It finally happened, we took the kids kitchen play set up north to the cottage on Saturday, and I put the last load of burnable wood cut-off down in the burn barrel at the farm. Phew! Glad all of that mess is finally out of my way. Only took, what? Six or seven months to get rid of. But, it is done, and now that I have the space to maneuver my jointer, planer, and table saw I can make more dust, chips and cut offs. I have two small projects in mind to complete first. One is a 4″ stand to get my APC up off the basement floor in case of a flood, I’d like atleast some room/margin for minor errors, instead of a total catastrophic loss. Get the electrical up off the floor, and save my computer, printer, router if i can. The second is a kitchen counter top organizer for ladles, spatulas, and the like. We currently use a big beer Stein, but it’s crowded, and difficult to pull smaller items out of. I think a three chambered counter top unit would be better suited to the space. Look nicer too. So once it warms up a bit more, I will build both of those items. I also need to make a slim profile book shelf for my youngest daughter’s bedroom. One that’ll fit behind a door.
I’m so over the moon with how empty the garage shop space feels now. More open I guess would be better terminology, as it certainly isn’t empty. I’ve been trying to declutter, clean, and organize the space for a very long time. Nice to see it come to fruition finally. Must resist the urge to fill it up with new tools! Ha. I have had my eye on a full size bandsaw for a while, but I think I missed the boat on that purchase. Too bad. Maybe another time it’ll come up on sale – again. Fingers crossed. Though, factually speaking, I am more likely to get more, and better use out of an upgraded mitre saw station. A 12″, double compound, sliding mitre saw to be exact. I have the make and model on my wishlist from Home Depot, and other big box stores. I would also benefit from a higher capacity air compressor, one that is big enough to run a hvlp sprayer. That way I could complete my furniture projects with a higher quality sprayed on finish, versus a rattle can application or wipe on poly like I would be doing now. The hope would be for a more uniform, and higher gloss final piece. But finishing is it’s own challenge, and requires a skill set all it’s own. My dusty garage is not the ideal setting. But! A thorough cleaning in between sanding, and the finishing stage my temper some of that settling dust which I struggle with. But a boy can dream can’t he?
Oh well. I have not committed to any purchases as of yet, so I’ll get back to building soon enough, and then I can figure out what item(s) is the most pressing to either upgrade, or introduce into the work shop. I have dreamt of a full sized bandsaw for so long, and I desperately want to resaw a bunch of Ash, but after that, then what? I can buy 4s dressed boards to work off of, and don’t really have to mill my own lumber if I don’t want to. It is cheaper to buy the rough sawn wood. But then there is considerable time, and effort to bring it around to a useable state. I’m a noob so my time is next to worthless as far as wood working is concerned, but my day job hourly rate is much, much higher. So if I can complete my hobby projects quickly, and do more working hours, that would be beneficial to me too. I’ll need to mull it over some more.
The garage doesn’t look too shabby now that all the major messes are gone, and the new rack is up, and my furniture grade wood is sorted, and I have removed a large excess of crap from the space. I should go at it with a leaf blower, and then the shop vac to get it as clean as possible some time soon. Just need to make sure the neighbours cars are gone, as I don’t want to make them look like powdered donuts. That’s not neighborly behaviour.
I recently went back into my file folder of dream items for the garage to revise the list a bit. I now have a propane fueled heater, so that’s pretty awesome. I run a good fan in the summer time to keep a steady breeze in there while I work, so I don’t think I’d worry about climate control all that much anymore. If we won THAT much money I think we’d go buy a house with a proper shop, or an insulated 3 car garage elsewhere. I’m also not convinced I would bother with the tongue and groove walls anymore. I do still think about the bandsaw, as mentioned above. And if I could replace my tiny drill press with a mill/drill so that I could tap & drill holes in metal too, I’d do that in a snap. But it would be cool to be able to mill slots, and mortises, and work in metal too. So while a mortising machine would be on point for my furniture building, it can’t do anything in metal, and only does the one thing, albeit, realy-really well. I would upgrade the small air compressor I have to a 30 gallon tank, so not quite industrial, but large for home/garage purposes. That would allow me to add a water trap, and get into the hvlp spraying of certain finishes. Also a mitre saw upgrade is a must have. My decade old, and then some, Skil chop saw has seen better days. Has worked pretty good thus far, but I could do with being able to make wider cuts in my furniture grade wood selection. I think the threads on the locking nut are wearing, as I constantly have to tighten it down or else the blade spins freely for a long time after the breaks were supposed to have kicked in. It has to be going on fifteen years old, and I gave build a lot of stuff with it. I also use it to cut down waste bits so I can toss it in the trash, or fit it in a cardboard box. So of all my “power” tools, it has seen the most wear, other than my drills, drivers, and impacts.
So that’s monday morning day dreaming for you. I hope you also had a productive weekend, if that was your desire anyway. I tended to the evaporator, and kept the fires raging for a few hours. Moved many a bucket full of sap all around the property, and had a hot tub session while I was at it. Even watched the Leafs lose to the third worst team in the league, after nearly going up 3-0 in the first period. It was disheartening to say the least. Opened so strong, and then fizzled out so weakly. Yikes! But I digress. Ciao Bella!
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