My garage has a fairly low ceiling that slants from left to right but initial measurements indicated that the boats could just barely fit above the open garage door on the left side. So I started thinking about how to make use of that space. I wanted to be able to get the boats up and down from their storage location fairly easily – didn’t want to get into a “too much trouble so let’s go to the movies instead of going paddling” type of situation. I also wanted to be able to load and unload alone as there’s not always help available.

I have in the past used a ceiling mounted storage sling for one boat, installed diagonally across the garage behind the open door but after I built the second boat this method wouldn’t work as there was no room for a second diagonal hoist. That was what led to the wheeled rack described above. The lifting sling I used also left a lot to be desired as it was made rather cheaply so that even with the 2:1 mechanical advantage the friction in the system made it a challenge to lift a 50 pound boat. So I started looking around for a better lifting system, preferably one that could easily lift 2 boats plus whatever rack I built to hold them, a total of about 150-175 pounds. I looked at electric hoists, comealongs, chain falls, homebrew pulley systems and whatever else I could think of but finally homed in on a “Harken Hoister”. Harken makes sailboat hardware mostly but the Hoisters are made to mount to ceilings and hoist and store things. I bought the 200 pound capacity model for about $150. More than many other hoists out there but it’s made with first rate hardware and offers a 4:1 mechanical advantage. The pulleys are all ball bearing types so the friction is minimized.

All I needed then was a means of attaching the boats to the Hoister. After much pondering I decided to build a table with folding legs. The idea was to put the boats on the table, hoist it up, then fold the legs from underneath. It has worked out beautifully. The table top is just a 2×4 framework with 2 longitudinal pieces and 4 cross pieces. I already had a set of folding legs from another project so I used those. The legs determined the spacing of the crosspieces on the table top.

Here’s a picture of the table in the lowered position withe just the tandem on it. Note the carpet on the crosspieces to minimize scratches on the boats.

And here it is with both boats in place, ready to hoist.

This one shows the table lifted partway up – note the folding leg is still down.

At the door end I’ve added extra straps to ensure that the door clears the boats. Once I’ve hoisted the boats it’s very easy to lift the end of each boat into its strap. Without these straps it was too easy to stop before the boats were high enough to clear the door – guess how I know that.

The door partly open – clears the boats by an inch or two.

Once the boats are up I like to run an extra piece of rope as a safety sling – it’s the red/green rope in the photo, just runs from eyescrew to eyescrew in case the hoist slips or breaks or we have an earthquake or something.

I’ve found this arrangement to work very well – I do have keep the area below the boats fairly clear but things like the folding aluminum step in the pictures fit below the table anyway so they can remain where they are. My tablesaw is on casters so it can be easily rolled aside. Once the table is lowered it is very easy to pull out whichever boat I want and load it onto my truck and after paddling it is easy to slide the boat back onto the table. The Harken Hoister makes lifting the whole thing easy too.

And here is the saw with the edge guide installed:

As you can see this is a very simple attachment – the bar of the edge guide slides through two slots in the base of the saw and is secured by a thumbscrew in one of the slots. Here’s a closeup:

So the circle cutting jig practically designed itself – just need a bar the right size to fit these slots with a pin in one end to act as a pivot. As these pieces of plywood were to have a center hole of about 5” diameter I could just drill a guide hole for the jig without causing any problems. For a disk without a center hole I suppose I can use a pivot block stuck to the surface with double stick tape – if I want to make a table top for instance.

I had hopes of finding a piece of aluminum the right size to slide into the slots on the saw so I measured the edge guide’s bar. It is about .338” x .125” in cross section – more than 5/16” and less than 3/8” wide but exactly 1/8” thick. Measuring the slots in the saw showed that 3/8” would be too wide and 5/16” would allow too much slop for my taste.

Here’s how I measured the bar – I know I know this is overkill but it’s easy enough and I have micrometers anyway.

So off to the metal store I went, hoping to find a piece of aluminum or maybe even stainless of about the right size. No luck, everything they had was cut into 12” pieces and I wanted to make the jig a little over 24” long so I could use it to cut 48” circles, the largest I can cut out of standard sheet goods. I had to go to the big box store and buy a piece of 1” x 1/8” x 36” aluminum for about $12. They had 1/2” x 1/8” but no 3/8” and certainly no 5/16” – no big surprise there. Took it home and ripped a piece .340” wide with my table saw – after taking off my Forrest blade and installing an old Freud blade – which is still good but it’s no Forrest. I first made a test cut on a piece of plywood I found on the shop floor – it was about 1/8” thick and about 1/2” wide and about 2 feet long. Procrastination in floor sweeping pays off again! This is the setup for the test cut:

If you cut metal on your table saw wear safety glasses AND a face shield AND stand off to the side – the chips coming off the blade are hot and sharp. I cut about 30” into the 36” piece of metal and stopped the saw, then used a hacksaw to cut off the piece as shown here. This reduced the kickback possibility as there was no cutoff piece to worry about and a single pushblock was enough to hold the metal in place until the blade stopped turning.

A little file work on the edges and the bar was ready to have a pin installed. I had some 1/8” hardened steel dowel pins left over from a previous life as a toolmakers’ apprentice so I used one of those – one inch long. Drilled a .116” hole in one end of the bar and pressed the pin into it using my bench vise – here’s the drilling setup:

And here’s the setup for pressing the pin into place – the nut is there to allow clearance for the pin – I wanted it all the way through the bar.

All that remained was to try out the new jig. I measured over 11.5” from two adjacent edges of a piece of plywood and drilled a pivot hole for the pin. Then I inserted the jig into the slots of the saw and measured 11.5” from the blade to the pin and tightened the thumbscrew. Here’s the initial setup with the saw in place ready to cut:

And here’s the result – a “perfect” circle – 23” around.

It took about fifteen minutes to cut four of these – much quicker and much more accurate than the freehand method. I found that this jig didn’t work so well for cutting the 5” diameter center holes – the blade didn’t want to track for some reason – I’ll have to investigate. I cut the center holes freehand.

Well that’s my invention for the week.

I routed the recess for my router plate, making it the right size for the existing plate I had made out of 3/8” Lexan. This is to use with a DeWalt DW625 router. It is stiff enough to hold the router securely for what I do with it. Here’s a picture of the setup for routing the recess.

I used pieces of 3/4” MDF and stuck them to the table with double sided tape snug against the router plate with cardboard shims on two sides. The shims made the recess about .020” larger than the plate to make it possible to lift the plate in and out. The suction cup in the photo was used to lift the plate out of the setup before I routed the recess.

I routed the recess with a top bearing flush trimming bit 3/4” in diameter with a 1” cutting length. The 3/4” MDF boards and the 3/8” depth of the recess made this bit the most suitable for the job.

After routing around the inside of the MDF setup I cut out the waste with a saber saw. This picture shows the result.

There are two screw holes in the router plate for 1/4” flathead screws. These allow the plate to be held in position with two through holes drilled in the corners of the recess. Using screws, flat washers and wingnuts makes the setup quite secure. I didn’t like the way the saber saw cuts looked, being somewhat wavy. No effect on the utility of the table but it was aesthetically displeasing. I figured there were two choices. I could spend a lot of time and effort with a rasp or a sander to straighten the cuts or I could order an opaque router plate from Woodpecker’s to hide them. I ordered the plate from Woodpecker’s. I chose their phenolic plate with 3 interchangeable inserts for about $60 as I recall. It has a really nice feature in that two sides have adjustable clearance using ball bearings and adjustment screws – their website shows this better than I can here. Once adjusted correctly the plate sits flush and wobble free without using screws through the table, making bit changes quicker. Here’s a pic of the plate installed with a Rockler dust port set up with a flush trimming bit. The Rockler port fits without modification. There are screw holes in the plate that the slots in the port line up with. I hadn’t put the screws in yet when I took the picture. Note that the Woodpecker’s plate has large corner radii than my original home made one so there are gaps in the corners. I don’t think I’ll do anything about these as they don’t affect the function.

I still needed to fill the gap behind the saw blade that allows clearance when the blade is tilted. The waste piece from the router recess was almost big enough to fit but for the holes I had drilled as starter holes for the saber saw. I had drilled four holes and could work around three of them, leaving a part of the fourth one in the finished block. I decided to use the piece anyway and claim that the partial hole was for a finger grip. Here’s a picture of the waste piece set in place over the gap.

And here’s one of the finished block in place after all the trimming and fitting. I glued scrap pieces of laminate to the long sides to make it fit better and maybe last longer.

Guess now I no longer have an excuse for putting off the kitchen face lift. Plan is to make new cabinet doors and drawers, replace the countertops, new hardware, etc. The hardest part is getting started of course – it means cleaning out fifteen years of “stuff” from the cabinets and finding some place to put it. Most will go right in the trash but there is SOME good stuff in there.

Thanks for watching, stay tuned.

John

I screwed the tops in place today, then used the old piece of steel angle that used to provide support for the back of the rip fence to reinforce the back, tying the two sides together. I used about 6 or 7 #10×1 1/4” flathead wood screws to attach it to the oak edgebanding – seems secure. The plans called for an oak cleat along the back, with a notch cut for motor clearance but in my case this works better. The motor comes up tight against the left top when it’s tilted to 45 degrees, in fact I had to drill a clearance hole with a big Forstner bit to get the last degree or two. The rip fence was installed with the same 3 machine screws it had in it before, going into the front of the cast iron table. Then I added #14×1 1/2” flathead wood screws in 6 more places. These help to keep things aligned and also to stiffen the assembly.

Today’s final task was to jack up the workstation and remove the piece of plywood it’s been sitting on to take up for the sag. With everything screwed together tight the sag is pretty much gone. It rolls around on the casters as well as it needs to, considering that it will most likely never leave the garage where it was built.

Here’s a picture from the back, showing the angle screwed in place.

And here’s one from the front.

I still need to make a block to fill in the hole over the motor – it will be removable for angled cuts – and cut the hole for the router mounting plate. I also need to put a piece of MDF between the front and rear router table supports – this will help to contain the dust. Then I need to drill a hole in the rear router table support for a dust port and maybe make a router table fence – I may try it for a while with just the rip fence that I have. At least now I have a nice tool that I can use to make all these things!

And here’s one of the fitting process for the left top. The straightedge helped to get the aluminum angle positioned correctly. I arranged the tops so they are slightly below the level of the cast iron – 1/64” or so. This should prevent snagging of workpieces (I hope).

And here’s one with both tops in place, ready to be screwed down.

And here’s a pic of the right top piece and the laminate after brushing on the glue.

I use the “J” roller in the picture to roll the laminate until it stops “crackling” – that seems to ensure that it’s glued down tightly with no air bubbles. It takes quite a bit of pressure. The left top piece is made of MDF and the right one is fir plywood. I found one advantage of using plywood is that it only takes one coat of contact cement. The MDF needed two. Both sides came out flat (and heavy) so other than the extra coat of cement on the MDF the material choice seems to be a tossup. I did encounter one snag in the process, nothing to do with woodworking but rather to do with paying attention. I had purchased a new pint of contact cement on the way to the grocery store the day before I glued the laminate. When the first pint ran out I looked for the new one and it was nowhere to be found in the garage or the front hall where I had left the work pieces and the glue overnight to warm up. After checking my truck, my motorcycle, and the garage and front hall repeatedly I finally thought to look in the kitchen cabinet where I normally stow canned goods. Sure enough, there it was, surrounded by cans of soup. Running on autopilot, I had put the can of glue with the other cans. Maybe I shouldn’t combine grocery trips with trips to the hardware store.

On the right end of the workstation are 3 drawers. The top one looked like ot would be susceptible to dust intrusion when the router table is in use so I added an “awning” of MDF above it. It’s 3/4” by 1/2” with the front top edge rounded over, attached with glue and brads. Here’s a pic.

The tops will be supported on one side by aluminum angle bolted to the cast iron table top and on the other side by MDF panels with oak cleats. I cut the aluminum angle to length and cut the MDF panels and oak cleats to size. The panel for the left end is 1/16” shorter than the 2 panels for the right end as the MDF top is 1/16” thicker than the plywood one. This adjustment will ensure that the two top pieces end up at the same height, flush with the cast iron. This picture shows the aluminum pieces cut to length along with the fancy machine I used to cut them.

And here’s a picture of the MDF panels screwed to the right end of the workstation with the cleats ready to accept the top.

And a pic of the left end.

Next step is to drill the aluminum pieces for the bolts and screws. Manana.

The four pieces I cut for this project used up nearly all of a 4×8 sheet of laminate. It required careful planning to get all four pieces out of the one sheet. I measured, laid out, thought and rethought everything several times before I started cutting. This picture shows the setup for cutting out the last piece – not much wiggle room.

And here’s a picture of what was left over from the sheet.

Next steps are to apply a finish to the oak edgebanding, then glue on the laminate. Then I’ll measure the tops’ thicknesses and cut the MDF supports to length. There are 3 supports, one on the left end of the workstation and two on the right end, where the router table is. The inside edges of the tops, where they butt against the cast iron, will be supported by aluminum angle, cut to length and bolted on using the tapped holes that supported the original tops. I bought an 8 foot piece of 1.25” x 1.25” x 3/16” aluminum yesterday at the local metal store. For anyone who lives in or near San Diego, Industrial Metal Supply in Kearny Mesa is a good place to find this kind of thing for lower prices than the home center stores – they sell by the pound and usually have what I need or something close enough that I can make it work. No affiliation blah blah blah…

Cutting the laminate with the Bosch worked very well although it is a bit wasteful as the cut is about an inch and a half from the guide edge. Using straightedges instead of the actual workpieces could cut this down of course but then that would open up more possibilities of error – and I have enough of those.

I have finally returned to the workstation project. Today’s task was to route a rabbet in each top blank to allow clearance for the aluminum angle on which it will sit. This is shown in the plans without any suggestion of how to create the rabbet. I chose to use a router with a straight bit and two straightedges clamped to the workpiece. Rabbets are required where the new tops butt against the cast iron saw top. I made 4 passes on each top, cutting 1/16” each time to produce a 1/4” deep rabbet 1.25” tall. This picture shows the initial setup.

And this one shows part of the completed rabbet.

Note that the rabbet does not go all the way to the end of the workpiece. This end will be at the front of the saw, behind the rip fence. The aluminum angle will be bolted to the saw and will not extend all the way to the front edge of the saw. The short sides, which will be against the back edge of the saw, are rabbeted all the way through as the aluminum angle will be one piece along that edge and these two top pieces will face each other. The gap between them will be filled with a removable block which will allow for blade tilting.

The next step is to cover these pieces with laminate but before I do that I’m off to the local metal store for aluminum angle.

Left Top Piece

The next step was to glue and clamp the oak banding to the right top piece, the plywood one. This one was easier to do than the previous one as I am now an expert, having done the other one yesterday and a similar one 14-15 years ago. Last time I did one of these I used dowels to hold things in alignment until I could get the clamps on – the brad nailer is way easier.

Right Top Piece With Oak Clamped Up

Next step is to route and sand the right top piece, then round the corners, fill where needed, varnish the oak, then apply the laminate. Maybe Monday – tomorrow (Sunday) is bicycle day.

Butt and Pass Joinery Setup

The inside corner on these pieces throws a bit of a monkey wrench in the works in that one piece has to be cut to the precise dimension so the whole thing will fit together. On a workpiece with all outside corners they can all overlap, making the process easier. Even so, this method is much simpler than cutting outside and inside miter joints and trying to get it all to fit snugly. On the finished piece there will only be one line showing at each joint as Formica will cover the piece out to the face of the oak. There is a little bit of end grain showing but who cares? I built my previous router table wing this way and it’s doing fine after about 14-15 years in the garage.

I did the initial “clamping” with brad nails shot from a gun – thanks Norm! – best idea I’ve ever got from TV. The brads held everything in line while I installed and tightened the clamps. Only did one side today – running low on clamps that are long enough for this job. Here’s what it looks like with the clamps in place.

Drawers Installed

And here’s an overall view of progress so far

It’s Coming Along

And here’s one with a drawer open

Open Middle Drawer

I had hoped to get around to edge banding the tops today but I’m tired – and since I’m also retired and there is no deadline on this project that will have to wait until tomorrow – or maybe even Friday. Tomorrow being Thursday it’s Mexican lunch day and kayak night – the two things together seem to take up the whole day sometimes. I don’t know how I get it all done!

Top Fit test

The next step was to make the drawers for the right end of the workstation. As I had added 5 inches to the height of the workstation I decided to make 3 drawers rather than the 2 shown in the plans. I found that I could make the necessary parts from 2 sheets of 24”x30”x1/2” Baltic Birch plywood for the sides, fronts and backs and one sheet of 24”x48”x1/4” Birch plywood for the bottoms. The 1/4” plywood from Lowe’s actually measures 3/16” but I think it will be adequate. The Baltic Birch from Rockler measures a true 1/2”.

1/4”?

Drawer Joint

Setup Test Pieces

Next steps are to glue up the drawer boxes, make the false fronts for the drawers, then glue the oak edge banding to the top blanks and cover the tops with Formica. Then I’ll be ready to install the tops and cut the opening for the router plate. Then I’ll be done unless I decide to paint the workstation. Haven’t decided yet.

Dry Fit Test of one Drawer Box

Setting Depth of Cut

I know I know – too many hobbies

While I’ve been building this workstation I’ve thought about the safety aspects of it. I thought that it might be nice to replace the Powermatic saw with a Sawstop unit. Now that they’ve come out with the Contractor version of the saw it wouldn’t be a big deal to make the swap. I sent Sawstop an email to ask if I could buy just the saw, without the legs or the fence but they said that “Industry Regulations” required that they sell the saw with those items. I wasn’t looking to save much money – I just hate to throw those things away if I do decide to get the Sawstop. $1600 for the peace of mind is probably well worthwhile – way cheaper than a thumb transplant I’m guessing. But then I’ve never had anything like a close call with this saw or any other power tool – a year as a tool and die maker’s apprentice and 30 years of working around explosives and heavy machines made me develop safe work habits and I’ve never unlearned those habits. Enough philosophy – back to making sawdust.

After the glue had dried for a day I went out to the garage to begin trimming the blanks to size, which is an inch and a half less than the plans call for as I will glue 3/4” oak edge banding all around. I had originally thought I might use my router with a straight edge guide to trim the blanks but then I thought about the mess of dust that would create and decided to use a hand held circular saw, which still makes a lot of dust but not as bas as the router. I think it should also be faster. The first thing I had to do was to make a straight edge guide for the saw. To make that I needed a straight edge on a piece of 1/2” plywood. So I dragged out my benchtop jointer. A few passes with the cutting depth set to 1/64” and I had my straight edge. Then I ripped the piece of plywood to size in the table saw, using the jointed edge against the fence. Holding the edges up against the best straight edge I have (the T-square of my Exac-T-Guide) I see no gaps and no rocking so this is straight enough for my purposes.

I cut a piece of hardboard the length of the plywood piece and 8” wider. Then I glued the plywood to the hardboard and ran 6 or 8 brass woodscrews in from the hardboard side to hold it all together. The next step was to trim the edge guide to final size with the Skilsaw. This almost became a problem because when I had measured the distance from the edge of the baseplate to the edge of the blade (twice no less) I had measured to the wrong side of the blade so instead of having about 1/4” to trim off I had about 1/16”. Fortunately it was enough. I made one cut on the plywood top blank with the new edge guide and checked it for square in the vertical direction. I got lucky on this one as I hadn’t checked the saw or used it for some time but it cut square on the first try. Here’s a picture of the new edge guide and the freshly cut edge of the blank. That’s it for today – it’s kayak night so I’m off to the beach.