Good idea

[muddy]

Ah yes me talking about wood is starting to get on her nerves just a bit. In the beginning so was so excited for me that I found something I really enjoyed, now she gets a glazed over look.

[tfeni52355]

Some of you may be following the redo of the garage into a workshop and are wondering what the latest is. Got the permit for the electrical work all completed. The electrician, my son-in-law's dad, is lined up to come over and go through the plans. The good news is the electrical enters the house on the garage side so adding circuits will be easy. My garage is also plumbed for a water softener so adding a deep sink will be easy. I remember my parents having one of these in the basement when we lived in Syracuse and it will be handy to have this in the garage. This will make the Mrs very happy because for some reason she gets all worked up when I clean a paint brush in the kitchen sink.

I have also traced out the plans onto tracing paper to get a feel for where everything will go and have thought about adding a wall and putting the dust collection system behind this wall. I attempted to scan the plans into my computer to share with you all but tracing paper tends to wad up when run through a scanner. Who knew?

Lastly, it has been disgustingly cold here this weekend. Average temp for this time of year is 64 degrees. It never got warmer than 33 degrees today.

Bill,
The sink is huge in the shop. I had the builder add one in the garage when we had the house built 25 years ago and it has been invaluable. You won't regret it.

I have been going back and forth about putting the dust collection system outside in it's own room. I think it actually is the best idea but I need to make sure it looks good as it will stick out from the side of the garage and be toward the front. I have to blend in the hip roof so it'll take a little bit. That project will be done after I get the rest of the shop setup if I decide to go that way.

Simply too cold to work in the shop here now though. It's been in the 40's in the day, 20's at night and I don't have any permanent heat in the garage yet.

[wfahey]

For anyone looking for an update to my shop redo I apologize. Not much new to report. Still trying to find a time for my Son in Law's dad and I to connect on the electrical upgrades. In the mean time I have been using the shop "as is" and just haul an industrial sized extension cord from tool to tool. What I did was run a clothesline along the ceiling and attached the extension cord to it via shower curtain hangers and just pull it to where I need it. Cheesy I know but it works for now. I had more desire this weekend to build something and not work on the shop redesign so I finished a cart for my oscillating sander. Besides, it rained all day today so it would have been impossible to do much. More soon I promise.

[wfahey]

Made a little progress today.

[muddy]

I spy a new toy there in the last picture.
I like the out feed/work bench arrangement.
Is that a Biesemeyer fence?

[wfahey]

I rearranged the shop today when I cleaned it. The tablesaw used to face the wall and the workbench was crosswise to the shop. It took up too much space this way and I didn't have anything to catch large pieces of wood as they came off of the tablesaw. The saw is on a shopfox roller system so it is quite a bit higher than the bench. I made the bench oversized which may have been a mistake but I like having all of that area to build stuff on. The planer was just put there today but I need to find a home for it. I did learn that it will definately need to be close to the DC as it can hurl some wood chips pretty far and just taking 1/32 off of a 4 x 24 piece of stock can produce an amazing amount of debris. It took maybe 10 seconds to plane the stock and 15 mins with the shop vac to clean up. I won't turn that thing on again without the DC being connected to it.

Yes, it is a Biesemeyer Fence. I love the accuracy.

[muddy]

Oh yeah, that thing will throw chips about 10 feet. I once covered my whole driveway with chips, it was about 2 inches deep at the end of the driveway.
I use to use a portable 1hp dust collector with it but it would over power the dust collector and blow the hose off. I went to a garbage can separator with the 1 hp DC and I would get the lid to raise off the garbage can blowing chips everywhere and this was with the DC running.
Every since I got my harbor freight DC I have no problems with the planner and chips.

[wfahey]

Power upgrade update

The electrician, David, and I spoke several months ago and agreed to get together to go over the new power layout. David's son was then involved in a near fatal car accident. No drugs or alcohol involved, just being young and dumb with a 4000 lb Jeep. He was given less than a 30% chance of survival and they removed a hunk of his skull to reduce pressure on the brain. As luck would have it, his son is making a remarkable recovery and even had the hunk of skull reattached 2 weeks ago. I didn't tell David that his other son, the one married to my daughter, totaled my pickup truck while home on leave from Iraq. I think that would have done him in.

David and I are meeting tonight to go over the electrical requirements for the shop. Hopefully all the disasters are behind us and we can move forward with this project.