Best three easy improvements to my shop. How about yours?

[Bay Area Dave]

wood is the preferred floor for several reasons:

1. drop a chisel, tip down, onto a concrete floor. what do you get? a damaged tool. drop it on wood instead. what do you get? satisfaction!

1. easier on the feet and legs.

2. a bit warmer than a concrete slab.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment. I'm sure others will chime in.

dave

Puff Griffis wrote:

up a new shop and wondered what was better.

[Bay Area Dave]

BTW, the burst pressure of L is MORE than 2,600 PSI. I couldn't find the exact figure, but it's MORE than that. also, the 175 PSI figure I mentioned was for a 2 stage, 3 phase compressor I had for the auto shop...

dave

Mark and Kim Smith wrote:

[Luigi Zanasi]

On 06 Feb 2004 04:38:59 GMT, [e-mail] (Rich Stern) scribbled:

1. One day I got pissed off at all the extensions and blowing breakers, and installed two new circuits with outlets on the ceiling every 6' or so. Wired like a (Canadian?) kitchen so the two plugs in each duplex outlet are on separate circuits. It helps that the ceiling is only a little over 7' high.
2. Put wheels on my Makita 2040 planer.
3. Put in 4 low temperature 8'fluorescent fixtures. They start up even when the shop is at 20 below (-4F, Keith).
4. Got me a cheap Crappy Tire rolling mechanic's tool box. I keep my measuring tools, sandpaper, drill bits and accessories, ratchet set in separate drawers.
5. Put in a cheap IKEA-style termite-puke bookcase that we had around to keep all my fasteners.
6. Screwed a few 1X3s to the ceiling joists. Great for storing planes, pipe clamps, etc..

Ok, it's more than three but, as you all know, there are three kinds of people, those who can count and those who can't.

Luigi Note the new email address. Please adjust your krillfiles (tmAD) accordingly Replace "nonet" with "yukonomics" for real email address

[Mark and Kim Smith]

I've been reading the threads on using plastic pipe of various material and problems with them either shrapneling or blowing. Shops I work in use the systems built back in the 50's, 60's and 70's consisting of galvanized pipe. Tried and true systems. So why not use the tried and true ways I tend to ask myself?? The ol' "Pay me now or pay me later" If you treat them right ( bleed moisture nightly, etc ) they'll last forever. Or, you can keep patching your plastic pipe over and over. Even if you saved money up front, you'll probably lose that in materials for repair and labor to do it. Don't know as I have no experience with plastic. Just the concerns I read from others.

As for "L" copper, sounds like it has the proper rating so it'll work just fine. Same way to assemble?? By soldering joints, etc? As for 2 stage, 3 phase etc, type of compressor, that doesn't mean anything. What counts the most is the setting of your relief valve or "popoff" valve in your system. Most are set at 150 psi. Most systems run at 120 psi or so. Most all "bought" compressors have the relief valve built in, no need to add it to the system. A nice thing to add would be an automatic spitter to bleed off moisture and scare folks that aren't used to hearing such a thing!

Al> BTW, the burst pressure of L is MORE than 2,600 PSI. I couldn't find

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

Do they ever land any other way?

Barry

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Many indusrial applications are being done with copper. One advantave oer pipe is ease of change. Want to add another branch? With pipe, you may have to break 10 joints from the new spot to the nearest union. With copper, you just cut and put in a "T" where needed. -- Ed [e-mail]

[Unisaw A100]

So far I have the one outlet above the assembly area bench but I'm leaning towards another in a spot where the jointer, planer, band saw and An Ultimate Router Table have decided were a good spot to call their home. None get used simultaneously so one circuit should/would work out with a

4-way box.

sigh... I found a nicely constructed roll around rack mount (for A/V devices) for free and it recently began it's new life as a roll around for the Delta lunch box planer.

Sweater weather, right?

Not gone there yet as I have entirely too much/many foot prints already. Maybe I'll have me something once I've eBay'd a few things more. In the mean time, my next big project are some cabinets along two walls with shallow drawers. I calc'd out that two 8'ish cabinets would mean making 60ish drawer/trays. I'm figuring this would be tantamount to going from dirt roads to an 8-lane Interstate (highway Luigi).

Something similar/the same, I made shallow (3" deep) cabinets (from scrap/you don't really even need a back for these) that are sprinkled about the shoppe for infrastructure items. On the up side, I've not had to go digging for anything in the last three years.

Similar but different, we have 3" diameter cardboard tubes left over from our plotter at work. Some of these have ended up in between the joists for holding "better rippings", dowels and anything else that's long and skinny.

The math works for me.

UA100

[Larry Jaques]

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 03:36:56 GMT, Tim Carver brought forth from the murky depths:

Great! I've been trying to come up with something similar on wheels for Dina and you found it for me. Do you have part of the sliding section as a flat area with a stop to make it work? Slots in the immovable part for the larger sled? Thanks for the ideas!

------------- ----------- T===========| | slider ||stop S===========| | ||

------------- -----------

In visualizing what you did, I decided that my smaller tailed tools would benefit by being placed on a shallow sliding drawer under the assembly table. I think I'll add one to the mechanics vise bench, too. Now to find an Accuride set that slides both ways for the pair on the assembly bench and devise a simple center detent to keep it in place when I roll the bench around. A spring-loaded inline skate wheel in a rounded V-groove ought to do the trick.

- The only reason I would take up exercising is ||

so that I could hear heavy breathing again. || Programmed Websites

[BRuce]

yep, I used some leftover 4" light guage PVC leftovers, cut in 6" long pieces and screwed to the joists ~24" apart. any little diameter "good stuff" that will span 2 or more gets saved there.

BRuce

Unisaw A100 wrote:

[Jeff Cochran]

1) More lighting. Including lolw-voltage halogens over work areas. 2) Painted the concrete floor to keep dust down. Painted the walls flat white at the same time. 3) Cabinets with doors. Can't believe the amount of dust I was always chasing off tools and supplies.

Ongoing project that looks liek a good bet:

Getting *everything* off the floor. Wall mount as much as possible, no storage on the floor under shelves or benches. I want at least a foot of clearance above the floor wall to wall, the ease of cleaning up makes it worth the lost space.

Jeff

[Lawrence A. Ramsey]

The number 1 best thing I ever did for my shop was to buy ($90) a 96 drawer card file catalog from a university. Unbelievably useful and handy. Can put bolts/screws in drawes per size;blades for hand plane/planer/jointer/hand jointer in drawers per tool, etc.

[Mark and Kim Smith]

Sounds like the way to go these days!!

[Mark Jerde]

Just one. Getting the rest of the family to call it "the shop" instead of "the garage" ie, the place to toss everything that isn't wanted somewhere else. "The shop" is just a one car garage and I've grudgingly allowed a treadmill, freezer and stepper to also occupy the space. ANYTHING else not related to shop work is assumed to have been misplaced in the shop instead of the trashcan.

I had to be pretty ruthless. Boxes of useful stuff, roller blades, etc. went in the trash & were hauled away. ;-)

But then, I've been to any number of US Army "charm schools." Why not put to use what I've learned?

-- Mark

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

Those things really are handy. I check the local used office furniture warehouse on a regular basis for something similar. One day, I'll have one too!

Barry

[Frank Shute]

If you wrap a piece of buttered toast around the handle, butter pointing outwards, then it will land on the handle ;)

[Silvan]

1. Getting all the bicycles and crap out of the shed, and making it officially a "shop."
2. De-rusting at last (not exactly easy, but cheap) that old Morgan front vise, then flattening my benchtop and grafting a flat hardwood top onto it, then drilling a grid of dog holes.

I can't come up with a #3 because I bought a lathe for Christmas, and I've been too busy covering every surface in my shop with ribbons of wood to use or take care of any of the rest of it. It's a real mess, actually. Turning blanks on my table saw, turning blanks on my workbench, scraps of too-short wood all over the floor. Moved the belt sander onto a stand in front of the workbench so it's close to the lathe... Used all my Scary Sharp(tm) paper to sand spindles and bowls...

It was the best thing and the worst thing I've done in years. :)

[Tim Carver]

Larry, I used 2 54" pieces of 3/8" by 3" cold finish steel bar, bolted to the sides of the saw, parallel to the miter slots, with the edge dropped just slightly (.01") below the tablesaw surface.

You could do the same thing with wood, of course; 1x4 maple or 3/4" x

4" ply would be about right. These pieces are the sole support for the top, so the area under the top behind the saw is totally free for storage. The table top itself is 1.25" Fnnform with a .5" UHMW top screwed to it. Te drawer slides are just screwed to the edges of the Finnform. I made it a very tight fit on purpose, and I've never had the table move as work slides over it, not that it would really matter if it did, the support would be moving with the work, which would be fine.

I have a cab saw, and I've never seen any indication of tipping when the table is extended with material on it, but perhaps this wouldn't work as well with a contractor saw. Just to be sure, I bolted my saw down for safety. I certainly wouldn't let the total go much more than 27" behind the saw without a leg to support it. There is no reason really that you couldn't have a support leg on a caster if you wanted, though. In my case, I want that space, I have a tool cabinet under there.

The drawer slides are screwed to the insides of the bars, with the top of the slides flush with the top of the bar (remember,.01 down from the saw top). There are no stops, the table travel stops when the drawer slides reach the end of their travel. Remember, that far edge is 60" out from the back of the blade, long enough for 8' stock. If I need more (e.g, if I'm ripping a 12 footer) I have to use a temporary support.

One bar is bolted to the left side of the saw, the other is bolted to the right side of the right wing (I happen not to be using a left wing, because I have a sliding table).I bolted the left side bar to the saw thru the holes where the left wing would normally attach. On the right side, I drilled the right side of the wing in 3 places and bolted the bar to the outside of the right wing.

The following detail is confusing, and it doesn't really have much to do with the sliding table idea, but it does explain why I chose to support the sliding table with steel instead of wood. Remember, I had an extra wing. I used it behind the right wing. It is supported on the right by the right steel bar, giving me an 8" by 54" right hand side wing. This is why I chose steel for the support bar. Wood would be fine for the support bars if you weren't doing this.

If anybody's interested in this, I'll post a pic. I've kind got a lot of stuff going on here which complicates things, but the sliding outfeed is really pretty easy and simple.

If you ever find such slides, please let me know! I want to add some

2 way drawers under the right side of my saw, to store panels under construction.

Tim Carver [e-mail]

[Tim Carver]

Rob - See my reply to Larry Jacques (I accidentally sent this post twice, so it's a prior thread). . Also, I will post a pic on ABPW.

I made it out of freezer curtain material. It's flexible vinyl, about

1/8" thick. It comes in 3' wide rolls. They sell it by the foot at Multi-Craft plastics in Portland, I suspect any plastic supplier would have it. I'll post a pic of this on ABPW too.

Tim Carver [e-mail]

[Luigi Zanasi]

On Sat, 07 Feb 2004 23:00:55 -0800, Luigi Zanasi scribbled:

How could I forget improvement No. 7 (actually should be #1), especially considering Silvan's vulgar hijacking of another thread to the topic I am about to bring up.

1. A pee bucket. A plastic bucket filled with sawdust. I no longer need to walk out to the garden beds (during the winter) or the compost heap (during the summer). The stuff just gets dumped on the compost in the spring: a good combination of nitrogen and carbon. No smell. Thank you, Doug Stowe.

Luigi Note the new email address. Please adjust your krillfiles (tmAD) accordingly Replace "nonet" with "yukonomics" for real email address

[Tim Carver]

I posted a couple of pics to ABPW.

Tim Carver [e-mail]