DannyBoy's Workshop

It had been a little while since I updated this, so I figure I’ll give another description here. The pictures currently attached are not current so I’ll have to get some new ones for the new layout.

My shop is located in the basement under the Living/Dining/Kitchen wing of our 3 (small) bedroom split level in Gladstone, MO (suburb to Kansas City). It features low ceilings, 32” protruding ledges to support the foundation after it was dug out in the ‘70s, a few cracks here and there from the house settling, a large support post not quite in the dead center, two prong and un-abundant electrical outlets, access to the piping of the water and gas, and a tendency to leak very badly resulting in a wet floor and an overworked, sawdust clogged, sump pump. Other than that, it is my space in my wife and I’s place.

Currently, we are working slowly to replace the pre-existing plywood and 2×4 shelves that adorned the walls for storage with something a bit more dust proof. We haven’t quite figured out exactly what to do, but we don’t get water on 3 of 4 walls ever so we are thinking of just using recycled rubber tubs ($8.00 at Lowes ea.). In addition, we will be storing our collection of fine <$10 bottles of wine down there at some point as well.

As you can imagine, I have my work cut out for me to keep a dry, clean, and roomy shop. But I get by. I can definitely say that I have learned my lesson for the next house we purchase. Moving on…

It’s hard to say what I center my work around in the shop. I really haven’t found my specialty as of yet since I’m still a novice (although a knowledgeable one I hope). My vision would be to work the entire space around a small but versital, accurate, and powerful table saw. I do my best with my Ryobi with the use of a 24” x 48” cross cut sled and luck.

Currently, I am putting the finishing touches on a bench tool cabinet to hold my growing bench tool collection. It includes a base cabinet to which the tools can be quickly attached and wheeled anywhere I need in the shop. An added benefit to this is I found I can use the base cabinet to store my Porter Cable pancake air compressor. Kind of convenient.

All dust collection and control is down with the use of two different shop vacs. One that sets in a corner burried behind things I have yet to decide what to do with, the other which nestles between the table saw and band saw to gather dust from both inside the tools and whatever lands on top of it. I also observed the time tested technique of duct taping a furnace filter to a box fan to help pull some of the smaller particles out of the air. So far, I’ve only had to replace the fan once…

The Future:
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Once I win the dream shop of Bessy clamps and Delta saws, I’ll probably not have a clue where to put everything. But in the mean time, I planning towards more dust control from a small collector with a pipe system of some sort and a more appropriate filter system. Also, I’m to the point where I am upgrading older tools to things I actually think can accomplish a job (I replaced a $20 jig saw with one that didn’t melt when it was used more than twice a day). Additional tool to add to my list of future needs would be a bench top surface planer.

Outside of tools, I’m looking towards doing more with mobility of stations. I want to have several cabinets on wheels that can mount the table saw, future miter saw, router table and such for convenience of cuts that are otherwise too wide for where the tool is and also so when I decide I don’t like woodworking anymore, I can push around at random to create the ultimate, full size Tetris set!

~DB

-- He said wood...http://hickbyassociation.blogspot.com/