Building a New Wood Shop #15: Fini! "The New Show-Me Woodshop"

Nice looking shop, congratulations.

-- My favorite piece is my last one, my best piece is my next one.

Dude…. What are you watching? :|

-- Wipe the blood stains from your blade before coming in.

I mean I’m not a perv or anything but that really looks like a naked woman!

-- Wipe the blood stains from your blade before coming in.

Man, I really like the lighting in your shop!!!

Frank, Congrats the shop looks great. Sure it will be turning out plenty of projects.

CtL

-- Chris L. "Don't Dream it, Be it."

Sorry to get anyone excited… It’s only Bill Paxton & Hellen Hunt in “Twister”.

I really like the lighting too. It’s really great to work in a bright shop finally. B.T.W. These photos were taken with the camera hand held & available light.

-- Frank, Florissant, Missouri "The New Show-Me Woodshop"

I love the great lighting and high ceilings. Great looking shop, now get busy and mess it up with some sawdust. Oh yeah You gotta post these pics under you workshop on you home page.

-- DocK, WV

Can you please give your opinion on the orange “tormek ” style sharpener.

BTW very, very nice shop!!!!!!

-- "Not skilled enough to wipe jam on toast!"

That’s a good idea… Posting my new shop in the workshop area. I’ll be working on that next for sure.

That sharpener is a good ole Harbor Freight model. Yes, it is kinda cheeply built BUT…. It works real well! And for the price, it’s really a disposable item. With any kind of basic care it’ll probably last a long time anyway. You can see that I have a few Harbor Freight tools. They work very well for the price & are really just stripped down models of the high priced tools. AND they’re made in the same place! My lathe is a clone of an earlier Jet model. And so is my dust collector. (I don’t have Norm’s sponsers.)

-- Frank, Florissant, Missouri "The New Show-Me Woodshop"

Hi Frank

Great looking shop and equipment! You should enjoy many hours of working in your new shop. You did a great job on it. My shop is coming along, slow but sure. Hope to get the table saw running tomorrow so I can start building some cabinets. I promissed my wife I would make my step daughter an entertainment center and 5 bookcases before I get started making the cabinets for the shop.

God Bless
tom

-- Mc Bridge Cabinets, Iowa

Nice shop!! How much planning did you do before builing it? You use any software to design it? I had a welder friend one time that was a woodworker like me just starting out and he bought one of those Craftsman Tablesaws like the one you have there. His shop was 40’ long and 25 ’ wide brand new like you have there and just as proud of it. I went to see it and was messing with the fence on the saw and caught my finger in one of those spaces in the table as I was sliding the fence and what a FEELING DUDE!!! SMUSHED!!

Good Job, some shops look great on the outside and never get finished on the inside. I have a couple more years and I will have one to be proud of as well. Thanks for sharing it with us.

-- Humble Wood Servant

<passes>

Nice!

-- Derek, Bremerton WA --

A marvelously designed workplace. Working in such a place will really be very enjoyable. The photographs are great. We now expect lots of projects from you. I would like all of you who are having such well equipped workshops to spend at least some time in making a project using only hand tools to check your skills, otherwise you will be fully dependant on the machines.
Sharad

-- patanjali

Yup, that’ll get the job done! Nice place you got there! :)

-- Adventure? Heh! Excitement? Heh! A Woodworker craves not these things!

WOW! Real nice shop! The lighting is incredible! I’m in the basement, and have added a ton of 4’ flourescent lights.It works fine. I’m disorganized, and need to stop and take a few days to begin to make sense of all my layout of tools. All of my power tools are on wheels.
Oh, by the way, did you build your workbenches? Can you tell me where you got the plans if you did? I have plenty of plain benches I got from my workplace, but need something dedicated to hold specific projects, and a nice wood vice. Very nice!
I’m in the process of building kitchen cabinets. Through several members of this great site, I’ve managed to learn how to “index” a circle. That closeup of the lazy susan is on my home page. Take a look, and if you want to know how to set it up, I’d be happy to share it with you, or if you want to build base cabinets, I’ve learned a ton of skills already. I’m a toolmaker, so that makes the learning curve much less steep.
Paul :)

-- Paul, Bristol,Rhode Island

Frank, you have a wonderful looking shop. I really like the headroom that you have in there and putting cabinets over the doors is a good idea for using what would otherwise be dead space. They are not easy to get to, especially for those of us who are vertically challenged, but a wonderful way to add needed storage to your shop. If you only had a bed in there you would never have to leave the shop because it looks like you have everything else you need. :)

I will be looking forward to seeing additional pictures on your workshop page.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

Love the shop and agree with all comments! Is that the triton wood rack?

-- Greg, CT

Nice babe on the television too ! :)

-- Paul, Bristol,Rhode Island

Thats a beautiful looking shop Frank . I think you need more wood clamps though .

-- John in Belgrave http://www.extremebirdhouse.com ....http://community.webshots.com/user/cranbrook2

Love the inside. Lets see the outside. Do you have drawings of the construction of the building? I can see there is a lot of green envy going on!LOL

-- St. Louis - just a cut away from finishing!

Great looking shop. A nice job on the construction.

It looks like you have two very substantial workbenches.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Here’s a link to the first of 15 blog entries about my woodshop. Click HERE! This should give LumberJocks who haven’t seen my previous blog pages an idea of how the progress went. I had plans for my shop but they were all stored in my “grey cells” over the years.

My workbenches are Sjobergs benches, a 6 footer & a smaller one that’s just over 4 feet long. I purchased one from Rockler & one off of the NET. They were both on sale. (I never buy anything at full price… Everything eventually goes on sale.) I figured that I would start off with medium sized store-bought benches & save the pleasure of constructing my own bench AFTER I learn exactly what would be best for me. The Sjobergs benches can always be used later for assembly & clamping projects for gluing. I’ve already purchased a Jorgensen 10” quick action front vise & a Rockler 12” quick action tail vise. (Both on sale at about 50% off of their retail prices.) But I’m debating on wether to install them on my 6’ Sjobergs bench or wait & install them on a bench that I build myself.

And Yes that is a Triton lumber rack. I like it very much. It was easy to install & holds about 660 pounds of lumber. That’s more than enough space for my needs.

-- Frank, Florissant, Missouri "The New Show-Me Woodshop"

Wow!

You are finished and all I can ask about is the HF sharpener.

never saw the whole 15 entries until this morning , what a project!!!!

-- "Not skilled enough to wipe jam on toast!"

Hi “Can’t Put Jam on Toast” !

I’ve added a few of links to this post to direct you to the HF Sharpener / Grinder. I haven’t had it very long & I had a coupon & got the grinder for about $59.99. In an earlier life, I worked in a machine shop & learned to do a lot of my sharpening “by hand”. So I don’t use many jigs for the curved tools. I did use the clamp / jig for the straight chisels & got a great edge on my 10 Marples / Irwin chisels. When I was making the Shaker Lap Desk, the chisels cut smooth & clean wether using hand pressure or a mallet. Like I said before… At this price it’s virtually disposable. Even at full price this whole unit cost less that just the stones for the Tormek. This isn’t to say that Harbor Freight doesn’t have some real crap in their stores, like those paper weights that they call carving chisels or their cordless tools, but I like this item. A Rolls Royce doesn’t get you to work any faster than a VW Bug & you don’t have to worry about where you park a Beetle when you get there.

HF 8 inch Wet/ Dry Grinder

HF Lathe Chisel Sharpening Jig

HF Scissor Sharpening Jig

HF Curved Chisel Sharpening Jig

HF Rough Chisel Sharpening Jig

I’m sure you of all people must know the most important of “Murphy’s Laws”.....

“When you drop a piece of toast, which side it lands on is directly related to… Which side the Jam is on.”

-- Frank, Florissant, Missouri "The New Show-Me Woodshop"

And it will never be this clean ever again! Is that a concrete slab floor? What are you doing for cushioning for the back and knees in there? I know my concrete floor wears me out when I spent all day in my shop.

-- Check out my blog and podcast "The Renaissance Woodworker" at www.rogersfinewoodworking.com/blog

That is so true! I’m in my basement, and even after an hour, my feet feel tired. Did you put down rubber mats?

-- Paul, Bristol,Rhode Island

Yes it is a concrete slab and I was paying for it with back pain for the many hours I spent on the floor & climbing & working off of ladders while working on the interior of my shop. I have added a couple of those cushioned floor mats that they sell at Rockler & Woodcraft. Those floor mats work very well for me. They’re positioned by my work benches where I do the most standing in one place. But I am waiting to catch another good sale at one of those stores. The last time I made that purchase they were two for the price of one. It may be a while before they have that good of a price again. One of my co-workers bought the larger size of the mats & cut them into smaller sections for use in front of some of his stationary tools. When he’s standing in one place he places a double layer of the mats. Rockler has the 24” X 48” mats & Woodcraft has the 24” X 36” & the 24” X 60” mats. (Good shoes help too!)

-- Frank, Florissant, Missouri "The New Show-Me Woodshop"

Great job on the shop. Now you can finally get to work.

The biggest problem will be keeping it as clean as it is now. It’s a never ending job.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.