Most of the new stuff can be seen in the above pic. Lumber rack, bandsaw, and work table.

The spindle sander is my newest tool. I threw together the stand this morning . I had planned on sitting it on the work table, which made the sanders table about eye level. That was no good so i built the little stand out of some scrap ply i had left over from the lumber storage.

My peg boards are not exactly how i want them, but im getting there. The little shelves that hold the planes was an after thought. I was going to build some kind of rack for them, but this makes more sense. The shelves are suprizingly sturdy and i have plenty of room for future planes.

Adding the water cooler was my wife’s idea. It saves me a lot of trips into the house.

A closer look at the sander. This is my first spindle sander and i love it.

The little shelf next to the drill press is a bit (pun) on the small side. At the time i was broke and that was all the material i had. I plan on building a bigger shelf underneath. (bit storage)

I made this table for storage and small project assembly. I really like having the bins. I also needed a place to keep my saw horses. If you cant tell by viewing the photo, i have been trying my hand at bandsaw boxes. (main reason i bought the spindle sander) Also in the picture you can see my recent attempt at a tumbling block cutting board. I would love some pointers on glueing up this pattern. (what a nightmere)

I will probably do one more shop blog if and when i get a dust collector. Other than that i am very happy with my progress. I do feel i wee bit guilty about all the time and money that i have invested in this so i plan on spending the rest of the year doing small projects and spending very little.
Thanks for looking.

The wall space to the left of the a/c unit is where i plan to build a lumber rack, sometime in the near future

I plan on setting up a sharpening station in the empty corner by my dry erase board.

counter and cabinets under the peg board in the near future

I was going to build a new rack for my clamps but the one i built previously worked out well

Thanks for looking

The two walls in the following picture will contain 4 3’x3’ windows. 3 on the long wall and 1 on the short wall

The 8×8 rollup door gives me easy access to the alley for loading and unloading. It is also within 20 feet of a dumpster

At this stage the ceiling may leak a little(of coarse we would need rain for that, so no worries)

There are a few things that i am contemplating at this point and i would love feed back.
1. Lighting—4-48”inch double fluorecent strips? 8 footers? Any suggestions?
2. air conditioner—18000 btu wall unit? Anyone have a good history with these things?

Ok, here is my progress.

The next 3 pics show the building with both walkthrough and the garage door installed.

My dogs do not know what to think about any of this.

Thats pretty much it for now, hopefully we will skin the building sometime next week. Im working really hard to cashflow this project and it is getting a little tight. It may slow down a bit once i begin wiring.
Thanks for looking

There are a total of 8 weld plates that were installed in 24”x24” peers. I guess this pretty standard, but it is more substantial than i had imagined. It is definately going to be solid.

I ran two electric boxes and conduit in strategic locations. Hopefully the layout I have in mind works. (no changeing it now)

these guys did a really good job.

to be continued—

Jumping to the important part….. I have ordered a bolt together steel building which is a 24X35X10 due to be here any day now. The concrete forms are scheduled to be set in 3 days and the concrete should be poured within a day or two after that.

Once I had finished demolition I applied for my building permit and the city inspector came by to make sure every thing was good to go. He did not like me building over my sewer line. He said it would be fine as long as I replaced the line with schedule 80 pvc. (just under where I am building) If your going to replace part of it, might as well replace all of it.

I did a little research, and it looked like it would cost me around $4500 to have someone replace this line. I’m a huge fan of not financing things and I’m on a budget, so I decided to tackle this myself.

Fortunately, I have a very generous friend who loaned me his excavator free of charge. This was my first time to operate anything of the sort…..pretty damn straight and I only hit the sewer line twice.

Future shop site

I totally want one.

slowly back filling, and water packing.

to be continued….... I will get into the specs and some of my plans in my next post that should include pics of the ground work, forms, and possibly the concrete pour.

The craftsmen that work in this shop make all the reproduction furniture for colonial williamsburg using colonial methods. (They even make their own glue) There was some tourist guy standing by me who kept asking questions and my kids were bored so i never got to ask anything.

Wish i had learned more, but like i said, i spent very little time here. I definately recommend visiting this place.

Im far enuff along that you can see the basic concept that im going for. The platform on top is 3/4 mdf in which i plan to add a hardwood edge. The case is made from red oak ply and hard wood. The drawers are poplar and the drawer fronts are mahogany and 1/4 red oak ply. I used stub tenon and groove joinery for the frames. The drawer pulls are poplar(im planning on painting them)

A little side note—i wacked the hell out of the side of my hand with a rubber mallet when i was working on one of the drawers. It hurt, but it took a few seconds before i realized i was bleeding all over the inside of the drawer. Have you ever decided to leave blood on a project with the hope that your son might remember how hard you worked on his bed?

This project is basically the first and biggest part of my plans to build all of my son’s furniture. The 8 drawers should provide plenty of space so we may trash his chester drawers that are falling apart. If you are wondering about the space between the drawers, the idea is to give him a place to store his shoes.(size 16)

I wil share more when i complete the project. I also wated to show everyone my christmas present.

And also wanted to share the weather, this is my front yard today.

A while back I purchased two bessey 3/4 pipe clamps for $13.00 each and two 2ft threaded pipe nipples for about $8.00 each. This came out to around $22.00 per clamp.

Recently i was at harbour freight. I will first say that i have a love hate relationship with this store. Their blades and bits are not worth a crap. However, i have bought several bar clamps and c-clamps and have no complaints. Anyways, the other day i purchased a couple of their 3/4 in. pipe clamps. I can find no difference when i compare these to my bessey clamps other than they dont come with the little rubber thingy that slips over the pressure plates.(my own terminology) These clamps are on sale for $3.99.

I went to a local steel supplier and bought a joint of 3/4 in black pipe(21ft.) for $25.01. With a chop saw, i cut this down to 3 two footers, 2 three footers, and 2 four footers. This gave me 7 pipes of various lengths, all for $25.00. Fortunatly i was able to borrow a pipe threader.

My point here is that this can be done for around $55 or $60. I got seven pipe clamps out of this and it comes out to around $8.00 per clamp. And once again i can see no advantage to the more expensive clamps.

I hope this helps some of you guys who are trying to figure out an economical way to fill your shop wth more clamps.

P.S. Be safe through the hectic holiday season, and i hope you all have a merry Christmas.

Randy