Frank Pellow
Member
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2007
- Messages
- 2,743
Every year since I built my woodworking shed/shop I have devoted a week in November to clean up, repairs and improvements. The week starting November 10th was supposed to be that week and I did get started on the task. But, there were so many non-shop tasks right now that I managed to devote fewer than 20 hours to it. So, I extended the week to a fortnight. That fortnight ended yesterday. The biggest task was to clean and to clear all the clutter, but I did get to build a few things.
In the first week, I only completed two jobs, one a repair job and one an improvement. The repair was the replacement of a broken wooden top section:
on my about 30 year old Black and Decker Workmate. The first thing to do on this repair was to laminate a plywood part with the same dimensions as the broken section. I used two layers of 12mm Baltic Birch. The broken part was used as a template to mark the hole locations, then holes were drilled using my drill press:
I put three coats of spar urethane on the new part then attached it. But, there was a problem. I thought that the holes would be 3/4 inch, but it turns out that they are 2 centimetres. My Workmate was made in Canada about 30 years ago and I guess that they had converted to metric at the time. I wonder if the new 'made in China' Workmates have metric sized holes. 2 centimetres is only a little bit bigger than 3/4 inch, so drilling the holes slightly larger was tricky:
After drilling, I smoothed the edges with a roundover bit:
Then, I applied a couple more coats of spar urethane all round and re-assembled it:
There is a rather dramatic contrast between the surviving old section and the new section but everything lines up well.
The improvement was a place off the floor to store my small band saw. There is a section of wall at the north end of the west wall that has not been fully utilized:
It is mostly used to hold the carrying box for my Festool rails but the rails now mostly reside in the garage and the box is has seldom been used during the last three years. I decided to put the box in the garage and to use the wall space for cabinets to hold the small band saw as well as some systainers. The portion of this that I completed was the place to hold the band saw:
In the second week, I found almost 30 hours to devote to the job, and got a lot more done.
I had a few systainers that had to sit on the floor due to insufficient drawers. My inventory is 19 systainers and there were only 14 drawers. One fits on the vacuum leaving 4 to kick about somewhere. I figured that there was room for at least 8 more shelves to the right of the space that I used to store the small bandsaw. In that these shelves will not be rolling around, I decided on a minimalist design, actually little more than a tray where the sliders form the sides of the tray.
I decided to pre-drill holes in the carcasses in order to accommodate different configurations of systainers. Here are three different ways that the shelves can be organized:
1) sys1-sys1-sys2-sys2-sys1:
2) sys-1-sys1-sys2-sys4:
3) sys2-sys2-sys2-sys3: [
Here is the current set up of the drawers:
I now have 4 shelves free for future purchases. I still have one systainer maxi living on the floor, but I guess that will be a challenge for next year's Clean-Up and Improvement week.
Another task involved a systainer. I have been storing a hammer drill in a Sys2 systainer for about three years, but I have simply been placing the drill and accessories in the systainer and letting them rattle around. Until yesterday, the hammer drill kept in my systainer was a DeWalt. But that drill has been problematic for some time. The problems have to do with loose wires and a faulty switch. I have (sort of) fixed it at least three times and had a certified repair centre fix it once. Yesterday, I gave up on the drill and it is now history. For the last year or so, I have also owned a Milwaukee Hammer drill for use as backup. It has now been promoted. To celebrate the promotion, I decided to organize the systainer. I also spray painted the latches dark red as an assist to locating the correct systainer. Below are two pictures of the interior:
In September, some of the stuff used to cover end cuts of pressure treated wood spilled into one of my router bit drawers and dried there. Fortunately the bit holders are attached to a plywood insert. I cleaned all the bits to which the stuff had adhered, removed that plywood insert, and made a new one.
For something completely different, I decided to make a collage of Lee Valley catalogue covers augmented with some cut-outs from their calendars.
I had fun doing this and the wall looks very good!
As usual, there were a lot of trivial repairs that had to be made. For instance, the plastic surrounds on the fluorescent light fixtures are very flimsy and easily broken. I have not been able to find sturdy replacements and a couple of them have been knocked out and cracked. I made some wooden brackets to hold them in place.
Here are two pairs of before and after photos:
First Pair:
Second Pair:
In the first week, I only completed two jobs, one a repair job and one an improvement. The repair was the replacement of a broken wooden top section:
on my about 30 year old Black and Decker Workmate. The first thing to do on this repair was to laminate a plywood part with the same dimensions as the broken section. I used two layers of 12mm Baltic Birch. The broken part was used as a template to mark the hole locations, then holes were drilled using my drill press:
I put three coats of spar urethane on the new part then attached it. But, there was a problem. I thought that the holes would be 3/4 inch, but it turns out that they are 2 centimetres. My Workmate was made in Canada about 30 years ago and I guess that they had converted to metric at the time. I wonder if the new 'made in China' Workmates have metric sized holes. 2 centimetres is only a little bit bigger than 3/4 inch, so drilling the holes slightly larger was tricky:
After drilling, I smoothed the edges with a roundover bit:
Then, I applied a couple more coats of spar urethane all round and re-assembled it:
There is a rather dramatic contrast between the surviving old section and the new section but everything lines up well.
The improvement was a place off the floor to store my small band saw. There is a section of wall at the north end of the west wall that has not been fully utilized:
It is mostly used to hold the carrying box for my Festool rails but the rails now mostly reside in the garage and the box is has seldom been used during the last three years. I decided to put the box in the garage and to use the wall space for cabinets to hold the small band saw as well as some systainers. The portion of this that I completed was the place to hold the band saw:
In the second week, I found almost 30 hours to devote to the job, and got a lot more done.
I had a few systainers that had to sit on the floor due to insufficient drawers. My inventory is 19 systainers and there were only 14 drawers. One fits on the vacuum leaving 4 to kick about somewhere. I figured that there was room for at least 8 more shelves to the right of the space that I used to store the small bandsaw. In that these shelves will not be rolling around, I decided on a minimalist design, actually little more than a tray where the sliders form the sides of the tray.
I decided to pre-drill holes in the carcasses in order to accommodate different configurations of systainers. Here are three different ways that the shelves can be organized:
1) sys1-sys1-sys2-sys2-sys1:
2) sys-1-sys1-sys2-sys4:
3) sys2-sys2-sys2-sys3: [
Here is the current set up of the drawers:
I now have 4 shelves free for future purchases. I still have one systainer maxi living on the floor, but I guess that will be a challenge for next year's Clean-Up and Improvement week.
Another task involved a systainer. I have been storing a hammer drill in a Sys2 systainer for about three years, but I have simply been placing the drill and accessories in the systainer and letting them rattle around. Until yesterday, the hammer drill kept in my systainer was a DeWalt. But that drill has been problematic for some time. The problems have to do with loose wires and a faulty switch. I have (sort of) fixed it at least three times and had a certified repair centre fix it once. Yesterday, I gave up on the drill and it is now history. For the last year or so, I have also owned a Milwaukee Hammer drill for use as backup. It has now been promoted. To celebrate the promotion, I decided to organize the systainer. I also spray painted the latches dark red as an assist to locating the correct systainer. Below are two pictures of the interior:
In September, some of the stuff used to cover end cuts of pressure treated wood spilled into one of my router bit drawers and dried there. Fortunately the bit holders are attached to a plywood insert. I cleaned all the bits to which the stuff had adhered, removed that plywood insert, and made a new one.
For something completely different, I decided to make a collage of Lee Valley catalogue covers augmented with some cut-outs from their calendars.
I had fun doing this and the wall looks very good!
As usual, there were a lot of trivial repairs that had to be made. For instance, the plastic surrounds on the fluorescent light fixtures are very flimsy and easily broken. I have not been able to find sturdy replacements and a couple of them have been knocked out and cracked. I made some wooden brackets to hold them in place.
Here are two pairs of before and after photos:
First Pair:
Second Pair:
