My hobbiest shop and at last my Chaos Wall completed

bwiele

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Joined
Jan 22, 2007
Messages
166
I've been a Festool fan since what I think were the early days after Festool's arrival in the US.  I bought a TS55 track saw, the original MFT and a CT22 about 15 years ago, although I candidly can't remember exactly when.  I have accumulated many more Festool tools since then which I'll show you.

I started building my own version of the Guido Henn Chaos Wall *at least* 5 years ago, maybe longer.  I built the main cabinets and the pull outs for the Systainers, mounted them in the cabinets with the drawer slides, and I built the drawer boxes with my Leigh Dovetail jig.  But I never got to the point of making the drawer fronts and doors, mounting the handles, etc.  In the years from then until now, I started a side business (apart from my primary career) which was a restaurant franchise.  I constructed, opened, operated, failed, closed and disposed of 3 restaurants.  A complete disaster, but not the subject of this post and something I'm moving on from in my life.  I only manged to complete one significant project over that time because I needed a place to do my work:

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And here is the completed Chaos Wall.  I learned a lot during this process:

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I also did a full clean-up of all the crap that had accumulated in my shop over the years, finally put up the lumber racks that I got as a gift years ago, put up the Woodpeckers Clamp Rack-it racks that I recently bought and organized my clamps.

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I also have a Sjobergs workbench that I bought about 15 years ago.

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It’s a great workbench which I intend to keep for the rest of my life and then hand down to one of my kids.  Since these pictures were taken I did a light sanding of the top to clean it up and then I put 2 coats of Osmo PolyX on the whole thing to help protect it.

For my next project, I’m going to work on the hand tool storage above my workbench to get everything off the benchtop.  It’s a good next project, but I’m really happy with all the organization progress I’ve made!
 

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Nice shop. Beautiful desk. I’m in the process of try to get my garage organized.
 
Nice shop!  Your 5 years gives me hope that I too will someday be organized.

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Great shop.  Beautiful desk.  Really nice organization with the Chaos wall!

Thanks for sharing the photos of the shop and the desk!
 
A biker-restauranteur-woodworker...hmmm...I guess we all have tales to tell.  [big grin]

Nice job on the shop, nice job on the desk, nice job on the wall.

I noticed the cubbies on the floor are mostly empty. Do they normally house Systainers?
 
Thanks for all the kind remarks guys!  I appreciate it. Let me try to answer the questions:

I really like the Mini Max equipment (combination machine and bandsaw). They are both about 14 years old. I saw them at a woodworking show, it was pretty easy to buy having see the equipment first hand. The big issue is moving it after it arrives. I have a finished basement and there were some turns that had to be navigated to get the machine to my shop. I hired a rigger to move it (specialists in moving heavy equipment) and it worked out fine. I put the combo machine on some very heavy duty castors so now I can move it around pretty easily.

The picture on the bike was me 10 years ago when my wife sent me (and my motorcycle) down to the Tail of the Dragon for my birthday.  Awesome gift!

The empty openings near the floor just haven’t been filled in yet with any tools. The spaces aren’t big, mostly room for Sys 1s. I have most of what I need at this point so my buying has slowed down a lot.  Plus I have some empty sustainers on the one tall column that doesn’t have the drawers and doors.

Thanks again for the kind words!
 
Nice shop and a beautiful desk too!  I am still a fan of the Arts and crafts style furniture even though the last few year I have been on a MCM kick. I love the chaos wall too.      What was the finish used on the desk?
 
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