Dadoo's Workshop

Welcome to DADOO’s LAB. Hope you enjoy your visit.

I’ve been designing and rebuilding this multi-use garage/shop for seven years now. My biggest requirement is keeping it compact so we can still park two cars if necessary. Everything must also be kept off the floor to protect from water and melting slush, so the bench legs are pressure treated and designed to be fairly easily replaced if necessary. It’s 24’x24’ with a 10’ high ceiling. The ceiling joices are manufactured I-beam type and strong enough to add a separate room up there. I use it for wood storage though. I wired the shop for 100amp service and have some 220volt outlets. Everything else is on ground fault breakers. The house is heated with a oil fired boiler, so it was easy to design it for a separate garage zone for winter heat.

We do it all here…Welding, woodworking, electronics and electrical repair, auto repair, monster design, washing the dog, grilling and steaming, BSing, etc. There’s even a ‘fridge full of beer and soda for those off times!

I still want to paint the walls and shelves all white but doubt if I ever will. Just too busy with everything else. I have recently replaced the metal card file cabinets with plastic bins for increased storage. The new bins are from Akromils, 18” long by 4” wide…They hold a ton of screws!

The shelves are 2’ deep and made from OSB. The fronts are supported thru the ceiling with 3/8” threaded rod and the backs are screwed to the wall studs. The top of the rod goes thru a 2×4, fender washer and double nutted, which is supported by the ceiling joists. The rods should be placed every 4’ for support. They do support a lot of weight too.

The rolling bench serves as a storage unit for almost all of my power tools. The top is a 2’ wide, 1 1/2” thick piece of plywood made up of two pieces of floor grade (CDX)3/4” plywood. Very strong and easily replacable if it gets chewed up. I have specific holes drilled into it for lag screws to fasten my planer and bandsaw. I’ve also drilled holes for rubber capped dowel pins that serve as benchdogs. It makes a great assembly bench. Someday I’d like to replace it with the same design, but nicer hardwoods. The cabinets are on their way out too. I’ve recently wanted more space and better tool storage so bigger cabinets are in the future picture. Like I said earlier, I’ve been designing and rebuilding for…(sigh) awhile! Someday I just gotta finish right?

The top of my workbench is now 1/4” hardboard…an idea I got while watching New Yankee Workshop. It has a 1/2” underlayment of OSB. Again…easily replaceable should it get chewed up.
The sheet goods woodrack is hinged to the wall and on a heavy duty caster. It only sticks out 8” when against the wall. I’ve got a lot of compliments on this “combination” of ideas…This rack is the culmination of three wood storage articles put together.

I’ve also recently added a scrap bin to the left side. We enjoy camping and this will be a great place to store kindling and firewood. I’m going to be building a better bin for the newspapers too. Here in NY we recycle everything separately. Since I’m living out in the boonies, we’re allowed to burn too, so a lot of salvage goes into a yearly bonfire party. We don’t burn anything but paper and brush though, there’s enough pollution in the air already.

And the last picture…Guess who? That’s a 1927 Sargent #714 Jack plane I recently refinished. Man, it cuts some nice shavings too.

-- Bob Vila would be so proud of you!