The good news is that I’m just about done. The last few steps will be kind of time consuming with minimal results, so I don’t think anyone will be dying to see the next few posts. I will blog them when I do them though, I just don’t know when it will be. I’d really like to get a parking space back for my wife and that requires some serious cleanup. Here are the pictures for today though. Sorry again to those who have been keeping up. Before I get into the build, heere is a sneak peak at the results.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

That’s just pressure treated junk. i don’t want it with the good stuff, so it doesn’t count.

Before:

After:

I know, the last photos are the same in the before and after. I told you I didn’t finish! So, you thought you’d get a sneak preview of the project? nope. keep reading for those pictures.

I didn’t get a shot of me ripping the shelves to length, but basically they are 12, 14, and 16 inches wide by 7 ft long. It was the last piece of large plywood I had left. once they were ripped, the trick was to get them into place. I was basically leaning the two sides against one another, then prying them apart to try and slide shelves in between. At one point, I had all the shelves resting on the cleats, but the assembly wouldn’t stay balanced and upright. I was stuck…. Literally….

Thankfully, after me standing there holding them for about 15 minutes my wife came down to ask me something and I jumped at the chance for a hand. She kept it balanced while I clamped everything up. Then I just snapped some chalk lines where the shelves would be and started predrilling holes every 8 inches. I applied some glue and also used 2.25 inch coarse thread screws to pull everything tight. Here is a shot of me about to screw in the last shelf. It was in so tight after attaching the top two shelves that I didn’t bother to glue it. I hope I don’t’ regret it.

You can see the screws sticking out. I gotta say, this is one more time where my corded dewalt drill really came through for me. I have abused that thing so badly over the years, and it still runs like a champ. normally, it is one of my most under appreciated tools, but projects like this remind me what a solid piece of machinery it is.

Once all the screws were in place it was time to start loading it up. First, here is a shot to give you an idea of how much storage is in here.

Time to start loading up the plywood. I think that will be a good test since it will put a lot of weight on the assembly without stressing the shelves. here is a shot of the plywood in place (and some scraps of pegboard and drywall).

I’d estimate there are about 500 sq feet of sheet goods on there. Probably 200 of 3/4”, 50 of 1/2” and the rest 1/4”. I think that works out to about 250 board feet of wood right there. So far so good. It isn’t making any noises or flexing and I can still easily move it with one hand.

I guess its time to start adding lumber. Now or never right? I’ll admit I was nervous. Here are hose shots.

As you can see in the last photo, there is nothing on the one side of the project. I’ve still got the material to cut dividers and the pegboard you saw earlier will be used as a wall to hold it all in. I’m hoping it allows me to hang a few small clamps from it, but I don’t know if that is a great storage location. they may get knocked off too easily.

Another change I plan to make is that I don’t plan on having the cutoff bins go all the way across. I think they will sit in the middle and I’ll have clamp storage on the flanks. maybe it will be vise versa. Any suggestions? Thanks to everyone for sticking with me this far. I will do more, I just work rather slowly.

PS – When I loaded all the lumber, I must have hit a tipping point. It suddenly became MUCH harder to move. I can still move it with one hand, but guiding it requires both and some effort. I am going to try and use up some of this material I’ve got before buying any more for a while. That is the plan at least. This thing probably weighs about 800 lbs right now. If that’s accurate (just based on board foot calculations and my 35 lbs per 1/2 thick sheetgoods assumption) I could probably go to 1,000 lbs without problems. I’d like to get more wight moved to the bottom but I have a few more screws to drive down there.

I started off with the objective of finishing the base. I needed to complete the floor for the plywood storage and attach the wheels. The shelf floor went on just fine. The wheels weren’t quite as easy. Here is a picture after getting the wheels on.

The problem with the wheels was that I assumed the stems would be long enough to go through the plywood wheel supports. I used doubled up 3/4” ply. As you can see, they weren’t long enough.

What I did was I drilled a hole with a spade bit into the top of the supports. It was just large enough to get a washer into the hole (1” wide maybe). I drilled through three layers of ply. This worked well because as I went through each layer I could see the black glue. It made for the easiest measuring of the project so far. I then finished with a 3/8’s bit all the way through. I don’t know if this will weaken the structure. personally, I don’t think so, but we’ll see.

The other mistake I made was I had already attached the wheel supports thinking I could just slide my ratchet in there. I needed to disassemble everything and then put it back together. up to this point i probably spent 1.5 hrs btu at least 15 minutes was kicking myself for not realizing my mistake. all in all though, not a big deal.

On to the sides!

I left the base with a 19.5 gap between the floor of the plywood and the floor for the offcuts. after subtracting 1.5 inches for the plywood thickness, that leaves 18 inches at the base. the sides are 42 inched high. I’ll put a shelf ever 13 inches. this means that every 13 inches, the sides will slant one inch inward (on each side) I think that will be plenty to keep material leaning but not so much that it causes additional downward stress.

I measured each 13” increment and marked up the plywood. here are 4 shots (2 of each side) of the cleats being glued into place and screwed in, mostly to pull the parts tight during gluing. I was shocked that I used as many screws and as much glue as I did. I’ve already used a whole small bottle and a whole box of screws (although they were varied sizes).

I was careful to try and keep the bow in the plywood pieces going the opposite direction of one another. I don’t think it will make a significant difference, but every little bit will help. Screwing the shelving in will really line everything up and make it much more rigid.

I’m actually really pleased with the progress. I think tomorrow I’m going to take a day off and just rest up. Then on Monday I’ll try and finish this thing off. I’ll need to rip the shelves to their final width and figure out a way to hold up the sides while I work on getting the parts in place. I’ll also need to screw the sides to the base. If that gets done in less than 2 hrs, I might start on the dividers for the cutoff bins.

One final note, thanks to everyone for their advice on the casters. I was using the base as my workbench and I locked the casters. They didn’t go anywhere. once I was done, I put the last piece of plywood on it to simulate the weight of the structure (unloaded). After unlocking them I could easily move it with one hand. So far, I’m thrilled. I hope they work as well when I put another 700 lbs on it.

One FINAL FINAL note. here is a shot of the scrap pile. If not for the mdf, that was already scrap, I’d be at virtually 0 (1’ x 6” plus sawdust). I’m not soing this just to do it, I’m just trying to keep costs down after my wife has been so good about saving money recently. I may use some of the mdf scrap anyway when making some of the clamp rack attachments, but I’ll decide all of that stuff at a later date.

I debated whether to post today because it doesn’t look like I did much, although I think I did lots with few visual results. I committed to blogging this project through to the end since I think I can finish it on my week off, so I guess I should do it right. I should take one moment to say that my wife has been very good about taking care of our daughter during the day so I can work on this, but there is one catch. My daughter’s playpen shares a wall with the garage. We are also trying to get her used to afternoon naps, so anytime it looks like she might zonk out, power tools have to go off. Inevitably she is ready to sleep anytime I finish laying out my cuts and have just put on my safety equipment. I spent 5 hrs working today, but probably could have done this in 3-4 if I was on my own schedule.

In the morning I ran some errands and one of those errands was to get 3” screws. That allowed me to firm up the base that I had just nailed together the prior day. I decided diagnal bracing with 2×4’s wasn’t necessary because of a couple design modifications (covered later).

Now that the base was nailed and screwed, I needed to add my wheel supports. These came from a 1’x4’ piece. Here is is marked for cutting. Hopefully you can see the 8 triangles.

After cutting them I tried to double them up with glue. I know the clamping pressure is not sufiicient for that much surface area. I thought it would make it easier to assemble everything, but changed my mind after the first two.

Now I’ve got somewhere to attach the wheels once I decide which to use. Here is what I’ve got

4 of these:

or two of each of these:

I’ve still got a day to think about the wheel choices. Now I flip over the base so it is right side up and start working my way upward. Here is the first change I made. I realized that while my design modifications would be fine for long lumber storage, I kind of need a floor to support the upright shorts. So, I’m swapping out a 2×4 from the original plans with a 1×6 to be used later. Now, the 2 pieces of 4’x6” plywood I cut yesterday are going to become part of the base. Here you can see it glued up. IT will serve as a floor for the cutoffs and will give an edge for the “A-frame” type structure to push against.

I also decided I’m going to use some scrap shelving to make a floor for the plywood. I’m certain that I could store the plywood across the exposed 2×4’s but it might do some damage to the edges, particularly when trying to load and unload the 3/4” pieces. This is my 3rd cheat (1st was using old pegboard, 2nd was swapping out a 2×4 for a 1×6 (although the 1×6 was even cheaper)).

Now I need to start in on some of these large sides. I layed out the windows on the plywood support side. I plunge cut with the circular saw. This did scare me a bit because it feels like I’m cutting on a table saw without a fence or miter gauge. I’m not sure what the difference is except for maybe h.p.m but I guess it worked fine. here are the pictures

Once all is done, it looks like this:

So here is what I still need to do.
1 attach wheels
2 Attach the MDF to the base for the plywood storage side.
3 Attach the cleats
4 Cut the shelves to width and angle the edges to match the slant of the sides (the sides will be 18” apart at the base, with 3 subsequent shelves being 16”, 14”, and 12”.
5 Attach the shelves
6 layout the dividers (unless you guys think my plunge cuts came out perfectly straight)
7 attach dividers
8 attach the front of the cut-off bin

First I started framing up the base. I used 4 2×4’s for this. Unfortunately, because of my current mess, I can’t find my 3” screws. I did have my 3 inch nails though, so I used 1 at each joint to hold it together. I’m going to add the screws after a run to the store tomorrow. I was planning to nail anyway because it feels like they have better shear strength, but the screws really help keep things nice and rigid over time. Here is a shot of the framing.

On top of the base, you can see some plywood. those are the cleats I cut off. They are 3”x7’. Here is a closer shot of those

In addition to cutting the cleats from the long ends of the boards, I cut 1’x4’ sections from the short ends. The remaining pieces are 3’x7’. These will be two of the sides and the last piece will be ripped into shelves. You can see that by removing only 1 ft from each edge, I reduce the sq footage from 32 to 21. That reduced the weight (and cost) by 30% without impacting the functionality. Here you can see the size difference. The pine ply I’m using is on the left and an uncut piece of polar is on the right.

Finally, I did have one problem. The plywood is warping some. I planned on this maybe happening, but I didn’t think it would warp quite this badly. Thankfully it is only one of the 3 sheets, and I think the design will allow me to easily force the materials back into place. here is a shot of the 3 1’x4’ pieces. can you guess which will be cut into the 8 small triangles and which will be reserved for the larger pieces?

In this last photo, you can’t see that the lumber goes about 10 boards deep.

Here is my current lumber rack, which as you can see is pretty full. I do love it, but I don’t have enough wall space to add another.

Here is the clamp rack that I want to replace. I was about 1/4 way into the project when I found out I was going to be a dad, so all my efforts needed to shift to building a crib. My original plan was to practive some oversized dovetails and things like that, but instead I just slapped it together. Now it is the leaning clamp rack of Pisa. I planned to add another couple of shelves, but I worry that any more weight will topple it, so I’m just going to build new and do it right. Here are the pics.

Lastly, I’ve got about 5 sheets of oak, poplar, and cherry plywood, some pegboard, and some mdf that need to be stored. No photos of that, but you’ve seen plywood before.

Off to the hardware store I went. I picked up 3 sheets of pine plywood and five 8ft 2×4’s. Here is a photo of all the materials ready to go (missing one 2×4).

I’ve been inspired by the recent projects of some of my Lumberjocks Buddies (even if they don’t know they are my buddies). In particular, I’ve really liked some of the storage solutions being built by sIKE, Greg Wurst, and Spaids. This is going to be a long post, so if you make it to the end, do you mind posting to let me know if anyone is really reading? I’m going to try and do photos as I work which should be included in part 2 of the blog.

I’m planning to take a long weekend and solve one of my garage shop’s biggest problems… Lumber Storage. I’ve currently got a Triton Rack hanging on one wall of my garage. I like it, but because of the garage layout, I am out of wall space so I can’t just add another of this style rack. I’m also struggling a bit with plywood storage so after TONS of searching, I think I found a workable solution. Here is a link to a photo along with the cut-list.

ShopNotes Link

Cut-List

This looks SUPER simple. That’s a good thing. The problem is that this requires an awful lot of materials and before I load it up, it will weigh a ton. The plans call for 5 sheets of plywood. Those alone probably weigh 150-200 lbs, maybe more.

My goal is to make a few minor modifications to try and save materials (and money) as well as reduce the overall weight. I’m hoping that this won’t reduce the strength in a significant way and I think this can be accomplished. Finally, I want this to have some space for a clamp rack too. Here are my plans with modifications.

1) the bottom will be made out of six 8’ 2×4’s instead of 1×6 slats with plywood on top. I’ll frame it up like floor with supporting joists, but I’ll also add 2-3 diagnal joists to help prevent racking when trying to push such a large object. The stored lumber will just rest directly on the 2×4’s.

2) instead of the sides being a full sheet of plywood each, I’ll cut 1 ft strips off each end making the total length 7 ft. any plywood I store will overhang by 6 inches on each end. I think that’s ok because the stored sheet goods will still be plenty supported. I’ll just have to be careful when moving around not to run the stored edges into anything that could cause damage. The cut-off from this step will be used in step 5.

3) while I’m lopping the ends of these sheets off, I might as well take 6” inches off the top of each side as well. I just don’t think I need a 4×8 foot sheet of plysood to store 4×8 sheet goods. Rip these cut-offs a second time and I’ve got four 3”x7’ strips. These will now be uses as cleats for the shelves.

4) now i need my cut-off bin dividers. the plans call to cut these from the shelving sheets, but I think I can stretch one of the sides I cut earlier even further. I’ll admit, this may be the bigest flaw in my design, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. I’m going to plunge cut four 9”x24” windows out of the side that will support the plywood storage and use these cutouts to make four dividers. I think it will still leave plenty of material behind for strenth in the sides, but will give me 4 of my 6 desired dividers.

5)time to cut up the two 1’x4’ scraps from step 2. The first piece will be cut into 8 equal sized, 90 degree triangles. These triangles will be doubled up to attach the wheels and also help to prevent racking of the base. the other scrap piece will be cut into two 6”x4’ rectangles. These will attached at the front of the base on the plywood storage side to prevent sheets from sliding off.

Status: So from 2 sheets of plywood, I’ve got 1 side for plywood support, 1 side for cut-off bin support, 4 shelf support strips, 4 dividers, and 8 wheel supports, and a plyood storage “lip” made in step 5. Not bad (if this actually all works).

Now that we know where we hope to be, on to the final plywood sheet. I still need 3 shelves (I’ll have one less than in the picture), 2 more shelf cleats, and 2 more cutoff dividers and a front for the cut-off storage. This won’t be possible to get from one sheet, but I’m ok with that. I’ll explain at the end.

6) rip 1 ft off the end of the sheet so I’ll have 7’ material to work with. cut the last two cut-off bin dividers out of the 1’ scrap. This will leave the only plywood waste for the entire project, which I estimate to be less than 1.5 sq feet of plywood. This along with a few linear feet of 2×4’s seems pretty good to me.

7) rip the 3 smallest shelf sizes from the sheet. Rip two more shelf support strips.

If I did my math/planning right, I’ve got everything I need with the exception of the front for the cut-off storage. This may be cheating, but I’m thinking of using some old pegboard I’ve got laying around in order to hang small clamps from. The left and right bin will probably never be used for lumber, but will instead get some clamp storage bolted onto the side.

Again, if you read this whole thing, please let me know. Even better, if you have comments/suggestions, I’d REALLY appreciate it.

I recently purchased the material for my project from and individual on ebay. I basically bought a box of thins/cutoffs of various unidentified exotics. I need so help identifying what I’ve got (if you are up for the challenge.

Below is a photo of all the materials stacked by type. I’m not even sure I got this right, but I tried. Sorry for the mess. I’m in the middle of cleaning.

I was debating whether to post my guesses or not, but I might as well. I’ve linked to some of the ebay sellers other auctions. I know that he could potentially have somethign ID’d wrong, but he certainly sells lots of material and I feel like it should make comparisons easier than linking to other great sites like hobbit house inc. I’ll also add that the seller really crammed the box full. After opening it, I could barely get everything back in. I ordered cutoffs and got a free puzzle.

Top row (left to right)
Padauk, Canary Wood, YellowHeart (maybe osage), ???, cocobolo

Second Row (left to right)
marblewood, paela, rosewood, zebrawood (maybe riftsawn causing the gaps in the stripes), bocote, redheart, ????, sycamore, chechen or zircote

Last board (center bottom)
limba

I know that a single photo is not the easiest way to go, so here are more detailed pictures. hopefully you can figure out how they relate to the picture above. I’ll try to go in the same general order as i listed my guesses.

I did run out to sears and pick up an edge guide (As opposed to a poorly adapted centering jig I was trying to use). I’m not sure if this will work well, but I’d love to hear about other people’s experience using simple edge guides. It is pretty hard to screw up when using one of these? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I am doing some dry fitting so the lacewood already has an amber shellac finish (floating panel) and the walnut will get a danish oil finish covered with sealcoat shellac, but it isn’t on there yet. The original plan was to use birdseye maple instead of lacewood, but I just couldn’t afford it. I’m still happy with the look (maybe happier, I hear birdseye can be a bear to work with and I’m behind schedule as is, so maybe its best to have one less thing to work on).

Anyway, here are the photos. Some with flash, some without. Hopefully you can see the pictures nicely.

One thing I learned is that my bandsaw only has a 4 inch resaw capacity (riserblocks are not an option). I had to use a table saw and handsaw to resaw the lacewood in an effort to get bookmatched panels. Becuase of the blade thickness, the bookmatching is anything but perfect. I ended up with one reasonably good side, but the opposite side doesn’t look bookmatched at all. It still looks interesting though. Just thought I’d share my learning experience on this aspect.

First is a photo of some of the raw lumber. This is probably 3/4 of what I bought. The other quarter I have posted below after cleaning it up some. The lumber was apparently sitting covered for about 10+ years. It is pretty ugly as you can see. I pulled the stuff that is the most warped aside to use first, as you can see, some are pretty bad and I don’t have a jointer )-: (Note: there are 2 small pieces of cherry, 1 of padauk, and 1 of lacewood on top. I forgot to move this before the picture, but they are so covered in walnut dust anyway, maybe you wouldn’t have noticed)

As you can see, the outside is pretty bad. The inside wasn’t too bad overall and was actually really nice in some spots. To get to it, I needed to plane of the top. I don’t have a handplane, plus it would be a lot of work, so I will use my power planer. All the dirt on the lumber probably would have killed my blades, so I shaved off the top layer with the badsaw. I also took off the sides with the circular saw. HEre are some scraps.

After cutting off the really bad stuff, I sent it through the planer. I ended up with a lot of shavings, especially considering I cut off so much bad stuff. I ended up with almost a full trash bad of shavings. I feel bad throwing it in the trash, but I can’t really think of another good use for it since I can’ compost it. I also think I’m going to need some new blades soon. I’ve been cutting a lot of material and they are definitely not what they used to be. This is the best I could get the boards to this weekend though. Not too bad in my opinion.

I’m planning to build a sanding supply cabinet with these boards. I’ll have a lot more milling to do to get a consistent thickness to build the walls and front door frames. The doors will be made with cherry plywood.

One last note:
Thanks to everyone that posts their blogs. They have been so helpful to me. After doing this, I’ve learned they are fun, but they do take some extra thought to be snapping some pictures and to prepare the write-up. It is apprecaited.