with the sander flipped.

Workshop Tour 2019 (Pictorial)

So this morning I started to do a shop clean-up since I didn’t have any projects to work on. I also wanted a chance to use my new Dust Collection system and used the floor sweep accessory that I purchased, and it worked awesome.

I took a few updated pictures of how the shop looks now, the last time I took workshop pictures was over a year ago and the appearance of the shop has changed alot since then, with upgrades in tools and work surfaces.

East Wall

Drastic Remodel here

In this section I drastically changed a lot , I used to have a long workbench attached where the router table is now but because the bench was so high since I wanted to store the router table underneath it was unusable so I got rid of it, I basically chopped it off from the right side that has all my drawer storage and the shelving unit.

Below is a before and after picture

BEFORE

AFTER

A close up of the Lazy Susan, use this everyday for my common go to items in the shop, like glue, pencils, tapes and common hand tools like hammers and screw drivers… fun build and you can find more information here.

This is the section of the storage unit and bench that I left because I just love have a place for all my finishes and paints.

ROUTER TABLE

My router table is probably one of the most used tools in my shop, I use for basically 85% of my projects from making joinery cuts to making my own moldings, I used to have a shop made router table and fence but I recently upgraded to the Kreg Table & Fence and man what a difference a good tool makes.

Here is where my router table resides, for now. Too be honest its on wheels so it can be stored anywhere in the shop.

The finished router table & cabinet

Router cavity, I used plexi-glass here, the right door contains all the electrical connections

Another angle showing the power switch

MY CLAMP WALL

So because my workshop is on the basement I have walls off nothing but concrete walls so before I could figure out what storage method to use for the actual clamps I needed to build a basic panel and mount it to the the wall, and that’s when I found a Ramset basic model ( you hit it with a hammer)my brother in law uses and it’s great I mounted a 60”sq panel consisting of 3/4” ply and some Masonite all mounted to the wall using 2×4s and screws and the Ramset fasteners …

I made the panel larger than I need but I expect my clamp collection to expand and I might also hang a few other things on it to ..

This works out great but I am almost thinking of other options as he takes up so much wall space.

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NORTH WALL

North Wall

Hand tool wall storage

WALL MOUNTED PEGBOARD CABINET

I really love this unit as it stores most of my hand tools, its basically 6 foot wide pegboard with 2 doors that open and close and also has pegboard, this was one of the first things that I made for the shop and has served me well ,I still want to keep it but I might move it to another wall, because I want to make a nice hand tool cabinet for all my chisels, planes and in general expensive tools that I have purchased over the years. If you need more information please click on this link to get the plans

A close up of the pegboard unit.

Here is the unit with the doors open, so much storage in this unit.

HAND TOOLBOX

Below the hand tool wall storage listed above I did make a hand tool small tool box and to be honest I dont like it and I am probably going to get rid of it when I make my nice solid wood hand tool wall cabinet in the future, its where I keep all my chisels and mallets and measurement tools, dovetail guides etc etc.. I like the construction of the box but the finish came out horrible. I used to have it on top of the bench that I dismantled and it currently sitting on a small table that I have.

FILLING CABINET

I also made a filing cabinet out of plywood and solid oak. I never ever seemed to have a place to put all the paperwork that I create for all the projects that I make, I was constantly making plans for all kinds of projects so back in 2017 I decided to make this 4 drawer filing cabinet and I am so glad I did, especially in the future if I want to look back on what I did I have my files to remind me lol.

I could of added a drawer to the top but I figured it was a good place to put stuff until I could file it away in my system.

I used full extension drawer slides for 2 reasons they can hold an incredible amount of weight and I could also access the back of each drawer letting me use all the space in the back.

WORKSHOP DOOR

My workshop didn’t have a door in place and I racked my head for a good 6 months back in 2017 trying to come up with a workable solution, I tried everything from shower curtains on them adjustable poles, I even made cover out of tarp and put zips in them to allow me access to the shop but none of them really worked, so I decided to finally make a door using plywood and construction grade lumber, but my problem was that like most basements I had a ton of plumbing and pipe running all over the shop and of course it was going through my doorway, so I had to make a door and retro-fit it, meaning I needed to take the top right corner out of a door so that is how I fabricated it.

This door is awesome and is still hanging today.

I made my own door panel beading on the router table, a proud moment for me. lol

Here is the retro-fitted section.. I told you the top right section was missing lol

User 2x4’s as the structure to attach the plywood to.

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WEST WALL

West Wall

This side of the shop a;so has a lot of wall storage this is another section of the shop that I commonly use and it has the following storage solutions:

• Wall mounted router accessories cabinet

• Screw Storage

• Pneumatic Nail Gun storage

Although most of these storage solution still work and when I made them I thought i did a decent job constructing them, but since my skills have improved I want to remake all this wall mounted fixtures and make nicer looking versions of them.

ROUTER ACCESSORIES CABINET

Back in 2016 I made this accessories cabinet for all my router stuff and its also a very useful shop addition, it contains storage for all my routers and most of their various jugs and accessories, the doors open up to a ton of router bit storage that I am still adding to. It also contains 2 medium sized box that I can keep a lot of stuff in as well like my non-slip mats for clamp free router work, and it is attached to the wall using a french cleat system. This is the only partial wall in my shop that has french cleat storage and buy do make the most of it.

This is an older picture but it filled up quickly.

The units 2 doors serves as router bit storage for both sizes of router bits 1/4” shank & 1/2” shanks.

Most of the bits that I owned at this point was 1/4” and you can see them here

When not in use the doors close up and provide plenty of protection from a dust workshop, I used simple butt hinges.

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NAIL GUN STORAGE

Also on this wall I made another french cleat storage solution for all my pneumatic nailers, I got this project idea from DIY Tyler’s YouTube Channel and its linked below.

The design of the unit is very simple and the best thing about it is the 2 drawers that keeps all the nails and brads in one place.

The unit has space for 5 nail guns of various sizes. It also has 2 drawers 1 for brads and the other for staples.

Plenty of organised room for brads

I made multiple grooves in the base and top of the unit so as that I could adjust the widths of the dividers based on the size of the nailers.

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FRENCH CLEAT SQUARE ORGANIZER

So I went to my bucket list of shop projects and picked one that I wanted to do, I have amassed a few assorted squares since picking up wood working and its one of them tools that never really had a home so a couple of months ago I found this project Jay Bates website @ JaysCustomCreations.com and it addressed this issue that I was having, I really liked at the simplicity of the project and it actually works really well, I will include a link to the build article

This project only got completed today so its also on my blog page as well. I will include a link to the blog article as well below.

Looks awesome, I think I might have a little OCD , lol especially when it comes to my workshop.

Simple use of scrap lumber

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So my workshop is basically in the shape of an L and as you turn a corner you are almost at the back of the shop except I have a jut-out that has some built in cabinets both wall and floor, these do offer a tremendous amount of storage on the wall.. I keep things like all my woodworking reading materials, I also keep some storage items such as little nuts and bolts and bits and pieces that all home workshop have.

After I inherited my father in laws paint-shop I decided to make my own shaker style cabinet doors on all the cabinets but through the years these are the only ones that have survived because I took the rest of the cabinet down during various remodels I have done over the last 5 years.

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CABINET DOORS UPGRADED

Its amazing what a lick of paint and some new doors can do to the appearance of a cabinet.

Here is a cabinet on the floor and here is where I keep my miscellaneous items like little organizer bins for all my nuts an bolts. I designed and made all the cabinet doors

This was the style of door that was on the cabinets before I made the shaker doors

While still on West side of the shop this area is also by back wall, and to be honest it is one of the areas of the shop that needs the most work because of basically its where every piece of shop furniture ends up when I need to create space elsewhere in the shop.

When I first got this shop it originally had a very old built in style bench with cabinets under them it also had a decent sized pegboard on top of it and I decided to keep because I currently use that for all of my jigs.

I currently keep the following tools back there and I have included pictures and links to each of them.

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BACK OF SHOP

Here is a picture of the back of the shop.

AIR COMPRESSOR CART

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

DRILL PRESS CART

PROJECT BLOG & PLANS

WOOD STORAGE CART

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

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SOUTH WALL

SOUTH WALL

Left Side

SOUTH WALL

Right Side

The south wall of the shop has the following shop furniture contained in it, the South wall is pretty large so I needed to take 2 pictures so as that I could display everything in it.

I just recently added a new dust collector to the shop but more on that in a minutes, it also contains the following:

• Dedicated Miter Saw Station

• Cordless Tool Charging Station

• Dust Collector Cart

• More Wood storage

DEDICATED MITER SAW STATION

ADDITIONA INFORMATION

This is one of the first pieces of shop furniture that I made for the shop and to date probably one of the biggest, I use this everyday I am in the shop as it a major step in my woodworking routine, I often need to cross cut wood to its final dimensions and when it is not sheet goods it gets done here, I use my table saw for cross cutting wider panel. To be honest this workstation has served me well over the last few years but I want to upgrade this and the miter saw as well, maybe 2019 will be the year I do it. I also added a dust hood to control the dust that this thing generates.

CORDLESS TOOL CHARGING STATION

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

So this is my charging station that I also made a few years ago and its looking it, but still works great, I recently moved it from the right side of the miter station to the left as I needed to make room for my dust collection hose to connect to it, Its basic plywood construction with butt joints and glue and I have a power strip on the right side that everything charges from.

DUST COLLECTION CART

BLOG & PLANS AVAILABLE

In January I purchased a dust collection system from Rockler and its called the Dust Right, I was going to mount this on a wall but unfortunately I didn’t have a suitable location that easily accessed all my tools, my solution to this was yet again another cart, I currently am giving this plans away so as that you can build it yourself, I included a link below. I also made a detailed blog of the build and you can access these pages below.

MORE LUMBER STORAGE

MORE LUMBER STORAGE

I made this lumber storage unit to fix my issues with wood absolutely everywhere in my shop so I actually found plans on line for this project and I have to say that it worked great but takes up far too much room on this wall, I think it might be time to change this system perhaps putting something on the wall that is mounted and off the valuable floor space that it takes up.

I included link below to the Rogue Engineer who developed the plans, if my shop was bigger this would work.

CENTER STAGE

CENTER OF WORKSHOP

If I was to pick the most used part of my shop, the part of the shop is essential to any operation done in it, I would pick the center because it houses my Ridgid table saw and out feed table. Any cutting operation or assembly process all occurs here. I also added a table-saw accessories cart as well, I have included all available links to these projects below. I am actually in the process of designing a new out-feed table which might possibly have a torsion box top, whats funny is that as I am preparing this shop tour I have quite a lot of shop projects to complete this year so maybe I have bitten off more than I can chew for 2019, or perhaps all my projects will be workshop projects this year, and that is fine with me.

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TABLESAW ACCESORIES CART

I made this cart back in 2017 to solve the multitude of accessories that I have built up over the last few years, I used to store all my table-saw blades in a drawer in the out feed table but going there to get a blade every time I needed one got old so I decided to make this, I really like how it came out and it saves me a ton of time whenever I need to get something for the saw, feather boards, push sticks, dado stack blades, the list goes on and on.

OUTFEED & ASSEMBLY TABLE

I found inspiration for this table from ” The Wood Whisperer” I made some modifications such as a lot more storage with the use of a shelf for my crosscut sled ( finally has a home up from under my workbench), I also put 3 self made drawers . I have 1 large drawer for a dedicated saw blade storage I only have 3 blades and a dado set but I plan on getting more as time progresses. The other 2 drawers are smaller in size and I will use them for TS accessories ( push sticks, feather boards)

If you would like to see more pictures and information click the button below, like I said earlier this table has served me very well and it looks it, its very beaten up and I am thinking of remaking another table but this time I think I will make the top a torsion assembly.

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Well that is all I have as far as the shop tour is concerned, I wanted to originally make a video but I didn’t do that for a few reasons, since I am from Dublin, Ireland my accent is terrible when I make any kind of video, the lighting in the shop is not very conducive to making a video and anyway in a pictorial shop tour I am able to link all the shop furniture to additional information that I have on specific pieces. I didn’t always have a website or blog page so some of the project pages are links to my online workshop page that I have at www.lumberjocks.com this is where I started documenting my work and this page (link below) details roughly 90% of all my projects, so definitely head over to the shop and take a look.If you are a woodworker and want a community to belong to I cannot think of a better one.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this length blog post and feel free to comment on absolutely anything about Eds Custom Woodcraft’s.

Take Care

French Cleat Square Organiser

I needed some shop time that wasn’t just about sweeping and vacuuming the entire shop, the shop does look great but whats the point of having a workshop if you are not making saw dust and actually making something, to be honest it was so clean it made me a little nervous of dirtying it up again, lol.

So I went to my bucket list of shop projects and picked one that I wanted to do, I have amassed a few assorted squares since picking up wood working and its one of them tools that never really had a home so a couple of months ago I found this project Jay Bates website @ JaysCustomCreations.com and it addressed this issue that I was having, I really liked at the simplicity of the project and it actually works really well, I will include a link to the build article in this blog.

Its basically another French Cleat design and since I had some leftover room on my solitary french cleat wall I decided it was a great place for it.

Here is a summary of what went into the project today.

• Concept & Design

• Materials

• Execution

Concept & Design

Like I previously mentioned I came across this project on Jay Bates website Jayscustomcreation.com he is one of the woodworkers that I follow from time to time and he also has a YouTube channel.

This project is great to use up some scrap materials and that is exactly what I did.

Usually when I want to make a project I usually fo to my computer and make a 3D model of what I want to make but this time was different I made this project on the fly simply because I needed to see the actual tools in position to determine how big the back was going to be, so sorry no Sketchuop model on this.

MATERIALS

• Piece of 3/4” plywood, mine measured 12” x 24” but

• Some 2 x material I had some poplar, pine and oak just lying around so I used that.

• A hacksaw blade or some very thin aluminum flat bar

EXECUTION

Here are the steps of the build that I took I didn’t take that many pictures of the build but you can follow along with Jays article that I included at the end of the blog post.

1. I laid out all the different types of squares that I had, I had some speed squares, machinist squares, combination squares and a few other items that I wanted to include on the organizer, I needed to lay out everything to figure out spacing of where everything was going to fit.

2. I started ripping & cross cutting some oak to use as hangers for the speed squares, then I predrilled the backs of them so as that I could screw them into the top of the backer board.

3. Then I made a holder for my combination & machinist squares this took a little more work but its basically a piece of 1-1/2” thick material that I cut a big rabbit out of to create a shelf doe the square to sit on, this way I could fit sizes to each work-piece.

4. Finally I took a hacksaw blade and drilled two holes on each end, then I used a screw to secure the blade onto the backer board I also used some really small washers to give clearance, I will be using this to mount some measuring tapes to.

Some Finished Pictures

Here is what I needed to organize

Here is what it looks like now all nice and neat and everything has its place.

Some close up pictures

The holders are nothing more than a block of wood with some strategically placed Kerf cuts so the tool can slide in and out.

A hacksaw blade provide easy measuring tape storage.

I used a hacksaw but a piece of aluminum flat bar would also work.

All in all I am very happy about how this project turned out and even happier that it didn’t cost me a penny.

Thanks for tuning into this blog and I will catch you later.

Dust Collector Cart Project : Completed

Well for the most part the dust collection cart is finished, I needed to do a few little things to finish it up.So here is what I did today.

• Applied a few coats of polyurethane to the sides and the base of the cart

• Attached all the mounting hardware to the divider

• I filled the gap that was left in the base.

• All finished

POLYURETHANE

As I said in my last blog post I was going to apply a couple of coats of polyurethane to the base and side assemblies in the cart, this adds a couple layers of protection to the cart and it is also easy to wipe down.

Here is an image of one of the sides after applying the 2 coats of polyurethane, the wooden plugs pop and look nice, there was no point painting as the sides would get the most abuse.

MOUNTING HARDWARE

I needed to add the mounting clip that holds the dust collector in place as well as all the mounting hardware that keeps all the handles and dust collections hose in place.

Here is all the mounting hardware attached, I actually moved one of the straps on the bottom left to the bottom right to hold my floor sweep that I also purchased.

FILLED THE BASE GAP

Since the base is basically a plywood sandwich with 2” x 4” ‘s in the middle it created a 3-1/2” gap so I decided to cover it up, so I cut 2 pieces of plywood to size ans secured it with screws into the lumber. Below you can see before and after pics.

Here is the gap I am referring to before covering it.

Here is the gap covered up with the plywood panel. Looks a little better and will prevent dust from getting inside the base.

ALL FINISHED

This will probably one of them on going projects as I build my dust collection accessories but as of right now that is all I have to install on the cart, possibly in the future I might add a small 2” dust hose real and probably a dust separator.

I am very happy about how the cart came out and it works great, I used it for the first time today and world awesome I might need a longer hose other than the 14’ hose I am currently using to reach my entire shop but that is why I made the cart, as it follows me through-out the shop.

I have plans available in my store soon and I will include a link below

This side of the cart is empty for now but I will probably add a hose real and a dust separator

Here is a picture of the floor sweep, this works great and is ideal for cleaning up the shop floor, I actually used one of the dust hose straps to attach it to the divider of the cart , that way it will not fall when the cart is mobile.

Here is the dust collector in its new home, it looks great and is extremely versatile allowing me to clean my entire shop and also will eventually be hooked up to all my station power tools to get rid of the saw dust.

Just another angle of the cart, I really like the docking cup that holds the handle in place and Rockler will did a great job inventing the dust hose organizer.

Thank you for reading this blog series and Ill talk to you again soon.

Take Care

Dust Collector Cart : Finishing Touches

So now that I have the Cart assembled I needed to do some of the finishing touches on the project and a few other odds & ends today, so here is what I did.

• Filled all of the counter-sunk holes either with wood filler (on the divider& base) or wooden plugs needed to be added to the sides.

• Making the wooden plugs

• Some Sanding

• I needed to build the dust collector & install it temporarily onto the cart

• A lick of paint

ADD WOOD FILLER

I added wood filler to the counter-sunk holes on the divider 7 base sections of the cart, I used filler in these 2 sections because I was going to come back and paint these sections later on today.

Below you can see some pictures of the filler and before and after pictures of the cart.

I used this filler because its natural color matched the color of the sanded plywood.

Here is what some of the holes looked like, I have to say that the filler did a great job, sometimes I usually mix wood glue and saw dust so as that the filler matches the wood being filled but because this was plywood I just used this.

Here is the plywood after being filled, doesn’t look too bad at all, but no mind this will be painted later. The plywood looks dusty but I have not wiped it down yet.

MAKING SOME WOODEN PLUGS

I decided to use wooden plugs on the sides since I wasnt going to paint this section. I usally have a ton of wooden plugs on standy but I couldnt locate them and I didnt want to go to a store to buy some more. I did find however a length of oak dowel that I decided to cut up into indivual plugs to use.

I brough the dowel over to my chop saw to cut them but everytime I cut one dowel I bounced all over the place and I could not find it, so I decided to switch gears and them by hand.

I made a quick and dirty jig and use my Japanese pull saw to cut them, the jig is very basic. I used a scrap piece of plywood and glued a fence in place , then cut a kerf into the base indicating where to position my saw and receive the same length dowel everytime, you can see a few pictures below of the jig.

Here is the jig, I used a spring clamp to hold the stop block in place while the glue set, you can also see the kerf I cut indicating where to position the saw.

This is a close-up picture of the jig

Here you can see my Japanese pull saw, this worked out awesome and I will definitely use this jig in the future.

INSTALLING THE WOODEN PLUGS

Installing the wooden plugs is very simple, just apply glue into the counter-sunk holes making sure to get glue on the walls of the hole and not the base because that is where the screw is, wood glue will not work attaching the plug to screw head, tap the dowel home until you hear it seat, then leave for about 30 minutes returning with a flush cutting saw to remove the excess, you can see pictures below of this process.

Here are the plugs insta

Here is me using my flush trim saw removing the excess plugs.

Here is a picture of wooden plugs all flush trimmed, looks good, these plugs will pop once I apply the polyurethane finish to the sides.

SANDING

I didn’t take any pictures of this step because lets face sanding is boring , its one of them steps that needs to get done but I dont get and enjoyment out of it, I used 120 grit sand paper on my orbital sander and sanded every surface, and then came back with 180 grit and sanded some more, after I was done I came back with a tack cloth to remove all the dust, and prepped the cart for paint.

ASSEMBLING THE DUST RIGHT DUST COLLECTOR

Before I moved onto the painting part of the project I needed to assemble the dust collector unit, so I did the following:

• Removed all the contents of the boxes

• Read the user guide and assembly instruction

• Made sure all parts were accounted for and not damaged.

• Assembling the dust collector was pretty easy except they included the wrong size wrench in the assembly kit to tighten all the bolts, but its a good thing that I have my own.

  Other than that the tool was well packaged and the instruction were easy to follow, below you can see the parts all laid out before assembly began.

Here is the Dust Right dust collector pre-assembly.

TEMPORARILY ATTACHING THE UNIT

Now that the dust collector was all assembled I needed to determine the following before I got to painting the cart.

• The dust collector motor is attached to the cart using the supplied Z bracket, which is almost like a shop made french cleat but made of metal, the bracket is about 10” long so I needed to place the bracket so as that I came into contact the 2” x 4”’s I used to make up the divider, this dust collector is not light and I needed to locate these studs so as that all of it considerable weight could be handled correctly

• Secondly I purchased some accessories to organise the dust collector main handle and hose, otherwise this cart would fail before I ever got to using it, the hose that I purchased was 2 feet long but expanded to 14 feet and I needed a way to organise this and not just have it sitting on the cart base..

• I also purchased a Rockler Dust right floor sweep which basically is a big vacuum attachment that you can use in conjunction with the dust collector to vacuum the floor of my shop.

  Below are pictures of all these accessories and of course the main dust collector.

Here is the main dust collector all attached, the organizers keep everything in its place.

Here is the docking port for the main handle, this handle hooks up to every accessory that I purchased, this docking cup is screwed to the cart using 3 screws and the handle slips on over the outside of the dock, works awesome.

Here you can see the adjustable straps that keep the hose organised while its not being use, its basically a rubber strap with holds , you can use this with a variety if diameter hoses.

I didn’t get to organised this today , but this is a stock photo displaying what it can be used for. I think this will probably get mounted on the other side of the dust collector.

Here is another stock photo displaying the docking systems for the handle and hose.

PAINTING TIME

Like I commented earlier in this post I decided to paint some of the cart, so I decided to purchase a gloss paint the color of the powder coating on the dust collector its a kind of light grey. But before I got started painting I needed to section off the areas that were not receiving the paint, which were the sides and the base.

My painting skills are not that great so I used blue painters tape to outline the area that I was painting and then used a 2’ paint brush to cut in the paint around the edges and then finally used a small roller to paint the divider panels, I think it came out great, below you can see the pictures.

Here is one of the sides of the cart all painted up, its the same on the other side.

Well that is all I had time for today, thanks for reading.

NEXT:

• I need to add polyurethane to the base and sides of the cart

• Permanently mount the dust collector and all accessories, I still need to figure out where to place my small shop vac.

• Add handles to the upper edges of the cart, so as that I can pull it around with ease.

Dust Collector Cart: The Build

So now that I have everything that I need to get started on the build, I have broken down the build into the following sections:

• Follow the cut-list

• Make the Base

• Make the Divider

• Attach the Sides

CUT-LIST

Using my plans and cut-list it was time to start cutting everything to their final dimensions. My first stop was to the table-saw to cut all the plywood parts to final size.

Here is a picture of me cutting the plywood down.

Here is all the plywood cut down to their respective dimensions

Next I was over to the miter saw station to cut all the 2” x 4” lumber to their final dimensions.

Here you can see my miter saw station set-up, or part of it anyway lol

My miter saw station is one of my most used workstation because I can set-up repeatable cuts just like this one, I used my Kreg production stop to make quick work of cutting these dimensional lumber down to size.

So now that everything has been cut to its final dimension, well except for the sides (but more about that later).

Here is all the sheet goods and lumber all cut to final size.

MAKE THE BASE

The base is basically a sandwich of plywood and 2x4’s glued and screwed together.

Step 1: I gathered my parts to make the base which were 2 plywood panels and 3 pieces of 2” x 4”. The plywood is positioned on the bottom and the top and in the middle is the 2”x4” positioned on their sides. I screwed through both bottom and top plywood sheets into the lumber sandwiched in the middle, I also applied glue to both edges of the lumber so as that when I screwed into the sheets the screws would act as clamps until the glue dried.

Here is the base with the plywood sheets on top and bottom with the lumber sandwiched in the middle, I clamped the plywood onto the lumber while screwing everything together, glue was also added. I counter-sunked the screws because I will be coming back and filling all these holes later on in the project.

Here is another picture of the base, you can see where I placed all the counter-sunked screws.

ADDING CASTORS

Almost everything in my shop is mobile mainly because I work alone I need all my large shop furniture to be easily moved about to make shop layout a little easier.

In the past when adding castors I usually used lag bolts and nuts to attach the castor’s to the bottom of whatever it is I am making, but I am tired of pre-drilling holes and making sure that I have enough clearance for the nuts to not interfere with the mobile aspect of the project.

But over the last 2 projects I have using self taping hex head screws and they have been working great, below you can see the screw type that I am referring to and they can be purchased at any home center.

Here is the self tapping screw, I just add a washer and using my driver I screw them home.

A real close-up of the Hex Head self tapping screw

Here is one oft he 3” casters that I will be using to make the whole cart mobile.

All casters positioned and ready to roll

Here is the completed Base

THE DIVIDER

Again the divider will act as a wall in which I secure the Dust collector on and everything else that I can fit, the construction of the divider is very much the same as the base with a few subtle differences

• Its bigger

• The 2” x 4” lumber is laid flat and not on its edge

• The plywood is screwed into the lumber from the front and then glue is used to hold everything together, the screws again acts as clamps.

• I used my hand held trim router to round-over the sides of the divider so as that they are nice to the touch.

I didn’t spare any glue on this glue-up but this is a look at how the divider was constructed, I did place a few countersunk screws into the lumber to hole it in place so as that I could flip the divider to the other side and attach the other panel.

Here is a close-up of the round-over, Ill come back later and sand everything down

Both panel;s have been attached and I about to use my router to round-over the sides of the divider.

Here is the divider sitting on the base, it has not been secured yet that is why I am using some shop made right angle holders.

POSITIONING THE DIVIDER ON THE BASE

In order to make the sides I needed to position the divider on the base and make sure that everything lined up when i went to attach the sides.

In the above picture you can see that I used a unique clamping method these little helpers are a must have on a big projects like these as they act as another set of hands. I basically clamped these supports so as that I could position the divider in the middle of the base, but the clamps posse a major problem, since I need to attach the sides by screwing them from the outside of the plywood panel the clamps were in the way, its funny how you can never imagine all the problems of a build until your building, so my solution was to remove the clamps and basically screw the right angle supports into the base and the divider.

Here you can see the screws holding the right angled support in place allowing me free access to the sides without any hindrance.

Here is another images, whoops I cracked one of the supports

Everything plum and square

Now that I can stabilize the divider it was time to move onto making the sides.

THE SIDES

The sides are probably the most important part of this construction because it holds everything together, since I did not attach the divider to the base I need the sides to hold all the weight of the divider.

The sides are basically 2 big triangles that I cut out with my jigsaw and then as usual glue and screwed them into place from the outside of the side panels.

A little lay-out work is needed

I clamped both sides together and gang cut them with my jigsaw that way both sides would be identical.

After cutting the giant triangles I placed countersunk holes in the areas that I needed to use screws to attach them to the divider and base, I also used a riser block under the side as I was securing them .

I positioned riser block on the ground to sit the side onto and then applied the glue and screwed this side in place I repeated this for the other side. I will be filling all these holes in the future.

CART ASSEMBLED

With the sides in place the construction phase of the build is complete, I still need to do a bunch more work finishing the cart but you can see where I leave the project today.

NEXT PHASE 5: FINISHING

Thanks for reading catch you all soon.

Dust Collector Cart Project : Research & Design

So now that I purchased the Dust Collector from Rockler, the next phase of this multi-faceted project was to store it . I needed the following features of installing a dust collection system in my shop

• It needed to mobile

• It needed to drastically improve my dust collecting capabilities in the shop

• I needed to remedy my constant need to clean the shop especially when it came to the dust.

• It needed to reach all my major tools that I have now and ones that I plan on purchasing in the future.

As I usually do for any project I take the following steps before I decide on what to make and how to make it.

• Research

• Make Plans to assist with the build

• Buy Project Supplies

• The Build

RESEARCH

While scouring the internet I came across this concept from a YouTube channel simply named Evan&Katelyn where they build this awesome cart out of construction lumber and plywood and it solves most of my problems.

Its basically a wall mounted on a mobile base where they hang all there dust collection equipment, everything from the same system that I will be using and a tone more such a a hanging shop vac, all accessories for the Dust Right System all neatly organised on a double sides wall.

Below you can see the YouTube video

DESIGN

As I usually do I went to Sketchup my 3D design software and drew up a set of plans and cut-lists and so forth, I will be making these plans available in the near future.

Although the video was a tremendous help they never told me what the dimensions were and anyway I needed to modify this cart so it would function in my work-space.

My design can be broken into 3 main assemblies

• The Base (needs to be mobile so I added 3”castors)

• The Divider

• The Sides

Below you can see the 3D representation of the cart

Here you can see the 3D model of the cart, its 72” tall x 24” wide x 36’ deep

PROJECT SUPPLIES

I needed to go to my local big box store and get the supplies that I needed and here is what you need to make this cart

• (QTY 2) 4’x8’x3/4” plywood

• (QTY 6) 2” X 4” X 8’ construction grade lumber

• (QTY 4) 3” Castors

• Glue

• 1-5/8” screws (1 Box)

NEXT : PHASE 4 THE BUILD………………..

Dust Collector Cart Project : Shopping

SHOPPING

Phase 2 was all about shopping I had saved for a little while and now it was time to buy the dust collector and a few accessories so off I went to Rockler Woodworking located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Here is a list of what I purchased:

• Dust Right® Wall-Mount Dust Collector, 650 CFM

• Dust Right® 4'' Quick Change Floor Sweep

• Dust Right® 4'' Dia. Expandable Hoses

• 4'' Keyed Bridge Hose Clamps, Pack of 5

• Dust Right® 4'' Hose & Handle Docking Port Kit

• Dust Right® Quick Connect 4" Hose Port

Rockler is a great store that you can go for all your woodworking needs, I am lucky enough to have a store near me but they do have a great website that you can check out

Here is a quick picture of everything that I got, its all mentioned above.

PHASE THREE NEXT

Dust Collector Cart Project : Making Room

MAKING SPACE

As I mentioned in my previous post I am currently under going a shop improvement and Upgrade phase and to kick this off I just purchased a new Dust Collector Unit. I went with Rockler’s Dust Right Unit.

When I originally planned I had an idea of where I was going to put this unit so as that I would be central to all my tools especially the tools that generate the bulk of my saw dust for example the table-saw and chop saw. I even went so fat to alter my current layout by getting rid of a unit I was using and place it on the wall which is one of the reasons I purchased this system, but it wasn’t to be because it really was not the best location and was way to far away from my chop saw, so I had to rethink its home.

Below you can see the alterations that I made in the before and after pictures

BEFORE PICTURES

The bench that I had made and attached to the shelving unit was designed way too high so 9 could store my router table under, and the bench height was just too high to do any type of work on.

AFTER PICTURES

Here is the space that I created after removing the bench, it would have been ideal with the outlet right there and my table-saw on the side.

I am not worried though as I will be using the space in the future, I plan on building a traditional style workbench in the future and this maybe its new home.

Sometimes what you have planned for your work-space works out great and other times it doesn’t, to be honest I was eventually going to amend this bench in the future so I look at it as a win win, its better to correct a mistake than to force a bad idea to make it work.

I think over the past 4 years I have changed my shop layout at least a half dozen times and the shop looks completely different than when I started. My goal is to always make it work easier and make my workflow smoother.

2019 SHOP IMPROVEMENTS & CHANGES

If anyone receives my Newsletter especially the December 2018 one you would know that I spent a lot of time thinking about shop upgrades and changes. If you don’t currently receive my Newsletter you can sign up below:

During the last several weeks I have been wondering what changes I needed to make to the workshop over the next year or so, and I broke it into 2 sections.

The First Section

The first section deals with new tools that I need to get and the tools I need deal with two sections dust collection and lumber milling.

Dust Collection:

I have decided to get Rocklers Dust Right mainly because of the following reasons:

Its affordable under $300.00

Its compact because it mounts on the wall, the reviews on this dust collection system are really good and all the accessories for it are affordable and puts it in the budget of a woodworker hobbyist like myself.

I don't need to spend a fortune and run 4" ducting pipe all over the shop as the expansible hose can be run to one tool at a time.

When I move out of this shop and into another it will not be a big ordeal in transferring it.

Link Here to the product & description

Dressing Lumber

The other tools that I want to get this year deals with lumber dressing and milling, I currently have no tools that can dress lumber, what I mean by that is that I cant take a rough piece of wood and thickness and joint it, I have always depended on either buying my lumber from big home centers like Home Depot and buying their limited supply of wood as it was already dimension-ed and ready for use, lately they have a diminishing supply of hardwoods and only primarily supply Oak, Poplar and Pine.

The other way I could buy lumber that was dimension-ed was to go to local lumber yards where they sell a very large selection of hard & softwoods but they were rough and needed to be dimension-ed at an added cost sometimes as much as $75 per hour in the lumber yard milling department, which can run very expensive.

So with all that stated the 2 products that I have done a decent amount of research on has been the following tools:

THE DeWalt Thicknesser DW735X

The Ridgid Edge Jointer

Section Two

Section 2 deals with my workshop layout and how my workflow could be improved and I usually achieve this by moving the shop around and determine what is the most functional layout for my style and methods of woodworking.

It also can be improved by either moving, removing or making new shop fixtures such as designated work areas, the workbenches that I currently use. To be honest I really want to make a traditional workbench but I don't see myself as a solely hand tool woodworker, in the words of the Wood Whisperer (Marc Spagnulo) I am most definitely a hybrid woodworker because I love using both hand & power tools to get the job done.

So to that end I think I will be making a small traditional workbench out of hard maple and I just purchased the front vise for it in a Woodcraft sale.

That is enough details on what I hope happens in the very near future.

Have A Safe & Happy holiday season

Thanks to everyone for your support and I look forward to what 2019 has in store for us.

Lego Tray: All Finished

So today I finally put all the finishing touches on my sons Lego Tray and I have to say it came out better than expected.

HERE IS WHAT I DID

• Some Sanding

• More router work

• Added Handles

• Adhered the baseplates to the tray

• Applied a finish

SOME SANDING

So after the paint had dried on the name I routered into two of the sides it was time to clean that up by sanding it, so I used 80 grit upto 320 grit paper to make the name pop. It isnt a bad job for some free routing.

Needed to sand the entire tray so I worked up from 80 grit to 320 grit for the entire tray.

BEFORE Sanding

AFTER sanding.. came out great

MORE ROUTER WORK

I also decided that I wanted to router a chamfer along the bottom edge of the tray to give the effect that it is floating on the surface. So I used a chamfer bit in my palm router and did all outside edges of the base.

Here is my palm router with a chamfer bit installed in the Colette

Here is a close-up of the chamfered edge as viewed from the bottom of the tray.

Here is a close-up of the camfered edge it really makes the whole tray look like its floating, I love this kind of subtle design element.

ADDED THE HANDLES

I wanted a simple way of carrying the tray around so I just purchased some big box style handles and attached them in the center of the frame components that didnt have his name routered in.

I had wanted to use handles that I made for a project during the summer that I had left over but they were too big to fit on the 1-1/2” wide sides of the trays frame, but these will do.

Adhered the Base-Plates

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures of me doing this step because I had very little time in getting the gorilla glue onto the Lego base-plates and also the wooden base of the tray. The process was pretty straight forward I needed to scuff the bottom faces of the Lego plates and the plywood base so I used 60 grit sandpaper on both, this gives the gorilla glue a place to go to make sure I get a good contact between the 2.

Here is me using the 60 grit sand paper to rough up the bottom of the Lego bases plates

Here is me doing the same to the plywood base.

Next I used the gorilla glue to adhere the plates to the plywood and after they were fit in I used some heavy paint cans to weight down the Lego bases so as as that I got a good adherence to the plywood.

Next I added some felt pads to the underside of the tray that way it would npt mark the wooden floors if it go slid around.

Here is a picture of the felt pads.

Applied Finish

All that was left to do was to apply a finish and I had some oil based polyurethane leftover from the Beer Flight project I had just completed, I applied 2 coats today and that was it, all finished.

All Finished

Below you can see a slideshow of the completed project, this was a super simple project that anyone can make and it will provide hours of fun to children of all ages.

Thanks for reading this short blog and I will catch you the next time.

Lego Tray For my son

So my wife asked me to make something that my 5 year old son could use with his Lego and I wanted to make him one of those Lego tables with drawers but honestly had no where to put one so I did some research online and found this nifty little project where it is basically a tray that you can set on the floor and build on and when it is not in use he can just slide it under his bed.

I didn’t make any plans for this and pretty much made it on the fly using some scraps I had lying around the shop I did need to get some materials and they are listed in this post.

This project should only take 3 stages and Part one is below:

WHAT I DID TODAY

• Purchased materials

• Cut pieces to size

• Pocket Holes

• Router Time

• Assembling the tray

• Router Time 2.0

• A little paint

PURCHASE MATERIALS

I went to my local big box store and Target o get some supplies and here is what I got

• (4) Lego base-plates (10”x10”)

• 24” x 24” x 3/4” plywood panel

• Gorilla Glue

• I used scrap oak and poplar but you will need a piece of 1”x2” x 8” lumber.

• (2) Utility handles

• Pocket hole screws 1-1/4”

• Furniture Pads

Here are all the supplies I got.

Here are the felt pads, screws and 2 handles.

CUT PIECES TO SIZE

In order to figure out what all the dimensions needed to be for all the parts and the plywood panel I needed to open all the Lego base-plates and get the overall size and it worked out to 20-1/8” square.

so I cut the 3/4” plywood panel to 20-1/8” square on the table saw, and then cut all the wood strips which make up the frame that surrounds the panel.

Here is the wood pieces getting chopped to final size.

Here is the plywood cut to final size

POCKET HOLE TIME

In order to attach the outside frame pieces to the base I needed to added a joinjery system so I decided to keep it easy and just add pocket holes so I just add screws to attach the sides while the glue sets up.

I use the Kreg K4 jig and made a station for it where all my accessories for the jig are stored. So I placed 4 pocket holes on each side, below you can see the finished panel and the K4 station.

Here is the finished pocket hole base

Here is one image of Kreg K4 pocket hole system that I used

Here is another image of the Jig

ROUTER TIME

I actually used the router twice in this build, I wanted to add my sons name to the outside edges of the frame so I used my Palm router to freehand his name but before I did that I needed to add some outlines of where I wanted to position the name.

Added outlines and even spaces of where I wanted the letters to go.

Using my palm router with a 1/4” upcut router bit to carve the letters in.

Next I used a sharpie marker to write the letters in, also gives me a visual guide when using the router.

Finally his name got carved, I will also adding black paint to the letters to make sure they stand out.

ASSEMBLING THE TRAY

I took the following steps to assemble the tray:

• Added glue to the inside faces of the 4 frame parts

• Assembled them in the clamping jig

• Inserted all the pocket screws into their respective holes

Here is the panel all set up in the pipe clamp jig, just about getting ready to screw them home. Glue has already been applied to the inside face of the frame pieces.

Here is another image of pipe clamp set-up I used the clamps because when using pocket holes they have the tendency to move the work-piece as you are screwing the pocket hole screws home, this set-up alleviates that.

ROUTER TIME 2.0

I also wanted to add a round-over to all the edges of the frame so that my son didnt hurt himself on the tray, so I took it over to my router table with a round-over bit in the router and did all the outside edges, then I used my palm held router to get the inside edges of the frame and it came out great but tomorrow I will be sanding it down to make it even smoother to the touch.

Here you can see the round-over profile on the outside and inside edges of the frame.

A LITTLE PAINT

I wanted to add some black paint to the carved out letters for my sons name so I used some I had on hand and let it dry over night as I will be applying a polyurethane coat tomorrow. I will be sanding this whole surface down tomorrow which hopefully will make his name pop on the tray.

Messy looking right now but I will clean it up tomorrow.

HOW I LEFT IT!!!

Below shows a picture of how I left the project today

Here is the project as I left it today, more finishing work tomorrow

NEXT

• Sand the entire project

• Apply the polyurethane prob 2-3 coats

• Apply the Lego base-plates using Gorilla Glue