I've been planning for some time, and standing on the sideline, planning and talking about it seemed to be my favorite activity until a friend pushed me into the game.
Jan, a buddy who lives in Florida, had said last year that he wanted to come and help me redo my shop. I had told him one day when he was visiting that I wanted to get the place in order. I thought he was kidding. Last month I told him I was about to get going. He said he would come to help, but would not be available in September. "O.K.", I told him, "I'll let you know when I get going on it." And hour later he called by and said he had airline reservations for earlier this week.
Photo by Bernadette Zona
My shop had almost no bench space, other than the five-foot x 21-inch bench I built. It had a laminated maple top. That's all the space I had to work on, so I fabricated projects on my saw table and radial arm saw table. So cramped.
Jan and I built almost 30 feet of bench surface, with fabricated 4 x 4 legs, 2 x 6 joists, at 3/4-inch sub-top and a 3/4-inch particle board top. We made space for the old maple laminated benchtop. That is two and a half inches thick.
Jan's bright idea was one he implemented on his bench. Literally, a bright idea. He installed lighting under the benchtop to illuminate the shelf below the benchtop. He explained that I would get much more usable storage because I would be able to see everything stored there. Nothing would be lost in the dark. He's right. I can tell already.
By the time Jan left, we had finished the supportring structure and the plywood top. Yesterday, I screwed down the particle board work surface.
On the agenda next is installation of the shelving under the bench.
No comments:
Post a Comment