New here - from Iowa

David Crouse

Member
Messages
42
Location
Iowa
Well, this looks like the most appropriate place for a first post to the forums :wave:

As stated in the title, I'm from Iowa, a transplant from Northern Missouri. I'm about 4-1/2 decades old... and feel it some days lol. All the kids have left the nest, and I have had renewed interest in an old hobby. In fact, I've started planning my future shop -- most of my 2-1/2 car garage, approx 28'widex24'deep. Recently I have cleared out one side of the garage so I could at least start to get some sort of order to my tools, and so I could find them. Perhaps I'll start a thread in the "Shop Tours" forum on that, although I'm afraid it won't hold a candle to some of the shops I've seen in there. Many many impressive shops.

A bit about me, let's see, I already mentioned I'm a "showme" transplant to Iowa... I grew up swinging a hammer, and loved helping my father do whatever it was he was working on at the time. Probably my favorite Christmas present ever was a hand made tool bench approx 4' wide that had a 2'x4' pegboard back that he made for me. Included that Christmas were some tools, a hammer, square, screwdrivers, coping saw, tape measure .... I think I was about 7. He was at that time the hardware manager at a lumberyard, and I loved going with him to work on the weekends. Guess I followed in his footsteps, as I ended up working in the lumber business for about 20 years. I managed 3 different lumberyards, in 2008 things turned south in the lumber business, and I decided to switch careers, and now work at one of my other favorite hobbies as a job, now I'm a Unix Systems Administrator for an ISP here in Iowa. I know, computers/lumber ... sort of an odd combination I suppose :huh:

I loved working in the lumber business, but I never seemed to have time to do woodworking then, now I have the time to start and I can tell ya... it never leaves the blood. I told the better half, I'm taking over about 3/4 of the garage for my wood shop, she's all for it.... what a keeper, one of those reasons we've been married so long.

Well, I could bore you with the rest of my life story, but I'd better leave some of those for later, someone else might like to use a few bits-n-bytes besides me tonight lol. I'm sure I'll learn alot from the folks here and I've already been reading the forums for 2 days before posting, just couldn't take the time to stop drooling over some of the pics to stop and post ! :D
 
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Welcome David, I think your story is not too different than most folks here. You will find it family if you hang around and get to know everyone more. We like to have a little fun too. And of course, pics are absolutely necessary to prove anything happened :wave::wave::wave:

Perhaps some before/after pics down the road of your new digs...
 
Great intro story David and welcome:thumb: Look forward to your renewed love with woodworking. Do you still have the tool bench your dad made you?
 
hey dave we even got a few folks on here from your new state,, so dont feel alone we let them in to:) as for your shop build or setup goes be sure to start a thread on it the info here that can be given if asked for and sometimes even if it isnt asked for can make your new shop a pleasure rather than a sliver in the hand..there are many things that can help a shop go from regular to just right.. oh and dont buy a lathe and stay away from them ,,they make pretty things on them but they are deadly like the apple that adam ate:)
 
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I know, computers/lumber ... sort of an odd combination I suppose :huh:

Welcome David. Not an odd combination at all if our community is any cross section. Seems like Woodworking is a wonderful outlet for folks who want to stop dreaming in hex. I know it is my favorite outlet and I love the quiet in my head when I can stop converting between bases on the fly during meetings and hallway conversations. As a matter of fact, that might be a fun thread to start; describe yourself with three attributes, one being woodworking . . . Maybe we could get a grant from the government to perform a study . . . . Oh, by the way, I talk too much :D.

My shop is about 31 x 21 but, being a bachelor, I claim it all except for the nook for the washer/dryer and water heater. You should be able to make yourself a comfortable work space in the room you have and I think "setting up shop" is a fun and exciting step in this activity. There's bunches of ideas floating around here and lots of helpful folks who can assist out of pure genius or, as in my case, assist by sharing the things they may have done wrong or would like to have done differently. I know the sharing of others here has helped me avoid errors on my path. Once again, Welcome.
 
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Welcome Dave. I hail from Northern Missouri myself but now reside in Pa. Trenton, Mo specifically. I was just back there a couple weeks ago and wish for the traffic and slower pace of life,

Garry
 
Welcome Dave :wave::wave: I'm a transplant from a bit south of you -- grew up 30 miles west of St. Louis, MO.

As others have said, the computer/woodworking mix isn't all that uncommon. Myself, I'm a bioinformatician at the Dana-Farber back east in Boston, MA -- spend my days writing code and my evenings/weekends making sawdust.
 
Well, I'm a transplant to MO from the KS side. I always say the line "I was raised in KS, got married, and now live in the state of Missouri" (misery ;)...crowd groans ). I grew up swinging hammers, did drywall professionally many years, been punching keys many, many more, but do a lot of carpentry and woodworking...so not that uncommon. Welcome to the family! :wave:
 
Thanks for the welcome everyone :)

The garage is a bit messy, and I'm just starting, but thought I'd at least start documenting what I'm doing. Nothing special, so I don't think I'll start a thread in the other forum yet.

HERE is where I want to be....

GarageShop1.png

Here is where I'm actually at lol

garage.jpg

I have the machines on the left of the plan, the table saw, radial arm saw, etc, as you can see in the picture... I do need to get the machines in the drawing that are on the back wall, the planer, jointer, etc. The machines I have are fairly old, and need replaced as well, but I guess I have to start somewhere :) So, there's the plan. I need to leave room in the garage for the truck, and possibly a second car if needed. I plan to have all my machines on rollers, as it just makes it so easy when you can move the machines to the center of the garage and do what you need to do and then move them back out of the way.

My goal for this fall was to get the 24' of pegboard put into place so I could at least find my tools again lol. The rest of the winter will be used for mostly getting the garage cleared out of the stuff that isn't needed anymore in order to make room for tables/machines etc. Since I currently have no heat in there, that might not go as fast as I'd like either. However, I'm very happy that the pegboard is up, I've been installing new oak stair treads in the house along with tearing out a half wall and putting in a handrail (in process of that now)...so I've always got some project going on that will eat up the few extra hours I have as well.
 
Looks like you have things well thought out and off to a good start with the pegboard organization and mobile bases. You might consider some wall mounted cabinets in a few places or a mechanics tool chest for some items, amazing how much you can store away in those things.
 
Hi David,

Welcome aboard.
Gosh that photo looks familiar. Mine is in much better shape 3-4 years later so there is hope.

I did a lot of dumb things setting up my 2.5 car shop. I would have avoided most of them if I had asked more questions.

The Glenn Bradley that posted (above) is my son. Oh yes, I talk too much too.

Don't worry about Larry Merlau. Since he is incapable of staying up with the spinney things so I sent him something round today. Most of us work to help the poor guy get along in ww in spite of his inability to cope with round.

Enjoy,

JimB
 
I have no doubt I'll get there, it's just a matter of how long it might take to achieve the results I want. Those pesky variables get in the way, you know, money/time/energy/motivation :D

Thinking about getting mostly Grizzly stationary tools, from everything I've read everywhere, the customer service is great. I currently have the older Craftsman tools that aren't as good a quality as I'd like, and while I can't afford the best, Grizzly looks to be a happy medium, perhaps better than the craftsman and delta tools i have now. I'm a bit put off with Delta at the moment, I broke the lockdown arm on my Contractor table saw and they don't offer any replacement for it at all........ I have to buy an entire new rail/guide system for the saw.....ughhhhh :( I actually like the saw, but the broken guide makes it very hard to use, and much less accurate than I'd like to think about. About the only thing I'm against replacing will be the 30+year old radial arm saw, that was my dads, and I will never part with it. With that tool alone he made some of the most beautiful octagon endtables out of english walnut, and I remember him getting it and spending many hours myself using it when I was younger.

delta1.jpgdelta2.jpg

One of the main reasons I joined the forums was to get advice on my setup, perhaps avoiding some pitfalls in the process. So, feel free to critique things, that was just a first draft, and everything can change... I've always been of the mindset that input from many produced better results than just doing things on your own, because you just can't think of everything :)
 
Looks like you have things well thought out and off to a good start with the pegboard organization and mobile bases. You might consider some wall mounted cabinets in a few places or a mechanics tool chest for some items, amazing how much you can store away in those things.

I think I will have some cabinets and shelving above the mobile work tables ... i actually already have some cabinets, just need to move some of them from the back wall to the side and that's done. The mobile work tables will have drawers under them for additional storage as well.
 
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