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Archive

Why I go to the gym...

Oct 27, 2016

Why I go to the gym...

Seriously, why would ANYONE go to the gym and lift heavy things if not to get better at lifting heavy things? I have a lot of heavy things in my workshop and I don't want to have to lift them every time I need to move them. Therefore, I purchased mobile bases for all of the really heavy stuff so I can move them around more easily. Putting a mobile base on a 7-foot tall, top-heavy bandsaw is not easy, but it basically involves rocking and leaning the bandsaw to get the base

The UPS guy hates me.

Oct 26, 2016

The UPS guy hates me.

Our regular UPS delivery gal loves us. Hey, we've got cute kids, what can I say? The UPS freight guy is not a fan. I ordered several of my larger tools through Grizzly.com. They're a big manufacturer of workshop tools (both woodworking and metalworking) that has a decent reputation for quality and an excellent reputation for customer support. They also come in around the middle for pricing and have a HUGE line of products to choose from. Yesterday, the UPS freight 18-whee

My son has been framed!

Oct 25, 2016

My son has been framed!

I'm moving right along with the dust collection lean-to project. I purchased a set of downloadable plans from the interwebs for $10. I figured I could make this all up myself and spend a half day on it or I could just stand on someone else's back and slip them a Hamilton for their efforts. I'm glad I did, since the plans were well laid out and easy to follow. I'm making quite a few adjustments to the plan, of course. For starters, the whole shed is MUCH taller than the pla

A surprise in the wall

Oct 23, 2016

A surprise in the wall

The floor is done. The minisplit/heat pump is installed. It's time to get this vision moving! Time to start on the dust collection system. I've done my research and I've decided that I will be purchasing the Oneida-Air V3000 dust collector. I got onto the Onieda-Air web site and got all of the installation instructions and dimensions and I'm ready to get to work. As I've mentioned, the dust collector will be located in a lean-to (a yet to be built lean-to, that is) on the

So warm it's cool.

Oct 21, 2016

So warm it's cool.

The minisplit is installed! Had some guys come by today and install the minisplit system. If you're not familiar, then you've probably never lived in a shipping container in Afghanistan. This is a small heat pump that mounts to a space with very little structural modification. There's a 3-inch hole in the wall of the workshop. The aptly named indoor unit is the air handler. It's mounted up on the wall. The equally aptly named outdoor unit contains the condenser. It's al

I'm floored!

Oct 16, 2016

I'm floored!

Yep, the floor is finally done. That's some repetitious work, I tell you. Lots of bending and screwing of screws and cutting all the support blocks to be exactly the right size to keep the floor level. Yep, lots of work. Here's a little tidbit that I hadn't discussed. The floor is floating on two sides. I installed the ledger all the way around the workshop. There are two doors to the shop; a standard person door and a roll-up garage style door. The floor on the two no

I needed a little support -- well ok, a lot.

Oct 7, 2016

I needed a little support -- well ok, a lot.

Let's talk about how pocket hole joinery is supposed to work. We'll also talk about how I'm using it and why. When you join two boards together with pocket holes it's important to align the hole so that it screws into the crossgrain of the second board like in the diagram above. If you were to rotate the board on the right 90 degrees, the screw would be trying to bite into the end grain of the board where it would be more likely to loosen. In the picture at the top, you can