NuB from NorCal

Chuck Rodekohr

In Memorium
Messages
495
Location
NorCal, USA
Hello, all.

I located this forum while surfing woodworking, trying to soak up an much info as I can. There is a lot of good information here. I found that, to see most of the pictures, one needs to register, so here I am, registered.

I’m old, retired almost ten years and live in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area in NorCal. I’ve always been interested in woodworking, ever since I was a kid and watched my Dad engaged in his hobby of woodworking (‘50’s). In Jr. High, I took a year of woodshop, but as life progressed, the only “woodworking” I did was building things for the various home I lived in over the years.

About four years ago, I decided to start making some serious sawdust, so I had a shop built under the garage at my cabin in the mountains, bought a table saw, plainer, jointer, band saw, drill press, dust collector, compressor, miter saw, router, and a bunch of smaller toys. Because my shop was not large, I needed to build roll around shop cabinets. I got as far as the carcass of one cabinet when circumstances changed, sold the cabin, bought a new home that was in the process of being built. Had to put all the tools in storage until the home was finished, about six months. Moved into the new home in Dec. of 2006, but, along with all the other extra junk, my tools have been stored in “my” half of the garage, and my Ford pickup has lived outside.

I became a grandfather for the first time a few months ago, and the second daughter is expecting in a few months, so its time for Grampa to start making some grandchild projects. Plus the wife wants me to put up crown throughout the new home, raised panel wainscoting in the living room and drawers in the kitchen and dining room cabinets. So to clean up the garage, I put up a few storage sheds, installed two 4’ X 8’ ceiling racks in the garage and have made at least four trips to the dumps. I have now come to the realization that, to have a half way decent shop, my poor pick up will never enjoy a night of shelter again, so I am resigned to the fact that the entire portion of my half of the garage (10’ 5” X 20’) will be the shop, with a lot of the tools on roll around cabinets so I can “expand” when the wife is at work and her side of the garage is vacant. Just too much stuff to line the walls. Anyway, that’s where I am now. I almost have it organized enough for the electrician to come in and install dedicated circuits for the power tools, and more overhead lights. When that is done, I’ll install my new air cleaner (the wife doesn’t want a bunch of sawdust on her car and the stuff in the racks, which is understandable, besides, it was an excuse to buy another toy that will also help the old lungs), then build some wall cabinets and a French cleat wall storage system.

My Shop! :D

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Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Chuck
 
Hey Chuck, welcome aboard! A lot of us here are in the never-ending struggle between shop space and "stuff" space. In my case, I ended up renting a storage unit for all the stuff, so I could have room for a shop in the garage. (I justify the monthly cost as my "shop rent".) Looks like you have a well-rounded collection of tools...now you finally get a chance to use them, huh? :D Enjoy!
 
Golly grandpa, what big empty walls you have!

Have you considered one of those "mounting systems" to get a lot of smaller stuff off the floor? (I'm thinking hand tools, portable power tools, finishes, etc ... not generic "stuff".) There are different ways of doing this, of course, but you may want to check out [this thread] for a couple of ideas.

If you don't mind waiting for a 10MB download, you might even check out [this magazine article] ... but don't tell anyone where you got it. :dunno:

Meanwhile ... relish the adventure! :thumb:
 
Thank you all for the warm welcome.

Most of the boxes contain shop items from cabinets in the old shop. I had two BORG floor to ceiling cupboards, three wall cupboards, two floor cabinet with drawers and a 6’ steel gorilla rack for small power tools. As you can see, here I have NO shelves or drawers. All of my hand tools are in the 6’ red metal automotive rolling cabinet at the far left. My first project will be two 4’ X 4’ x1’ wall cabinets for the right side wall. It’s about 9’ from the cross beam to the wall so that will give me a place for sheet goods. For lumber, I’ll put up a wall mounted rack on the upper wall inside of the garage door track. Enough to store a few projects, but I won’t have room to scavenge and store a lot of lumber. I’m going to build another wall cabinet between the sheet goods and electric panel for my fishing gear.

Chuck
 
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