3rd Annual Shop Clean-Up and Improvement Week (completed)

Frank Pellow

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Location
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Today, I started my third annual shop cleanup project. This is what happens each year in November when I move from mainly outdoor project mode to mainly indoor project mode. Last year I submitted the thread: http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?t=413 about my 2nd Annual Shop Clean-Up and Improvement Week. There was sufficient construction involved last year to place that thread in the “Carpentry and Construction” forum. This year, I will mostly just be organizing and cleaning :eek: so I am putting this thread in “General Woodworking” forum.

The shop is messier and more disorganized right now than it has ever been :(. Here is a picture taken from just inside the main entrance:

Messy Shop -1 -small.JPG

Every surface including the new woodworking bench that I partly built last winter is piled high in stuff, the cyclone dust collector is disconnected, there are quite a few tools that I can’t find, and the place is very dusty and dirty. Not shown in the pictures are a whole lot of tools that I took to Pellow’s Camp with me and have not yet been returned to the shop. Also, there are still a few parts of the ceiling that have never been painted.

I turned on the propane space heater this week but, with the pile of stuff in the relaxation alcove, I certainly can’t risk having a fire in the woodstove:

Messy Shop -2 -small.JPG

Finally, here is picture taken from the relaxation alcove looking back towards the entrance:

Messy Shop -3 -small.JPG

In the foreground you can see the planer with the hood removed. I have just started to remove the knives and replace then with new ones. The same thing needs to be done with the jointer.

I am starting this thread primarily to put some pressure upon me to complete the task. Next Sunday I will post new photos from the same locations and I don't want to be embarrassed again.
 
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Good for your, Frank. Everytime I clean up my shop, it takes me 3 weeks to find things again so I can work! :D Jim.
ps. My shop looks just like your pictures. I can't stand to make another horizontal surface, it will just get cluttered up with stuff like the others.
 
Frank, I beat you by about three weeks. Went to the garage and just had had enough. Since I bought the lathes, I just added where there was space. Rearranged and cleaned up and created a corner, where the lathes, drill press, BS, SCMS, grinder and glue up table are all within a four foot square. Man is it nice working when things are where they belong and one process doesn't require walking back and forth three or four times.
 
Mid-week Report

Well, the week is half over but I have not accomplished half the task. :(

On Monday, I managed to spend about 10 hours on the shop clean-up project. Where to start? It was miserable outside and I thought a wood fire would be nice, so I started on making the wood-stove safe to use. The first thing I need to do was to complete the seven new utility boxes that I started on Sunday. The construction is very simple (screwed together butt joints) and everything was already cut and stained , so this didn’t take long:

Seven new wood and junk storage boxes -small.JPG

I filled all seven of the new boxes and one of the old ones with wood scraps, cardboard, and paper and piled them safely near the stove. Next, I took the chimney apart and cleaned out the soot:

The chimney top removed for cleaning -small.JPG

All the contents were removed from the bookcase, reorganized and culled, then (after a thorough cleaning of the bookcase) were put back. Now it was safe to have a fire. I forgot how easy it was to get the temperature up in a hurry and had a really roaring fire. In what seemed like no time the temperature was up to 28 degrees (that’s somewhere in the 80's in the old Fahrenheit system) and I had to open the shop doors and windows to get it down to a comfortable 20.

Over the past year some of the plastic brackets that hold up the bins used to store hardware have cracked and broken under the weight of the bins :( :

Broken bin brackets -small.JPG

I decided to make some replacement brackets out of Baltic birch scrap. The first attempt was to make a bracket about the same size as the plastic ones and with a stop at both ends of the slot used to support the lip on the back of the bins. This can be seen just above the plastic support in the photo below. I tested this with a very heavy bin and it seemed to me that brackets made like this might, too, break over time.

New bin brackets -small.JPG

Also, it would be time consuming the route out the slots with stops on each end. So, I opted for the larger and thicker brackets shown at the top of the picture. I made 20 of these and will use them as needed. Here are a few installed:

Some of the bins are now hung on new brackets -small.JPG

I spent no time Tuesday on the shop clean-up project.

On Wednesday, I spent another 10 hours on the project. One thing worth noting is that the central dust control system is now functional again. :) Most of the time today was spent making and installing edge trim to fit around the skylights. The photo below is a before view of one of the three skylights:

Skylight trim 2 -before view of a skylight -1 -small.JPG

I made the edge trim out of some of the old fence boards that I saved when I re-built my daughter Kathleen’s deck last year. Wednesday morning the boards were as I saved them 18 months ago:

Skylight trim 1 -the weathered wood that I started with in the morning -small.JPG

and Wednesday night, the edge trim was (almost completely) installed :) I trimmed the boards down to good wood using my table saw rather than my planer because the planer is temporarily out of action awaiting new blades. The boards were then glued and nailed together in order to make suitable trim and sanded the trim to paint grade quality:

Skylight trim 4 -trim constructed and sanded and ready for installation -small.JPG

And here is one skylight with the trim around the edge:

Skylight trim 5 -trim installed the same evening -small.JPG

I said “almost completely installed” above because I goofed :eek: and made one of the sections of trim backwards so it won’t fit into it’s intended spot:

Skylight trim 6 -I built one section of trim backwards -small.JPG

It’s hard to spot exactly what I did wrong in the above photo, but I got the different cut outs at the two ends of the board that belongs in the bottom right reversed. Pointed to by the red arrow iIn the photo, the erroneous piece of trim is temporarily held in place above its intended spot. A completely new piece needs to be made. Also, additional trim needs to be inserted for all the skylights in the spot shown by the yellow lines in the above photo. Then, everything needs to be painted (white, of course).

It’s looking like I might need to declare this an extra long week and extend it until about next Tuesday. :( :eek:
 
Fret not, Frank...you're still way ahead of me in regards to shop organization. Yours on the worst day is better than mine on the best. ;)
 
I'm with Vaughn here, Frank. I'm actually a bit jealous. I barely have room to get around in mine. Started a reorg this Spring that got interrupted by remodelling, and has stayed interrupted by all the projects I have to get done. Hopefully over the winter I can finish it up. :eek:
 
Go Frank, go. I would say you are making some very good progress. I knocked out some stacking bins about the size you're showing. They really helped clean up 'stuff' that I had no place for but needed to keep around. Forge ahead, the end is in sight.
 
End of Week Report (post 1 of 2)

I Declare the Shop Clean-Up Project complete. That’s not because I accomplished everything I planned but because I accomplished enough to be able to find and to use all my tools again. When I reported mid-week, I thought that I would spend an extra two days on the task, but Margaret reminded me of the work I promised to do for her this week –so that’s it for this year. I resolve not to let the shop get as dirty and dysfunctional next year, so I expect that next year there be a higher proportion of Improvement to Clean-Up.

Here are three pairs of before and after photos:

(1) Shop Before -1 -small.JPG Tidy Shop -1 -small.JPG


(2) Shop Before -2 -small.JPG Tidy Shop -2 -small.JPG


(3) Shop Before -3 -small.JPG Tidy Shop -3 -small.JPG
 
End of Week Report (post 2 of 2)

Since reporting on Wednesday, most of the time that I have been in the shop (22 hours) has been on boring clean up rather than doing anything constructive. I did fix up and finish the trim around the skylights. Here is the smallest one with the trim completed:

Skylight trim 7 -Trim complete on the small skylight -small.JPG

Then I applied two coats of oil-based gloss white paint to all the openings:

Skylight trim 8 -Finished and painted -small.JPG

One of my objectives of this exercise was to find missing tools and I am happy :) to report that I found my Veritas Surface Clamp that I lost :eek: shortly after purchasing it last spring.

When I first populated up my new shop with tools, Fernando Mazza helped to set up all the big machines. Today he visited again and , this time showed me how to properly change to blades in my planer and jointer:

Fernando helping to change planer knives -small.JPG Setting jointer knives to correct height -small.JPG

Fernando used techniques not published in the Delta manuals and he is a good teacher, so I am sure that I will be able to handle these tasks easily in the future.
 
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