Before I make the outfeed table for my table saw I figured I would work on things to organize everything for the saw. There is a big open space under the right wing, so I’ll be making a cabinet to hold the sled, jigs, blades, and accessories. I had an idea for a saw blade holder, so I took a chunk off an old 6×6″ post, cut some slots, and trimmed the height and length.
I’ll give the holder some sanding around the edges, but otherwise this is done. It’s nice when a build goes according to plan, especially a quick shop project.
A week after moving in, Dad came down and we built a wall in the basement to close off the workshop and keep sawdust contained. I eventually finished the rest of the show side of the wall and added trim to the door.
The Cat6 cables and networking rack are a project I hope to tackle over the holidays.
In order to keep as much dust as possible in the shop, I bought a can of spray foam to fill gaps around pipes, ducts, and beams. Since I hade some large gaps, I had to do two applications. I used wider painter’s tape to hold the foam back (picture below was taken during round two).
Then I wired all of the shop outlets and put up OSB for my wall material. It was a cheap option at about $15 a sheet, while allowing me to screw lighter things anywhere. The first things to go on the wall were all of my Ryobi storage, since the tools had been scattered across the floor for weeks. I absolutely love the 10 foot foundation, which allowed me to put wood storage high and out of the way.
I put up my clamp racks and emptied a lot of boxes to organize my tool wall. The Allen key holder was a quick side project.
I had wanted a SawStop for years and the move seemed like good excuse to sell my old Craftsman table saw instead of hauling it to a new basement. I bought SawStop’s Contractor Saw with the 36” T-Glide Fence Assembly, Mobile Base, and Cast Iron Wings. She’s a beauty, a joy to use, and the safety features can’t be beat.
I had a general idea of the layout I was going for in the shop, but in order to get a feel for the space, I measured all of my carts and tools so I could model in SketchUp. I started with the structure, items on the main wall, and things that can’t be moved, like pipes and the shop sink.
Then I needed all of the tool and storage carts. I imported a lot of the items from SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse and scaled everything to the correct size.
Eventually I got to a comfortable arrangement in the model and could physically put things in place. Over the course of several weeks I made a lot of adjustments. I even moved my band saw over to the drill press cart so I could repurpose it’s cart for my planer. I think I ended with a very good first iteration. Here are comparisons of the model and the actual room.
I can start making things again! One of the first builds is going to be an outfeed/assembly table for the table saw. It’ll have some neat features and storage. In the models I made a table top of about the correct size and in real life you see my old table top, which is too small and low, on saw horses.
During the move, version 2 of our weight plate storage was tossed in the trash because we sold our 55 pound plates and wanted to evenly split the plates on either side of the rack in our new gym.
I took some measurements and did a little math for a general idea of how much wood I’d need.
Grabbed some old oak flooring and started processing it on the miter saw, planer, and table saw.
I realized I had measured the full width of the plates, which I don’t need since the storage racks are only at the bottom. After recalculating, I cut a bunch of the dividers and did a mockup, when I realized I could add another slot to hold the barbell collars. The extra spacing on the sides of the plates ended up being less than my original guess as well.
Then I to cut everything to size, and drilled a lot of holes.
The assembly process was complicated, since I had to individually square up and attach eight dividers. Then the other side needed to have glue applied to all eight dividers before getting 16 holes to line up.
The second one is always easier and I was able to use the assembled rack as my 90° to clamp to.
More sanding and then black paint. Brushing on the paint with the oak’s grain pattern was a challenge, especially in some of the small gaps between dividers, so it took many coats.
The area looks a lot cleaner and the weights will be a lot easier to use.
Here are the final dimensions for anyone who wants to build their own:
All wood: 5/8″ thick and 3-11/16″ tall
Front and Back: 27-3/8″ long
Dividers: 15-1/4″ long
Gaps between dividers:
2×45#: 5″
2×35#: 3-7/8″
2×25#: 2-15/16″
15# + 2×10#: 5-5/8″
Metal 10#: 1-1/8″
Metal 2×5#: 1-1/4″
Collars: 2-5/8″
Everything will depend on the size of your plates though. I measured the thickness of our plates and ended up adding a half inch for the gaps, which feels good for moving the plates in and out.
At the Beloved resort in Playa Mujeres (just north of Cancun) Brandi and I went to an activity where we each made an Ojo de Dios, which is Spanish for God’s eye. We’re busy with all kinds of projects at the new house, so we’re using these as our homemade ornaments for this year.
Check out our creations from 2021, 2022, and 2023.
I’ve wanted some type of cabinet in my workshop for PPE and earlier this year I saw a cool cabinet that I thought might be perfect. Fast forward to the new house, the wall, and a new shop (post coming soon), so when I saw the Facebook Marketplace listing again I jumped on it.
Aren’t the graphics great on those green stickers? I only paid $25 for this Sellstrom Model 2000 Germicidal Cabinet. A new one is currently 51% off on Amazon, which brings it down to $599 and replacement UV light bulbs cost over $100! This unit had some rust, like it had been sitting in a puddle, but otherwise it barely seemed used. The light bulb still works and so does the timer pictured below, which can be set to run for up to 5 minutes. You can also see the UV light bulb on inside the cabinet, through that tiny window.
I used a razor blade to scrape as much of the rust off as I could and then used a sanding block. I cleaned the areas with mineral spirits and masked them off with painter’s tape. The bare metal got a coat of rusty metal primer.
The few inside corners were painted with a non-matching white, which nobody will see. I painted the bottom exterior area with some black, which turned out great. I hung the cabinet near the door and surrounded it with my glove dispenser and other safety stuff.
It’s been a busy few weeks packing and moving to the new house. Actually, it’s been a busy year! Building a 40 foot wall before being fully unpacked is a great idea, right? My dad was up for it, so of course I was. I’d never build a wall before, so framing was a fun challenge. This new project meant buying a couple of new tools, which I always love.
We’re very excited about this new gym area inside the house. No more garage gym for us, which was brutal in the Michigan summers and winters. There is still some organizing to do as we figure out how we use space. The wall isn’t actually finished yet either.
After I finish paneling this area I can get started on the other side of the wall. I picked up 1/2″ OSB for the shop’s wall material, to make it easy to screw small items in anywhere I want. You can’t beat $16 a sheet. Check out this cool storage space for sheet goods I gained by having the wall follow the floor joist.
I’m excited to get this mess of a shop organized, especially with all of my wood and large clamps at the other side of the basement for temporary storage. It’s going to be awesome.
After making coasters to go with my desk, I had the idea to make some as gifts for my Automattic team members, since we had a meetup coming up. Brandi also wanted to make a couple for a gift, so she helped a lot. Unfortunately I didn’t take many pictures during the process.
With our new house having a big walk-in closet we won’t need dressers, so we’ll be selling our bedroom set, which meant it was a good time for new nightstands. Here’s a photo dump of the build.
These will be floating on the wall in the new house, with about five inches of space under them. I did a lot of things in this build I’ve never tried before, so I learned a lot. I love how the decorative grooves turned out on the drawer fronts, which was inspired by something Michael Alm did on his kitchen cupboards. The oak handles were made with inspiration from a couple we liked on Etsy (1 & 2).
I can’t wait to get moved in this summer and mount these on the wall!
I’m loving my new desk. There are a couple of needed improvements though. First, I always have a water bottle, coffee, pop, or several on my desk when working, so I had grabbed this coaster from the living room. It bugged me all week.
Can you believe I’d never made a set of coasters? Time to fix that.
This was a simple project and a lot of fun to knock out something small. I’ll keep two of the coasters in the office and put the other two in the living room.
Over the years, without success, I’ve tried to stand some while working. Hopefully a motorized adjustable base will encourage me to stand for certain tasks and even if I can do a couple of 20-30 minute sessions each day it’ll be a big help.
I got to work processing walnut boards and white oak flooring.
There was a lot of jointing, cross-cutting, ripping, planing, more ripping, and trimming. I’m excited to use that box of off-cuts to make an end grain cutting board or two! I felt like the key to this build was going to be the glue-ups. I started with sections of 9-10 pieces and ended up with eight of those.
I ran each section through the planer, with the help of some shimming for a couple, to flatten them. I made a temporary sled to square up the sides to the faces.
To help assemble the sections, I used a couple of biscuits on each glue joint.
I glued up two sections at a time, which gave me four bigger sections. Then I glued up two of those at a time and one final glue up.
I drilled and put in all of the bolt inserts, which will attach the top to the desk base.
I took three passes with the router to put a big chamfer along the bottom edge.
With a jigsaw, I rough cut out a spot in the back to pass cables through. Then I did some sanding to smooth it out and added a chamfer with the router. Here is it, viewed with the desk bottom facing up.
Due to the base’s cross support, there’s was limited depth for drawers, but there was width for them. I took some old kitchen cabinet drawers, chopped them in half, and closed them up with scrap plywood.
Then I worked on what I’m calling the drawer box even though it’s not a box. I also cut top rails from hardboard and oversized drawer faces from walnut. Grabbed strips of walnut for face-framing and glued together pieces of oak to make drawer pulls.
All the sanding! I went through 80, 120, 180, and 220 grits on the top and sides of the desk.
Time to put some finish on, which is always a favorite step to see how it’s really going to look. It was my first time trying out a hard wax oil and I used Bee Nooba Wax from Bumblechutes. It was very easy to apply and I’ll definitely be using it on future projects. I applied one coat to the bottom and three coats to the sides and top.
Then it was back to the drawers. I stained the “box” black and ended up having to trim some things to fit better around the rail of the desk base. I sized the drawer faces, made oak handles with 10° angles, assembled everything, and applied finish.
It turned out great! I can’t wait to see it in our new house later this year!
