I’ve been converting my single car garage into a wood shop, and space has been a major consideration. I really wanted some nice hanging cabinets to house my increasing collection of old (*aka CHEAP) hand tools.

These are the cabinets I’ve built so far. They are pine, and Plywood used mainly from wood I already had. I decided to make a ‘first generation’ set of cabinets that are in my skill range as well as allowing for design changes, and increase in my abilities as time goes on.

I used box joints with a flimsy home made box cutting jig, which leaves a lot to be desired.

Here they are, and here are the treasured old hand tools that they hold.

Here are the Rasps/files and an old Brace. In the door are the japanese saws, a gent handle Razor saw, and Dovetail saw, several old spokeshaves, a draw knife, and my newest prizes an old pistol grip dovetail saw, and an old tenon saw.

I made a set of slots in the back of the cabinet to hold the saws.

Here is the cabinet for the Chisels, mallets, and marking/layout gauges.

Here’s the holder for my hand planes. I plan to expand it, and reorganize it so it holds more.

Here is a better look at the wooden hand planes that I’ve been restoring.

Here are the bench planes, and spoke shaves I’ve been cleaning up and sharpening.

And here are 2 of the mallets I’ve made. They were from the wood pile, and I simply stripped the bark off of them with a wire brush, and pared off with a chisel. They feel really good in my hand. Well balanced with a nice weight to them.

Now I feel like I can start on some of the projects I’ve been planning. Starting with an oak buffet for my wife.

Thanks for looking.

-Carl

My home studio is a big reason of what brought me back into wood working.

My first project was a desk for the mixer. I used pine boards, and it’s pretty bad. And the monitor shelf sits too high. They need to be at ear height. I have designed a new desk that I’ll be working on after a few other things that I need to finish.

I needed a studio rack, and even the most basic unit was a couple hundred bucks, and they were just wooden boxes. And I started thinking about the various racks I had seen, and combined what I liked into a single unit.

This is a dual bay rack that tilts. I use a dowel as a locking pin. The lower bay’s are rack size, to be used for power amps, and extraneous gear.

The next unit is a studio cubby. 2 rack bays on the bottom, and a 16 inch space between the cubes, and the bottom, which is perfect for binders, studio logs, manuals, and whatever. The cubbies are used for mic’s, CD’s, and patch cords.

Sitting on top of the cubby is the 2×12 Combo amp that I made out of an old tube amp head that I had. I love the look of it, but I think I’m going to redo it, with hand cut dovetails, and I’d like the speaker front to tilt back a bit more.

Oh, and what studio would be complete without a bar?

The recessed cabinets are lined with mirrors in the back, and have low watt halogen lights.

That is pretty much it, except for the old pool table which isn’t shown. It’s a fun setup, and i really love improving it a step at a time.

While I love Wood working, I also have a home recording studio. One of the other forums I contribute to, The Studio-Central forum is full of studio owners, professional engineers and a large degree of industry experts. One of them designed a Microphone preamp that he sells in a kit. Well, I bought one, and after quite a bit of soldering, I figured I would make a case for it out of a Cookie tin. So I cut it up and installed it. I also found some vintage VU meters on eBay for $30. Then I made a face plate out of some spare 1/4 inch ply that I stained and added several coats of poly. The result is the first pic above.

The pre worked great. Incredible gain for my Ribbon mic, and no distortion. So I decided to make a 2 channel rack mounted version. However finding a 2-space rack chassis new runs in the neighborhood of $200. Which I thought was unnecessary, so I searched out eBay, and lo and behold I found an old (*broken) 2 space network switch for $14. I gutted it…

and for the face plate, I again used the 1/4 inch ply stained.

then applied the poly urethane.

And finally wired it all up.

and Here is the finished result.

I added these really cool vintage radio knobs, which aren’t included in the pic.

Oh, and it sounds fantastic.

This was one of the first instruments I made. It’s a solid piece of Purple Heart with a Warmoth neck. I rough cut the body with a tabletop bandsaw, and did the shaping with rasps and a palm sander. Originally I was going to shape the upper cutaway differently, but as I was working on it, it sort of took on a life of its own.

There are some imperfections that I’ll get around to correcting, once I get some of my higher priority projects finished.

The pickups are EMG select, and a Classic 65’ Fender custom shop jazz pickup in the bridge. I used gold hardware, and cut a veneer piece for the headstock.

It has a lot of punch, and a ton of sustain, but it’s REALLY heavy. About 12 pounds.