I should mention that I’m doing all this without a veneer press so I got creative

Ill update this blog once i get more of my saw refitted. you can see pictures of the old tables on my shop page

Before my job ended i wound up with the desk I used in the maintenance bay. It is an old machinist’s desk from boeing (how it wound up in a former lumber yard turned garden center is anyone’s guess.) So this meant removing my old workbench which was no easy task since i built it to last forever.

here is my shop after i put in my desk and rearranged my machines. the pic is a bit blurry because it was raining that day and i had to take the photo outside my shed so you can see everything

Now with the old bench removed I made an interesting discovery. the building is sagging! apparently my shed doesnt have enough supports and as a result 2 of the walls are warped and started leaking. Guess what i get to do this summer

But i digress after much effort (and a lot of 4-letter words) I managed to put that behemoth desk into my shop and hopefully someday i will get it cleaned and organized again….. maybe

i will post pictures of the woodpile as well as the one log i managed to mill on my bandsaw

enter my solution. insane? very, but it works so im using it.

on my shed is a 55 watt solar panel kit shown here:

from that the power goes to my charge controller and to 2 12 volt deer feeder batteries

to light the shop i have 2 3 watt 270 lumen LED lights from a company called Goal0 which can put out 16 hours of light on a single charge

and to make sure i dont kill my batteries i put a volt meter on the system which i placed right above my radial saw so i can check it periodically

and last but not least i added some auxiliary car outlets next to my work bench so i can power small accessories or additional lights or whatever else i may need and possibly use my inverter if i ever need to

i hope you enjoyed seeing the insane lengths i go to have my own shop

next i plan on adding in some more lights so i can hang them up for outside work (they actually work better than my shop light for this)

this is my pegboard cabinet after i stored of my stuff on the outer boards

and here’s the inside. i wish the rest of my shop looked as organized

and last but not least ive also been adding storage to the doors to keep my saws and cords stored
(and yes thats my dog and an anvil in the background, jealous?)

further down on my list of things to do are to add a small overhang on the front to keep my doors from getting wet in the seattle rain and to eventually add on to the sides of my shed (seattle building codes allow a 10×20 building without a permit and i plan on using every inch of that)

i would have just taken the stand apart but i am just not strong enough to take that cast iron jointer off to do so. i also though of taking the top off the planer but was afraid of losing the bolts with my shop in its current state of utter chaos.

i do have a few things to sort out such as extending the adjusting handle outside the stand and putting in a dust chute on my jointer so the shavings have somewhere to go but i will deal with that soon.

well enough of that here is a pic:

for the longest time i have been wanting to put up a decent sized pegboard in my shop but as always space was a problem. i have 2 smaller plastic ones near my RAS but that just isnt enough anymore now that my machines have displaced several of my storage cabinets. in the back i originally had a small set of shelves that barely held anything. if you look at the pics of my shop you can see it behind my bandsaw.

now i have finally gotten around to building the solution i desperately needed. basically it is like a pegboard cabinet built into the framing of my back wall. the doors open to reveal another pegboard behind them. i have essentially put an entire sheet of pegboard into the same space as half of a sheet. i know there are similar pegboard configurations out there but once again my little space made them useless.

details: the inner pegboard has 3 inches of depth for storage which can handle a lot of the clutter and each half is 4 ft by 2 ft with 2 folding doors on each side (essentially 8 1ft panels put together) i still have to put in the final door but i cant until i find somewhere to put the bicycles. im actually planning on adding onto my shed eventually to solve some of the space issues but thats a ways down the road

well enough of that here are the pics:
yeah the panels arent lined up very well but since its in my shop i dont care

the one downside is that i can only open 1 center door at a time but i figure that is a decent trade off for what i have

without the hooks the project cost me about $50-$60 including the hinges which were 12” piano hinges i cut down for this
the best thing is that the wood for the doors came was salvaged from my old shelves. i finally found a use for those awful shelves

here it is after i brought it home and cleaned the table

i used a wire brush then proceeded to treat it with linseed oil and then johnson wax just to make sure it wont rust again for a while

i also set to work taking it all apart and checking everything as well as oiling the upper guide assembly so it would move freely again. i checked the bearings on the upper wheel and they seemed decent for now especially after i saw some expensive bearings at the hardware store ($13 each!!) and discovered the old american made bearings i took out were actually better than the overpriced bearings i found (i will order some new ones eventually)

when i first bought it i noticed it vibrated horribly it would move as much as 3/4 of an inch in either direction. i had soon realized the large drive pulley was cracked. ironically that was a more recent part which was put on in order to reduce the 3450 rpm motor to the required 640 the saw needed. after much searching i eventually found a replacement on the sears website. with that done i set about taking the entire saw apart and cleaning it as well as replacing the worn drive belt which combined with the new pulley solved most of the vibration problems.

with all of that taken care of i decided to replace the bulky wood stand it was on with a much smaller one made of 1/4 inch angle iron as well as put it on 4 locking swivel casters.
after about 4 days of work i had welded up a new stand for it ( and yes i know it looks like a sawhorse)

here are some pics of it after i primed it:

the little steel box you see in the pic is very important keep scrolling down to understand why

here is a pic of my new stand next to the old one you can tell how much smaller it is

first mach-up assembly i havent installed the motor or wired it all back up just yet and of course i decided to match it to the original color of the saw (im calling it chevy gold in case you’re wondering)

and here it is with all the wiring installed (see i told you the box was important it mounts the junction box)

here it is at a different angle

there is my nice new pulley installed

the next 3 pics show just how much smaller the new stand is:

the outlines are where the saw originally sat, that gives some perspective as to just how much space it was wasting which is unacceptable in my little shop

i think all in all i shaved about 6 inches off the footprint in one dimension as well as making it a lot easier to move it since i dont have to tilt the entire saw backwards anymore. it has gotten about an inch taller but thats not a big issue.

after all the parts i needed and about $40 in paint and primer i spent a total of $100 on restoring this old dinosaur to better than new condition

after testing it again i discovered it now passes the nickel test which is leaps and bounds better than it was before (it used to shake like an old beat up washing machine.)

oh and the metal i used on the stand was free (its always good to be on a welding instructor’s good side)