Well, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted anything. We purchased 12.5 acres out in the hardwood mountains around Lexington Virginia. At some point in our future, we will build our retirement home. The house will most likely be a SIP house. The SIP stands for structural insulated panel. There is a wealth of information on SIPsupply.com. Anyway we have started out building a 8×8 foot shed with a gambrel roof for our sleeping loft. The shed is not big, but it does the job of storing all of the normal supplies and equipment we drag back and forth from Virginia Beach some 4 hours away. The loft come in very handy as well when we arrive late in the evening and it’s pitch black except for any light the stars and moon put out. Our next step is to build a 16×24 foot wood shop that I can also store the tractor in. We plan on putting a gambrel roof on that one as well. It doubles the floor space and once we start the house, we will be able to store some of the SIP panels in there too. With all that hard wood up there, there are plenty of projects just waiting in the trees around us. Any one need some fire wood?…just ask.
Here is the first step in a long road ahead. Now if we only had some of those nice amenities like water and electricity

Although this is one of my older projects, it took me a good chunk of time to produce it. After deciding to purchase a salt water tank, I started looking at tanks and stands. The tank I ended up purchasing was a 72 gallon bow front. The stand that was available with it looked to be press board and there was the whole idea of placing hundreds of pounds on top of something that did not look strong enough to hold my weight. I built (some might say overbuilt) a sub frame to carry the weight with salt treated 4×4’s for the uprights and salt treated 2×4’s for the cross members. I rabbeted the 4×4’s then bolted and glued them to the 2×4’s. The tank and the sump sit on 3/4” furniture grade oak plywood with 5 coats of spar varnish. I set the tank on a large piece of cardboard and traced out the outline of the tank. I also used the same ark to design the cross members for the doors to continue the profile of the tank. All of the individual 1×3 oak stays on the outside are screwed with stainless steel screws and glued from the rear. I added some rope molding to give it a nautical look and here it is.

I thought I would be 100% done on this today and everything was looking good, then when I mounted the chop saw and bolted it down, it placed just enough weight to drag on the drawer and make me grit my teeth. oh well, tomorrow I’ll pull out the drawer and work the problem. Other than that, I made a matching walnut drawer handle to mount as soon as I finish getting the fit just right. The majority of the project is 3/4” furniture grade oak plywood and I added some walnut trim pieces and inlay to the drawer to improve the overall looks. With the wings folded out it measures just over 8 foot wide so I can cut 12 foot boards with no problem. I also made a slide out shelf to mount my grinder to. There are two pieces of oak 2×2 glued together mounted to the bottom of the shelf so I can place it on my work bench vise. I plan on making two more matching carts. One will be for my spindle/belt sander and the other will be for the thickness planer. That will make moving them around in the shop much easier.