The Woodbutcher's shop

matt fonner

Member
Messages
24
Location
Cols, OH
Greetings :wave:
I have been working in this shop over the last couple of years, aquiring new tools as the projects demand and the budget allows. I have been lurking about to see what others are doing with their attached 2 car garages. I have thought that a seperate building would be the great way to go, but having it in here allows me to go in and out frequently and the other family members as well. Big drawback would be letting my wife park in there (and she would say getting saw dust all over her car!). I may buy her a remote starter ...

Anyways, my garage is 18' wide and 19' deep. Seems kinda small for the type, but I think it is common to our builder (we live in a typical suburb). I have 2 roll up doors. This allows me to keep part of it hidden while the other door is up. The side closest to the entry door is where we park the car during the winter Months. The rest of the time I use it as an assembly/multiple purpose area. The other half I keep all the stuff in. The front half is where the workbech and tools are -

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The back half is where I keep all the wood. Currently I have been standing the stock on end and in a devider type system. Has worked ok, the price was right (free) and this current version is the second one I have made.

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I have always wanted to store it all on a horizontal rack, and I have decided that now is the time. This is the basic idea of how I want to set up this outer wall -

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I have a chop saw and a portable stand to put in the middle, the lumber and roll around cut off bins on the right, and the roll around tools on the left. I have started to make the rack and will be using all the scrap I have been keeping (read: pack rat). Quite often I come across free stuff and I can't turn it down. So, I can use up this stuff and improve the shop too. Win/Win !
The rack will be something like this drawing I made and there will be four of them.

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So far I have made the support arms -

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and all the middle spacer pieces -

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The arms have a 1 deg back cut to tip them up slightly. The wall stanchions will be made of 3/4 ply and 2x4 blocks as spacers. All the 2x4's have been flattened out and sized to 1 1/4 x 3". I'll put in 4 screws to anchor them to the wall. After that I have another stud to tie them to the ceiling as well.
Now that the arms are done, I will start on the stanchions.
More to come ...
 
matt, looks good.

Id like to offer one suggestion, not on your design, but when you stack up all your wood, what I do is use chalk to mark the side of the boards with the dimensions, species(if necessary), and overall notes about the board.(if there are knots, or if it is quartersawn, etc......makes selecting boards out of the rack alot easier than having to move 8-10 boards for one piece that may not be the piece you really want.
 
Matt thanks for sharing your design. :thumb: You would not believe how appropriate this is to what i have in mind for my shop. This is the next high on my list task after i finish my workbench.

Allen marking the boards like that is a great idea.
 
Lookin' good so far, Matt! Keep LOYL happy with nice projects and she'll let you build a larger shop one day. I started in half of a two-car garage and have a little more space now.
 
matt, looks good.

Id like to offer one suggestion, not on your design, but when you stack up all your wood, what I do is use chalk to mark the side of the boards with the dimensions, species(if necessary), and overall notes about the board.(if there are knots, or if it is quartersawn, etc......makes selecting boards out of the rack alot easier than having to move 8-10 boards for one piece that may not be the piece you really want.

I hope to have that problem ... Currently I have a small amount of salvage pieces, like cherry & poplar, and about 100 bf of pin oak. I would like to build a larger rack that can load from the end inside my storage shed. Then I could rescue fallen trees and let them dry in there. That may have to wait for the next house.
 
OK, back at it again tonight. On the docket is to assemble the first verticle support. The 3" plywood strips have a ;ittle bow in them so to keep them straight I will employ the ol' clamp it to a 6' level trick. I've spaced the level up to get into the middle of the piece and then clamped it to the bench. Next, add glue and clamp it all up, then shoot it with the nailer -

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The first one is done!

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Now I need to do 3 more. I can use the first to lay out the rest. I saw somebody do this once. Gang it all up and mark them at the same time. I can't take credit for it - I'm not that smart :rolleyes:

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Ok, so I only got 2 of them done, but check out my new tool chest. I salvaged it from work. It's a blueprint case with 4 deep drawers. I grabbed a second one that has 6 drawers as well. I turned that one into a smaller base unit with wheels that the 4 drawer unit is sitting on.

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Each drawer is 4' wide and 3' deep by about 4" in depth. The idea is it can replace the entire workbench, wall cabinet, and mechanics tool chest I currently have. The second drawer has all my mechanics tools. Stuff like wrenches, sockets, etc. The top drawer will hold hardwares and stuff. 3rd and 4th drawers will be for woodworking stuff. The bottom unit has deeper drawers and still need fronts made for them. I am considering making it 1 deep drawer with a double set of slides and a single front.
 
Ok, so I finally have all the pieces ready, and called a freind for help. For the small amount of lumber I have it sure is a lot to move all by yourself. To save from moving a bunch of times inside the garage, I decided to load the bed of my truck.

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Once everything was moved out I finally have the room to work. I picked out these 6" lag screws and 4" bolts. The screws are advertised as not to need pre drilling but I bored out a pocket and drilled the uprights anyway. Thats a lot of work to just split them now ... As for the wall, I didn't pilot drill. Just added some wax to the screw and they went in beautiful.

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To mount them to the wall, I put in the outer units first, and then the inside ones. This would allow me to match them up and avoid gaps or sags. Much to my suprise (and releif) they matched up really well. My freind helping remarked at how accurate everything was. I guess I am learning something after all !! I must admit, just before I turned out the light to go in for the night, I wondered if it was going to stay. What a horrible crash that would make in the middle of the night !!
 
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