If you want to build your own, I have a set of DIY rising shelf plans and a parts list, including everything I used:

First, I started off by building the main body of the rising shelf. It consists of a piece of plywood with a 2×4 attached to the backside of it. On this 2×4, I attached some hooks. Then, in the four corners, I attached some garage door rollers. These rollers are really versatile and were key in making this project work.

For a track, I actually wanted to buy something off the shelf and ended up looking at garage door tracks. They use to be cheap, but like everything else, have skyrocketed in price. Instead, I decided to build my own tracks from wood. I grabbed the hardest wood I had in my shop that was long enough, which was oak, and arranged it into an L. For the tracks, you definitely want something hard for long-term durability. I attached it to the wall by holding it in place and throwing in a single brad nail. This will hold it just long enough for me to put a level on it and plumb it up. I only had a 4’ level in my shop so I moved to the bottom, then top, and placed a few brads as I straighten it out. Once it looked good, I came back with screws. I pre-drilled the holes to ensure the oak didn’t split. Next, I repeated the process by attaching the right track the same way as the left.

Now that the tracks are attached, I moved to the top and attached some pulleys. These will be what the cable will go up to, before veering right to the hoist. I used some lags to go into my wall here. Then, even though it isn’t needed, I added a ledger board…just to be safe. A lot of the force on these pulleys will be vertical since it’s going to be reaching down and pulling the rising shelf upward. To directly oppose this force, I ran screws up into the ledger board. This is in addition to the lags that went into the wall.

Moving on, the next step is to go back to the shelf and attach a few components. The first is a thimble hooked onto the anchor point on the 2×4. This is used so the wire rope has a track it can be placed in and then it can be looped back onto itself. To secure it, I used what’s called “wired rope clamps”, which are tighten down onto both the lead in and lead out strains. I used DAP’s Tank Bond Thread Locker on all of the project’s hardware that had a nut on it. I applied it to the threads before I added the nuts. It a fast-dry coating that creates a tight seal that absorbs shock and vibrations, preventing fasteners from unintentionally backing out. I really love it because the treated fasteners remain completely adjustable, removable and reusable if I have to replace them in the future. I use it on anything that has vibration. 

At this point I was able to set the shelf in place. It’s large and awkward so help was needed for this step. Jacob and I brought it in from the bottom, slightly tilting it so the top roller would slip into the track, then straightening it out vertical.

I fed the cable up to the pulleys from both anchors, but now needed to join them into one. What I did here functions the same exact way that a window blind does. In the shelf set-up, the component I used is called a turnbuckle. This allowed me to attach both cables to one side, then shoot one cable from the other. Also, this gave me the ability to make small, micro-adjustments later on once everything was installed and it was time to do final tuning.

The last component to add is the hoist itself. The mounting bracket is a simple DIY one made from some square tubing I had laying around. The holes are drilled in locations to match the stud location of the wall it will be mounted onto. The hoist is kind of heavy, but nothing unmanageable. I screwed a temporary 2×4 to the wall to give myself a resting shelf to set the hoist onto as I put lags into the studs.

The last step, I added the shelving needed to hold all of the products I wanted to store here. One of the coolest things about this project (I mean, besides the fact that it’s a rising shelf), is that you can customize it to hold just about anything. Just keep on eye on the total weight of the objects that you’re storing – it will need to be below the capacity of the hoist and the components you used. The key things to pay attention include what the hoist is rated at and do all of the components have the same rating. One weak link in a chain will cause it to fail. I built the rising shelf as an ultimate shop storage system to organize spray paint cans, tubes of caulk, paint cans, and paint supplies such as brushes.

Before I forget, another thing I did was extend the pendent to be over near my shelf instead of up by my hoist. Now, if my shelf is raised when I need to access to my hardware, I can walk right up to the wall and lower it down. Then I can either keep it here or I can raise it back up to store at the top of my wall and keep the hardware rack exposed. Cooooool!

Are you ready for the before and after?! Check it out!

By the way, I have a blog and video on how I made this in-wall hardware rack if you want to do the same. 

Don’t forget to check out the DIY Rising Shelf Plans!

Interested in organizing your shop? If so, I have several DIY workshop plans to help you out! See y’all next time!

Thinking about adding a DIY storage shelf to your garage? Look no further because I just build my very own, and walk you through the whole process!

In my new shop, I was thinking about how to store all of the shipping supplies we’ll need. Then I looked up and realized that there is a vast empty space overhead, and taking advantage of that would be pretty easy. I’m calling it a loft, but it’s pretty much just a giant shelf. Check out the video above to see how I built it.

Things I Used in This DIY Storage Shelf Project:

• Simpson LU24 Joist Hanger
• Simpson LUC26Z Joist Hanger
• Simpson Self-drilling Screws
• Louisville PINNACLE PRO ladder
• Louisville Tripod ladder
• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about doing your own DIY Spray Foam Insulation? Look no further because in this project I’ll show you exactly how to put in your own!

Welcome back to the new shop build series! So far, I have done demo, roughed in for a toilet and then added new wiring for walls and the ceiling lights. And this week, I’m covering the spray foam insulation portion of the build. Check out the video above!

Check out the other videos in my Shop Renovation Series:

• Demo, Layout, Planning and Ideas
• Wiring the New Shop

Things I Used in This DIY Spray Foam Insulation Project:

• SES Foam, LLC
• Texas Insulation
• Wagner Control Pro 170
• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about adding outlets and lighting to your shop? In this DIY project I’ll show you how I wired in new outlets and lighting into my new shop!

In this video above I’m going to be adding 110 outlets to the walls and ceiling of this new bare shop space!

Check out my last video where I explained the new space and why I ripped out all the existing wiring.

Things I Used in This Adding Outlets And Lighting Project:

• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• 1000Bulbs
• Lighting Fixtures: 65W Linear Low Bay Fixture
• Linear High Bay w/ Rotatable Panels
• Linear High Bay w/ Sensor
• Motion Sensor Remote
• 42” LED Under Cabinet Light
• Louisville PINNACLE PRO Ladder
• Louisville Tripod Ladder

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about doing your own workshop remodel? Check out this project where I plan out my demolition, layout, and ideas for my new workshop!

Shop #3!! I might have a problem

I’m about to renovate my third shop! Check out the video above so I can bring you in, show you around and tell you about my plans.

Things I Used in This DIY Workshop Remodel Project:

• EcoFlow Delta Max Portable Power Station
• EcoFlow Delta Max Portable Power Station on Amazon
• Stihl TSA 230
• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

In this DIY project, I’m showing you how to build a rotating workbench! I wanted a workbench that could house my Glowforge Laser, but then move away when not needed and allow another workbench surface to show up in its place.

Check out the video above to see how we did it!

Rotating Workbench Templates + Plans

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Find Rotating Workbench Templates with Plans to build your own here!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about building your own slide out pegboard cabinet? Check out this project where I built one and walk you through each DIY step!

Slide Out Pegboard Cabinet Plans

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In this video I’m showing you how I built pegboard tool storage for my garage workshop. I built it to slide out so I can access the tools, but it is space saving and out of the way when the drawers are back in place. This would also be a great solution for a craft room or garden tool storage!

Things I Used in This Slide Out Pegboard Cabinet Project:

• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• DAP Weldwood Original Wood Glue
• Miter Saw Station
• PVC Edge Banding

Slide Out Pegboard Cabinet Plans

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Be sure to watch the video above to see how I did it!

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Looking to upgrade your garage with some extra workbench improvements? Check out this project where I show you 15 easy things you can do to your workbench!

Recently I built an easy 2×4 and plywood workbench for my garage. And today I’m showing you how I made 15 easy but super effective upgrades like more storage, organization, a vice, more workspace, accessibility and more!

The workbench we’re starting with is my own build. To build it yourself, you can check out these Easy Garage Workbench Plans!

Garage Workbench Plans

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• See me build this workbench here!
• Watch my other workbench upgrades video here!
• Watch my clamp tips video here!

Things I Used In This Workbench Improvements Project:

• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Hand Screw Clamps
• Reelcraft Cord Reel
• Lufkin Crescent Tape
• Metal Pull Handles
• PVC Edge Banding
• Magnets
• Metal Folding Steps

Check out this video to see all the upgrades.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Are you looking for a straightforward and cost-effective way to build a functional and sturdy DIY workbench for your garage? Look no further – this easy 2×4/plywood project will take you through the steps of creating your very own DIY workbench in less than 2 hours. With the right supplies and a little bit of know-how, you can be on your way to having a workspace that will last for years to come.

With detailed instructions, helpful images, and the video above to guide you through each step, you’ll be able to build the perfect workbench for your needs – all without spending a fortune. So if you’re ready to start your DIY project, read on to learn how to build a sturdy, functional garage workbench in less than two hours.

Materials and Tools Needed

There are certain materials and tools that are necessary to build an effective and sturdy workbench. Most of these items, however, are standard and can be found in most toolboxes, even if they haven’t been used in some time. The items you’ll need to build your workbench include:

• DIY Workbench Legs: There are a variety of different types of legs available for workbenches, each with its own special benefits. You can choose from different types of metal legs, wooden legs, and even plastic legs. Whichever type of leg you choose, make sure that it’s strong enough to support the weight of whatever you’ll be working on.
• DIY Workbench Frame: The frame of your workbench is what gives it its shape and strength. The frame can be made out of a variety of materials, including wood, metal, and even plastic. There are a number of different types of frames that can be used, including a T-shaped frame, a U-shaped frame, and an X-shaped frame.
• DIY Workbench Top: The top of your workbench is what actually holds your tools and projects in place. While it’s possible to use a variety of different materials for the top, wood is the most common type of top used in workbenches.

Things I Used in This Project:

• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• I Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Crescent Extendable Speed Square
• Triton Multitool
• ToughBuilt Kneepads
• Reelcraft Cord Reel
• DAP Weldwood Wood Glue

Step-by-Step Instructions

Building a workbench is a great way to save money while also creating a functional and sturdy workspace for your garage. With the right materials and a little bit of know-how, you can build the perfect workbench for your garage in less than 2 hours. To start, you’ll want to lay out all of your materials, including your workbench legs, workbench frame, and workbench top. Be sure to check the measurements of each piece so that your workbench is the proper size and shape.

Once your materials are laid out, you’ll start by putting together your frame. Depending on the type of frame you’ve chosen, the assembly process will vary. Once your frame is put together, you’ll want to make sure that it’s sturdy enough to support the weight of your tools and projects. If necessary, you may need to reinforce your frame with some extra materials. Next, you’ll want to attach your workbench legs to the frame. Depending on the type of leg you’ve chosen, you may need to put the legs on from the bottom or the top of the frame. Be sure to follow the instructions included with your leg type for the best results.

Once your legs are attached, you can put your top on the frame, followed by the shelves. You’ll want to make sure that your shelves are sturdy and level to ensure a functional workbench. Finally, you can attach your legs to the frame using wood screws and a power screwdriver. You can also use wood glue to secure the legs if you’d like.

Making the Frame

The frame of your workbench is what gives it its shape and strength. The frame can be made out of a variety of materials, including wood, metal, and even plastic. There are a number of different types of frames that can be used, including a T-shaped frame, a U-shaped frame, and an X-shaped frame. Depending on your preferences and the strength of the materials you choose, the cost of each frame type will vary. Wooden frames are great for creating simple and sturdy workbenches at an affordable price.

While wooden frames are easy to put together and relatively inexpensive, they will require maintenance as time goes on. Metal frames are a great option for those who need a very sturdy workbench. The metal frame will be very strong and resilient, but it will also cost more than a wooden frame. Plastic frames are a great option for those who need a low-maintenance workbench with a modern design. Depending on the material you choose, plastic frames can be very affordable.

Securing the Frame

Once your frame is put together, you’ll want to make sure that it’s secure and sturdy. If necessary, you can use metal or wooden brackets to secure your frame together. You can also use wood glue or metal screws to hold your frame in place, as well as nails to secure your frame. Once your frame is secure, you’ll want to make sure that it’s sturdy enough to hold your tools and projects. You may need to reinforce your frame with some extra materials if your frame isn’t sturdy enough. If you’ve chosen a wooden frame, you can reinforce the frame with additional pieces of wood. If you’ve chosen a metal frame, you can use pieces of metal to reinforce the frame.

Adding Shelves

Once your frame is put together and your frame is secured, you can attach your shelves to the frame. You can use a variety of different materials for your shelves, including metal, hardwood, and plastic. Depending on the materials you choose, each type of shelf will vary in price. Metal shelves are a great option for a functional and sturdy workbench. Hardwood shelves are another great option, as they can be stained to match the colour of your other workbench materials. Plastic shelves are a low-cost and low-maintenance option that can be used on any workbench. Once your shelves are attached, you can start adding your tools and projects to your workbench.

Attaching Legs

Once your frame is put together and your shelves are secure, you can attach your legs to the frame. Depending on the type of leg you’ve chosen, you may need to put the legs on from the bottom or the top of the frame. If you’ve chosen wooden legs, you can screw them into the frame from the bottom. If you’ve chosen metal legs, you can screw them into the frame from the top. If you’ve chosen plastic legs, you can simply place them on top of the frame. Once your legs are attached, you can secure them to the frame and add a finishing touch to your workbench.

Finishing Touches

Once your legs are attached to the frame, you can add a finishing touch to your workbench. You can use paint, stain, or decals to personalize your workbench. You can also add a coat of varnish to protect your workbench and make it last longer. Once your workbench is finished, you can start using it to hold your tools, store your materials, and create a functional and sturdy workspace.

Benefits of a DIY Workbench

While there are many benefits to building your own workbench, the main benefit is that it’s cost-effective. While you can invest in a workbench that is pre-made, it will often be more expensive than building your own. Additionally, a workbench that you build yourself will likely be more functional and sturdy than a pre-made workbench.

Another benefit of building your own workbench is that you can choose the materials and design that best matches your garage and your needs. With so many different materials available, you can create a workbench that is functional, sturdy, and best matches the rest of your garage. Lastly, a workbench that you build yourself will last longer than one that you buy pre-made, as you’ll be able to make it as sturdy as you need it to be.

Tips for Building a Workbench

• Know Your Space: Before you begin building your workbench, you’ll want to know the space you have available in your garage. This will help you decide the best materials for your workbench, as well as the size of your workbench.
• Know Your Tools: Before you start building

Find my DIY plans for this workbench here!
You can also check out all of my other Workshop DIY Plans here!

Bonus YouTube Video: Watch how I added wall outlets here!

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about putting in your own DIY Garage Shelves? Check out this project where I built my own! I’ve also put together FREE easy DIY Plans!

Garage Shelves Plans

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Anyone else always need more storage in their garage? In this video I’m showing you how to easily build shelves and storage for your garage or workshop. This is a great build to utilize your scraps! And a great way to gain some organization.

Things I Used in This DIY Garage Shelves Project:

• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Toughbuilt Kneepads
• Crescent Extendable Speed Square

Garage Shelves Plans

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If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Wondering if you can get a CNC shop tour? Check out this video where I walk you through my CNC shop, and show you how we operate!

In this video, I’m showing you all around my CNC business at my commercial space, The Hill Country Wood Shed. We have 3 CNC machines running here and I’m showing you how they all produce different products that my business sells, as well as showing you the work flow.

• Find all of the templates that we offer here.
• For CNC work, please contact us here: cncwoodshed@gmail.com
• The Hill Country Wood Shed

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Trying to figure out how to get better WiFi? Check out this project where I walk you through how I got significantly better WiFi in my workshop!

I don’t know about you but the first thing I think about when building a new structure is how I am going to get WiFi here. With almost everything today relying on technology, why shouldn’t it be your first question? It can be a struggle. But in this video, I am going to show you two different methods on how to get WiFi outside of your home.

The WiFi coverage in my home has never been perfect; there were always rooms where I didn’t get a good connection. Then, when I built my shop and later added an outdoor kitchen, my wimpy WiFi coverage became an even bigger problem. Both of those buildings are far from my house and beyond the reach of the router. 

So this past week, I finally got full-coverage, super fast and reliable WiFi with some help from NETGEAR. I found that they have the top technology for any situation: large buildings, long distances or areas where traditional internet service isn’t an option. 

For my house, I went with the NETGEAR Orbi WiFi 6 Mesh System. My system consists of a router and two wireless satellite units. Together, the router and satellites form a network that reaches every corner of my house.

For the outdoor kitchen, I added a third satellite. Unlike the satellites in the house, I connected this one to the router using an ethernet cable.  

For the shop, I chose the NETGEAR Orbi 4G LTE Tri-band Router. It receives a cellular signal, just like a phone. Then, along with a satellite, it broadcasts a powerful WiFi signal throughout my shop. 

In my house, I installed the NETGEAR Orbi WiFi 6 Mesh System. Here’s how it works: The router is connected to my incoming internet cable, just like the old router. But instead of providing one signal that can’t cover the entire house, it connects wirelessly with the satellites that extend coverage to every corner and even outdoors to my porch.

Installing the system took about 5 minutes. The router is connected to my incoming internet cable, just like my old router. Once that is connected, now I can position the two satellites in different parts of the house to provide full coverage. It’s worth noting that one satellite can cover up to 5,000 sqft. And this will provide WiFi speeds of up to 6 gigabits per second for over 100 devices. That means I can upload my next YouTube video while streaming a movie, while taking a video call and have no issues.

Let’s do a speed test and test this device out:

The test says my internet is extremely fast. Thank you Orbi!

Next, let’s move on to my outdoor kitchen, which is about 80 feet from the house. Here, I installed another satellite.

At that distance, a wireless connection from the router in the house might have been good enough, but I wanted better than good enough—I wanted a connection fast enough to handle anything, including the ability to stream hi-def movies. Since the Orbi satellites can operate wirelessly or with an ethernet cable, I ran cable from the house. That’s a simple job, but here are a few tips:

• The minimum cable standard you should use is CAT5e. I upgraded to Cat7. It cost only an extra 20 bucks and I’m ready for higher speed demands in the future.  

• Before you run cable, test it for connectivity. Problems are rare, but its awful to find out you have a bad cable after it’s installed. You can test cable by plugging it into a device, but I picked up a cheap tester for less than $10.

• I used cable rated for outdoor use. My cable is also rated for direct burial, but since I live on rocky ground, I avoided hours of hard digging by fastening the cable to my boardwalk.

• Don’t run ethernet lines right next to electrical cable. That can cause interference. Even worse, it can lead to “voltage induction”. Basically, that means extra voltage can travel through the ethernet cable, damage devices or even cause a fire. When running parallel, keep electrical and ethernet cables at least 4 inches apart. When cables cross, make it a 90-degree crossing.

Let’s do a speed test!

Ok let’s move over to my shop, which is over 300 feet from my house.

That’s too far for a WiFi signal and a cable trench though 300 feet of stone wasn’t an option. But here again, NETGEAR offered an easy solution.

The Orbi 4G LTE Tri-band Router is perfect for areas where traditional internet isn’t practical—it doesn’t need cables. Instead, it picks up a cellular signal, just like a phone does. It works with most of the major phone networks’ data plans and basically converts a cell connection into a WiFi connection. 

Since my shop is so large, I also added a satellite, just like the ones in my house. Again, this whole job took less than 5 minutes. I just plugged in a couple power cords and slipped my SIM card into the router. Instantly, I had fast, reliable internet in my shop.

Here’s a speed test from my not-so-great previous system:

Now let’s do a speed test with my new NETGEAR Orbi 4G LTE Tri-band WiFi Router. Now that is more like it!

Before you go out and buy new equipment, a lot of problems can actually be solved by simply moving your router. So here are some do and don’t tips that you can try out before going out and purchasing new devices:

• Don’t hide the router. 
  Don’t place it in a cabinet or a closet. It’s bad for the router and the signal. In an enclosed space, the signal has to pass through extra barriers.

• Don’t put your router on the floor.
  Think of your router as a lamp that casts a signal instead of light. If set it on the floor, most of the signal is cast into the floor. Placed up higher, the signal spreads farther.

• Central location is important.
  The closer you are to the router, the stronger the signal. So if you place the router at one end of your house, it probably won’t reach the other end. For whole-house coverage, it’s usually best to locate the router on the main floor, near the center of the house, where the signal can reach all the rooms. 

• Not in the kitchen
  The kitchen is usually the worst place for a router. It’s full of obstructions, especially metal appliances that dampen the signal. Also, when the microwave is running, it can kill the WiFi signal.

Finally, one of the best ways to improve WiFi performance is to upgrade the service from your internet provider. Officially, you get better service by paying more. But if you call your ISP or check their website, there’s a good chance you’ll find a promotion that gives you better service without a higher bill.  

In my case, easy fixes like these weren’t enough. Like most people, I was relying on devices that were a few years old. A few years is a long time in the technology world and the systems I installed are vastly better than my old ones.  

I want to thank NETGEAR for supporting what I do and helping me get my situation here under control. It’s really overwhelming with so much technology on the market to go and find the solutions on your own. But knowing that they exist and can solve so many problems is worth its weight in gold to have good internet!

I hope this video has been helpful for you to solve problems as you are either planning outdoor buildings or just have current connectivity issues.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Trying to figure out what are the most versatile clamps? Check out this DIY tip project where I walk you through all of the clamps I’ve learned to use over the years!

Hand Screw Clamps have been used for hundreds of years yet I never fully appreciated how versatile they were in a shop until this year. Let me show you 9 useful ways you can put them to use. 

Most Versatile Clamps Tip #1:

Hand screw clamps can just as easily be used as a big adjustable wrench. For example, I needed a way to lock my grinding wheel in order to remove the nut and change the disc. I bought this used and didn’t have the right size so I used a large handscrew clamp to hold onto the wheel and a smaller one to tighten down onto the nut. I’ve never bothered buying a large wrench since this trick works so well. 

Most Versatile Clamps Tip #2:

Have you ever had something too long or maybe awkward to clamp up with bar clamps? If your project has a bottom or back that won’t be shown then try this: drill one 1/4” hole in each piece at the connection point.

Now drill a 1/4” hole in the end of the hand screw clamps.

Cut the head off two 1 1/2” 1/4” bolts and thread this into the holes of the hand screw clamps.

Tip: If you use two nuts at the top of the threads, you can use a wrench to quickly and easily thread these in.

Now we have created a pinching device, so that you can place the protruding ends of the threads into the parts holes and as you tighten down on the hand screw clamp, it will bring the joint together and apply pressure as the glue cures. 

Most Versatile Clamps Tip #3:

If you have something you can’t put holes into, then try this. Attach a hand screw clamp to each work piece you’re trying to join together.

Tighten down on them pretty good so that once you have your boards aligned, you can use another clamp to squeeze them together. Again, applying pressure to the joint while the glue sets up. You can flip the board around to repeat not the other end as well. 

Most Versatile Clamps Tip #4:

With these clamps always being made out of wood, you can quickly extend them to meet any far reaching clamping needs. Simply grab some scraps and use screws to attach them to the jaws.

Now you can reach the inside of a project where the normal jaws, or other traditional clamps, don’t have the throw. 

Most Versatile Clamps Tip #5:

If you’re needing to work on the edge of a board, take two hand screw clamps and clamp them to your board on their side.

They have such a great footprint when laid over, they make a quick and easy stand. Then if you’re doing something really aggressive like planning the edge, then you can always clamp down the clamps. 

Most Versatile Clamps Tip #6:

Now lets say the board you’re working on is too large to be on top of a workbench. Grab a sawhorse, or any other flat surface at the correct height, and clamp a hand screw clamp down.

Now use it to reach out and grab whatever you’re needing to stand vertical so that you can get to work on it’s edge. 

Most Versatile Clamps Tip #7:

Those two are for holding onto something flat, now for holding onto something round. You can make some simple attachments for the jaws that has a V cut out.

When you need to use them, pull out some double sided tape and stick them both on.

Cut the strip down the middle then peel and stick each one to the inside of the hand screw clamp.

Now you can tighten down on anything round and either use a variety of clamps to hold it sideways (lets say if you want to cut it or paint it) or you can use it’s large footprint to make it stand up straight so you can access the ends. 

Most Versatile Clamps Tip #8:

Have a small part to work on? Handscrew clamps are always a great answer for getting the job done. Whether it be on the drill press where you can clamp the clamp to the deck

…..the bandsaw, where you can easily move the part close to the blade while your fingers stay away

……or even on the router table where no part is too small to add some detail to the edge. 

Most Versatile Clamps Tip #9:

Then don’t forget a major area where the unique design of the hand screw clamp really shines is holding down angles. Having the ability to move the front independently from the back means clamping onto awkward angles a breeze. 

Hopefully this has helped you out and given you ideas for your own shop. If I have left out any of your favorite tips, please leave a comment below for myself and others. I’ll see you on my next project!

Things I Used in This Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Hand Screw Clamps: https://amzn.to/2K4rxjn
• Quick Clamps: https://amzn.to/2YZ0Dxk
• Double Sided Tape: https://amzn.to/2P8QyYx
• Wilker Do’s Plywood Workbench

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Wondering what the best spray painting tips are? Check out this project where I walk you through all of the spray paint tips I’ve learned over the years!

We all use Spray Paint, so in this video, I’m going to be sharing some tips to help your painting go a little bit smoother.

Spray Painting Tip #1:

First tip that’s an easy one to get better results is to shake the can well before use. It really does matter. The marble should be heard rolling around the bottom.

Spray Painting Tip #2:

If the can is cold, I often warm the can up by setting it outside in the direct sun light. By the can being warm, the paint will atomize better.

Spray Painting Tip #3:

It’s easy to lay stuff on a flat surface but often the item gets glued down by the spray paint. Instead create some sort of stand off. This can happen in a variety of ways. You can grab a scrap of wood and run a screw in so that you can thread and item on. If it’s on the underside then nobody will ever see it. 

Spray Painting Tip #4:

You can again grab scraps then use a brad nailer to throw a few protruding nails in them. Do this by using any item to compress the head of the nailer in the air instead of the scrap itself. A few of these placed correctly and any item is quickly held up. 

Spray Painting Tip #5:

Hanging is always a great option for covering all sides at once. I typically clamp a board to my mobile workbench to give me a suspension point. Then I thread in a hook on the end and use bailing wire to create a loop. 

Spray Painting Tip #6:

It’s temping to spray a part as a whole, but you get a much better result if you take the time to dissemble it first. Use a solvent to remove any oils that will interfere with adhesion.

Once the parts are on a stand off, you can get 100% coverage on all sides.

For screws, you don’t want to get paint on the threads or it won’t thread back in easily. Use some cardboard to poke a hole to punch the screw threads in so only the head is exposed to be painted. 

Spray Painting Tip #7:

If you have deep chips or scratches in old finish you can sometimes sand them out then use multiple light coats to fill them back in. This won’t work on everything but it’s worth a try before having to sand back the entire piece to repaint. 

Spray Painting Tip #8:

When painting wood or MDF, I recommend first laying down a sandable primer. This will seal the wood and prevent absorption which will drastically save on the number of coats you’ll have to apply on the painting stage. 

Spray Painting Tip #9:

Always test the sprayer first on a piece of cardboard to avoid sputter or splatter on your piece. 

If a nozzle is spluttering or plugged and won’t clear, just swap it for one that isn’t. They are interchangeable. 

Spray Painting Tip #10:

To prevent a nozzle from getting clogged in the first place remember to always clean it out before putting a can away. Do this by spraying it upside down, again I use a scrap of cardboard, then use a rag to wipe off the tip. 

Spray Painting Tip #11:

When it comes to spraying techniques: Always start and and stop the spraying when you’re to the side of the work piece. Each pass should overlap your previous pass by about half. It’s easy to rush but try and control your speed so that it’s nice and even. It’s also easy to swing in an Arc but imagine a straight line as you’re moving.

Instead of stretching over a workpiece, try and rotate it so you can keep spraying at a comfortable range. After getting complete coverage on the first pass, rotate the piece 90 degrees if possible on the second coat. This will give you a more solid appearance. 

Spray Painting Tip #12:

If you’re covering a large area, something I do that might look silly but certainly works is holding a can of paint in both hands. I push my hands together to get them not only in line but also moving evenly with each other. Get double the coverage for the amount of effort. : ) 

Spray Painting Tip #13:

Of course it never fails that something gets into the fresh coat of paint….I keep tweezers on hand for this.

Spray Painting Tip #14:

It’s best to spray multiple light coats to avoid runs but even I struggle with the patience this requires. If you get a run I find it best to dab at it instead of wiping it. It isn’t as perfect as several light coats without runs but if the piece isn’t prominent, then it will do in a pitch. 

Hopefully you learned a thing or two, or this has served as a good reminder when you are spray painting your projects. Leave me a comment below if I missed your favorite spray painting tip.

I’d like to thank this video’s sponsor, Fleximounts. If you’re looking for really good shop or garage storage, one awesome solution is with FlexiMount Garage Racks. 

I have lots of items in my shop that I don’t need to access super often so storing them above with FlexiMount’s 4×8 Overhead Garage Storage Racks is a great solution. By utilizing unused overhead space, you can get your items off of the floor and out of the way.

These overhead racks are strong and secure and really have unmatched strength compared to competing products. The heavy duty construction provides the ability to safely load them up to 600lbs and they are easy to DIY your own installation.  

To further utilize unused space I also installed Fleximounts Garage Wall Shelving with Hooks. These shelves are sturdy and stable and their buckle design prevents the shelves from falling or bending. 

Their heavy gauge steel construction allows for safely loading up to 400 lbs total, and you can secure them to wall studs, suitable for different stud spacing, or even a solid concrete wall. 

If you’d like to check out these Fleximount’s products for your own storage solutions, be sure and check out the links in this description or below. Thanks so much to Fleximount for supporting what I do!

Be sure and watch the video for an even better tutorial. I’ll see you on the next project.

Things I Used in This Spray Painting Tips Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Fleximount Overhead Garage Storage Rack
• Fleximount Wall Shelves
• Armor Tools Mobile Workbench
• Wilker Do’s Plywood Workbench

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Wondering how you can build better workshop storage solutions? Check out this project where I walk you through each tip I have for better organizing your workshop!

Organizing a shop is never ending, but here are 16 very simple solutions that will help you get a head start. 

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #1:

These electrical boxes are super cheap and a very quick way of creating a storage compartment on the edge of any workbench. 

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #2:

Even cheaper is a picture hanger, hammer this into the side of any shop surface and automatically have a spot for a tape to be placed. 

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #3:

Want a convent compartment to hold small parts without being on the workbench? PVC end caps just need a hole and one screw to become a very handy parts trey that’s quick to deploy but just as quick to stow away.

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #4:

Here is a quick solution for a drill. Drill a hole in the side of a workbench then thread in a large hook that’s coated in rubber.

There, a quick holster to keep your drill off the surface of your work area but still within reach. 

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #5:

Do you keep misplacing your drill press chuck key? Throw a magnet on the side so you’ll never have to wonder where you put it this time….

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #6:

Now for larger items like a shop vac hose or extension cords, simply drive an eyelet hook in the wall with a short length of chain.

You can place the chain through anything rolled up and store it in place by just hooking the other end of chain to the hook. 

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #7:

A perfect use for an old paper towel rack is to throw it on your shop wall and store all your rolls of tape. 

Or if you have an old towel rack, you can very easily screw it into the wall and have a spot for hand clamps. 

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #9:

For a wide range of hand tools, you can grab some PVC pipe and use the miter saw to cut two 45 angles on the ends.

Punch a hole through one end so that you can screw it to the wall and have a place to quickly place your hand tools.

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #10:

Same concept for this hack but using larger diameter PVC and mounting it on the wall with the angle facing the wall. Now you have a quick storage spot for tubes of caulking. 

Another way is to make a wooden shelf out of some scraps. Punch some holes with a forstner bit and then mount it to a wall. Now the tubes can store upside down.

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #12:

This one isn’t the most elegant looking (although I guess PVC isn’t that elegant either), but a large shoe compartment is cheap, easy to install on a wall, and will hold a large assortment of items that are easy to see and grab. 

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #13:

Instead of hanging things the traditional way on pegboard, a different way is to slip a piece of PVC onto the peg holders then store a variety of items in the center. 

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #14:

Another unique but cheap solution for pegboard storage is shower curtain rings.

I particularly like these for sazall blades. Your whole collection can be stores on one ring then hung up for easy visibility and grabbing.

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #15:

A simple solution for anything from pencils, to a router collect wrench is to screw a single tool pouch to your wall. 

Instant Workshop Storage Solution Tip #16:

A good solution for tons of things are these plastic J hooks. They are less than a dollar each but are super easy to mount to the wall and could be used to hold a boom for example, or rolled up cords, or even welding hoods. 

Bonus Tip:

The Smart Jars system has quickly become one of my favorite ways to organize hardware in the shop. The system is made of of these docks that fit into a standard pegboard. Inside each dock is a plastic container.

I love that you have the option to leave a container in a dock and grab what you need. Or, you can take the whole container to your workstation. All of the containers are laid over so the face of the container is facing you so you can easily see what you have inside of it. Of course a labeling system could also be added to the face of each container.

They are made in the USA. And, if you aren’t a fan of standard pegboard, they also sell plastic pegboard.

This is obviously useful in the shop, but could also be useful in the kitchen as a spice rack or even for arts and crafts supplies and legos. The options are endless.

Definitely give Smart Jars a look for your shop’s organization.

Even if these aren’t your permanent solutions, getting things off the ground and off your workbench is a great use of time so I hope you’re able to put at least one of them to use. 

I’ll see you on my next project.

Things I Used in This Workshop Storage Solutions Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Wilker Do’s Plywood Workbench
• Armor Mobile Workbench
• Wilker Do’s Miter Saw Stand
• Electrical Boxes
• Saw Tooth Picture Hangers
• PVC End Cap
• Rubber Hooks
• Magnets
• Steel Cup Hooks
• Chain
• Shoe Organizer
• Shower Curtain Rings

It’s been 10 months since I purchased this building and turned it into The Wood Shed. There is still a lot of progress that I need to make. But! I’ve also already made a lot of progress. So I’m going to give you a full shop tour and show you all of my new tools and everything that has been happening.

Be sure and watch the video above to see the full tour!

Also, big thank you to Grizzly for for sponsoring this video! Grizzly is offering you 10% off of this whole family of tools below with the discount code: APRIL10. Visit Grizzly’s website here!

• Grizzly 16″ Jointer
• Grizzly 24″ Planer
• Grizzly 14″ Sliding Table Saw
• Grizzly 10HP Cyclone Dust Collector
• Grizzly 17″ Bandsaw
• Grizzly 24″ Bandsaw
• Grizzly Disc Sander
• Grizzly Oscillating Edge Sander
• Grizzly 34″ Floor Drill Press
• Grizzly Hanging Air Filter
• Grizzly Wide Belt Sander

See other videos from The Wood Shed here:

• Intro Video to The Wood Shed
• 10′ Wooden Wood Shed Sign
• Remodeling The Wood Shed
• Floating Deck Build
• The Wood Shed Fence Build
• Curved Stairs Build
• 12′ Wall Tree Rings

Pick up a Hill country Wood Shed T-Shirt here!

Check out all of my Physical Products for sale here.

Things I Used In This Shop Tour Video:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Armor Mobile Workbench
• Smart Jars Organization System
• iFixit

Even though there is still so much work to be done on this shop, it is so fulfilling to see it is now. I love bringing you guys along for it. Thank you for supporting me and coming along for the ride! I can’t wait to have my doors open and see you guys here.

Don’t forget to watch the video above to see the whole tour. And don’t forget that Grizzly has that 10% off coupon code above if you’d like to get any of this equipment.

I’ll see you on my next video!

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

Just bought a new woodworking workshop! In this renovation project, you can watch me walk you through the whole remodel process and shop renovation!

If you’ve been following my journey, you’ll know that I purchased a metal building and am turning it into a retail space and production shop. I’m calling it The Wood Shed.

This is footage of the side that I intend to be the retail space. I’ve already done a ton of work to empty it out and demo some walls, but now even more changes need to be made to make it a more functional space.

I want to insulate it, I want to sheath the walls in wood so they can be usable for shelving. I want to take out one giant bay door, and also relocate the front door. All of that is a massive amount of work, but can very easily be achieved so lets get started. 

Lets start with framing walls 

This was a looooot of wall space to frame, but the only way to get it done is to start. And the great thing about framing is it’s the same process regardless if you’re doing a small 60 sqft space or a 2000 sqft space. So it’s a skill that once learned can be implemented time and time again.

The reason for going through the effort of framing the entire inside is because the metal bones for one don’t give the space the look I want for the retail space, but also the huge wall space is completely unusable as is. Even if this was left as a shop space, I couldn’t just walk up to a wall, drive in a screw, and hang up an extension cord. To get that ability, the walls need to be sheathed which means each bay needs to first have the sub structure to support the sheathing. 

The original plan was to use insulated batts for the insulation step so we originally laid down a plastic wrap on what will be the inside of the wall. However you’ll see that later we remove this plastic because I changed my mind and went with spray foam insulation instead. But, if you need a moisture barrier than laying down a sheet of plastic and using a stable gun to attach it, is nice and easy.

We would do this with the wall still on the ground, then stand it up one by one. To keep them standing up, we would use a nailer to pin it to the adjoining wall, then also pin it to the concrete through the base plate.

After repeating this for the entire length of wall, we repeated on the next one, then the next one. You’ll notice the walls don’t extend all the way up right now. What we did was use 10’ studs to get the bottom layer of wall up, then later we’ll come back and add a pony wall to get the remaining footage to go the entire height.

Once the walls were stood up and attached the last thing was to connect them all together up top with a double top plate. 

We had started off with the easiest walls first but once we started working around the room, we divided up to conquer. I continued framing walls while David started removing old framing that would be in our way, while Jacob started getting clever with chain hoists to remove the few roll up doors we would be deleting.

This door here was an old loading dock that I actually turned into the giant sign of The Wood Shed.

Then this second bay door was just redundant. I’ll leave the right one for loading and unloading but since this will be a retail space, two just wasn’t needed.

To delete a giant space like this, we first framed it up so the wall would first snuggly in between the door opening. It can be attached with some self tapping screws all along the sides and top to go into the metal framing members. Blocking could be added in, then we could move to the outside to cover it up and blend it into the building.

To do that, we removed the metal trim from around the doorway first then just started installing the same metal panels to match the rest of the building. You can overlap each sheet by one corrugation and soon enough, it looks like there was never a door there. Don’t worry about the color because at the end, the entire building will get a coat of paint. 

Last thing to really make the door gone is to remove the roll up door on the inside. It’s incredible how heavy this is, but no worries. Jacob made some custom boxes to hold two chain hoists up in the ceiling so that two people could lower the entire roll up at the same time. David monitored our progress to make sure we were going down an an even pace. 

Another thing I wanted to change and delete was the placement of the front door. On the previous space, it was located on a side of the building that was around the corner from the parking area. Jacob deleted this space pretty quickly while I worked on throwing up more walls. After the door was out, we sheeted the outside to blend the space as well then finished installing all the needed inside walls. 

The previous owners had this bump out that was used as an office space with a mini split in it. I decided to keep it and turn it into the shipping department where my mom could work out of instead of my dad’s garage where she has been working up to this point.

Since the ceiling on it is lower than the perimeter walls, we built some pony walls to first extend the height. While Jacob finished attaching things, David built up the corner so it would be on the same plane as the two walls, and I started pulling off trim from around this window.

Whew, what a lot of work. It took us two days to get to this point and while it looks good, we still had a ton to go.

I told you earlier that I changed my min on the type of insulation I went with. I decided to go with spray foam because of a few factors but mostly because it’s incredibly quick and efficient. A crew came in the day after we got done framing and starting laying down plastic to protect the floors, then they immediately started in on putting material in the walls and ceiling.

I’ve done spray foam before in my own shop so I’m already aware of how awesome it is, but it’s still fascinating to see it get sprayed in and balloon up then also how much ground a crew is able to cover in just a few hours. 

After they were done, we moved back in place to continue working.

Since I had already bought the insulated batts, I went ahead and put in another layer of insulation in both walls where the most noise would be coming through. This partition wall which will separate the shop from the retail space, then also the other gable end which separates the major road from the retail space.

I’m not sure how much this will help, but it certainly can’t hurt and it also gave me something to stay busy with while Jacob got ahead and the next step which was painting the panels for the wall sheathing. 

We left the plastic on the floor from spray foam and Jacob set up a spray area to start giving all the sheathing a coat of paint. For this, I really love the look of ship lap, but it’s not only expensive but it’s also slow to install as you have to do it one board length at a time. To make our job go quicker, we created feaux ship lap by laying down 1/2” plywood on the CNC and having it cut in grooves. Easy peasy. This will give the entire space the look of ship lap but drastically save on cost and time on install because we’ll be able to throw up huge sections at a time. 

To start installing it, we used a laser level in the center of the room to establish a level line around the space, then started sticking them. Each board needed to be cut to land on the center of a stud, then most of these lower ones had an outlet or two that also needed to be cut around. Overall through, this step goes by quickly.

One thing that helps with speeding it up is to only tack the board into place. I would use a pre drill on the four corners then another drill to drive in the screws. Later, once everything is installed, we’ll go back and do the attaching in the center of the board. 

Instead of waiting until every board was painted to start installing, we ended up changing our game plan. The thing that we really wanted to avoid is painting the upper walls on scaffolding and ladders later on, because that’s just not any fun. But painting the lower walls isn’t a big deal. With that, we used the unpainted panels for the first two layers around the walls, then switched over to the painted panels once we got to the upper walls. It created a kind of quilt work looking pattern, but pay no attention to it because it all comes out looking uniformed in the end. 

To try and hide the screws as much as possible, we would place them in the grooves of the faux ship lap instead of on the face. Then, we also made sure to stagger the seams of the panels. If I’m not mistaken…it only took us a day to get all this main panelling up! So it really does go quick once you get into a groove. Also…what a drastic change it makes to the entire space. 

Terry and I started working on sheathing the shipping department while Jacob started doing the pony wall framing for the gable ends. He cut a bunch of short studs to length then installing them and a top cap.

This will give us the bones needed to run sheathing all the way up on both sides. Working with these heights, it’s far easier if you have somebody staying on the scaffolding then another person doing the ground work or cut work and passing up what’s needed.

It is so cool throwing these pieces in, it all just works like a puzzle. You not only have the slope to cut and get correct but also making sure the groove patten stays the same is kinda of tricky, especially once you get to the end and start trying to utilize large cut off pieces.

It was verrrry exciting getting to the end. I was actually happy to call it a day right there, but Jacob was motivated to stay a bit longer than normal in order to see the space painted as one color. So that’s what we did.

I worked ahead of him and taped off doors and windows, and made sure he had plastic down on the next area he would be moving to, and he painted.

Looking back on it, I think using the painted panels at the top was kind of a pain but I still think it’s easier than somebody having to paint it from a ladder. 

: ) What a change!

You guys….this is a ton of work. It’s exhausting but so exhilarating. 100% changing a space like this in just a span of a few days is crazy to me. Adding walls, deleting doorways, and creating an atmosphere that’s a compete 180 from what it was before….it’s just an amazing feeling. You know another thing, I love that I film my projects because it’s so easy a few weeks or even months later to get use to the way it looks and forget the details. I love being able to look back at the process and get a sense of pride all over again. 

Stay tuned for the next steps to take this space even a bit further though. I have an idea for the wall decor that I’m dying to execute and show you. That will be coming up shortly.

For an even better tutorial, be sure and watch the video.

Thank you all for the support and if you’re ever in the Hill Country of Texas, be sure to stop in and see this space for yourself! 

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

Wondering if your shop tools are accurate? Check out this DIY project where I show you how to make sure your shop tools stay accurate all year long!

What good are tools if they aren’t accurate? In this video I cover how to check for accuracy on 7 most used shop tools. 

Making Sure Your Shop Tools Are Accurate Tip #1:

Starting with probably the most used tool… a tape measure. Usually it is the hook that goes bad. To check it’s accuracy, mark 8” on a board, then burn two inches.

It should read exactly 10”. If it doesn’t then your tape is off.

Now you can check with a corner application…push the tape against a scrap and see if your mark still lands on 8”. 

Making Sure Your Shop Tools Are Accurate Tip #2:

For a speed square, place the square against a straight edge such as a factory edge on plwyood, and draw a line.

Now flip the speed square and compare. If it doesn’t line up then the square is off. 

Making Sure Your Shop Tools Are Accurate #3:

To check level on level, place a it on any flat surface.

Use a shim to shore up one side until the bubble reads exactly level.

Now while holding your hand on the shim to mark the levels placement, flip the level 180 and read level again. It should read the same. 

Making Sure Your Shop Tools Are Accurate #4:

To check plum on a level, you do the same process but on a vertical surface.

It’s important you mark the location the level falls on the shim so it can be placed in the same spot when you flip it. 

Making Sure Your Shop Tools Are Accurate #5:

On a miter saw, most fences are one piece and rarely a problem but you can check it with a straight edge jus to be sure.

Set the saw to zero and make a cut. Flip one piece from the cut over and realign the cuts. No gap means it’s cutting accurate.

To show what would be an off saw, I placed my saw on 2 degrees and repeated. Look at the gap created. 

You can do the same with an upright cut against the fence. If you show a gap here then your saw is slightly tilted. 

Then last thing is to repeat with a 45. After making your cut, take the two pieces to a workbench and place them together. Now use a square to check it’s accuracy. 

Making Sure Your Shop Tools Are Accurate #6:

Lets move on to the table saw. First lets make sure the blade is parallel to the slots. To do this, fully raise the blade then clamp a long level to it. Now clamp a scrap with a point onto the miter gauge so that the point is touching the level at the front.

Move the miter gauge along the level and see if the point gaps or becomes resistant at any point along the level. 

When you know the slots are parallel to the blade you can use slots to set the fence. Set a 3/4” scrap in a slot then move the fence against as a reference.

Adjust your fence as needed. Note: I prefer to have my fence with a slight toe out so I place a small spacer up front before setting my fence. 

Now you can check the blade for accuracy. Set it to zero then make a cut using the miter saw. Since the cut off might want to flip and lose orientation for checking…make two marks on the scrap before making the cut so that after the cut you can flip it and check that there is no gap. 

I’m going to go ahead and leave out how to check the bandsaw as it’s the same process as the miter and table saw where you make a cut and flip the piece to look for a gap. The same exact test goes for the circular saw as well. 

Making Sure Your Shop Tools Are Accurate #7:

Moving on to the drill press. You can grab a short scrap of wood and drive a screw through. Now flip it over and drive in another screw.

Both so the threads punch through a good 3/4”-1”. Chuck one thread into the drill press now raise the deck so that the other screw tip  is resting lightly on a washer that’s placed on the drill press’s deck.

If you’re table is flat you should be able to move the washer to any spot on the deck and it lightly be toughing the washer.

If yours is slightly out, then loosen the table and adjust so the point is touching the washer the same amount no matter where it’s at. 

Of course, if you find a tool that is out of accuracy, whether it be the fence on a table saw or the bevel on a miter saw, then just look up your specific brand of that tool and part and figure out how to make the adjustments. Every brand has slight variances.

I hope that you learned something and I’ll see you on the next one.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

Trying to figure out the best clamping solutions for your project? Check out this DIY project where I show you how to best utilize the right clamps!

When you have a big job that calls for a lot of clamping, you need a good solution. Whether it’s to hold pieces together while they go through finishing processes or to secure work in place during production runs, it’s all about being efficient. Here are some common clamped situations and how to solve them efficiently, quickly, and cost-effectively.

Clamping Solutions Tip #1

When you have an unusual shape and multiple joints that need securing at the same time, grab a scrap board and place your glue up on top.

Now place a scrap blocks at the ends as well as the joints, then attach them to the backer board with a screw. Leave just a slight gap so that next you can use some wedges to apply pressure at every joint. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #2

When you’re trying to clamp onto a sloped surface, the clamp will just slip more as you tighten more. To solve this, grab a scrap and make two notch boards that have parallel clamping surfaces. You can leave a foot at the end of these boards to hook onto your project. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #3

When gluing on something long, such as this trim piece, you could use as many clamps as you can get on the surface…..or you can use a caul. This caul has a slight cup in it and if you place it with the curve facing the trim piece, you can use two clamps on either end to apply even pressure over the entire length. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #4

With a similar principal in mind, another method would be to use F style clamps but leave a small gap between the trim and the neck of the clamp.

This way you can use a wedge to apply a larger footprint of pressure and not have to use so many clamps. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #5

A different method of cauls is glue cauls….have you ever had something longer than your clamps that you needed to clamp together? Instead of buying 8’ clamps a trick is to first glue down some scrap blocks to brown construction paper. Then glue the paper down on either side of your joint.

After about 30 seconds and a bit of downward pressure, the pieces are ready to be clamped onto and pull things together. After it dried, the cauls can be knocked off and the paper sanded away. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #6

I) Another work around for not having really long clamps is to prop your glue up on two boards then screw down a scrap at the end.

Now on the end you need to clamp something to, use another scrap with a lag bolt threaded in the edge.

Screw it down so the lag bolt is touching the wood, then as you thread out on the lag bolt, it applies pressure to the joint and negates having to have extremely long clamps. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #7

Pieces often shift during clamping which can be frustrating so to get a perfectly flush edge, use a scrap to shoot a brad nail or two into the edge of the wood.

Trim off the head so only a small nub is remaining. Now line up your joining board and press it down onto the nails.

Now when you clamp the joint, the slick surface won’t matter. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #8

I love that last trick but another method that gets the same results is biscuits.

They also won’t allow your boards to shift while applying pressure with a clamp. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #9

Sometimes when clamping, you’ll run into situations where the clamps don’t have a long enough reach.

Hand Screw clamps are a wonderful solution because they are made with a wooden body, meaning you can very quickly screw on extensions for any length you need. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #10

Want a more even pressure when clamps can’t reach the center of a board? Never rule out just dumb weight.

So many items around a shop can work for clamping including…extra glue bottles….

Pavers…..

Or even a bucket of water set directly on top or on an expanded footprint that fits the surface area.

Or one I particular like is a door jam. If you have a mobile work bench, roll the glue up to a door jam and use a few scraps to go up to the jam.

You can place them at a slight angle then use wedges to get them snug. Now as you tap them vertical it applies more pressure down to the workpiece. If you create a larger footprint like I have with 2x4s, then the pressure is distributed over the entire piece. 

Clamping Solutions Tip #11

Then last but not least, don’t rule out the power of tape. When gluing together four miters, lay out a piece of tape with the adhesive facing up.

Place your parts so that the corners touch, then after applying glue, simply roll it up and let it dry.

I hope these tips have helped you learn a trick or two! Leave me a comment below and let me know what your favorite trick is, if I didn’t mention it. As mentioned, when you have a big job that calls for a lot of clamping, you need a good solution. Whether it’s to hold pieces together while they go through finishing processes or to secure work in place during production runs, it’s all about being efficient.

Things I Used in This Clamping Solutions Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Quick Clamps
• Bar Clamps
• Armor Mobile Workbench

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Here is a collection of Tape Measure Tips and Tricks that I personally find useful and worth sharing. You never know when you’re going to need

Tape Measure Tips #1:

When trying to divide a board into equal sections, but the overall dimensions are not easy to divide, tilt your tape to a number that is easy to divide and then divide by the number of sections you are wanting.

How can I make my tape measure more accurate?

Easy! Use an angle or change the size of the area you’re trying to measure!

I want 3 sections so I picked 15″ to divide by. Then I placed a mark at 5″ and 10″. Now I have 3 equal parts.

If I wanted 2 sections, I would tilt my tape to land on 14″ and mark at 7″ to find the center.

Tape Measure Tips #2:

If you don’t need to be as precise as above, take the overall dimension – this case 14 11/16ths. Then get close on both sides such as marking 7″. Now you can narrow the filed to eyeball a close enough center.

Tape Measure Tips #3

You don’t always have to hook your tape. Burning an inch and then starting at the 1″ mark instead of 0 will give you a really precise measurement. Especially if you are in a situation where you can’t hook your tape. Just remember to subtract and inch from your final measurement.

Tape Measure Tips #4

When you have repeated measurements, instead of trying to remember them from board to board, use a dry erase marker to mark your tape. Then you can quickly mark all boards needed. After you are done, the mark can easily be wiped off.

Tape Measure Tips #5

It isn’t precise enough for fine furniture making, but in a lot of cases, using the edge of a tape is a great straight edge for quickly making lines.

Tape Measure Tips #6

When you are just needing something roughed in, the tape can also be used as a quick marking gauge. Use your left hand to determine the measurement and butting the tape up against the wood and then use a pencil against the end hook.

Tape Measure Tips #7

Remember that the end of your tape has a metal end hook. So, if you ever need to extend your reach to pick up something metal (such as the nut from your table saw), a magnet, stored on the side of your table saw, can quickly be placed on the end to pick something up.

Tape Measure Tips #8

It’s hard to accurately measure between on the inside of corners, such as the inside of this door jam. Instead of guessing, pull your tape from one side and mark an easy number such as 10.

Now measure to the other side from your mark and add 10 to that dimension.

It’s worth noting that this Lufkin Tape body is exactly 3″ long. In situations like this, you can pull your tape until your body is butting up to the other end and then add 3″ to that dimension.

Tape Measure Tips #9

Don’t have a notepad? Or a good memory? A small free sample of formica is a ready made table that just needs to be cut to size and stuck to your tape with either hot glue or double sided tape. Pencil marks can easily be wiped away for the next round of measurements.

Tape Measure Tips #10

Sometimes a tape isn’t the best method. There are plenty of times when holding a marking a board in place is not only the quickest but most accurate way to get a measurement.

Tape Measure Tips #11

I recently switched to using Lufkin tapes and one feature I am loving is using this through hole for marking curves or circles. You can place a nail through the body of the tape, then attach a pencil to the hook and it’s quick work to get a clean circle.

If you are using a tape without this feature, the alternative way would be to set a nail or screw and then hook the end of your tape. Then do your best to keep your pencil on the measurement ended. It’s doable but definitely not as easy.

Tape Measure Tips # 12

Here’s two ways for determining square: If you only have two sides then the 3, 4, 5 method is easy. You measure to 3′ on one side, 4′ on the other side and then the hypotenuse (or the measurement from point to point) should be 5′ exactly. If it’s not, you can adjust. This also works with 6′, 8′ and 10′.

Tape Measure Tips #13

If you are building a box, the diagonals from corner to corner should be equal. If they aren’t, you an tap the long end until both measurements are the same.

Now, on a tape measure, I’ve always known that every foot is clearly marked, as well as every 16″ for doing framing on 16″ centers.

I recently learned that the small diamonds are for dividing an 8′ span into 5 equal parts. This is handy if you are trying to break down sheet goods.

Now let me talk about the sponsor of this video tutorial which is Lufkin Shockforce Tape Measures.

I thought all tapes were the same until I tried out these Lufkin Shockforce tapes. It is incredibly durable. I can withstand a 100′ drop and only produce a few scuffs. Everyone has two metal guardrails to protect the lock button and a diamond coated end hook for superior gripping.

Then, the tape itself is so rigid that it can repeatedly hold up to a 14′ stand off.

The Shockforce comes in two styles: the traditional coloring style but also a cool Nite Eye version. Both are extremely easy to read with larger than standard print for the numbers, a matte finish that prevents glare and also a contrast background on the foot markers.

I don’t typically work in dim lighting, but it is nice to know that if I were in an attack, a crawl space or on a poorly lit job-site, then the unique coloring of the Nite Eye would give me clear visibility. In fact, I think I even prefer this coloring vs the traditional.

I know I’m going on about a tape measure, but the thoughtful design behind this one makes it worth it. After all, it is everybody’s most used tool.

One last feature I love that I want to point out is the double side tape. The backside has vertical markings that are easy to read when pulling from the ground.

Hopefully you can put some of these tricks to use in your own shop and if I left any of your favorite out then please leave it for me in the comments down below.

I’ll see you soon.

Thinking about moving big and heavy equipment? Check out this project where I had to move a 10,000 pound bandsaw mill! So much weight!

This week was a ton of hard work. Sweat and tired muscles. But! No tears and no blood, which is saying something since we moved around 10,000 pounds of equipment.

It was so cool. Also nerve wracking. There were many times that I had my serious concentration face on. But now that it’s done, I can sit here and giggle at how powerful I felt at moving such big and heavy stuff.

Overall, there were 2 4×8′ CNC’s that were moved, a 4′ Plasma table, and my giant Matt Cremona Bandsaw Mill, which traveled in two parts (the bed and the carriage).

If you missed the announcement, I bought a commercial space that I’m turning into a retail space and production shop. And that is where all of this equipment is heading. Some of this was in storage and other items were in my personal shop.

Check out the video above to see how we got it all moved!

I hope that you realize that if I can do these things, so can you! It really was a very short time ago that I didn’t know how to use tools, how to build things, how to run a business or how to make videos. I am self taught in all of these areas and there’s nothing different about me that makes me more capable of doing them over anyone else. I hope this inspires you to put effort into learning the things that gets you excited.

See you on the next build!

Find out more about The Wood Shed Videos here.

Do you have a bulk CNC production needs? Email us here! cncwoodshed@gmail.com

Check out how we built my giant Bandsaw Mill here.

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Wondering which table saw jigs to use for your next woodworking project? Check out this easy DIY project where I show you how to make your own table saw jigs!

The table saw is one of the most used tools in my shop. And in this tutorial, I’m going to be showing you how to make three different jigs to use on it. 

I also have Free Table Saw Sled Plans for these builds here!

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Thin Strips Jig

The first one is a jig to rip thin strips down. The second is a classic cross-cut sled. And the third is a miter sled that will get you those perfect 45’s.

The first one is the jig to rip thin strips down. It can be a little scary cutting thin strips as you have to get your fence so close to the blade. This jig keeps your hands and fence well away from the blade, but still gives you those nice thin strips.

Building this jig will be easiest if you make the width an even number. I made my board 4” wide. The shoe should be made the same height as the jig (I made mine 1/4”). You don’t want any fasteners in this shoe as it is sacrificial. You’ll eventually replace it when it gets too chewed up. So instead of screws, I’m using a quick setting wood glue.

I attached a handle to the top. Super simple!

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Cross Cut Sled

Now we’re going to use this jig to help us make the second jig, the Cross Cut Sled.

When you’re at the table saw, you can make two different cuts. A rip cut, which goes with the grain, or a cross-cut, which goes across the grain. When you make a cross-cut on a board that is longer than it is wide, it can create kick back. And that creates a dangerous situation. By using a cross cut sled, you can nix using the fence and instead use the sled to push the wood through at an exact 90 degrees. 

The cross cut sled has two runners, making the sled stable and ensuring a 90 degree cut. I’m going to start by making the runners slightly large, and then sneak up on the cut so I can get them the perfect width. They also need to be just slightly under the height of the table. 

I’m going to use my Thin Strip Jig, and since I made mine an even number, all I have to do is add the amount that I actually want to cut. Since the Jig is 4” and I want these runners at 3/8ths, I’m going to set my fence at 4 3/8ths. 

I’m going to use these hex nuts just to prop up these runners so they are temporarily above the level of the table saw right now. 

I applied super glue to the runners and then placed the base of the sled on top of it. This is just to quickly hold the two together so you can then pop it out, countersink and screw the two together from the bottom. 

Now we can raise the blade up to cut half way through the sled. Then attach the leading fence, who’s main job is to keep the sled together across the cut I just made. 

You want to raise the blade high enough so you can set the fence up against the bade and not the teeth. Then you can square the back fence up to the blade itself. 

I used a quick setting wood glue to hold it temporarily and then I secured it with screws. 

The front fence on the Cross-Cut Sled is the important one because it is what is going to reference your material to the blade at an exact 90 degrees. To do this I’m going to flush it up with my hand and only put in one screw to create a pivot point. That gives me some adjustment room to square it up to the blade. You can then secure it with screws. 

This next step isn’t necessary, but you can install a chunky block to the back (where the blade comes through) as an additional safety feature. 

Keep in mind that this is a bare bones cross cut sled that you can make in under 30 minutes. There are a ton of features that you can add on to it, such as a built in stop block, that can make this sled even more functional. 

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Miter Sled

The third jig is going to be a Miter Sled. This is a jig to help you make perfect 45 degree cuts, or miters, anytime. No matter how great your miter saw is, it will never compete with the accuracy that a Miter Sled for your table saw is.

The beginning steps are almost identical to the cross cut sled. You need a base and runners. If you are going to be making multiple jigs around the same time, you can go ahead and cut all of your parts at the same time to eliminate having to reset your fence. A lot of people use hard wood for their runners. I’m using plywood, but both are acceptable options. For the base, I’m using MDF as it has the advantage of staying flatter. I then screwed in the runners. 

To make the fencing for the Miter Sled I used two pieces of plywood glued together. I then pushed my sled base half way through. I then took my speed square (as I know it is at a 45 degree angle) and referenced off the blade to draw a 45 degree mark. 

Now I can take my fence material and glue it as close to this line as I can get it. 

You want this fence to overhand your kerf line so that after you secure it in place, you can run the sled through the blade and cut it at an exact 90. 

Now I can set the second fence next to the first and use the table saw to make its cut. 

I’m then apply glue to the second fence and use an accurate 90 degree angle to line it up to the first. Then you can flip it over and secure it to the bottom with screws. 

Just make sure that when you are cutting pairing miters, you use one fence to make once side and the other to make its pair. 

And that’s it! Keep in mind that these are bare bones sleds to to get you going. You can always incorporate add ons to upgrade your sleds and jigs further. 

I hope this project helps you out!

Don’t forget that I have FREE plans for these jigs here!

Table Saw Sled Plans

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Things I Used In This Table Saw Jigs Project:

• ISOTunes Ear Protection
• Titebond Quick and Thick
• Titebond Instant Bond
• Bessey Clamps
• Woodpeckers Square 1281
• Speed Square

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about getting started with using SketchUp? Check out these 3D modeling videos where I show you exactly how you can use it just like me!

In these videos, I’m going to be giving you an introduction to one of my most used and versatile tools. It is a 3D modeling software called SketchUp.

Before I build anything, I first build it digitally in SketchUp. This not only saves time (because I can go into my shop with a detailed plan) but also saves on material because I can figure out any potential mistakes before I even make my first cut.

The learning curve can be a little frustrating if you are learning it on your own. So, the goal of these videos is to shorten the learning curve for you to get you going.

My videos are going to be geared towards woodworkers, but know that SketchUp has a ton of resource videos that I’ve linked below.

The first video (above) gets you started by covering the main concepts, the basic tools and their functions:

In this second video (below), I model a basic woodworking project from scratch and apply the teachings from Video 1:

Hopefully these videos are helpful for you to get you started with modeling in SketchUp!

Check out SketchUp’s Learning Campus (self-paced tutorials that range in difficulty and topic)!

And also SketchUp’s Skill Builders (these are quicker format tutorials around 5 minutes)!

Big thank you to SketchUp for sponsoring these videos! Use code “APRIL” to get 15% off a SketchUp Pro license for the first year (offer ends March 31, 2020)

Thinking about building your own parts trays? Check out this DIY project where I built my own easy trays to hold all of my parts while I’m building!

A little over a year ago, my friends at Crimson Guitar gave me this parts tray in a guitar body shape.

It is crazy how often I utilize this parts tray. And it got me thinking that I would love to create some in different shapes. So in this video, I’m going to show you how I build these custom parts trays. I did a few different shapes and my favorite were an axe, a chicken and a Texas.

Things I Used In This Parts Trays Project:

• Armor Tool Workbench
• ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
• Laguna CNC
• Wilker Do’s DIY Miter Saw Stand
• Triton Router
• Respirator
• Infinity Flush Trim Bit
• Bessey Quick Clamps
• Wilker Do’s DIY Drill Press Stand
• Carpet Tape
• Armor Tool Bench Dog Clamps
• Walnut Push Stick
• Triton Spindle Sander
• Triton Belt Sander
• Triton Palm ROS

Click here to order your own Wilker Do’s Parts Trays!

The first thing I did was to use my CNC to cut out a template. This way I can use a flush trim bit in my router to cut out the shape.

I’m secured the template to this wood so I could use the router to hog out the material. I went through and made a perimeter cut, and then go back to the center and hog out the material.

One great thing about this router is that it has a fixed or plunge base option. I can start with the bit just above the wood, and then slowly plunge it in to whatever depth I need. With every pass, I’ll plunge down a little bit deeper until I get the overall depth I want.

This router method ended up taking longer than I thought. So I decided to move to the drill press and take out the bulk of the material there with a forstner bit.

Now that I’m in the middle of this, I’m realizing that there is an even better method to this. Instead of starting with the interior cut I’m going to start with the profile cut. When I started with the interior, I didnt have a great way to attach the template to then cut the profile. Let’s switch it up and see if that works better.

I started off by attaching the template with double sided tape. Pro tip: don’t buy actual double sided tape. Buy carpet tape. It’s double sided but much less expensive.

Once I reached the end of my bit, so I took off the top layer template and then repeated the process, cutting down further.

On this piece of maple I had a few mistakes.

So I switched over to another board. I use this template to do the profile…

… and then I switch over to this template to carve out the pocket on the inside.

Now, to trim the waste material away, you can do a few different things. I trimmed mine up at the bandsaw and then ran the bottom over the jointer to remove that additional 1/8th inch bottom layer. However, after trimming it up at the bandsaw, you could also use a flush trim bit to remove the waste as well.

I have a CNC, so I could have easily made these there. But I really wanted to build some by hand so I could show you how to build a custom parts tray yourself. Even though some of these are much less perfect than a CNC cut, I really love the character they have and I enjoyed the process.

If you’d like these custom parts trays, I do have these three shapes available here!

Hopefully you guys found this one useful. I’ll see you on whatever I’m building next.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

Bought your own Armor Tool Workbench? Check out this project where I show you exactly how I customized mine with major upgrades!

It’s been a few years since I started incorporating the Armor Tools Mobile Workbench into my workflow. And I absolutely love it because it’s very sturdy and has wonderful mobility.

However, when I roll it into the center of my shop for a specific project, I need a lot of tools and accessories. So what ends up happening is the top gets cluttered and then I have less space to actually work. So, this week I took the Armor Workbench and personalized it a little bit to hold all of the accessories I need to actually build on it.

Armor Workbench Upgrade Plans

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These accessories include a few drawers for tucking things away (such as safety glasses and tape measures), a bottom shelf that can store the tools as well as the Armor Tools Self Adjusting Clamps. Also some Bessey Quick Clamp storage, which I always have different sizes on hand, a few extra batteries, two drill holsters, two speed squares, a mallet, a sanding block, hardware storage and of course wood glue.

Be sure and watch the video above for an even more detailed tutorial.

Things I Used In This Armor Tool Workbench Project:

• Wilker Do’s Workbench Upgrade Plans here!
• All of my other Wilker Do’s DIY Plans!
• ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
• Armor Tool Mobile Workbench
• Armor Tool Dog Clamps
• Armor Tool Pocket Hole Jig
• Battery Stealth Mounts
• Wilker Do’s Mallet
• Titebond Quick and Thick
• Titebond Original
• Bessey Clamps
• Pin Nailer
• Rockler Glue Brushes
• Rockler Lock-Align Drawer System
• Jigsaw
• Spindle Sander
• Wilker Do’s DIY Miter Saw Stand

You can see that on my current workbench, I already added a bottom shelf of plywood for extra storage.

However, by changing the plywood to the bottom, I’m creating a built in shelf by having the stretchers create side walls. I only want to use half of this, though, as a regular shelf. The other half will store the bench dog clamps.

I found that the easiest way to do this was to drill holes for the stems of the clamps to stab into. Since the top of the bench conveniently already has a hole pattern already laid out, I came up with a few jigs to place the shelf piece on the top so I could go through the underside and transfer the hole locations.

I used a forstner bit of the same size to punch through.

Once I was done drilling all the holes, I clamped it to the underside of the shelf and screwed it into place. Now I have plenty of space to store these dog clamps.

I then moved to the side of the workbench. It’s worth noting that I’m just using scrap wood for this project. This is a great one to use up your scrap ply bits that you haven’t thrown away.

I cut a piece of 3/4″ ply to size and filled in the sides by screwing it in. I wanted a place on this side to store my longer Bessey Quick Clamps. And I actually used two Bessey Clamps to clamp on the block of wood. If you line up the jaws of the clamps to your piece of wood, you can use that reference on the back side and know where to drill your screws in.

This now gives me a simple shelf to store my Bessey Clamps, which I always have on hand.

Moving above that, I incorporated some spare battery storage.

I’m in love with this new product called Stealth Mounts. They’re holders for batteries.

They don’t charge the batteries, but they organize them and give you a place to clip the batteries so they don’t fall off and get damaged. I now have these all over my shop. So when I’m working and my battery goes dead, I can easily grab a new one.

I incorporated a few of the brands I use most often. They’re simple to use with just three screws each and then the battery clips right into place. The clips even have a feature that clips right on to a tool belt.

I screwed this right into the side of my workbench.

Ok, speed square holsters!

I love having a square on the end of my bench, always available. I used glue and brad nails to build the holsters, and then clamped them on to my workbench and then pre-drilled and used a few screws to attach them.

Now on to the front.

I thought a shallow drawer would be nice to hold things like tape measures, safety glasses, pencils, glue brushes, etc. So I incorporated one on the top right. However, once I filled the drawer full of stuff, it hit the dog clamps when they were in place.

To avoid this, you can scrap the drawer idea… OR you can pull the drawer out before utilizing the dog clamps on the top. I personally would much rather have the drawer to help organize and store little things.

I’m using the Lock-Align Drawer Organization System from Rockler. This is a flexible system for any drawer in the shop. They make a lot of trays for miscellaneous items, and dividers for those trays.

If you’d like to build the drawer, it’s very simple construction with wood glue and and brad nails. Then I made a T that would go up and under the workbench and rest on the rails of that apron.

After getting it to width, I attached some sliders to insert the drawer. I then came back and made the face to it would cover the front.

On the other side, I repeated and cut ply to enclose the side. I wanted to utilize this side to store my two drills, which I always have around me.

I used a jigsaw to cut out two U shapes, and then my spindle sander to refine the edges.

You can see on this side that I have a cut-out made custom for the length of my drills. To attach it, I used wood glue and screws along the back.

Now I have two places where I can quickly store and grab the drills.

I decided to utilize the bottom space for storing wood glue bottles. I made a simple caddy that can store the round and rectangular bottles.

Next, I added some hardware for a simple mallet holder.

Next up, a sanding block. I grabbed a scrap piece of wood and drilled in a few pockets holes, using my Armor Tools Self Adjusting Pocket Hole jig. And then attached it right next to my drill holder. And this just gives me a simple shelf for my sanding block to be placed.

Now moving on to a bottom drawer. I’d recommend adding this at the beginning so you don’t have to crawl underneath later on.

After drilling a few pocket holes, I used screws and attached it to the underside. On this one, I didn’t want to attach sliders but instead just make a shelf for the drawer to slide on.

This is also just half of the drawer, because on the back side, I really wanted to incorporate some hardware storage. Last year I made hardware storage for these little plastic containers that fit within the studs of my interior wall. When doing projects, I always have a few of them on the workbench.

So I utilized this bottom space for some of the plastic bins. It’s a very simple shelving system. I know a lot of you wouldn’t want them at the very bottom where you can’t see them. But keep in mind that you can move this system anywhere.

The very last thing I wanted to incorporate was more clamp storage for the smaller size of Bessey clamps. I created another divider wall and attached a chunk of wood to the bottom to create a lip and attached that to the workbench.

Now my longer clamps can be stored along the side, and my shorter clamps all along the back.

And that’s it!

With the extra weight I’ve added, this thing still moves and rolls effortlessly. I can easily move it around and nothing falls off.

Keep in mind that these add ons can be placed almost anywhere. I have a lot of these features on my plywood workbench and other places that are not workbenches around my shop. So don’t think that you can’t utilize these solutions if you do not own this workbench. BUT, I do find this workbench super handy and useful. I actually own two.

Don’t forget that I do have a set of free armor workbench upgrade plans here for all for all of the add-ons if you are interested!!

Armor Workbench Upgrade Plans

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I’ll see you guys on the next project.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

Want an exclusive first time shop tour with me? Check out this video where I tour your around my new and upgraded workshop for the first time!

I build this shop in 2018, so it has been almost 2 full years since I’ve broken ground on it. I have yet to do a shop tour!

Also, big exciting news in my business realm is that I just bought a new, local commercial building. So big changes are going to be happening in my personal shop and I’m going to be moving some of the equipment into the new one. Before that happens, I really wanted to show what the current scene looks like. So! For the first time ever…. Welcome into my shop. Let’s do a shop tour!

Click the link above, or watch the tour HERE

Things I Used In This First Time Shop Tour Project:

• ClearVue (Use “wilkerdos” at checkout to get 5% off your purchase)
• ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
• Wilker Do’s DIY Clamp Rack
• Wilker Do’s DIY Folding Table Saw Table
• Armor Workbench
• SawStop Saws
• Wilker Do’s DIY Ultimate Plywood Workbench
• Wilker Do’s DIY Workbench Modifications
• Rockler Downdraft Table
• Wilker Do’s DIY Rolling Lumber Rack
• Wilker Do’s DIY Sawhorse Plans

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

Thinking about building your own DIY saw horses? Check out this project where I build a variety of saw horses and walk you through each build step by step with plans!

Sawhorses! So simple, but extremely useful. In this video I’m going to show you three different types that are all very quick, easy and cheap to put together. While all three can be used as a standard saw horse, they are all three made with a slightly different purpose in mind.

Things I Used In This DIY Saw Horses Project:

• ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
• Wilker Do’s DIY Plywood Workbench
• Wilker Do’s DIY Miter Saw Stand
• Triton Thickness Planer
• Armor Tool Workbench
• Armor Tool Clamps
• Triton Router Table
• Infinity Round Over Bit
• Infinity Chamfer Bit
• Infinity Flush Trim Bit
• Triton Palm ROS
• Walnut Push Stick
• Titebond Original
• Titebond Quick and Thick
• Titebond Instant Bond
• Bessey Trigger Clamps
• Triton Tracksaw
• Triton Spindle Sander
• Triton Router
• Wilker Do’s DIY Mobile Planer Stand
• Triton Jigsaw
• Triton 4″ Belt Sander
• Triton SuperJaws

Let’s go ahead and get into the first design which is a folding sawhorse. 

I love this one for the shop environment because once I’m done with them, I love to fold them away and store them on the wall. I placed a handle in the top board to make it easy to carry when it’s deployed or folded, then it also has a folding trey at the bottom to set tools or boxes of hardware on while working. 

This design takes just a few 2x4s and a scrap piece of plywood for the tray.

If you’re interested in Sawhorse DIY Plans for any of these, I do have them available here! 

Sawhorse Plans

$4.99 – $9.99

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After cutting all the legs and cross members, I used wood glue and brad nails to make up the two leg assemblies. If you are building these for a traveling job site and want the ability to tear them down between jobs, then skip the wood glue.

However, since I plan to always leave these together and use them in my shop, I applied Titebond Original to all the joints which really increases the overall sturdiness at the end of the build. If you skip the wood glue then use screws on these joints. However, since I’m using wood glue and it’s the true holding power, I used brad nails to clamp it until the glue cured.

Lets add on some hardware.

To make these guys foldable, I’m using a strap hinge at the top on both legs.

The main thing to pay attention to here is that both feet are flat on your work surface and that the barrel of the hinge is below surface level.

I’m using a straight edge to make sure the two top planes are in line with each other then using a pencil to mark the location of the holes. This way I can lay the saw horse on it’s side and open it up to access the inside to pre drill and mount the hinge. BTW: I’m not predrilling in cases like this to prevent splitting….it just makes running in the smaller screws easier. 

I was originally planning on leaving them like this, but I didn’t like how the legs didn’t automatically stop at their correct angle, or how there was nothing preventing them from slipping out completely.

So next came in the trey. For this I recommend using whatever thickness of plywood you have scrap of. I had some 3/4” but 1/2” would also work fine. After ripping it down at the table saw, I used a speed square to guide my jigsaw and cut out the corners which will go around the 2×4 legs. 

Next I changed the holding orientation in my SuperJaws so that I could attach a small front lip to the front edge. This lip will drop down over the bottom brace when the saw horses are deployed and not only make the legs stop at the correct angle every time, but also stop them from slipping open when you don’t want them to.

These are also attached with a small hinge.

Now lets add a top board that will not only expand the foot print for setting material on, but also give us material to clamp to and put in a way to carry it. 

For this board you only want to attach it to the base, on one side or the horses won’t be foldable any more. I recommend countersinking these so that the head is below surface and a passing blade won’t hit it.

Sawhorse Plans

$4.99 – $9.99

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To make a handle, I cheat and typically tear one off a cardboard 6 pack then trace it in the center. Once I punched a hole with a drill bit, I finished the cut with a jigsaw. 

And that’s it! Easy, cheap, but sturdy. You pick up the tray to start the folding action, then drop it to lock the legs into place. And you can see I actually did a jump test on these and they didn’t even budge. 

Moving on to design number 2. This is another folding option but in a different direction.

These can be used for holding regular stock material but where I feel like they thrive at is large sheet items since you can adjust the angle of each horse to be as wide or narrow as you need it. 

These are almost mostly made from 2x material but also has some scrap ply involved. Working off the cut list I made, I started by cutting all the parts needed for a pair. There are a lot of repeated lengths so I folded out the wings on my DIY miter saw stand, then used a Bessey clamp and a scrap piece of wood to create different stop blocks.

Next I adjusted the stop block to cut the sheet good down into squares. Since all these triangles are the same, I used a few pieces of tape to group them all together and cut them all at the same time at the bandsaw. These will be the gussets or braces for the connection at the feet to the legs. 

To assemble I stuck the leg and foot pieces in my super jaws, used Titebond Original again, then predrilled and attached with screws.

Next I repeated to add on the gusset. Again, if you will want to break down your horses in the future then skip the wood glue. But if you plan to leave them assembled, then add wood glue. 

Ok, and that’s the legs done….all six of them. So now to join them together. 

This is done with a 2×4 connecting two legs together but note how this member doesn’t attach to the same side on the legs, it is mounted on opposite sides. While holding the board flush, I would use a one handed Bessey clamp to hold it in place so that I could move to the other side and get it in it’s position as well. 

Now I could countersink and attach with screws. 

Next the third leg can be attached by way of a hinge. Again, the important thing to pay attention to here is to make sure the top surfaces are in line with one another.

Oh….and to make sure the hinge is facing the correct way to make the horses fold the right direction. : )

The last thing to do on these horses is to add a top plate to just widen the tops surface area. On these I did skip the wood glue so that when these get eaten up by blades, they can easily be replaced. Again, make sure to counter sink all the screws here. 

These will end up being the horses I pull out when I’m wanting to breakdown sheet goods. Since the angle can easily vary, it’s dead easy to support a wide board. It’s worth noting that these would always be great for a make shift work area. Throw a sheet good on top when needed, but then tuck away when work is over for the day.

Alrighty, then last one for this video is going to be a pretty standard fixed saw horse. This design has been around for ages but it’s a great one. These don’t fold, buuuuut they do stack. 

This one has a 2x top but then 1x legs and support pieces.

Again, plans for all three DIY Sawhorse Plans are available here if you want them!

I started off by cutting the ends of my 2x top over at the miter saw, then taking it to my table saw and ripping both edges. 

After cutting a corresponding miter on all four of the legs, I used some more Titebond and screws to attach them to the top.

This one doesn’t have a handle put in it, because the legs are set in slightly so that there is an overhang on both ends. This gives the user a very easy way to pick one up and move it.

While that feels good, the last thing to add are the gussets. I cheat when making stuff like this. I just held up a piece of board and traced both sides along the back. I used the miter saw to cut it to length and to this angle, then used glue and brad nails to attach it.

Ok and that finishes them off.

If you’re interested in building your own saw horses then I hope this has helped you out. Of course you can buy the light weight plastic or thin metal ones from the store, but the great thing about building the items you need is the ability to customize them for the task at hand. I love the ability to add in hinges, beef up the material, or make a set just as quickly as it would take to get to the store and back. 

Don’t forget that you can purchase plans from me for these DIY Saw Horses here!

Sawhorse Plans

$4.99 – $9.99

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Check out the build video for even more details. And let me know down in the comments which design is your favorite, or if you have another unique option you created for a certain task! 

And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about building a three legged shop stool? Check out this cool project where I worked with other woodworking folks to build a unique wooden stool!

This week’s video is something special and also unexpected for me. See, I went to Nashville TN recently for an event and was only supposed to be in and out. However, two of my girlfriends (Jenny Bower who is a custom engraver out of Michigan and Anne Briggs) were in Nashville for a chair making course with the amazing chair maker, Greg Pennington. I couldn’t extend my trip to stay the entire week like them, but I was able to stay one extra day in order to make a perch. 

I started by picking out the wood for the seat and the legs. Greg had a beautiful piece of Sassafras (ha I love that word). I’ve never heard of it before this project. Then walnut for the legs.

We started off at the lathe, turning the spindles for the legs and stretchers. I’ve only turned a handful of times so Greg gave me a run down by making one part then I tried my best to replicate it twice more. 

While I was working on my perch, Jenny was working on her build which was a continuous arm chair.

And Anne started hers, which is a miniature continuous arm chair.

Greg has a neat set up here (neat is actually an understatement). He has the best shop I’ve set foot in so far. It’s one of those spaces where you walk in and you don’t want to leave. He built the entire thing himself over the course of a summer by ordering a trailer full of trees, milling them up, and now he gives classes on building a wide variety of chairs.

Once I had my spindles turned I moved to the main work area and joined the ladies on the shave horses where I could start adding facets to my spindles.

One chair I absolutely loved in Greg’s shop is called the Democrat chair.

It caught my eye because instead of smooth turned surfaces, every part was faceted and the overall competed look is stunning in my opinion.

So I asked Greg if we could do the perch with a Democrated twist. This meant taking each spindle and cutting in 8 flat sides on them with a spokeshave. 

With those done, next I moved on to the seat…… the Sassafras seat. We first started out by drilling holes that the legs will later be inserted into. And this is so cool! These holes are drilled at a compound angle and Greg has come up with this genius way of making sure the drill is cocked correctly where he made two stands that holds lasers.

The lasers can be set to the needed angles, then once lined up to the hole properly, it creates crosshairs which you can watch as you are punching the hole. Tell me that’s not cool. 

With the holes drilled, Greg showed me another cool tool that cuts the end of the tenon on the spindle to be the exact size and angle needed for the hole in the seat.

It’s basically an oversize pencil sharpener.

Then it was back inside to ream out the drilled holes in the seat to be the perfect angle and size as well. This is done with the two laser set up again so you know you’re maintaining the right compound angle. 

Next was to start carving the seat which was my favorite part of the entire process. It’s just so neat watching the shape take place. My love for sassafras did wane a tad bit here because it turns out, even green, it’s pretty darn hard. So I was really giving my forearms a workout.

I used a large assortment of Greg’s tools, a lot of them for the first time, and slowly but surely started getting a seat shape.

I honestly didn’t mind the time it took though. I was not only enjoying learning all the new tools and technique from Greg, but also the constant chatting and laughing with Anne and Jenny as they were making progress on their own chairs.

Thats the great thing about making things with only handtools, we can all work in the same room but also be talking.

Jenny was on the same bench as me, working on her own seat and doing great. Especially considering this was a little bit outside of her comfort zone as she focuses on being an engraver and not a woodworker. As I mentioned earlier, she is a fabulous hand engraver who takes all sorts of custom items and puts them on a new level with her artwork.

In fact, she did a hand plane for Greg and actually got to use it during the making of her own chair. 

Then Anne. Her miniature is so fun. You might think it’s less work because of it’s size but it isn’t. All the same steps are still required, it’s just at a different scale. If you don’t know, Anne has a farm and a ton of animals and she can’t wait to put one of her baby rabbits in her adorable chair, although I personally think a chicken would also be cute. 

I’ll tell you this much, whether you’re as experienced as Anne, intermediate like me, or sort of new like Jenny, this is a wonderful class to take and shop to be in. Greg teaches people from the ground up if needed and checks in to make sure you will come away with a treasure. It was not only relaxing and so fun but I was learning things left and right, little tricks that to me are little gold nuggets. 

Ok with the seat done, I was apparently on to drilling holes in the legs for the stretchers. Little bit of a nerve wracking step, hence my look of concentration…but it went off without a hitch. 

When it came time to drill the hole in the spindle, Greg set up this really genius jig to hold the spindle, as well as utilize mirrors to make sure the drill was going in straight. That man is so awesome. 

So now it was time for assembly but I had about two hours before I had to jet off to the airport and fly back to Texas. So Greg suggested we only glue up two legs to a stretcher, dry fit the rest, and that way I could flat pack it enough for me to carry on the plane. So that’s what we did.

I applied hide glue, which is able to be cleaned up with water but is also reversible should you ever need to take the piece of furniture apart and repair it or refinish it.

Then everything else was a simple dry fit.

This allowed us to not only see the stool complete but also allowed me to cut in the wedge slots in each one of the tenons, as well as level out the feet. Which meant finding a flat surface, marking each leg, and trimming off the excess. 

Ahhh, and now that it was as done as it could get, we all took turns sitting in it. : ) 

Greg helped me wrap up my parts to be a flat packed, then I tucked it under my arm and went off to the airport. If you want an interesting conversation starter, tote a stool around the airport. TSA and the flight attendants had a few questions for me, but there were no problems with getting it back home.

Once there, I was able to unpackaged it then glue the wedges into the top of the legs.

This is interesting to me, because the leg itself isn’t glued into the hole, that’s just a really nice snug fit. This wedge is actually the holding power. When driven in, it spreads the tenon out to expand in the hole even further and keep it in place. After letting the glue set up for a bit, I came back to trim the excess off flush with the seat. 

Last thing: applying a finish. Lets start with the walnut because watching it come to life is always the best.

Alright and now Sassafras. For a blonde wood, it sure is pretty. It has an interesting smell to it too….carving it, I was having trouble putting a name to the smell but Greg nailed it when he said Spicy…..it smells spicy. Whew, I love that combination with Walnut. What do y’all think? 

I plan to keep it as a shop stool. I love it so much, I’m thinking I need to start a hand tool collection so that I can make a few more. There was something so satisfying and relaxing cutting in the facets on the spindles and also carving out that seat. I would also like to run through the process again before I forget everything I learned. 

Jenny does not make videos but you can find her and her work over on Instagram. Engravers are even more of an endangered species than woodworkers so go support her if you need something amazing engraved.

Anne obviously makes YouTube videos and actually published one on her experience so check out her channel for that. 

If you have been wanting to learn how to make a chair but find the process intimidating, I can’t recommend Greg’s classes enough. He is a phenomenal person and an outstanding teacher. I’ve linked to his upcoming class schedule HERE for you to check out. 

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

That’s it for this one, I’ll see you soon!

Thinking about building your own best push stick ever? Check out this DIY push stick that I made for my woodshop! Lets talk push sticks!

Let me start by saying I named this video/project based off the original Jay Bates video that I watched back in 2014 when I was looking for a push stick design for resawing.

The first time I resawed was on a table saw and I made this push stick specifically for the task. But it quickly turned into my go to push stick ever since.

I love it’s wide body for stability on top, the long footprint so it’s easy to apply downward pressure as well as forward, and the fact that it’s sacrificial so I can run it right through the blade if I’m cutting something thin.

Push Stick Caddy For Table Saw Plans

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The whole point on making it out of pine was so it could be cut down when the bottom got too chewed up or just toss it and make another, but I’ve never once bothered. 

Now I love this push stick but one thing about it that is a negative is the one length tail stock.

The tail is held on with two screws and is also intended to be sacrificial and replaced when it gets too chewed up. I left a good amount of over hang on the bottom of mine to ensure a good grip on my resewing piece. However, when I switch to cutting anything thinner, the back end of the push stick will still catch it, but the back end is up off the tablesaw deck.

This got me thinking of a way to make an adjustable tailstock pushstick. This way I can quickly switch from cutting 3/4” material and have full support, down to 1/8” material and still have full support.

Let me show you the design process. 

I started off with a chunk of 2×6 and laid out my lines to cut. Oh I also added in a second handle. I like the idea of having a push stick that can be used at the table saw or jointer. And for me, I want the location to be in different places depending on which tool I’m at. 

I cut my board to length so I could have access to the end where the tail stock would be placed. I stuck it in my SuperJaws to set up and drill a hole. I wanted this hole to be really straight but since it wouldn’t fit in my drill press, I used a hand drill.

A trick to get a straight hole though, is to drill a hole in a scrap piece of wood over at the drill press (so you know it’s straight), then clamp this drill guide on top of the piece you want a hole in. This will give your drill bit over an inch of straight hole and keep you from going off track.

You can see I used a piece of masking tape on my bit to mark the depth the hole needed to be. My first approach was to glue in a nut that would be recessed in the body of the push stick. Then thread a bolt through the tailstock and into this nut.

However, before putting metal in the body, I first wanted to cut in the dado that will allow the tailstock to move up and down. I also wanted to do it before cutting out the body shape so I would have a larger flat surface to move over the router table and make this cut. 

For the mean time, I set the body aside and started fabricating the tail. I first needed to get a slot cut in that would slip over a bolt and let it slide up and down. Since this slot needs to be straight, I quickly made a jig (just made from scraps) that would hug the piece of material I would use for the tailstock, and that I could place on my drill press table.

I used a square to line this jig up squarely to the table, then made a series of holes to create my slot. I was pretty precise on the start and stop of this slot as I wanted it to dictate the max of 3/4” overhang, down to 1/8” but not let you exceed either limit. 

Now to take away some of this outer material and create a tenon to fit the dado of the body. 

My straight bit in the router table was still set up to the same height from cutting the dado so I used it to take away the side material. It’s worth noting that I left my piece long just to give myself more material to hold onto during this step. 

Annnnd here is the finished tailstock.

Now, lets combine the two.

First was to glue the nut in the hole I drilled earlier. To do this I used some Titebond II which does an excellent job at attaching metal to wood. I threaded the nut on the bolt while doing this to not only give an easy way to drop it in, but to also protect the threads from getting glue on them. 

Once that was dry, then I worked on getting the rest of the body into shape. First using a bandsaw to cut the profile’s straight lines out, then clamping my 4” Belt Sander upside down to my workbench (I love that feature). I rolled my dust collection cart over then started not only trueing up the straight edges I just cut, but also adding in a few nice curves here and there to soften the look. 

To cut the handles, I hogged away most of the material with a forstner bit at the drill press, then used my Spindle Sander to clean up the rest. 

Now keep in mind folks, this is a push stick. You can knock one of these out in under 10 mins. You don’t neeeeeed all these extra bells and whistles, but I was enjoying myself and wanted to shine her up. 

By this time the glue was dry so I attached the tail stock to the body and here was where I realized my mistake on gluing in the nut.

The hex head is not easy to grab onto to twist and a must have for this design feature is it must be quick and easy to use or its worthless as I wouldn’t use it. 

So onto prototype two! Since I was making changes, I decided to combine the two handles and save on some space.

I thought the first push stick came out too tall, very a little unstable and clunky. By joining the two into one, I was able to shave some height off the overall design. I did everything else the same, except this time I glued the head of a bolt in the hole so that once I placed on the tailstock, I could use a wing nut to tighten and loosen. And this worked so so well. I was really pleased with it.

However…..I was still enjoying myself and having fun with the process so I repeated everything again but this time…. made it from walnut : )

Now I already know it’s coming….. lots are going to point out that metal shouldn’t be anywhere near a SawStop.

If you aren’t familiar with the brand, SawStop of course is the only saw not the market that has flesh sensing technology so if your finger or hand comes in contact with the blade, it will do three things: Kill power, retract the saw down into the body, and also discharge a break to immediately stop the blade from rotating further and mangling you.

I’ve been running a SawStop since 2014, I’ve also been using this pushstick, with metal screws in the tail stock for that duration and have never had an issue with it.

When you’re setting the height of the blade, you’re only suppose to have about a tooth height above the thickness of material. So if you’re setting up properly then you should never have issues….buuuut, lets air on the side of caution shall we?

For my third and final version of this push stick, I ordered some plastic hardware to use in my creation. I did everything else the same, but this time glued in the plastic bolt, and use a plastic wing nut on the outside. 

And you can see, I can very quickly go from 3/4” material, down to something thinner. I don’t have to measure, I just have to slightly loosen, set the push stick on my stock, push the tail down so it adjust, then tighten. 

I bet many of you will suggest using a spring so it will auto adjust for you. I thought about this option but many cuts start with the back of the push stick off the table and I personally think it would be a pain to stop the push every time this happens, to bring the stick up, to just compress it back down. But hey, this is fun so I encourage you to play around and see what you think. 

Since I got all fancy, I took things a bit further by throwing a round over bit in my table and softening the feel and look, then even propping the finish push stick up to throw a coat of finish on it. Not that it will protect it, because yeah saw blade wins, but just to see that beautiful grain pop. : ) 

I was going to stop there! But while on a trip, my friend Erik showed me how to make a sliding dovetail.

You might consider adding a sliding dovetail along the bottom so that you can add a sacrificial piece of material that can be removed whenever it gets chewed up. And this would keep the body cut free.

Then since, I was looking at my push stick collection. I decided to quickly make a push stick caddy that rides along the fence on my SawStop.

I saw this on a friends Instagram and thought it was such a clever idea to keep the push sticks off the fence and wing area and instead organize them so they can easily be reached for, used, then put back. 

I used some 3/4” and 1/2” scraps I had in my bin to make a bottom and a few side walls. I spaced these apart for my specific collection of push sticks so while I do have a free download of this on my website, I would measure your collection and make changes. To avoid using brand nails or bringing out clamps, I used the quick setting Thick and Quick from Titebond to attach everything to the bottom sheet. 

On the side wall that will be up against the fence, you want to make this higher than the other sides. That way when you attach the piece that connects the fence runner to this side wall, the caddy can sit flush to the table saw deck but also butt up underneath it to be attached.

I cut in a simple pocket on this top piece as well, just to give it some function. A pencil can be placed here without it rolling off into the blade or work area. 

This caddy is removable, so if you need to take it off then no problems there, but it mostly will just act as a little sidecar on the fence and go wherever it goes. : ) Simple but great in my opinion. 

And that’s it for the push stick and the push stick caddy! Check out Jay Bates video here to see the excellent points he makes on how he originally came up with this long nosed, wide footprint push stick.

You can also find the free download to the push stick caddy plans here.

Push Stick Caddy For Table Saw Plans

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That’s it for this one! I’ll see you on whatever I’m building next.

Things I Used In This Best Push Stick Ever Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Triton SuperJaws
Wilker do’s Miter Saw Stand
Miter Saw
Bessey F Style Clamps
Titebond II Woodglue
Triton Workcenter
Infinity Straight Bit
Infinity Set Up Blocks
Wilker Do’s Dust Collection Cart
Triton 4″ Belt Sander
Triton Spindle Sander
Armor Tool Mobile Workbench
Titebond Thick and Quick
Wilker Do’s Push Stick Caddy Plans

One of my favorite and most used shop builds is my Mobile Miter Saw Stand. I built this in February of 2014! It was one of the first things I built for my old shop and it’s still working for me! The best part about this DIY is it’s mobile so it can move just as much as I do! It has foldable wings that don’t interfere with the deck when they’re down but do help support longer joints when up. I built a large bin to quickly toss in cut offs to get rid of and a shelf to just as quickly place cut offs that are worth keeping. It’s so versatile and makes all my projects a breeze.

The only downside to my current saw is I can’t rotate it to a full 45 degrees without the back bumping into the frame of the stand. I’ve been just dealing with it up until now, but I’ve finally had enough and have decided to remake the stand. I thought about going to a more stationary unit but decided against it. I love my stand being mobile as I often move it around, and I love having the ability to expand or collapse it’s footprint as needed.

Material I Used to Make the Mobile Miter Saw Stand:

• Miter Saw
• Track Saw
• Wood
• Wood Glue
• Hinges
• Nails
• Clamps
• Mobile Miter Saw Stand Plans

Step 1: Cutting out the pieces for the Mobile Miter Saw Stand

I started by using my track saw to cut down two sheets of plywood into the different pieces needed. Almost all the pieces are a rectangle so this goes pretty quickly. The only slightly odd shaped parts are the two wing supports. When cutting these, I joined both together and cut out one large rectangle to start. This way I could just make a diagonal cut and have two pieces.

Next I quickly taped the two parts together before taking them to the bandsaw and cutting out that top notch. Be sure to use the fence when making long straight cuts like this. Then shove it out of the way to freehand and finish it. Now I have two identical parts. 

Step 2: Assembling the pieces of the Mobile Miter Saw Stand

Moving onto assembly. I’m using my Armor Tool jig to create pocket holes in three pieces that will be the shelves. I first set up the jig with a piece of my material in it’s jaws to adjust the depth of the drilling block, and the collar on the bit. You can use 2x4s as side supports for wider pieces like this. 

After drilling in the rest of the pocket holes on the other shelves I brought out my Rockler Clamp It Square Jigs to help assemble things together. These jigs make quick work of assembling a box and making sure it goes together at a 90 degree angle. 

Material Tip:

You’ll notice I’m using two different types of plywood. I was using what I had on hand which was one sheet of red oak veneer ply and one construction grade ply. I arranged the parts so all the visible pieces were cut from the nicer ply and the more hidden ones from the construction grade.

Step 3: Making the Mobile Miter Saw Stand Actually Mobile!

When I was done attaching the bottom, I went ahead and attached four casters. I make almost everything I build in the shop mobile but this stand gets moved the most, by far. Even if you skip casters on your other builds, I recommend not skipping them on this one. 

Step 4: Adding a Shelf to the Mobile Miter Saw Stand

To put in the top shelf, I flipped the unit on it’s head then placed in two spacers to act as a ledge. If you’re following along with the video, you’ll notice I’m placing the shelves with the pocket holes down. This way you won’t see them when the unit is complete. Also, if you get a set of mobile miter saw stand build plans and have a different saw you’ll just need to measure from a flat surface up to the deck of your saw to figure out where to place this shelf. 

I repeated with new spacers to place the shelf. If you wanted to change up your stand so it was all shelves you could carry on with this process until the space was filled. 

Step 5: Preparing to Give the Mobile Miter Saw Stand Wings

Lets go ahead and keep things upside down for a second. It will just make attaching the next pieces easier. These parts will be what the wings will be hinged onto later on. Since they need to be flushed to the top of the sides, I could use some glue (in this case I’m using Titebond Original) then only worry about lining it up flush to the front. With that the body is done, I could move the entire thing down to the ground and start attaching the wings.

Step 6: Attaching Wings to the Mobile Miter Saw Stand

To do this I first cut to size a piano hinge to fit the fold up wings. You can make quick work of this if you use a reciprocating saw but a hack saw will work as well. I used my SuperJaws to hold onto the hinge as I cut it. To make sure it was lined up in the proper place I used two Bessey quick clamps to clamp down a scrap board to the top of my wing.

Since piano hinge screws are so small and hard to get started, I used a small pre drill before driving in the screws. If you use the stock screws that come with the hinge, I recommend driving them in by hand as they are incredibly easy to over tighten and strip out. 

Step 7: Setting the Wings in Place

Next, I repeated the process by setting the wing in place and attaching the other side of the hinge to the built out piece I attached in the last step. I suppose I could have made things easier on myself by leaving the unit upside down on my workbench. That’s a tip to make your build easier, if you tackle this one. Alright then after repeating on the other side you can see I have two foldable wings. Now to add the supports to keep them open. 

Step 8: Installing Support for the Mobile Miter Saw Stand Wings

I cut yet another two strips of hinge to length, then stuck one wing support at a time in my SuperJaws to attach. I went ahead and upgraded the screws used here to something a little more heavy duty than the stock screws. Oh, with the wings being directional I made sure I was attaching the hinge in the correct orientation so that it would fold correctly when opened and closed. 

With the body on it’s head and both wings opened up, I started by setting one wing support into place and lining it up. It’s important to attach this hinge on at a true 90 degree angle so that when it swings out to support the wing it will hold it up level. After predrilling the holes in the hinge on the opposite side, I also used the beefier screws to attach it to the body of the stand. 

Step 9: Attaching a Stop for the Wings

Next I attached a stop. I first positioned the wing so that it would provide the most support to the center of the area where a board would be laid across, took a few measurements to get the other wing in the same position, then cut a small block from some thin scrap I had in my bin. I didn’t want to use nails or screws to attach it so I applied some quick setting glue called Thick and Quick.

Glue tip:

I love this stuff, it’s from Titebond so it’s quality but you just need to apply pressure for about 60 seconds before moving on. 

I typically fold the wings up from the front but I’m trying to stay out of your way so you can see. Wing goes up, support comes out, stops against the block on the underside then it’s ready to use but when you’re done one or both can be flipped back down and you’re back to a small footprint for storage or even general use. 

Step 10: Turning the Cubby Into Storage Space

In the bottom most cubby, you could use this space to store a shop vac however, I love having a place to toss the cut offs that I’ll be trashing so I stuck with making a bin. It’s simple construction for the box but I did cut in a handle on both the front and back pieces as well as a lower profile to make tossing items in easier.

This is great for keeping the work area clean, as you’re getting rid of waste as soon as you create it, but I also very frequently root through here when needing material to cut spacers from. 

Step 11: Applying Finish to the Mobile Miter Saw Stand

Alright one last step! I took the time to quickly coat the wings as well as the top shelf with a clear coat. I’m getting in the habit of applying this to all my unfinished shop furniture to give it a coat of protection. Just incase a drink gets set down on it or something spills. This finish makes it very easy to wipe off and clean. 

Conclusion

That’s it for the build portion. This is easily a day build so if you’ve been needing a better mobile miter saw stand solution, I encourage you to take it on. You can see that by rebuilding the body, I not only cut down on the footprint of the entire unit but also gave the saw the room it needed to wag it’s tail freely. 

And that’s the end of this build. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think about my stand! I hope you enjoyed it and don’t forget you can get a set of plans here.

I’ll see you on my next build! 

Things I Used in This Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Miter saw
Track saw
Band saw
Pocket Hole Jig
Corner Clamping Jig
Casters
Wood Glue
Piano hinges
Super jaws
Bessey Clamps
Titebond Thick & Quick
General Finishes High Performance
18 Gauge Brad Nailer

Thinking about building wood projects with CNC? Check out this CNC Projects How To where I walk you through my process when using CNC to build!

A few months ago I got a 4×8 Laguna CNC machine for the shop. Since then, I’ve been having so much fun learning the world of CNC, its abilities, and doing tons of projects with it. In this video I want to tell you a bit about my experience, on being a new CNC operator, and also show you 7 different projects I’ve done on it. So, lets start at moving it in.

(If you’d like to see a list of everything I used in this video, be sure to scroll all the way to the end)

This is Laguna’s Swift machine and it is a vacuum bed. That means you can put the bed under suction and use vacuum to hold the material in place. It’s pretty cool. It shows up pre assembled and wrapped up tight.

I did have to rent a piece of equipment to get it off the truck, and boy was it scary watching it slowly creep through the air to get to the porch! Once there, I unpackaged everything I could, then moved it into a corner of my shop. 

Then for the past two years or so, I’ve been using an Iconic CNC to do some small production work. It’s a wonderful machine but I want to produce more than what it’s size will allow me to. That’s when I started looking into a 4×8. It is amazing to have the capacity to place an entire sheet of plywood on the bed, or even 8’ demential lumber. 

Now for those of you concerned about my videos changing because of this addition, don’t be. I will still be making videos building things by hand, like always. But when I want to repeat a build, make templates, or have an idea but it would take waaaay to long to do by hand…..then that’s when I’ll turn to the machine.

The first thing I decided to make was a simple shop stool.

At the time, this side of the shop was extremely bare so I spent 20 mins quickly modeling up something. Since I know SketchUp so well, I do all my modeling there to start. You could also do it in one of the other modeling softwares or even in VCarve. 

Once the parts are as I want them, I move and rotate them so they are on the same plane. I choose the standard camera setting to give me a direct top down perspective to the parts then turn on parallel projections under the camera setting (in this setting, instead of the lines all disappearing to a point on the horizon, they are all parallel in 3D and 2D….giving you a nice flat image). Now I can export it as a 2D graphic and choose .dxf file type.

Next I open up that .dxf in Vcarve, route the tool path for it, then cut it out. Then just like that, I have a very simple but functional stool. I really feel like CNCs are a modern day printer for thoughts. It was exciting and crazy to me as I assembled and sat on this first stool of mine – my butt was sitting on something tangible that was only a mere thought half hour before. I was so excited I didn’t bother going to the ground to do the assembly work. I just sat right onto of the bed.

My next stool was a taller design to populate seating in my woodworking shop. I actually have a video showing how to make it without a CNC and if you’re interested, you can find that here. I also have a free download for the spoke design if you want to make your own. I made one by hand then used the CNC to batch out the rest quickly. 

Then the third stool design I did was when Christmas rolled around. There were 14 nieces and nephews at Christmas this last year, so I cut a stool for each child and also cut their first initial in the top. I left them raw and took a bunch of paint. With everybody in old clothes, I spent the afternoon in the yard with the kids painting their stools. It was a huge hit, so if you have an event with youngins coming up, feel free to download the free .dxf file and show up with a special unique gift. 

Next project was a plywood dead blow mallet…..because why not.

I made this from quality baltic birch. I only had 1/2” on hand, so I made multiples of the parts to stack together and build up the thickness of the mallet. Oh and to show you how well the vacuum on the table works. This is Robert trying with all his weight to move the sheet after laying it down and turning the table on.

Then you can also see how well the vacuum holds these parts into place while they are being cut.

On these, the holes were placed to act as locators and keep these parts in line with one another as they are assembled. Then a pocket was cut in the head so I have a void to place BBs in and make it a deadblow. I used Titebond original on the different layers, smushed them together then inserted a dowel in place. I cut these long to start.

Then flipped it over and before attaching the other side the same way, I filled the pocket with BBs.

After setting those up in some Bessey quick clamps to dry, I did all the final sanding and rounding over by hand.

As you can see, the mallets have gotten a little more complex with text on both sides. I’ve made this a branded product of mine so if you would like one, click here

Project number 3 is a bottle cap display in the shape of the 50 states. It’s a simple project where a person can collect bottle caps from different beers then put them on display.

Sometimes moving around a full sheet of ply is difficult but I found that by placing my stack of sheet goods at the end of my CNC, I can simply slide a new sheet off the stack and onto the bed of the CNC.

I always check to see if there is a slight cup in the material when I lay it down. If so, I make sure to place it so that the cup is facing down. This way when he vacuum is turned on, it sucks the middle down. Since sheets typically have a prettier front than back, when I do this I make sure to take my designs and reverse the image in VCarve before cutting them out. 

When doing something like this job, I first go through and cut all those inside pockets throughout the entire sheet. Then come back and cut the profile.

On a job like this, even though I have a vacuum table, I go ahead and add tabs to the pieces because every hole I cut in allows air to escape and reducing the effectiveness of the vacuum. Sometimes it holds just fine, and other times the parts slips at the very end when the bit is making it’s final cut. Instead of wasting a part, I add tabs to make sure they all come out useable.

Here you can see a little better that the holes have a unique shape to then, they aren’t perfectly round. If they were, then slightly different sized bottle caps wouldn’t be able to fit. By having a hole that has about four grab points, it allows the caps to have a small variations in size but still be compressed into the state. They can simply be pushed in from the back by hand, or the cap can be set down then the state pushed over it. 

You can find the ones I’ve made here. If you get one, don’t try and fill it up in a single day…unless you have a party. Then it would be acceptable

Lets talk about dust collection for a second and a few mods I’ve done to improve things. First off, I’m using the Laguna CFLUX dust collector, which has this really awesome foot peddle to raise and lower the collection canister. It has three intakes ports where originally I only used one to run to the spindle. But I also wanted to use the collector to clean off the bed after each project.

I first added in a blast gate to the spindle line. Then I added in another blast gate to a second port.

I bought and attached another 4” flex hose that I then routed over to a 4” Rockler vac attachment. I think Rockler designed this to clean the shop floor or large workbench so it works perfectly for cleaning up the CNC bed quickly.

I threw two hangers on the wall to store it off the ground and close to the work area. Now I can close the vac off to the spindle, direct it only to this attachment and very quickly go over the entire bed before laying down a new sheet. This ensures that nothing is left behind to get under the material which of course would throw off the cuts.

Ok on to project 4: If you’ve been around a while you’ll probably remember my neighbors have lots of chickens, and I built them a massive coop!

If you don’t know, fresh farm eggs don’t have to be refrigerated so I made a countertop egg holder to hold a full 2 dozen eggs. This one cracks me up because of how cute it is…but better than being just cute it’s also functional! 

After designing it in SketchUp, then exporting it to VCarve, I cut it out.

Another tip for you on useful things to have around the machine….one is an extension cord. I personally installed a cord reel that can be pulled out to use then retracted when done.

Even though you can play with feed rates and rpms to get a nice cut, I still run over the parts quickly with my Palm ROS before removing them. Then when I use tabs, I use my Triton multi tool to cut them out. And just a tip: when you’re placing tabs, pick spots on the part that are nice and flat so you can cut them off flush and cut down post production clean up. 

On my first batch of chickens, the design is double sided meant for sitting on the countertop. You can see I did a slot design, where after painting each tray, it could be slipped right around the body of the the chicken and rest on two support pieces.

My mom flipped when she saw them but said she didn’t have any counter top room for one. She wanted one that hung on the wall instead. With that, the one sided chicken holder was born.

Since a slot is out of the question, with it not having a back, this one has a mortise and tenon design where the trays fit very snuggly into slots in the body of the chicken. Since they are such a good fit, I made sure to tape them off before painting. I’m kinda in love with the egg holders.

Lets switch off of wood for just a second with project 5. My main goal with the CNC is to do more production work behind the scenes, outside of my videos or maybe in conjunction with my videos. An example of that is when I built a porch swing. 

I made a video building it by hand and showing viewers how. But now I also sell the porch swing templates for people who are interested in speeding up the making process of their own single seater swing.

I think the making of these templates is so interesting. I first lay down a sheet of masonite, but really any flat sheet will do. Then, on top of that, I lay a sheet of styrene, which is just a plastic material. 

Now the cool part: I switch out the bit to something called a drag knife.

(don’t worry – the knife didn’t cut me. That’s paint : )

It looks like a small exatco knife honestly and when it runs, the spindle doesn’t turn like it does with every other bit. So instead of spinning and moving through the material to cut, it simply drags this blade along the tool path you dictate and rotates the blade so it’s always in a cutting direction.

Another thing, instead of cutting all the way through the material, it just pierces it. So that when a sheet is done you have to go through and bend/tear them out – carefully, because the material can stray and tear in the wrong place. It helps to first bend the pieces in, along their cut, then run your hand or nail along it to guide the tear.

This is a great method for making templates for projects that have unique shapes in them. The templates can be set on a piece of wood, traced, then set aside until needed again. 

Alright, project 6! Is back to wood and it’s making a growth chart ruler.

Now everything I’ve cut up to this point has been from sheet material. When I was figuring out how to make these, I decided to make a jig to hold 1x8s on the bed of my machine.

I started off with a sheet of 1/8” plywood, then cut some 3/4” ply scrap to different lengths and attached it with Titebond II. I would set a 1×8 in place, using a square to make sure it was sitting in there at a 90, then block it in with another scrap. In total, I was able to fit 6 1x8s. I transported the jig to the CNC and lined it up on the bed.

Of course dimensional lumber is not all the exact same size, so once in place I used some wedge material to fill in the small gaps if there were any, and direct the board off to the left of the space. I kept these wedges short so they wouldn’t interfere with the spindle. Now I could start the cut and watch as all six boards would be cut at the same time.

I have a special fondness for these rulers because I’ve made over 100 of these by hand when I first got into building. These rulers are what I made and sold to buy all my first tools and materials for the first year of projects. So if you want to make one, yes a CNC makes it quicker, but you can very easily do it with a router as well. In fact, I have a video already showing you how to go that route if you’re interested.

Ok last but not least! Project 7 is shop charts. This started off by me making a fraction to decimal conversion chart because getting into CNC, you use decimals over fractions and I got tired of always googling the conversions.

Although a tip for you if you work in vCarve….if you only know the fraction you can type that in then hit the = key and it will convert it for you. So I made this chart to hang by my CNC for quick reference. Then it snowballed, and I got carried away with making many others that would be helpful, or just fun to have around.  My second one was a Tap and Drill Size Chart because even though I have one hanging on my shop fridge it’s freakin tiny! You have to get this close to read it and I don’t have time for that. But I do have a machine where I can make a big enough chart to read at a glance!  

I’m using a variety of V bits for all of these and there was a huge learning curve on these because depending on the material and the size of font, determines what bit to use and how fast you can run it. I started off with a ton of blow out and had to do a lot of tests before diving into a new chart to determine the speed and also the depth to get the best results. 

My favorite chart is more of a fun one….it’s a custom Janka Scale. If you aren’t familiar Janka is the hardness scale for woods. The only problem is most charts out there have woods that I’ve never heard of, much less use. Soooo I created my own list of species that I thought the average woodworker would find useful.

On the rulers you saw that I spray painted the numbers then sanded off the overspray. Now they do make a product that you can first paint your piece of material, then mask it off before cutting in your engravings. I tried two different products while prototyping these charts and didn’t have much success with either.

So instead I would cut the charts, then spray paint the engravings, then using a foam roller I would come back and paint the background. And this actually came away with great looking results. Then it was just the difficult job of figuring out a good looking, but legible, color scheme. 

I know there is a big controversy around CNCs and whether you want to brand CNC as woodworking or not, it is most certainly within the nitche of Making and that is where my passion lies. I’m having a blast with it, there is so much to learn and I can’t wait to explore it more.

For even more detailed information, be sure and watch the video above. If you have a CNC, I would love to hear about your favorite project youre created on it so far.

Ok that’s it for this one! I’ll see you on the next project!

Things I Used In This CNC Projects How To Project:

Titebond Original Woodglue
Rockler 4″ Vac Attachment
4″ Flexhose
4″ Blastgates
Double Sided Egg Holders
Chicken Coop Videos
Extension Cord Reel
Triton Palm ROS
General Finishes Tuscan Red Paint
General Finishes Sunglow Paint
Porch Swing Templates
Drag Knife Bit
Growth Chart Video
Growth Chart Template
Armor Tool Mobile Workbench
Dust Collection Cart
Triton Large ROS
Rockler Dust Right Separator
Bottle Cap Displays
Small Shop Stool .DXF
Tall Shop Stool Video
Kids Stool .DXF
Plywood Mallets
Shop Charts

Wilker Do’s Patreon
Wilker Do’s Instagram
Wilker Do’s Facebook

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about Upgrading The Ultimate Workbench? Check out this DIY project where I show you the best ways you can easily improve your own workbench!

Let me catch you up incase you missed the first video on this build: It’s a 4×8 top with an overhang on all sides for clamping area. A speed square holder on every corner because honestly, where do they always disappear to? A giant middle cubby to store anything and everything, mostly tools in my case. A mallet holder. Plenty of screw box holders, and even more hardware storage bins that are on French cleats so they are removable or rearrangeable. Both sides have four drawers all along the bottom. Then the other end has a custom bench cookie dispenser, clamp storage for both squeeze clamps and quick clamps, then also plenty of tape storage. : ) It makes me laugh just how much crap I managed to store on this thing already. 

Ultimate Plywood Workbench Modifications

$4.99

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Things I Used In This Upgrading The Ultimate Workbench Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Bandy Clamps
Bessey Clamps
Armor Tool Pocket Hole Jig
Titebond Original Woodglue
Forstner Bit
Hand Screw Clamp
Hardware Storage Build Video
Hardware Storage Containers
Adjustable Feet
Rockler Bench Vise
Triton Thickness Planer
Triton Workcenter
Triton Palm ROS
Rockler Downdraft Panels
Triton Jigsaw
Rockler Bench Sweep
Wilker Do’s Dust Collection Cart
Wilker Do’s Mallet

The first modification was to flip the workbench on it’s back and add some more feet. As it is now, I haven’t experienced the bottom bowing but I do plan on adding cubbies next to this section which I bet would cause the bottom to bow. I quickly made up some simple little feet in the shape of an L. I first used my Armor Tool pocket hole jig to drill in some pocket holes on each set, then used glue and brad nails to attach the pieces into their L shape. Since this is an indoor project I’m using Titebond original wood glue for the entire build. 

The plan is to make these inside feet adjustable, because there is no way the concrete floor will be perfectly level. To do that, next I cut some small blocks that would fit inside my L pieces. I used a handscrew clamp to hold onto these securely while I used the drill press and a forester bit to drill a hole for my adjustable feet.

I used glue and brad nails to attach these into place, then found my pocket hole screws in my new hardware storage area and attached the feet to the center of each railing.

I used a piece of tape to hold each one in place while I tipped the workbench back over on its feet. Then I crawled underneath to not only remove the piece of tape, but to also thread down each foot so they were all touching the ground.

Ok support reinforcements are in, next was to add in some cubbies to break up the one big main cubby. The problem with having such a tall space is I typically have one row of tools on the shelf then everything above it is wasted. To combat that, I added in shelves….and I stuck with shelves over drawers because I love the high visibly and quick accessibility for this space. I just needed another tier. 

I started by cutting up some dividers and again using my Armor Tool jig to drill in some pocket holes. If you have this jig, don’t forget that a 2×4 is the perfect height for side supports when drilling in wide material. 

When attaching the dividers to the bench, I used what will be the shelving bottom as a spacer, then I made sure it was sitting in the cubby squarely before putting the screws. I didn’t use glue here incase I want to change up the size arrangement in the future. Its worth noting that I placed these directly in line with the feet I added in the previous step. 

Ultimate Plywood Workbench Modifications

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Next, to add a second layer of shelves, I cut and then attached some small rails. I used glue and my brad nailer for this. I also used a spacer to make getting the height the same on all of them. I personally made my bottom shelf higher than the top, but I recommend getting an idea on what you want to store here before determining the height of these. 

Next up was to cut the shelving bottoms to fit on top of these rails and in between the dividers.

If you want, you can make them permanent and nail them to the rails. However, I wanted mine to slide out so I wouldn’t have to squat or bend over to see what’s on there. To prevent things from falling off as I pull the shelf out, I cut then attached two side walls for each cubby.

Then on the front, I also cut and attached a piece that acts as not only a stop block to keep the shelf from just going back into the space, but also as a convenient hand pull for the shelf. 

To prevent the shelf from just falling out, I cut some strips and attached them directly up front and above the side walls of each shelf. Now I can pull each shelf almost all the way out without it falling. 

Now after I fill up the bottom space with tools, I’ll still have a second row of shelves to utilize the space. 

Moving on to adding a bench vise. I’ve always used my SuperJaws for anything vise related and it wasn’t until recently when I built a guitar in somebody else’s shop that I realized how useful having a dedicated vise was.

To add one on my workbench, I have to place it on one of the ends. I chose the side with my clamps and ended up moving the hand squeeze clamp storage to my lumber rack (since it’s still close). I first jointed an edge and a face on some maple I had, then ran the pieces through the thickness planer to get the second face flat. 

I’m using a workbench vise made by Rockler and on this one you just have to unscrew two Allen bolts on the back to disassemble it.

Now I could take the center section of the vise, transfer the hole location to my wooden piece, then use a forester bit and drill press to punch out the holes. These holes should be drilled slighter larger than the hardware so there aren’t any interference issues. 

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After drilling the holes, I test fitted it to make sure there weren’t any issues then I took it back off and quickly rounded over all the front edges at my Workcenter. I made sure to hit the two end grain surfaces first then the long grain after. This just gives you a better result. 

I attached the front vise plate to my wooden block using some tapered head bolts. 

Then built up the side area on my workbench that I would be attaching the vise. If you have a thick workbench top then you won’t need to do this, but since I only have a 3/4” top, I added two more 3/4” pieces here. Now could transfer the hole location to punch through the side of the bench, then attach that center vise section to the built up blocks. 

Last thing was to stab the hardware through the attached center section, then unpackage and attach the handle which comes in three parts. And now I have a working bench vise. 

Next modification was to make a down draft table. You typically see these as stand alone builds but I thought it would be cool to incorporate one directly into the top of my workbench. You sand on top of it, since it has a holy top surface, then add vacuum to the underside to pull and collect the dust.

I started by making the downdraft box itself. It’s a simple build with glue and brad nails joining the sides to the front and back, then adding that onto a bottom.

After that I glued and attached small rails to the inside, which will hold the panels. I’ll be using these premade panels from Rockler and if you make a stand alone table you mount these rails down 3/4” to make the panels flush with the top. However, I’m wanting the panels flush with the top of my workbench so I placed them flush with the top. This will make more sense shortly. 

I added a few more pieces of trim around the perimeter of my table and I don’t know if you can make it out in the footage, but half of this board is on the table and the other half is overhanging. Again, you’ll see why in just a few.

Next up, I quickly made up two pieces that would taper off the inside of the box. I used the table saw to cut two angles on either side of the board then used glue and nails to stick them in their place inside. This will direct the air and the dust to a more concentrated area to be collected by the vacuum when in use.

To cut the hole for the vacuum I grabbed something that was 4” in diameter, found center of the table, then used a jigsaw to cut it out. 

Alright, now to put it in place in the workbench. To make this easy, I placed the downdraft table exactly where it needed to go then traced around it. Next I used a straight edge and my jigsaw to cut this section out of my workbench top. Making sure to remove any screws that were in my path. 

After cutting it out, I dropped the table in place.

Now I planned all along to add a second sheet of ply to the top of the workbench to stiffen it up. Soooo I popped the down draft table out, set my new sheet in place…making sure the pretty side was facing up….lined the table back up (this time facing down), and traced around it once again. 

I cut this out, using a jigsaw, and set the table back in place. Now you can see that the top trim I placed earlier, which holds the table onto the workbench, is flush with the top sheet of ply.

So now when I’m using the table to sand a piece, I’ll have my surrounding workbench area to help support it. I can leave these panels in place or I can take them out, store them inside the table itself, and pop in a fitting piece of ply to convert the surface back to flat. 

Since I do a lot of sanding, I bought a dedicated shop vac just to keep on my bench under this table, ready to use. 

The last thing I added was a quick one….this is a bench dust sweep that can be added to the edge of any surface with just a few screws. I threw it on the other end of my workbench, which does cancel out some screw and hardware storage but since I now have a very large hardware storage area I didn’t mind the loss.

With this, I can attach a shop vac from my dust collection cart to the underside then sweep off my surface directly into it. There is a grate inside so it’s no problem if you sweep in a pencil or hardware. It even comes with side hooks to store a horsehair brush or other accessories on it. 

Ok, and with that done that wraps up my additions. I’ll use it as is for a while and see what I think about it. Remember as you’re building stuff for your space, that there is nothing wrong with building something basic to get you going then modifying it later. Being able to customize stuff to specific needs and whims is one of my favorite parts of being a builder.

If you want to build your own workbench, I have a set of ultimate workbench modification plans available! It has a full cut list shopping list, and all the dimensions. 

Ultimate DIY Workbench Plans

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Ultimate Plywood Workbench Modifications

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That’s it for this one. I’ll see you on whatever I am building next!

Wondering how to organize your hardware? Check out this DIY project where I show you how I build this in-wall hardware storage organizer!

In this video I’ll be tackling a project I’ve been wanting to do since building my shop….in the wall hardware storage. Now before you freak out on me in the comments, it’s important to note that this is an interior wall. It holds 157 containers, and was very simple to do. Lets get into how I did it. 

Things I Used In This Organize Your Hardware Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Wilker Do’s Dust Collection Cart
Track Saw
Plastic storage containers
Half Lap Jig
Armor Tools Workbench
Armor Tool Pocket Hole Jig
Brad Nailer
Titebond Thick & Quick
Bessey Classic Clamps

This is the dividing wall between my metal shop and my woodworking shop. I started by unscrewing two panels on the far right of it and moving the sheets out of the way. 

So my original plan was to rip both 4×8 sheets down the center, place the top half of the top sheet and the lower half of the bottom sheet back in place then have containers in between. This would allow all containers to be within my reach by standing on the ground. With that, I used my track saw and ripped down the boards in the middle. Then I went back to my wall and started clearing out spay foam insulation. 

As I said in the intro, this is an interior wall so I don’t mind giving up the insulation here.  

My intention was to build a shelving system, made from dados essentially, that would accept a plastic storage container I found that fit perfectly inside the wall.

Ok ok, lets build some dado shelves. ….dado shelves?….yeah I think that’s a fitting name.

To make these, I first started by grabbing my dado stack and placing 1/2” in my tablesaw. I’ll be using a Half Lap Jig made by Rockler to make sure I can get these repeatable cuts accurate in both spacing and size. The jig is intended to be used for single pass operations, buuuuut since dado stacks don’t go up to 1” (which is what I needed mine to be cut at), I did a test piece to figure out how to make it work for a two pass operation. 

I started by cutting in a rabbet on the end, then measuring over the distance I wanted between my containers and making a mark. I butted the edge of my rabbet up against the metal key then adjusted the fence over so my mark was in line with the blade. I pushed it through to make the cut, then moved the board over so this fresh dado was now sitting on the metal key. Then I continued the process. 

To make the second pass to enlarge the dado, I repeated the same process. I started with my rabbet, lining up the stack so it was just outside of that first pass. Once it was cut in, I pushed the inside edge up against the metal key then adjusted the fence on the jig so the stack lined up perfectly for my next cut. This locks in the spacing so now I could make a cut, then as long as I placed the inside edge up against the metal key, it would hit where I needed it to and enlarge the dado to 1”. 

Since I planned to do plenty more of these boards, I made two pencil marks on my fence to mark each location.  

When making the dados, I left my boards wide enough to create matching pairs of shelves. To get individual shelves, I used my track saw to split it down the middle. Doing it this way ensures they in fact match and the slots will line up with one another. 

I repeated the process because the studs being 16 on center is juuuust wide enough for two rows of containers. In fact, it is just a tad bit too wide. I did a mock up on my workbench before putting things together and I was short by exactly 1/2”. That’s an easy fix though. I cut a piece of 1/2” plywood down to the same size and stuck it in between the two inside shelves. There. Perfect fit. 

The outside shelves are simple enough to attach, as they go directly on the inside face of the studs. However, I did stick a counter sink bit in my drill and pre drill the placement holes. This way I could move my mobile workbench into place then easily attach the unit while holding it in position.

You’ll see that I started off quite small, that’s because I wanted to test that this would actually work before diving in. But so far so good I’d say. 

Moving on to attaching the center section. For this part I started off using pocket holes. I pulled out my Armor Tool Pocket Hole Jig and drilled in about four holes along this length. Remember that Armor made the height of the jig the same as a 2×4 so you can easily place supports under longer work pieces.

Once I drilled in the pocket holes, I did a few more countersunk holes then attached the dado shelves to the center filler piece of ply. I once again prepped by placing screws in the pockets before setting it into place, then adjusted the left and right position so the gap was equal on both containers. Woo Hoo!!! It’s working!

Alright, theory was proven, I felt like I had a working system so I continued on! This time I cut dados in larger sheets that would fill up the entire length of the bay. In fact, I used the half sheet I wouldn’t be placing back on the wall, to make up all my shelves which meant I didn’t have to buy any material for this project. 

I repeated the process to hang things, but this time after the first shelf went up, I used a level and a scrap piece of wood to make sure they were truly in line. 

You can see I just spanned across the distance with the wood, and placed the level on top. I did the same when it came time to install the center section but instead of using a piece of wood, I inserted two containers with the front lip poking out, and placed my level across their fronts.

On this one, my stud bay was slightly off 16” and I didn’t need the 1/2” spacer between my center shelves so I instead butted them back to back to one another. So be sure to measure each stud bay before making your components. 

So it was when I attached this second long center that I started rethinking my design. I was worried that a few pocket holes wasn’t going to be enough support once I had all of these containers filled. I ended up taking it down and making a flange for it instead. This is just a piece of ply that I made a few inches wider that the shelves and attached it directly to the back with screws. To make this easily I made a quick spacer. I used the spacer to not only align the shelves perfect center along the length of the flange but also as a guide on where to drill my holes and hit wood and not a dado. I also used a counter sink here to make sure the screws wouldn’t be proud of the back surface. 

This is important because next I placed the center section back into place, and used the flange to attach it to the wall. 

The next bay was exactly the same except I had a wire running down one of the studs. To compensate for this, I built some small stand offs on the back of one of the shelves This allowed me to straddle that wire so it wasn’t crushed or in the way, but I could still attach it to the inside face. Next I added in the center support then repeated the process for the last bay. 

Now, something I wish I would have done more of…adding in smaller containers. These look small, but are actually a very useful size, they come with handles that attach the lid, and are even colored where you can associate certain hardware to certain categories if you wanted to. Also, the box is a ready made shelf! I didn’t see the sense on making something new when it came with something perfectly fitting so I just took the container to my bandsaw and chopped it up. Then made some shelves for them to rest on. See the rows were about one container too short to fit nicely between the studs. So after cutting up the rows, I also cut up a row into individual cubbies so I could add one slot to each row. ….if that makes sense. 

After attaching some shelves, I use a quick setting and multi surface glue from Titebond called Thick and Quick. I placed some on the bottom then clamped it in place for a short time to attach them. 

While those were setting up, I cut and attached some flat shelves to the other stud bays. Just so stuff couldn’t fall into the wall and you couldn’t look down the cubby and see the wiring. 

As I said in the start, I planned to use half and half of each section buuuut I diverted off that plan when I opened the wall and remembered all my wiring. The bay on the right with the outlets is filled with too much to use and the bottom half also has too much wiring. Hence, why I went up taller than I originally expected. No problem though, I’ll just keep my most commonly used hardware either on the French cleats on my main workbench, or within the section that is reachable. Everything above that will be less common items that I’ll pull in a step stool for. 

The last finishing touch was reattaching all the sheathing I took down in the start to cover back up the insulation parts.

Then it was just a matter of filling it up! Total it holds 142 of the larger containers and 15 of the smaller ones. Although I might come back and add in more small ones.

Oh…and for a labeling system, I keep it easy and adjustable. Instead of a label on front, when I empty a box into the container I simply cut out what it is and stick it inside the container so it faces the front. 

Once I have all my hardware on the wall, I’ll come back and group things together by category so that all my exterior screws are together then in order by size…or all my machine screws, or fastening hardware for example. 

I imagine people will say this is a lot. But remember when you are building storage solutions that if you build it to your current inventory it is already too small. If you’re going through the effort of the project, then build in room for expansion.

I hope you enjoy this one! I hope it inspires you to organize a section of your space, and I’ll see you on whatever I’m building next. 

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In this article, you will learn how to do your own DIY Ductless Mini Split Install. I have this beautiful shed on my property that really isn’t being used for anything other than misc. storage for odds and ends. It’s such a shame because it is more like a tiny house than a regular shed. With that, I’ve decided to turn it into guest quarters so that when somebody want to stay here, they will have their own accommodations and space. Of course with it being Texas, the first thing that needs to go in to make it habitable is some sort of AC system. 

With the space being pretty small….only 168sqft….I’m going with the only Do it yourself mini split system on the market currently, made by a brand called MRCOOL.

I started by cleaning out a walking path and work area on the wall where I’ll be mounting the inside unit which is called the air handler. I then took some measurements to make sure the unit would fit. I used a stud finder to locate and mark the studs inside this back wall then removed the bracket on the backside of the air handler and started predrilling holes for mounting it.

When placing this bracket, I lined up one column of holes to be in line with a stud. This, however, leaves the other side shy of the next stud. So with one screw holding the bracket in place and a level on top, I predrilled the hole locations for the second column of screws that wouldn’t hit a stud. This way I could remove the single screw I placed in the bracket, and tap in some wall anchors. I made sure these were flush then remounted my bracket. 

Next I started lining out where I needed to drill a hole in the wall for the plumbing that will connect the inside unit, to the outside one. These units are supposed to come with a template but I wasn’t able to locate mine. No problem though. I measured over from my left row of holes 6.5” and made a mark, then I found a circle that was 3 1/2” in diameter and traced round it.

Tip: you can punch a hole in the center so you can line it up perfectly to your pencil mark. To cut this out, I could have used a whole saw…but I didn’t have a 3.5” bit, so I went with a jigsaw instead. I used a drill bit to punch a hole big enough for my blade to fit in, then neatly cut around my pencil mark.

That takes care of my inside hole, now to transfer the center hole to the outside so another circle can be cut that’s inline with it. If you have a bit long enough to go through the entire wall then you can make this hole when you drill the inside center hole. If you don’t then re-find center of the hole and then punch through to the outside. I again used my 3 1/2” cap to trace a circle on the wall then cut it out with a jigsaw. 

With the hole cut all the way through, I took the plastic sleeve that comes with the unit and test fitted it. They come long so they can fit through a variety of wall thicknesses so I made a mark on where mine needed to be cut down, then used a jigsaw to cut it down.

I placed this in the inside hole, then capped it off on the outside. Now I have a smooth passage for the plumbing of the unit to pass through the wall. 

So the thing about mini split systems is they are pretty simple to install but most require equipment to charge the refrigerant lines. The MRCOOL unit though comes with the line set (this long white line) already charged for you. This makes the unit DIYable, but it also means that it comes with a stock length of line that can’t be cut down. So keep in mind when you are picking out your location for it that you’ll need to coil up and store any excess line. 

Once I fed through the start of the line set, I paused to also feed in the drainage line. This will drain off any condensation and moisture the unit creates. I push one end through the wall then connected the other end to the back of the unit, making sure to give it a few tugs and make sure it wasn’t going anywhere.

Oh also, it doesn’t say it in the instructions but there is a plastic corner cap on the backside of the unit that you need to remove. You can see with this piece gone, the line set has a lot more breathing room. 

Now, this part can be done with a single person, but having a second set of hands are makes things go easier. My mom was around and offered up hers. She got on the outside of the shed and pulled the line as I was on the inside feeding it through. There are rigid hard lines inside this white casing and it’s important that you don’t kink them. Take your time especially if you’re going up a ladder to get this entire line through smoothly and the unit set up on the wall.

Once you get close, it’s incredibly simple to get the air handler on the mounting bracket as it has a lip you can set it on then let it hang. Once the top is hung, you need to make sure the bottom is lined up, with the line set being inside it’s space, then push on it until it snaps into place. 

The inside is done, so next I moved outside to get it wired in. I’m comfortable tackling the simple wiring on my own so I pulled the covers off the unit and started by wiring in a power line.

I purchased outdoor flexible conduit called Liquid Tight and it came with a 90 degree fitting on one end with a straight fitting on the other. It also already had wires routed through it which prevented me from having to buy a power cord and fish it through.

This meant I just had to strip the ends and crimp on some spade connectors to get it all connected.

In the other knock out, I placed a grommet to protect the line from the sharp metal, and ran in the wiring from the line set. This comes with a connector already wired on for you. 

Now that I had both of my lines routed through the fitting, I started terminating them.

I first connected the power line, which are the ones with the little spade connectors. This was as simple as backing off of the screws, clicking the colors in the correct locations and then tightening down on them.

Then I connected the output line, which is that simple snap together connector already attached for you on the line set.

And that’s it. So I pushed everything inside so I could close the cap and reattach it with the screws using one of the comfy grip screwdrivers that came in the Husky 15 piece set I received through The Home Depot ProSpective tool campaign. These hand drivers all feature a very comfortable rubber handle and square shaft allowing you to turn it with a wrench for stubborn applications and also have the size of the drivers clearly marked on the ends of the handle.

I moved my unit down to the corner of my building so that it would open up the back to not only better airflow, but all give me a good sneaky spot to coil up my extra line set and stow it away. Be sure to consider how the outside will look when you are picking out the placement for the inside. 

For power, I will be running it off a quiet generator that will be stowed in this little cranny of the building. However, instead of plugging directly into the generator, I first wired in a fused disconnect box. This has a fuse which adds in a layer of protection between the unit and the power source so if there’s trouble, the fuse will trip first before damaging the unit.

After mounting the box I used one of the bottom knock outs to wire in the other end of the power cord that runs to the outdoor unit. Finally on the remaining knock out I purchased a heavy duty extension cord, cut off the female end, striped back the ends, and wired it in. I didn’t leave a ton of cord length here because the generator will be right in this spot. 

One of the final steps was to try and blend in the line set to the side of the shed. I found this race way material specific for line set at a local HVAC shop. It was hard to find one that sold to the public so if you have trouble I know there are similar products you can purchase through Amazon. 

Once I tidied that up and knew the unit wasn’t moving, I finally connected the line set to the unit. With these lines being precharged, you can’t disconnect these lines once you connect them, or you’ll have to get a professional out to recharge the lines. So before removing the protective caps and making these connections, just make sure the unit is where you want it to be. 

Overall this was so easy to do. Like all jobs, the final step is all the clean up. If you’re anything like me, I really appreciate having all of my tools returned to their place after I use them. To help with this effort, I’ve Been leaning on these handy little tool bags. They serve perfectly for little jobs like this one where I’m not working in my shop and away from my main tool box. This smaller one works perfectly for miscellaneous hardware while the larger one actually comes with a dedicated laptop compartment.

If you’re looking to install a mini split system, then I hope this video helped you out. Also, if you’d like links to anything used in the video then please check out the items below. Thanks for watching

Things I Used In This DIY Ductless Mini Split Install Project:

MRCOOL Mini Split
ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Stud Finder
Liquid Tight Flexable Conduit
Wire Strippers
Spade Connectors
Crimpers
Fuse Disconnect Box
Race Way
Woodpeckers Speed Square

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

Thinking about building your very own chop saw station? Check out this awesome DIY project where I built a quick DIY chop saw station!

I’ll go ahead and give you the spoiler that while I came really close to finishing this project in a single day, it did drag over into two. This is what I ended up with.

Each wing support is 5’ long to give me a total span that is very supportive for these extra long joints of steel. To utilize the space under, I added in two spaces large enough to house carts that can be stored away easily but also pulled out to use in the shop.

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Then also a section with plenty of shelf storage for cut offs or other items to keep on hand. And even a section with a few drawers.

Now keep in mind that even though I built this for my metal shop, you can very easily take the plan and build it for a woodworking shop. If you’re interested I do have a set of plans with a cut list and material list here.

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Things I Used In This Chop Saw Station Project:

• Miter Saw
• Infinity Table Saw Blade
• Infinity Miter Saw Blade
• Bessey Quick Clamps
• Bessey Ratchet Clamps
• Bessey F Style Clamps
• Woodpeckers Speed Square
• General Finishes Clear Coat
• Diablo Cerment Blade

The entire body of the station is made up from 2x4s and I started this project off much like I start many of my others, by flipping out the wings on my miter saw stand and cutting my boards to length on my miter saw.

Any time I make repeatable cuts, I always grab a scrap and clamp it to my wing to act as a stop block. If you do this make sure you hold the portion of the board between this stop block and the blade as that’s the portion that has a chance of binding. 

Once I had all my parts cuts, I started assembling. You can see that I’m using my SuperJaws to help hold a board in place while I attach other boards to the ends.

For this entire project I’m using Titebond original wood glue since it will be indoors. I also predrilled everything to prevent splitting and to nicely countersink all the screw heads. 

As mentioned before, the out most wing portion of the project will store carts under it. Having a rolling cart around a shop is extremely useful and I actually purchased my two carts before designing this build so that I could make sure they would fit. However, another option would be to build your own cart. Oooooor I even love the idea of having two flat top rolling workbenches with some shelving underneath. Actually, I might have to come back and build those as they sounds useful. Then they can be used for a variety of different things….a workbench, an outfeed for a tablesaw, or side support for a drill press stand….but then when you are done, you tuck them away. Anyway, just food for thought.

After completing the assembly for the side portions, I start cutting to length the boards needed for the center section. Now when it comes to shop projects, I’m not too picky about trying to hid screws, especially not when I’m trying to knock out something quick in a day. So that’s the majority of my boards have exposed screws, but note another option would be to use a pocket hole jig. This would give you the same results but with hidden screws. 

On these inside legs, I doubled up on the 2x4s to give it more strength and you can see that I cut them short so that I have room to fit in cross members in the next step which will ultimately connect the two sides together.

I’m using one of these quick clamps that ratchet from Bessey and they make moving a clamp along the work piece quick and easy. It’s important to clamp boards together so they will seat properly. If you just try to hold it in place, you’ll often get a gap when the screw goes through the first piece and enters into the second.

Then I continued building onto the assembly with more cross members and legs. 

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Alrighty, now before joining these two sides together permanently, I took the opportunity to move the unit into my other shop while they were still manageable sized pieces. I haven’t fully thought about the layout of my metal working shop so I’m not sure if I’ll end up keeping this unit at all, much less keeping it up against this wall. But! For the mean time, I positioned it against this wall where I would have an outlet close enough for my saw to reach then joined the two parts together. 

With the body and framing done, I now start outfitting each section. Keep in mind that all of this is customizable. If you’re a fan of drawers, then all of these sections can be drawers. If you hate drawers, then they can all be shelves. I started by ripping a few 2x4s down at my table saw to make some runners to create my shelves. Then taking them over to the unit and connecting them to the sections I intended for shelves.

To make this step easier cut two scraps to length and used them as spacers to quickly place in between each level. If I do end up using these shelves for cut off then they will be holding a good amount of weight so I’m using wood glue as well as screws to connect these. 

Next I grab a sheet of construction grade plywood and first used my track saw to cut it down to manageable size pieces.

Then I took those bigger pieces to my table saw and ripped them down to the size of my shelves. These shelves are simply laid onto of the runners then screwed down. I skipped the glue on this step just in case I ever needed to replace a shelf. 

Man that is actually starting to look like something! Since I was already ripping down plywood I went ahead and cut out the wing tops. These are two pieces of ply that span the wings and I again skipped the glue in case these ever need to be replaced. I did however go around the edge and place a few screws to hold it in place. 

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Same process for the center section holding the saw. Of course I made my dimensions for this section based on my saw, so if you replicate it make sure you have your saw picked out first then just adjust the size here. 

Moving just below there to the area I wanted drawers. I first cut a few more pieces of plywood then drilled in a few pocket holes to give myself a way to attach them. I divided the space up evenly then started attaching them, once again using a few spacers to make this job go quick. 

And that’s actually as far as I got in the first day. Which isn’t half bad if you ask me! I went ahead and placed my chop saw in the center and moved in my carts.

I used a straight edge, a level in my case, to get the deck of the saw tuned into the level of the wings. Mine was just slightly under so I shimmed it up with a piece of masonite under the front and back legs.

The next day I only had to finish making the drawers. Which consisted of cutting down more plywood then gluing and nailing them together. I cut in some simple handles with my band saw so they can easily be pulled out of their spaces, then fitted them into the unit. 

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Alrighty and the last thing I did was throw on a coat of finish on the wings. I don’t normally seal or coat shop furniture but since this is going to be in contact with a bunch of dirty steel I decided to put on a clear coat of General Finishes High Performance Top Coat.

This has a urethane that will harden and make the surfaces of the these wings much more durable than if I were to leave them raw. It will also allow me to very quickly wipe down the wings if I have something clean to cut that I don’t want getting dirty. You can apply this finish with just about anything but I had a foam bush on hand so that’s what I used to spread the finish out. 

Now let me try and head off the two biggest comments I can already see coming.

One: this is a wooden unit, placed up again a wooden wall but it will be for a metal cutting chop saw which is always associated with lots and lots of sparks. People will probably tell me I’ll burn up my wall if I don’t sheet it in metal. Well I’m actually running a blade put out by Diablo that is brand new technology called a Crement blade and one of it’s features is that it produces little to no sparks when cutting metal. Annnnd it also produces such little heat that I can actually pick up a piece I just cut and it isn’t even hot.

It’s pretty incredible. But please note that even with this new tech I still am always conscious of watching for fires, I have plenty of extinguishers on hand, and I even follow a common metal working rule where I don’t leave my shop for a full hour after using any equipment that produces sparks. 

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Then the second comment I see coming on this project is that I didn’t leave room to make angled cuts. And to be honest, when I was designing this I didn’t even think about it because unlike a normal miter saw that has a table that moves to create an angle, this is a chop saw and has a swiveling fence. But the problem here is even though I can still swivel the fence to the angle needed, my material will run into my wall.

A solution is I could move it off the wall to create space on the back side, but I would still lose all support of my long wings. So the ultimate solution would be to leave this center section wide enough so I could rotate the entire saw to make angled cuts while keeping my material on my wings.

To get around the problem for the mean time, I ended up placing the saw on the wings, and then creating two stand offs for the wings to make up the height difference. This worked like a champ so even though I overlooked a design flaw, it still did exactly what I needed it to do which was support my material while I cut it. 

And that’s it! Keep in mind that while this is quick and easy, it isn’t absolutely perfect and polished, but it definitely serves the purpose that I was needing. And that purpose is to tide me over in the short term until I can build something more suitable for the future. There is nothing wrong with throwing together something quick until you have more time to develop or build exactly what you need.

Don’t forget that I have a set of plans for this project, chop saw station plans here. And I’ll see you on the next project.

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Thinking about building your own DIY mobile drill press stand? Check out this easy DIY project where I built a drill press stand on wheels!

In this video I’m going to show you how I made this drill press stand that is on casters so it’s mobile, has drawers with some simple storage organizing built ins, annnd has two adjustable side supports that can be raised to be level with the deck of the drill press table. Lets get into how I built it.

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Things I Used In This DIY Mobile Drill Press Stand Project:

• ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
• Triton Tracksaw
• Armor Tool Pocket Hole Jig
• Titebond Original Wood Glue
• Rockler Blue Clamps
• Makita Battery Operated Nailer
• Makita Battery Charger and Battery
• Miter Saw Stand Plan
• Miter Saw
• Milwaukee Cut Off Saw
• Infinity Table Saw Blade
• Infinity Miter Saw Blade
• Woodpeckers Speed Square
• Triton SuperJaws
• Milwaukee Cordless Grinder
• Grizzly Drill Press
• Drill Press Stand Plans

This build took one sheet of 3/4” plywood which made up the entire body and the shelves, then one sheet of 1/2” ply which I used for the back and all the drawers. I started off by cutting down my sheets over at my workbench with my track saw then took them to my table saw when they were a manageable size.

If you’d like to build the same, I do have a full set of plans with a cut list and material list. Click here for those.

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Once I had all my body pieces cut I grabbed what will be my two side pieces and started marking off where the shelves would be placed. After marking them on one, I butted the second board up to it and transferred the markings. 

Next I set up my Armor Tool pocket hole jig and started drilling pocket holes in the shelves. Ha, I’m still not over how cool it is that this jig is self adjusting.

Since drawer slides are expensive, I hardly ever install them in shop furniture. Instead I make a shelf then a drawer rests on top of the shelf and slides in and out. This has always worked great for me, but of course note another option is to scrap the shelves and use slides. 

After getting all the pocket holes drilled on both sides of all four shelves, I started attaching them. I started at the top and worked my way down to the bottom because I placed the location of those pocket holes on the bottom side of the shelves and this makes it’s easier to get a drill in there. However, I also spaced these drawers out so that a drill could fit in between each shelf so I wouldn’t find myself stuck on how to attach the other pocket holes once I flipped it over. 

When I was done with the one side and I was ready to flip it over, I set the other side piece into place and laid down my beads of Titebond glue before actually flipping. I skip the glue on some shop projects incase I want to leave myself room for making adjustments in the future, but on this one I don’t see myself wanting to change it up and the glue on all of these joints will really help with stiffening it up. And now you can see that I worked my drill in-between each shelf in order to secure this side of things. Making sure I was keeping those shelves lined up to my pencil mark, keeping them squared up.

Those are in, next I grabbed the bottom piece and started attaching it. To make this easier I flipped the unit on it’s side and started at the corners. To make sure I don’t end up splitting the edge of the plywood, I’m using a predrill on all of these holes. Also after I secured one side I used a clamp to help pull in the ply and get things nice and flush.

Before moving to the top I attached four casters to the bottom. Even though this stand doesn’t move hardly ever, it’s still very nice to have it on casters for the few times it does. I went with four swiveling casters.

Ok next I turned it around and repeated the same steps for attaching a top. On my old stand, I only had a single sheet of ply as my top and it’s really too thin to bolt down the drill press to. So on this stand I decided to double up the thickness of the top to give myself more meat for the bolts. I slid the unit to the floor, applied glue, then used a few brad nails to attach the second top. Annnnd that’s the body done! 

Moving on to making the drawers. As I said in the beginning, these are made from a sheet of 1/2” plywood and after breaking it down using my track saw I used my miter saw and table saw to get everything to their final needed dimensions.

Before assembling though I grabbed what will be the four drawer faces and taped them together. This is so I could cut in all the handles at the same time, if you do this of course just make sure all the edges are nice and flush so they all turn out the same.

Next I used my Woodpeckers speed square to mark off the handle shape then used my bandsaw to cut it out. Note that this is an easy way of doing a handle but it does create an opening for dust to get into the drawer. This is not an issue for me but note another option is to skip this step and attach a drawer pull to the outside. 

Ok now to start assembling….I went with simple butt joint drawer construction for these drawers. I’ve made all my shop drawers this way and regardless of what I’ve put in them, they haven’t failed.

I use my SuperJaws to help hold pieces in place while I apply glue and brad nails. I start by attaching both of the side pieces then flip things around to attach the front and the back. Then that’s it, I always make sure to either let the glue squeeze out dry or wipe it off before sliding the drawers into the body. It wouldn’t be funny to find the drawers accidentally glued to the shelves. 

Moving on to the wings, or side supports. It will be extremely handy to have adjustable supports that can go up and down to be level with the deck of the drill press. I started off by measuring and marking where to punch a through hole….making sure to move the drawer out of the way so it would be in the clear.

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This hole is so I can place a bolt through the inside and stick out to fit into a slot cut into the wing. And I have to apologize because my camera battery died as I was making this cut and I didn’t realize it, but I use a fence on my plunge router to make this slot. If you don’t have a router another option would be to drill a hole and use a jigsaw. 

But you can see that the wing’s slot fits right over this bolt so now I can add a washer and nut then slide it up and down….tightening down on the nut when it’s at the height I need. While this works great, it does have issues staying square so to fix that issue, I cut a few additional pieces to secure to either side and block it in. I used a square to first make sure the wing was square then glue and used brad nails to attach these pieces. And there we go….that works just as it should! 

While I’m sure the 3/4” thickness would have been fine, I still went ahead and attached another piece of plywood to the top side of this wing’s edge to widen out the footprint some. Then I also attached a support piece underneath it. Now when I have something long at the drill press I can raise the wings up to the height needed to support it, but then when I’m done I can lower them back down. These top flanges I added also double as a convenient handle. 

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I was using hardware I had on hand, which is why the bolts are super long. To cut them down I used this awesome new electric cut off wheel by Milwaukee. I left just enough room for the washer and also a larger knob. This knob will be way easier to grab and turn over a regular nut, but another option would be to use a wing nut. 

Alright, you could actually stop there, however before calling mine quits I decided to add in a few drawer organizers to help make these drawers a tad bit more functional. I first cut down some masonite board I had, and the only reason I chose this material is because it was the thinnest stuff I had in my shop at the time. Next I cut two strips of 1/2” ply then glue and nailed them into the inside of the drawers. I just got this new Makita Cordless Finish Nailer and Battery and Charger Pack and I’m loving having it as an addition to my shop. The cordless capability allows me to grab it on the go without having to mess with an air compressor and hose. And it works for a great amount of time on a single charge.

You can see this creates a shelf that I can rest the masonite on. To stiffen up the board I ripped a few more pieces of 1/2” ply and trimmed around the perimeter then filled in in-between with the same cut offs. This creates small pockets where I’ll be able to place spare drill bits that don’t have a place in an index. After owning an index for a while bits get broken or lost and I purchase a new one. This will give me a place to store the bits left over but allow me to toss the bulky box. 

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By creating this sliding tray I can place my full indexes on the bottom of the drawer and just move this trey back and forth to get to the front or back of it. After making this first one I loved it so much I also made one for my brad nails, which for some reason I always keep in my drill press stand. One cubby fits one full box of nails perfectly so for my most popular sizes like 1 1/4” and 3/4” I dedicated two cubbies to them, writing in pencil at the top of each one to label the size. 

And there we are, a pretty darn functional drill press stand. Keep in mind that while the sliding drawer tray and adjustable side supports are great for this tool, you can also implement these ideas for a variety of other tools in the shop.

Drill Press Stand Plans

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I have a set of plans for this DIY Mobile Drill Press Stand project if you’re interested.

That’s it for this one! I’ll see you on whatever I’m building next.

(Most of the product links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)

Thinking about installing shop fans? Check out this fun DIY project where I installed Big Ass Fans in my now very cool workshop, pun intended!

With it coming up on the holidays, things are winding down for me in the shop. I’ll be taking off a little bit of time to regroup from my extremely busy year and spend time with family…..It occurred to me earlier today that I built a 4,000 sqft shop this year, which is just incredible. It seems like it was so long ago. 2018 has been outstanding and I hope you’ve enjoyed coming along with me this year as I tackled a large assortment of projects. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. But one last video for the year. As I was looking through footage I realized I installed fans earlier this summer in the shop but never released the video covering the process. So lets jump into it. 

Shop Fans That I Installed:

• Big Ass Fans
• Haiku Big Ass Fans

I installed two different kinds, inside the shop I installed a giant Big Ass Fan in the center of my woodworking space and four smaller Hakui fans on the covered porch.

If you aren’t familiar with the Big Ass Fan brand, they make crazy efficient and stunning looking equipment. If you watched the shop build you’ll remember that I installed their lights. Since I wanted to place this 7’ diameter fan in the center of my woodworking space, I first started by taking out the light that marked center of my ceiling then also removing a few ceiling panels where the fan would need to go. 

This size of fan requires a mount to be fabricated that will span across the bottom cord of two trusses which is why I’m having to take down the ceiling panels to expose the bones. If you don’t want or require such a large fan there are models that will allow you to attach the fan to one truss which would mean you wouldn’t have to expose the trusses. 

I fabricated my mount from two pieces of angle iron backed up to one another. I first cut them to the length needed to span two trusses then joined them together by drilling a hole dead center for a nut and bolt, using my Triton Super Jaws and a pair of vise grips to hold them in place for me. I repeated the steps in order to make two brackets at the same time. 

After getting those punched I moved the pieces down to the ground, separated them, and drilled two holes on the flat portion that will be sitting on the truss.

With those together now I grabbed the hardware that will attach to these mounts in order to hang the fan from. I positioned it in center and marked the location of the holes that needed to be drilled out. When punching through metal I always work up to the final size hole if it’s somewhat large. So for these I start off with punching a 1/4” hole, then step up to the final 1/2” size which is the bolt I’m using. 

Once I got those tighter I ran the wiring through the center tube for the electrical bits then dropped that down in the center of the mount. Now it was ready to set into place. To keep it from moving I temporarily clamped it in place while I crawled up top and attached it with lags to the bottom cord of the trusses. 

Something I really love about this fan is the wall mounted remote, it’s more of a speed indicator as it not only turns the fan off and on but also dictates how fast or slow it spins.

I didn’t want to run the wiring on the outside of my ceiling material so that meant I had to crawl up into the attic….let me remind you this during the heat of summer!….and get into the tiny tiny point on the far side of the roof in order to feed down the wire to Brian. My recommendation is if you are building a shop, even if you don’t install fans at the start, leave yourself a wire from where you’ll eventually want the controller to the placement of the fan. Just coil it up and leave it in the attic so you don’t have to do all this crawling around. 

Alright, next up was mounting the motor into place, which might take two people because it’s pretty heavy.

Next up was mounting the airfoils. These do come in different diameters but mine are 3’ long, which including the center hub span, makes this fan 7’ total. And let me tell you….it’s crazy how much air this fan can move, and also how still and quiet it is. Even when I crank it up all the way you don’t hear any sounds from it other than the air itself moving.

And that’s it for the installation part of the big fan, so next was throwing back up the ceiling panels that were taken down earlier. To get around the fan’s stem I used a rotary tool to make a cut around it. 

While I was mounting fans, next I moved to the porch. I love working on my covered shop porch when the weather is nice enough so having the option to get some moving air out there was a must for me. For this area I’m going with a smaller Big Ass Fan called Haniku. These fans have over 1000 options for finishing combinations but I went with Carmel and Black to match the cedar beams I have on the porch. 

These fans are ultra quick to assemble. It was honestly as simple as attaching the fan blades, attaching the center tube with the wiring in it, then adding both hubs that keeps the top and bottom ends of the tube looking nice once it’s mounted.

Haiku has won more than 75 international design and technology awards and one thing they strive for and hit, is ensuring their fans don’t wobble. I found out they have a 13 step process to hand balance each fan so you won’t have to be distracted by the repeated off balance rhythm so many fans make. 

After I mounted the bracket on the ceiling where I wanted the fan, I placed the ball into the socket, that’s what I’m describing it as at least, and turned it on. These fans also come with a remote and allow you to control the speed. Ha we were laughing because there is an actual “whoosh” button : )

Also, big high five on not only the quality of the fans, but also the instructions, and even making the remote magnetic. Just from head to toe, from aesthetics to function, everything on these products screens thought, effort, and quality. 

If you’re looking at mounting fans in the shop or even in your house I can’t recommend these enough. They are highly efficient, exceeding the Energy Star requirements for ceiling fans, extremely quiet, and have a customizable look for every space. 

If you’d like some of your own, check out the Big Ass Fan website here.

Ok, that’s it for 2018! Not only was I able to build my shop this year, I was able to put a big dent in my to-do list for outfitting and personalizing it. And that’s a great feeling. Thanks for coming along.

I’ll see you in 2019.

Thinking about how you can build your own swing out stools on your workbench? Check out this project where I added stools that swing under my workbench!

Things I Used In This Swing Out Stools Project:

Woodpeckers Speed Square
Woodpeckers Straight Edge
Woodpeckers 12″ Square
Bandsaw
ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
3″ Sander
RIDGID Round Shop Vac
Universal Small Port Hose Kit
Dust Right Separator
Titebond Original Wood Glue
Rockler Surefoot Clamps
Triton Router
Infinity Spiral Bit
Carpet Tape
Triton Router Table
Infinity Round Over Bit
Spray Lacquer

I am starting off the with the three legged stool that goes all the way to the ground. These are made from 3/4” plywood and kinda have a spoke sort of design to support the legs. A smaller spoke at the very top that connects all three but will also give me a flat surface to attach the base to the seat later on. Then another, larger spoke down the legs to support the base some and also give my feet a place to rest. 

I took the time to 3D model the stool first so I knew exactly how big I needed to make everything, then use a few woodpeckers measuring and marking tools to draw it out on good size cut off of 3/4” ply. However, if you are interested in making your own, I do have a free download for both spokes available here.

Once I had the spoke drawn out, I took it to the bandsaw to cutout. If you want to make more than one stool, I recommend cutting material for the number you want, then taping them all together with painters tape. This way you can cut the pattern once but make the total number of spokes you need with it. 

Next I took the left over cut off to the table saw and cut a few legs. Since I want the legs kicked out like this instead of straight up and down, I used a speed square to mark off a 10 degree angle on both the top and bottom, then again used the bandsaw to cut these angles out. If you do this, I recommend grabbing the miter gauge and setting it to 10 degrees so you can get a straight cut rather than pushing it through my hand. 

Then last cutting detail for the legs is I added a small taper so the top of the leg would be chunkier than the bottom. After coming in at the bottom, I used a straight edge to connect it to the top and also cut it out using the bandsaw. Now you can see the slight taper this gives the legs. 

Alrighty now to clean these parts up. I moved my new dust collection cart over to my workbench, hooked up shop vac, flipped my belt sander on it’s back, then started smoothing out the edges on all my parts. 

I originally thought I would paint or stain these bases a dark brown because I honestly want the seats to be the focus. However, I really started to dig the look of these plywood parts and decided to leave them as raw looking as possible. But before moving into finish I stuck a round over bit into my router table and ran each part through. 

And that’s the majority of the project done. This is a super quick one but looks great in my opinion. If you’re needing seating for a bar area, garage, or shop then don’t put it off because you can easily knock this out in a single day. 

For assembly, I started off with the smaller spoke at the very top, and placed Titebond original in all the cut outs, then shimmied the legs one by one into their spot.

After getting all three in, I repeated with glue and placement of the larger spoke. I placed this one at a height that was comfortable for my feet to be propped up on. After getting it roughly where I intended it, I use a small level to make sure it was level across all three legs. Checking to make sure my workbench was level first, before using it as a reference for the spoke. 

After letting those sit up over night to dry I went ahead and took my belt sander to each top just to clean it up a bit and make sure it was nice and flat.

Then last thing before attaching the seats, I cleaned off each one and gave them four coats of spray lacquer. This hardly changes the tint or shade of the plywood so it stays that raw look I was going after, but does give it some protection. 

With the seats being made from solid wood, I didn’t want to just screw the base directly into it, and I was planning on using those Z clip or figure 8 fasteners but a buddy suggested I drill an oversize hole through the base for the screw to pass through, then add a washer to the head. The trick is you don’t want to over tighten the screw so that the washer can’t move. By only tightening down enough for the seat to be secure but allowing the washer to move freely, the seat can move if the wood wants to. I liked this method as it meant I didn’t have to wait on ordered hardware so I tried it out. 

That’s one! And I must say, they feel pretty darn secure and I was/am really happy with the way they came out. I honestly never would have thought I would end up liking the raw plywood base look as much as I do. Next I repeated until all four were secured and sittable. 

With those knocked out, lets get to the more complicated but fun one shall we? For the four remaining seats I switched gears completely and made some swing out swiveling shop seats that have a supersized speed square design as the support. That’s 9 Ss if you weren’t counting. ; ) 

I thought of a speed square only because the shape lends itself so perfect for the supportive base. I recently added a 4×8 Laguna CNC to my shop ….I’ll be putting out a stand alone video on that soon, so stay tuned for lots of details. 

Since I wanted the speed square to be two tone, I first painted a section of plywood silver then after it was dry, taped off the silver portion before setting the machine to carve out four squares.

Each seat is made up of two that will be glued together. Once the engraving pass was complete I spray painted the markings black then set the machine to cut out the empty spaces and perimeter. 

After getting the squares cut I then had the tedious task of pealing off the tape. I thought this would come off in a few big pieces and have this awesome reveal for y’all, but it didn’t. So I’ll skip to the end and show you the results. Pretty cool huh??

Like I said earlier, each seat is made up of two squares glued together so next I applied glue to the inside face and set weights on it until dry. 

Next up was making a flange that will rest on the top of the square assembly to give a flat surface for me to later mount the seat to. This is also made from 3/4” plywood, and I started by cutting a wide board at the tabelsaw then using a square to mark the center of the board so I could cut in a stop dado wide enough for the square assembly to snuggly fit into.

Since I didn’t want this dado to go all the way from one side of the board to the other, I set up a straight bit in my router table to make this cut. I clamped a scrap into place on my router fence to act as a stop for my workpiece, then also set the fence’s depth away the blade so the dado would start where I needed it. After a few passes I got to the width I was needing to slip the square snuggly into place. 

So far so good but lets refine it a little bit. Instead of having just a big rectangle, this stop dado dies off in a curve that will later be used as a pivot point. Then I also marked off the sides so I could remove the bulk wood here and slim down the profile in order to create kinda pedestal on the end where the seat will later go. After marking off a shape I liked, I took it to the bandsaw to cut out. Moving the fence to the distance needed to get a nice straight cut.

While at the bandsaw, I also taped together some small pieces and made the same rounded shape that I did on the end of the stop dado portion to create some reinforcement pieces for the pivots points. I glued these parts together to be drying while I moved on to cleaning up all the parts I just made, on the belt sander. 

Then it was time to start assembling, For this I’m using Titebond original once again, since this seat is inside. I applied glue to all the dados then started sticking the pieces in their place. First placing on the top flange with the seat mount, then the back portion then the doubled up pivots. I stuck that in clamps the best I could, then set it aside to start drying.

While I was waiting on that, I started cutting and build a mating mount that would attach to my workbench leg and give me a way to connect this square assembly to. This is also made from plywood, but I’m thinking of doing another rendition in the future where I keep the wooden square but make the rest from metal. 

After getting the first portion of the mount glueing up, I took the down time to start painting the square assembly. I painted the entire frame black then the rest of the speed square parts silver. And just a tip for you: when only working with a rattle can paint but not wanting to take the time to tape off anything and everything that doesn’t need to get painted, I grabbed a foam brush and sprayed some directly on it then dabbed it on. This has saved my neck a few times and works really well. 

I let the paint dry then used this finished assembly to mark off where on the bench mount I needed to place the second pivot point. I did it this way because I wanted to make sure it was the tightest fit as possible. Once I had the location of the second tabs sorted, I added a few more reinforcement pieces then set it in clamps to dry before throwing on a coat of paint so it would match the other. 

Alright, now it was time to drill holes for all the hardware going in this thing. I’ll be using a piece of all thread at the pivot point so I started by drilling these holes. The important thing here is that these holes on in line with one another so I used some simple wooden block as a drill guide. Also, I do recommend drilling these at a drill press but mine was giving me issues and I didn’t want to stop and mess with it so I did these by hand.

Next I drilled holes through the back and these will be for the bolts to connect it to the workbench leg. After getting these drilled through the wooden mount, I clamped it to the workbench and drilled the same holes through the leg. I placed this on the inside of the leg so that the seat could fold up under the bench when I’m not using it and be completely out of the way. 

Now onto all the hardware, like I said before I’m going with a piece of all thread to connect everything and create a pivot. There are also some nuts, washers, and bolts thrown in there. Oh and just a tip if you do this, I would chuck this up in a drill and use it’s power to help get the rod all the way through the pieces.

Next I mounted it to my workbench then tested it out. You can probably imagine, it was prreeety nerve wracking sitting on it the first time. Ok….things held together so I moved forward with mounting a seat on it!

I order some swivels so the seat would rotate independently from the base itself. I first attached this to the mount with some screws and washers, then set he seat in place, and attached it to the underside.  And that’s it! 

Oh and on this second one, you’ll see it’s mounted on the end of the workbench instead of the long side like the other….that’s because the apron under the workbench is so much lower on this side, my knees would have been knocking into it. Which is fine, now I’ll have a seat I can use on the end as well as the long side. 

I love the way this project turned out, I think it’s fun and pretty darn cool. Overall the seats do feel good, but of course they haven’t experienced much use yet so we’ll see how well they hold up. If they end up failing then I’m going to explore making the mounting portion out of metal instead of wood. Of course if I make modifications I will be sure to bring a camera along to show y’all. I’ll see you on my next project. 

I have a fresh batch of plywood mallets now listed on my website. If you’d like to pick one up for your shop, then check those out here

(Most of the product links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks!)

Thinking about how to build your own custom stool seats? Check out this fun DIY project where I used scrap wood to build custom seats for my stools!

Things I Used In This Custom Stool Seats Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Ultimate Workbench Plans
CrossCut Sled
Titebond Original Wood Glue
Rockler Surefoot Clamps
Triton Router
Infinity Spiral Bit
Carpet Tape
Triton SuperJaws
Large Compass
Large ROS
Palm ROS
Triton Router Table
Infinity Round Over Bit
Infinity Chamfer Bit
Push Blocks
Bench Cookies
Dust Collection Cart Video
RIDGID Round Shop Vac
Universal Small Port Hose Kit
Dust Right Separator
Wipe On Poly

These seats are actually something I’ve been wanting to tackle for a while. They are inspired by a fabulous NY based furniture maker named Ethan Abramson. He has these stools he builds that he calls Maze Stools, that are made from different woods and have a very random yet elegant look to them. With Matt Cremona and I only having a single day to knock something out, I figured it was the perfect project. I also thought it would be cool to incorporate a scrap from Matt’s shop so I told him to toss something into his suitcase for me. Of course, it being Matt he brought me a beautiful piece of airdried walnut that he milled himself. 

To get started we rounded up some other cut off of hardwoods from my lumber rack. I had two good chunks of walnut then found some maple and Matt found some small pieces of curley maple. We divided them up then started playing with our designs. The great thing about this project is there is no right or wrong, mine is pretty simple whereas Matt went a little crazier with his, even throwing some end grain into the mix. 

Since we are dealing with scraps, almost all the boards are different thicknesses. Later we will plane our seats down but right now I just got the boards close by resawing them at the bandsaw. 

I was aiming for my seat to be around 14” so while I was building up mine I would use a tape just to make sure I was getting the weigh and height needed on the initial build up. Once that looked good, I started playing with adding more to the design. I wanted a strip of maple across the top so I grab a thinner strip, placed it where it looked good and used a pencil to mark on the bottom walnut, it’s location. Then I took it over to the table saw and cut along these pencil marks. This allowed to insert the maple strip where I removed the material.

With the general arrangement of our seats figured out, we started on the first glue up. Since I don’t yet have a jointer, we used my crosscut sled at the table saw to get the glueing edges nice and flat then started clamping things together. This part is a little funky because lots of things are cut at angles so they want to slip and slide once you start applying pressure with the clamps. But! We both played with it enough and got things to hold together. 

After letting that set for an hour or so, we unclamped our pieces and started cleaning up the edges for round two. On mine, I just cut the left side flush so I could add another board Maple to the edge. Then Matt cut his slides flush to add more walnut and curley maple to both sides. 

After letting round two glue ups dry, Matt attached the adjustable circle cutting router base to the router, then we turned these funky little creations into circles. You can see we placed a spoil board below the seat just to protect my new workbench top, then used carpet tape which is a strong double sided tape, to hold down the seat. Matt’s glue up was a tad bit smaller than mine so he went with a smaller diameter for his seat. We used a spiral upcut bit made by Infinity to make this cut, and since it’s pretty thick we took three passes to cut all the way though. 

One tip to remember if you do this project is to attach your seat upside down, so that what will end up being the top of the seat is facing the workbench. This will make the screw hole from attaching the router in the bottom where it will be unseen instead of the top. 

With that done, next we moved the seats and the SuperJaws outside because next step was to dish out the seat some. For this we were using my power carvers with the sanding attachment on them. To give a visual reference to follow, we used a compass to pencil on an offset line then just started sanding away material. 

And I’m curious on what other methods there are for dishing out seats that might be quicker. Although this process wasn’t too bad. Matt only took about 15 mins to get his dished, then enjoyed the nice Texas weather while I took a little bit longer to complete mine. 

Anyways, back to the project…..next we cleaned up the dish and also the edges with the palm ros sander. Or well, I used the sander, Matt used the spokeshave. Which I think proves power tools and hand tools can be friends. Just sayin….

Before applying finished, we took our seats over to the router table and used a 1/2” round over bit to round off the top edge. This not only looks a little nicer but will also make it feel nicer on the back of the legs when actually using the seat. Then something I did on mine is I placed a small chamfer on the bottom edge of the seat.

After he signed the bottom, he applied two coats of Danish oil. And my goodness that’s pretty. 

Matt and I actually made these back in August and two seats is just not enough for my shop. So I decided to make some more, but I loved the concept of including scraps from friends and having a piece of them in the shop. So for the past few months, if I knew I would be seeing a friend, I would tell them to toss a scrap into their luggage for me and I’ve come away with quite the haul. I ended up with enough to make at least six more stools so that’s what I did. 

I mixed and match the pieces to get a modge podge sort of look, but I also tried to maintain good aestics with color coordinating. One thing I didn’t pay any mind to is grain direction. Wood of course expands and contracts so typically you want to keep the grain all going the same way so it moves together and doesn’t bust apart, but these pieces are so small I don’t think it will create an issue. But hey, we’ll see. The two Matt and I made this summer are still looking perfect if that’s any indication. 

Something I made this go round to help with visualizing is a cardboard cutout. I used 14” as a template then could place this ring over my working piece to see if I liked the direction it was going or where on the board I wanted the circle placed. 

You can see that I placed a small sheet of wax paper under each one of my glue ups, this is just to keep me from gluing it down to my workbench. : )  Each seat had at least two glue ups, if not three but since I was building so many I was easily able to keep busy making another while things were drying. 

Of course this is a really great project to use up some smaller scraps but I think this would be a really fun group project. Call up some woodworker friends, everybody bring one or two pieces of wood and gather in somebody’s shop (whoever has the most clamps) then spend the day building a seat for your space while enjoying friends company then everybody gets to leave with a momento that’s useable.

It’s really cool to look them all at the end and see just how varied each one can be. It’s also funny to see what they look like after all the glue ups….at this point I was thinking “hmmmm, these are funky to say the least”. But I will tell you that after cutting them down into a circle, they look muuuuuch better. 

Now since I had so many, I used double sided tape to temporarily secure all of them down to my workbench and this made going over each one with my sander a little bit quicker rather than placing them one by one into my SuperJaws. 

Next up, will be making some bases to go with these tops. I have a pretty fun idea I can’t wait to try out, so stay tuned for my next video to see them complete. Big thank you to my friends and viewers who contributed a scrap for these seats. 

(Most of the product links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks!)

Thinking about building your own dust collection cart that doubles as a mobile sanding station? Check out this cool DIY project where I built my own!

Toting around my shop vac and my separator anytime I want to use dust collection with my power tools is such a pain, so this week I built this cart to simplify things for me. 

Dust Collection Cart Plans

$5.99

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Things I Used In This Dust Collection Cart Project:

RIDGID Round Shop Vac
RIDGID Square Shop Vac
Dust Right Separator
ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Universal Small Port Hose Kit
Sketch Up
Hercules Dolly
Ultimiate Workbench Plans
Triton Track Saw
Cord Reels
Right Angle Clamp It Jigs
Titebond Original Wood Glue
Woodpeckers 12″ Square
Rockler Surefoot Clamps
Infinity Table Saw Blade
Infinity Insert Plate
4″ Belt Sander
3″ Belt Sander
Palm Belt Sander
Large ROS
Palm ROS
Sand Paper Cutter

If you’re new to this hobby then a quick overview for you is: breathing in dust is bad. One way to control it is to hook a shop vac directly to your tool when you’re using it. This sends all the dust through the filter of the shop vac and the shop vac collects it. 

A great add on to this set up is a cyclone or a separator. I have the Dust Right Separator where I hook up a hose to my tool that feeds into the separator, then the separator feeds into the shop vac. This separator collects the majority of the saw dust that I create, leaving only the finer saw dust to go through the filter of the vac and be collected. 

This is my preferred set up. However, getting back to the irritation, it’s a pain to haul both of these individual units around the shop to where I’m working. So this week I designed a storage solution to simplify it. 

Dust Collection Cart Plans

$5.99

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I decided to go ahead and upgrade my shop vac while I was building something. I’ll be using a RIDGID 12 gallon 5hp wet/dry vac. It’s pretty much the same height as my separator.

I played around with designs and decided to make a taller cart than I originally planned, with a smaller footprint. This is an option with the units stacked, with the hose going straight out from the vac up to the separator. I still had room for the sanders on the left and the ROS’s on the right, but then broke up the sandpaper storage to go on both sides in order to make it all fit. 

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Having these design changes and options is exactly why I love taking the time to model my projects before starting. Ok now that you see what I’m going after, lets build it. 

I’m building it from one sheet of 3/4” plywood so I started by wheeling a sheet over to my workbench and breaking it down with my track saw.

Once I had things at a more manageable size, I took those sheets over to the table saw and broke them down to their final size. And just a tip for you: whenever I’m working off a cultist, after I cut a piece to size I label the edge so I won’t get it mixed up with the other parts of the build. 

To start joining things together I grabbed the back and one of the sides then used the aid of these right angle clamp it jigs to hold both together at a 90. This makes it easy to go through and predrill then attach with screws. After getting one side attached, I repeated the process for the other side. 

Next I flipped it on it’s back and attached the bottom. Oh and I’m using Titebond original for this project. Next I attached the shelf in the same manner. I first measured on where it needed to go then made marks on the front and back on both the side pieces.

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Before securing it with screws, I also use a square just to make sure everything looked good. Once I had the two front corners pinned, I used the square to draw a line down center so I could pre drill and screw the back of the shelf into place. After repeating on the other side, I quickly attached four casters to the bottom to make this unit mobile, then set it on the ground to test out. 

Separator goes on top, shop vac on bottom. The hose as well as all the attachments have a quick connect feature which will make not only connecting the hose but also disconnecting it to clean out the vac, quick and easy. 

I thought I would have to build in some holders to store the vac attachments but RIDGID actually incorporated a storage method in the feet! So that’s handy and saves me a step. 

Now the reason the separator is on the top is because it’s the portion that is connected to my power tool and I wanted it to have the ability for it to pivot around along with me instead of being confined inside the lower cubby. That’s also the reason I left it on casters. To keep it from falling off the shelf however, I placed a front lip in between the two sides. And you can see that if this end is connected to my tool, I can go pretty much anywhere and the separator will rotate around with me instead of me having to rotate the cart. 

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The shop vac comes with these handy hose holders with the intention of giving you an onboard place to store it away when you aren’t using it. However, since it isn’t needed on the vac in my case, I repurposed them to hold my smaller hose from the separator instead of just tossing it inside the top compartment. This will keep the hose conveniently placed for easy grab and use. 

I’m not incorporating any extra hose storage on my unit because I use this Rockler small port hose kit….which is a flex hose that is a stock diameter but comes with thread-on connections that are interchangeable. So instead of swapping out the entire hose to fit different ports on my tools, I just switch out the thread ons.

Ok let me pause and explain my thinking for this next part: I most often pull out the shop vac and separator when I’m running one of my five sanders and in most projects I never just use one. Instead of making lots of trips to grab my sanders from my French cleat tool wall, then having to put them back, I decided to place all my sanders on this cart. So that’s what I did next. Since I already built holders for these tools it was as simple as grabbing them off my wall and placing a cleat on the side of the cart. 

My buddy Jay Bates built a similar cart for a vac and separator a few years ago but he went with a much lower profile body. So if you aren’t interested in all the side storage then I recommend checking out his video here.

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Since I’m storing my sanders, I also wanted to keep some sort of sandpaper storage here. I grabbed a piece of 3/4″ plywood that was wide enough to make up both of my sides. I then changed out my dado stack for a 1/4″ stack and cut a bunch of grooves. After getting those cut, I changed back my blade to a single black and cut this board in two down the middle in order to create the two sides needed.

With the body done, I grabbed some 1/4″ scrap material, cut it to size and then glued them in place to make the shelves. After the glue dried, I did some sanding and then hung the sandpaper storage up. Instead of a French cleat on this one, I opted for pocket holes to keep the profile slim.

I was about ready to call this project done when I stumbled across a sandpaper cutter made by Rockler that I thought was so cool. So I put it up on my cart as well, next to my flat sandpaper. Now whenever I have a sheet of flat paper that needs to be torn to size for my sanding blocks, all I have to do is stick it into the holder, line up the side of the paper to the depth gauge, and then just rip it.

The last thing I included was a power strip. I originally wasn’t going to, I was just going to drill a hole in the back of the unit for the plug of the shop vac to pass through. However, I liked the idea of plugging the power strip into my cord reel, then being able to plug any of my sanders into the power strip instead of also having to run them to my cord reel. So main power comes in here, then I have plenty of outlets to run the tools that are being used with the shop vac cart. 

This cart definitely simplifies moving both of these units around.

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That’s it for this one. I hope this project helps you out. See you on the next build.

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Thinking about shop organizing projects you need to do? Check out these storage systems I built for my own shop, in these shop organization DIY projects!

In my shop this week it was all about doing a little bit more organizing. I’m sure you know it’s easy to set a pile on the floor and let it continue to live there. So I find that by forcing myself to look at it and think “what do I want to do with this”…little bit by little bit I’m slowing breaking in my shop and making things easier to find. 

Things I Used In These Shop Organizing Projects:

• ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
• Infinity Table Saw Blade
• Table Saw Insert Plate
• Dado Stack
• Miter Saw Stand
• Miter Saw
• Triton Belt Sander
• Woodpeckers 12″ Square
• Triton SuperJaws
• Titebond Original Wood Glue
• Awesome Velcro
• 4’x8′ SafeRacks

Let’s start off with a storage solution for extra saw blades and all those accessories. Between my track saw, circular saw, miter saw, table saw… and then I also have my dado stack, insert plates and all of the interchangeable inserts. I’ve had a big pile sitting on the floor next to my table for a while. 

As I often do with shop project, I looked through my scrap wood and found chuck of cedar that will work well for this project. I started off by marking down one edge every 1”. Then I set my table saw to 45 degrees and made the cuts line up to my marks. 

After working down the entire length of board I set my saw back to 90 and ripped it right down the middle. 

I placed a French cleat on the back as well as on the wall then started loading it down with my blades. Starting off with my larger diameter blades at the top. I made an identical one for my dado stack. 

For my insert plates I cut two triangles at the bandsaw, drilled a pocket hole into each, then attached them to the wall to create a shelf I could set the inserts on. 

Next I started working on a battery charging station. I have one charger from each manufacture so I wanted a simple shelf that could keep them all together and organized for me. I again reached for some scrap, this time going with 3/4” plywood. I measured the chargers I have to store then cut a bottom and a back to create a shelf. 

Before joining things together I laid the chargers out on the shelf and marked off where the power cords of each, fell on the shelf. Then I cut this location out over at the bandsaw. This will give me a place to route the cords later on. 

I stuck things together with Titebond Original wood glue, using my Super Jaws to help hold things down, while I pre drilled and used screws to attach the two pieces. 

Next I cut some wings that will not only give the shelf some support but also act as the sides of the lower shelf that will hold the extra batteries. To make getting the shape of this side wing easy, just set your shelf on end and trace the profile. I made my lower shelf 4” but measure your tallest battery and see if you need yours to be taller. After getting it cut at the bandsaw, I once again used glue and screws to attach things. 

Now I just measured in between the two side wings and cut a shelf to fit between. I added in a few French cleats on the back then set it in place and loaded it down with power tool batteries and their chargers. 

I did add a power strip, and this is so I can plug all my chargers into the strip then plug the strip into the wall. 

Alright then the last thing I decided to do was installed some ceiling mounted, steel storage racks made by a company called SafeRacks.

I have installed this racks in my garage before so I already knew how quick they were to install and just how handy they are at getting those larger items that I need to store, off the floor and away from the valuable lower wall space, and up higher where they are still assessable when I need them.

I started off by placing the ceiling brackets into the joists.

After getting these attached I went back down to my workbench and started assembling the vertical arms. This is where you can adjust the height of the entire unit. To determine the height of mine off of the ceiling, I measured the totes I would be storing and decided that 3’ would be plenty. 

After getting all four set to the same length, I hopped back up on my scaffolding, very quickly attached them, and then started putting in the cross members that make up the body of the shelf. 

These SafeRacks do come in a variety of different sizes but I went with the 4’ x 8’ model, and airing on the side of cation once again of leaving myself extra room for extra inventory, I installed two of them. I’m not sure what the weight capacity is for the smaller racks but these 4×8’s are rated at 600 lbs. So that’s quite a bit of stuff these can hold!

I actually built another storage solution for the shop and that is this finishing rack which holds all my paint/stain/tube of caulking/and glue bottles. This was a few weeks ago when Triton Tools and Matt Cremona came to visit and Triton actually captured the project and produced a full video with a lot of fun behind the scenes included. Click here to check that out. 

Be sure and watch my full video at the top for a more detailed tutorial of these projects. I hope yall enjoyed this one and I hope ya’ll go out there and clean those shops! See you on the next build.

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Thinking about building your own ultimate mobile clamp rack? Check out this cool mobile clamp rack DIY project where I made it easy to move around!

Things I Used For This Mobile Clamp Rack Project:

• ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
• Hercules Dolly
• Ultimiate Workbench Plans
• Triton Track Saw
• Right Angle Clamps
• Titebond Original Wood Glue
• Brad Nailer
• Bessey K Body Clamps
• Rockler Surefoot Clamps
• Bessey KlikClamps
• Bessey DuoClamps
• Bessey F Style Clamps
• Bessey Miter Clamps
• Infinity Table Saw Blade
• Infinity Insert Plate
• Rockler Cross Lap Jig
• Titebond Glue Pump
• Rolling Lumber Rack Plans

Plans for this mobile clamp rack project are available here!

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This week I’m tackling a problem that I’m thankful to have, and that’s having so many clamps! Noticed I didn’t say too many, as there is no such thing. Recently a local cabinet marker retired and sold me his entire stock of Bessey clamps. And instead of adding to my wall mounted system I’ll be building this mobile rack so I can wheel all of my clamps over to a work surface instead of carrying them a few at a time. Lets jump into how I did it. 

When doing a basic search for mobile clamp racks I ran across this Infinity Tools video and loved the simple but effective design using plywood so I started off by replicating the body.

I started by setting the boards on my workbench and drawing those two unique side shapes on a sheet of plywood then using my track saw to cut them out. These look like an Erlenmeyer Flask where it’s wider on the bottom and narrower on the top and I can tell you now that I’ve built it, that the rack doesn’t feel at all top heavy, even when fully weighted down. 

The rack does take two sheets of plywood to complete the build and you’ll notice that I’m using a new assistant in my shop. It’s a new panel carrier to hit the market called Hercules Dolly. Instead of woman-handling full sheets over to my workbench, I’m now able to set the front end of my sheet on the Hercules Dolly then very easily maneuver the sheet over with no effort at all. You can place the dolly at the front if you need to drive it around items, or more near the center of the sheet to take more of the load or to give you a good balance point should you want to also use the dolly to help lift the sheet of plywood. 

If you’re interested my friends at Hercules Dolly have given me a 10% off coupon code for y’all. For the next two weeks, if you use April at checkout then you’ll get 10% off your Hercules Dolly. 

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After getting both sides and the bottom cut I started joining things together, using the help of these right angle clamps. 

Next I moved the entire thing to the ground to make attaching that center board of plywood easier. I laid it on it’s side and marked off where the board needed to be place then laid down Titebond Original wood glue. I stood the unit up to attach it with screws and even though I had that pencil mark on where the board needed to land I found it easier to cut a spacer, clamp it in place, and just butt the board up to it then screw it down. After getting done with one side, I repeated on the other side. 

Next was more glue then attaching the front lip to create a bottom shelf. These I screwed in from the sides but then I also flipped the unit over to attach it from the bottom. Here I took the chance to also secure the center board in a few places from the bottom as well. 

I wanted to make the unit mobile so next I added some heavy duty casters and I do recommend investing in some good casters for projects like this. I first beefed up the area they would be mounted to the rack because it will be hauling around a good bit of weight when it’s fully loaded down. I chose to mount these pads on the inside of my unit to avoid adding height to the rack but if 3/4” doesn’t make a difference to you, these can also be mounted to the bottom so they aren’t seen. 

My friend and fellow content creator Maker Gray was hanging out with me so I recruited her to help me test out the rack. I better get out of there before we decide to start throwing knives or something. haha. 

Alright now to move on to customizing this unit to really be functional. This is where things might vary for you since everybody’s clamp collection is different. I recommend pulling out every clamp you own, pull a few dimensions, then dictate the number and placement of the holders that will make the most of the space for you. 

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All of my holders are extremely simple, put together with wood glue and brad nails then attached to the rack using pocket holes. I didn’t use any glue when attaching the holders because as my clamp collection changes I want to have the ability to move things around and reorganize. 

Since I have so many Bessey K Body style clamps, I’m dedicating an entire side of the rack to them. I sped up the process by batching out the holders by tapping the plywood cuts together then running them through the bandsaw all at the same time. This creates the triangle support piece on the bottom side of the shelf. After drilling a few pocket holes in each shelf I attached things with glue and brad nails. 

To save on space, I’ll be storing all my really long clamps vertically but all the medium sized clamps horizontally and it’s extraordinary how many clamps I was able to jam in doing it this way. 42 if you’re wondering! 

Just a tip when you’re placing these shelves, set one screw but be sure to throw a level on it before setting the second. This will make things look really tight and sharp in the end. Once I placed enough shelves to mount all my clamps of this style I attached a small lip to the front of each holder to keep the clamps from being able to slide off while moving the entire rack around. Oh another tip for you: I discovered that a shelf would hold four clamps if I placed them all facing the same direction, but if I alternated the heads then I could fit in six clamps on each shelf. So if I need more room in the future I could consolidate and free up more space along the bottom. 

Alright, now onto the other side. I had a few more extra long K Body style clamps so I first included a similar shelf on this side to house those. But then I started making shelves suited to hold the Rockler Surefoot bar clamps, which since I’ve never owned K Bodys before, have been my main go to clamps for glue ups. 

These clamps are aluminum and very light weight so I kept their hanging brackets much simpler and left it as two shallow triangles with a few pocket holes in them to attach to the back. Now I had something unique planned for this side of the rack so I made sure all these hangers along the top would keep the clamps on this side inside the side walls of the rack itself. I’ll get to my reasoning later on, but note that if you don’t want to do any add ons like me, then you can make these brackets protrude past the side walls and hold more clamps to fit your collection in. 

With the left over room on this side, I started making brackets and placing my other clamps including these Bessey KliKlamps and Duo Clamps.

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Moving on to storing my F Style clamps. For this, I took inspiration from my buddy Tyson who did a really cool three layer wall mounted rack for his collection.

I started off by switching my blade to a dado stack that matched the thickness of the clamp’s neck. BTW another new thing in my shop I’m loving are these insert plates from Infinity Tools. Instead of cutting a slot in a new plate, they make a permanent plate with a slot for a removable insert. Once I cut into a new one, I write directly on the insert what cutting size it’s for so I can easily grab for it in the future. 

I had to share that because I think it’s way too cool. Anyways, for cutting the slots equally you can of course measure across your board and mark off where to cut then manually move your board along, but I ended up using a really neat new jig put out by Rockler that makes this task a cinch. 

The jig works so that you can set a metal gauge on the sacrificial fence to match the width of your dado cut. This way after you cut one slot, you can place that cut on this gauge then it will space all your other cuts equally for you. You’ll see that I went ahead and stacked two boards together while making these cuts because I wanted two boards for the top of the clamps as well as the bottom. Or at least that’s the case for the larger sizes. 

To attach these holder I stuck with a few pocket holes along the bottom and secured them directly to that center board. 

Now another thing to consider if you tackle this project is to place your clamps according to what you use most. My most reached for clamps are the bar clamps so I placed those in the prime position on my rack, then the F style clamps along the bottom. But if you use these more often, then place them higher an other clamps lower. 

Oops – I skipped over the miter clamps. This was an easy shelf with some holes punched in it to match the diameter of the threads on these clamps. I added some triangle support wings then used pocket holes to attach it. 

Then finally the last style of clamp I wanted to hang were these wooden hand screw clamps. These were the easiest as it was just a stub out scrap piece with some pocket holes to attach it. You can see I made two different sizes for the three sizes of clamps I have. 

I’ll have to play around and see what I end up using this bottom shelf mostly for but in the mean time I used it for accessories to gluing such as my gallon bottle storage, these tiny clamps that I placed in a bin, and these right angle clamp it jigs I so often reach for. 

Keep in mind you could stop there on the rack but I had a few more ideas for add ons to take the unit another step further. 

First thing was a glue refilling station. If you keep your small glue bottles close to full then you don’t have to squeeze as hard while applying. However, going from the gallon jug to the smaller one is always a challenge but Titebond has got our backs with a new pump to simplify the task. By adding in a shelf for my gallon jug to sit on, I’m thinking I’ll not put off filling up my smaller bottles as long as I normally do. Then on the same thought process, I went ahead and made another shelf for my small glue bottles to be housed in. 

Ok this next add on is something I was very excited to try but understand that it’s an experiment so I might need to make some adjustments in the future. 

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What I’m aiming for is to have a glue up rack on my clamp rack. This will eliminate taking up workbench space for any small glue ups, which for me covers about 90% of my glue ups. 

I wanted this attachment to be removable so I came up with a design that incorporates a French cleat. I started by making these cleats over at the bandsaw then attaching them to the rack on either end. This set up could end up supporting a good bit of weight so I went ahead and used wood glue on these. 

Next I cut a board to length with a corresponding 45 degree angle cut on the bottom to fit into these cleats. 

Then I made some dog ears, or some stand offs that I would cut and then attach to this board. These are so I could not only push out a metal rod from the board, but also provide the rod some support across it’s length. 

With that looking like it would work I next started figuring out how to modify these Rockler Surefoot clamps so that I could hang them from this metal rod. These clamps already come with two holes punched near the end. I enlarged the last hole to match the size of my rod then took it to my bandsaw and cut away some material in order to create a hook. I cut in this hook on all my 24” and 36” long clamps. 

Now you can see what I’m going for….. the glue up rack is removable so I can have it out of the way if needed but then quickly set into place when needed. Then I can hang my clamps with this hook and I can place the clamps anywhere along this rod. If I have a short boards for glue up then I can place two really close or four close, but then if I have a long board glue up then I can go up to 4’ wide with my clamp spacing. 

There was still more to figure out though. Instead of having the clamps hang vertically I wanted to have them angled out some to make feeding in boards easier and to also push the glue up away from the rack for dripping glue to miss it. To achieve that, I first cut off the 45 angle in between the two cleats. This is so I could extend this board down further so I could attach another board to push out the clamps, but a little bit further than where it would currently land. 

I took the rack off to make attaching this board easier but I didn’t use glue as again this is an experiment and I know I might need to make adjustments in the future. In the mean time I left it at predrilling then using screws. 

And Volia…..that does exactly what I need it to do. I’m so excited to play around with this in my next few glue ups. Keep in mind that you could easily build this rack by itself and place it anywhere in your shop that you place a mating cleat. I went ahead and placed a cleat on my lumber rack so if I don’t want it on my clamp rack for some reason I have another option for it other than my workbench surface. 

Ok last attachment for this Swiss army clamp rack….adding in a roll of brown construction paper and a roll of wax paper. It’s very handy having a roll of each in the shop to protect surfaces from getting gunked up due to painting, finishing or glue up. I placed a few dog ears along the top surface then threaded another length of metal rod through. These stand offs are attached by pocket holes, facing out, so if either roll needs to be replaced in the future it’s an easy task. 

Now I’m sure a lot of you will suggest to add a bandsaw blade to the rack to make tearing off this paper easier, but I did this for my other roll over on my out feed table and I can tell you that moving a pocket knife across the paper is far easier than moving the 4’ wide paper across a stationary blade. But to each there own of course. 

Aw man, I lied. One more attachment. I glue station takes up one side of the rack, but the other is still blank so I added on a cleat so that when I’m not using the glue up rack, I can store it on the clamp rack itself. This keeps it assessable for use but also keeps it from just lending up against a wall somewhere, taking up space. 

Ok, and I’m not lying this time. That really does do it for this clamp rack. I haven’t quite figured out where I want to keep it yet, but for now I’ll place it in a corner. 

I think I’ll have to come back and add on a handle on each side to make grabbing and pulling this thing around, easier. Click here for the DIY clamp rack plans if you would like a set of plans for this one.

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I hope you enjoyed it because I loved this project. I like things having a home and being easy to find. I hope this inspires you to make a clamp rack of your own.

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First came the AC and now comes the DC! This is another absolute must in the woodworking shop, this week I’m installing a dust collection system.

I am very fortunate to have partner with ClearVue Cyclones for this installment. 

ClearVue is a family owned business that is made right here in the US. They just released a brand new metal unit called Pentz EF5. I was excited about this because I wanted to store my unit outside of the shop, under my covered patio, to cut down on the noise inside the shop when it’s running and to also save on the footprint the unit creates inside.

The plan is to have one long main truck running across the north wall of my shop so I can have drop downs to all my larger machines that will require DC. Of course right now I don’t have that many, but I will certainly be adding to my collection in the future. 

Now even though I’m housing the unit outside, I’ll be keeping the filter inside so I will have a way to recirculate my heat or cooled air. If the filter were outside then I would be disposing of the air. I’ll get into more details on this later. 

To start the process off, we started on constructing the main truck on the floor. I’m going with an 8” main truck line then the down shoots will taper into a 6” line. I worked with ClearVue before hand to figure out where along this back wall my tools will be placed, both my current machines and my future machines such as a jointer. This allowed them to put together a diagram we could work off of and made this part of the process go very quickly. 

Of course everything can be moved around in the future should I need to move things around or add additional machines but the main components are the Ys that will create a down shoot from the main truck, blast gates to shut off different sections of the run, and elbows to soften the turns to keep a smooth track for the air to flow along. 

For the duct work, you can go with PVC which is what my good friend Jay Bates did and he published a great video covering his install which you can find here. I went with Norfab ducting for mine. It’s more expensive but it’s a reusable system that is not only very quick to install but it’s also extremely customizable. Instead of using adhesives or rivets, the components use a clamping system to join parts together. So we started off by laying out a dry run of an entire branch, once things looked good, we could very quickly start joining things by mating up the two ends inside a circular clamp. All in all I think it took two hours to put all the ducting together and the best part is, if I ever want to change up something in the future all I have to do is unclamp the section I want to modify and change out the component. 

With that done, we moved outside to set the motor in place because the placement of this will dictate the position of the main truck line inside. We placed it as high possible because I wanted that main line to be up and out of that highly useable zone on my shop walls. 

The unit I’m going with is a 5 horse power cyclone designed by the one and only Bill Pentz. If you aren’t familiar with the name, Mr. Pentz is widely recognized as the leading figure in dust collection technology and he solely works with ClearVue. The EF 5 is a 5 horse power unit with an 16” turbine.

Once the motor is mounted to the cyclone, it is pretty darn heavy. Two people can lift it, but since I went so high with the mounting position we had to bring in the tractor to assist in getting it up to it’s bracket.

While we get that installed let me circle back to having this unit outside. The big pros are the reduction in noise in the shop, and also the lack of an additional footprint. The disadvantage is if you have a heated or cooled space then this giant vacuum will be pulling out that controlled air and disposing of it outside. Which will make keeping your space heated/cooled not only harder, but also more expensive. 

The workaround to this is to have the motor outside but have the filter inside so that after the air goes through the cyclone and deposits all the large shavings and chips into the collection barrel, you have the option to route it through the filter and back into the shop. Keeping all that heated or cooled air in the space. 

And that’s what we started working on next. Drilling and cutting two holes in my brand new shop wall to route both the intake and exhaust lines. 

Incase you’re wondering, yes, it was nerve wracking. 

I used a bit long enough to punch through to the outside from the inside. Then I came back with a jigsaw to cut the hole exactly to size. 

The top hole will be the intake. So when the DC is turned on, it will pull air and collect sawdust as I’m making it at my machines. It will then come in through the intake of the cyclone where all the heavier particles will drop down into the 55 gallon barrel. Which is hooked up to the bottom of the cyclone. Then the air will be routed to the bottom hole of the shop which leads to the filter inside. This filter goes down to a .5 micron and it’s job is to collect all the fine dust particles that the eye can’t see, before spitting the air back out into the shop. 

The guys also included a Y on the exhaust port here to give me the option to vent the fine dust directly outdoors. This way if I’m not running my AC I can switch around the blast gates quickly and vent right outside instead of bringing it back in. And since I’ve been using it for a while now, I can tell you that it works so efficiently that even when I’m venting outside, I don’t see any dust coming out. 

Ok lets move back inside and get the ducting hooked up. This goes together very very quickly at this point. Each section is lifted up and it’s best to have three people on this job. One person to clamp it to the previous section, one for stepping the section to the wall with plumbers tape, and one supporting the branch with something like a broom. 

And man does it change the look of the shop once it starts going up. I had thought to paint it before installing it but I’m so glad I didn’t, I love the industrial look it gives the space. 

The main things to keep in mind when installing these sections is to make sure your blast gates and Y components are facing the correct way. Of course you also want to use a level so it comes out looking sharp in the end. We went through beforehand and made marks so we could quickly throw it up without stopping. 

Same thing when clamping on the down shoots, use a level to get them straight and plumb. This particular down shoot is for my future planer and jointer. Since they won’t be in use for some time, we placed an end cap on both. 

On the runs that go to a machine with a 4” port instead of 6”, such as this one that goes to my bandsaw, a reducer fitting is put into the line to taper the size down so that a flex hose could be connected with a hose clamp. I did the same exact thing on the line to my bench top thickness planer. Also on this tool, since I’ll want to have the ability to pull it out from the wall to run longer stock through, I made sure to leave myself a good amount of flex hose. 

The last run to make was the line to my table saw, which required the trunk to be suspended in the air so that it would stay inline with the main trunk against the wall. I found two trusses to throw in a few hooks, then use some paracord to capture the line and hold it in place. 

While I was working with Paul on getting the line up for the tablesaw, Cody was awesome enough to be working with James on handling the electrical for the collector. When I built the shop I planned for this installment and left a dedicated 220 circuit for the motor over in the north east corner. This 220 will be used to run the motor but since I wanted to run the unit with a remote, they also had to tie into a 120 line for that relay. 

So Cody removed the wall panel to run the wiring needed, shimmied it back into position, then connected and install the control box. Yet another hole was drilled through this wall to get the power cord to the exterior unit, although this one was muuuuuch smaller. 

And for right now, I think that completes my system. Ahhhh isn’t that so cool looking. Cody flipped the breaker, ClearVue gave me the remote and I tested her out. The first thing I did was see how much dust it sucked up off my hands. It worked quiet well. 

Next I opened the blast gate leading to the table saw and watch the flex hose as it removes all the sawdust that’s inside my cabinet! Incredible. 

I might look into automative blast gates in the future but right now I’m using a longer bar clamp to open and close the second half of my main line depending on if I’m using the bandsaw or tablesaw. 

Overall it took, not even a full two days to install everything I’ve shown you. So if you are committed to this hobby, then I recommend making dust collection a priority and protecting those lungs. Big thank you to ClearVue for coming down and supporting what I do.

The guys there were cool enough to give me a 5% off coupon code to pass along to you guys. If you use the code wilkerdos at check out you get 5% off of anything purchased at ClearVueCyclones 

Be sure and check out the video above for more of this install.

Thanks for coming along on this one, I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll see you soon. 

Thinking about shop organization projects? Check out these top 5 DIY organization projects I’ve done for my very own shop!

Things I Used In These Shop Organization Projects:

• ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
• Infinity Table Saw Blade
• Hardware Storage Bin Templates
• Brad Nailer
• Titebond Original Wood Glue
• Infinity Round Over Bit
• Infinity Straight Bit
• Infinity Flush Trim Bit
• Ultimate Workbench Plans
• Blue Rockler Clamps
• Titebond Instant Bond
• Rockler Cord Reels
• ZAP Remote Control Outlets
• Rockler Drawer Organizational System

In this video I’m going to be tackling a bunch of small tasks that focus on organizing my shop.

Just coming off building it and moving things in, everything is out of place and more than that, nothing has a place. It’s not only frustrating because I can’t locate anything, but also intimidating because so much needs to be done. Of course, it’s one of those things that needs to be done a little bit at a time so this week’s to-do list is a bunch of small things that are not challenging or even time consuming, more a matter of just taking the time do them.

The goal is to not necessarily set things up the way they will be permanently but more so to get things off the floor, out of boxes, and off all my horizontal flat work surfaces. 

I started off with pegboard as it’s a dead easy solution to get a lot of things put up quickly. You can purchase 4×8 sheets right off the shelf and throw them up, however I took the time to paint mine just to give it some color. 

To make a simple boarder, I grabbed some 2×4 material and ripped it down at the tablesaw. This was the night before I had finally got power hooked up to my shop, so I was still having to work with my job site saw on the porch. 

After ripping the boards down, I also cut in a rabbet at the table saw so the pegboard would have a recess to fall into on the back of the frame. I gave the frame a quick coat of paint then while that dried I took the time to make a stencil from my logo to transfer onto the pegboard. 

To make a stencil I print off the design I’m after and cover the entire page in clear packing tape to give it some rigidity. Then I used an exacto knife to cut it out. I suppose I could have kept the negative side of the stencil instead of this positive side, but regardless……I could now place the stencil where I wanted it on my board and trace it out to paint. 

I grabbed some help to move the pegboard inside to the frame then set it inside so that it rested inside the boarder I made. I attach it to the boarder, I used a fast drying CA glue from Titebond called Instant Bond.  I switched over to Titebond Original when gluing on the support strips along the back, but then called the board done and ready to be hung. 

Now you don’t have to take it from me, but I recommend grabbing another person to help hang the board. It isn’t that it’s heavy, it’s just awkward to hold. 

If you ever come to my shop and notice how busted up my pegboard frame is, you’ll know why. But meh, it gives it a story ; ) 

I admitted defeat and called in help to lift and hold it in place while I secured it to the studs. 

While working on pegboard, I also hung my old board from my previous shop. When I was moving out, I didn’t have the heart to leave it behind or throw it away. And even though I’ve change my logo, I again love the story behind it and am glad I held onto it. 

Having these two boards up, made a huge difference in helping me clear off my flat surfaces. It gives me a dedicated spot for my safety glasses, my chisels, my glue brushes, my tape measures, my hammers….all the tools I use a very regular basis. 

For all my extension cords I threw a hook into the wall. I started them off high but then I decided to add some French cleats to this nook to store some extra hardware bins I had in a box, so I moved them down. 

Again on the hardware storage, I have a master scheme that I can’t wait to tackle for all my hardware, but it will take me time to design and execute. So in the meantime I will use this temporary solution so I can get rid of the box they were in and also have my remaining hardware on display for my use. I do have a video on making these bins in three different sizes and also a free template if you’re interested in making your own. They are a little time consuming but a great use of scraps and they last forever if you put in the effort once. 

It was at this point the shop’s power was actually flipped on and I got to use my cabinet grade saw for the first time in the new shop. Needless to say I was happy. 

I put it to use right away making more French cleats for my walls. Which is a piece of wood that has the top cut at a 45 degree angle. I started off by hanging all the holders I made previously in my old shop. This included my plug and paddle bits, my hand tools such as side cutter and wire strippers, all my screw drivers and wrenches. Then I moved on to making new holders for new sets of tools such as my forester bits. 

While a lot of bits come in their own very nice cases that keeps them organized, I don’t like things tucked away and hidden. I like things visible, and easily accessible. I did use the box to copy the layout of the bits though. I use any scrap of 1x material I had laying around and lined it up to the row of bits in their box then transferred the hole location to the scrap. Then I could take it to the drill press and punch a hole the majority of the way through. 

Since I wanted two rows of bits on this one holder, I used the table saw to bevel the top of this scrap then Titebond wood glue to secure it to a piece of 1/4” plywood. This plywood piece is acting as a backboard for the holders to be secured to, so you can use anything you have laying around. I used brad nails to hold the pieces together while the glue had time to set up, and now you can see how it will work once I’m done. The bits easily fit in their place, I can keep them organized and tell at a glance if any are missing. 

I repeated the process to make a second row right underneath the first. Now I could cut a cleat with a 45 at the top to mate into the 45 degree cleat I placed on the wall earlier. 

Simple enough right?

I repeated the same exact process for my router bits. I used the layout in the box to layout my scrap board then turn it into a holder. On this one I made sure to leave plenty of extra holes in both 1/2” shank size and the 1/4” size because it seems like I’m always acquiring new router bits. However, when I eventually fill these up I can either keep making holders to expand left and right, or even replace these to include more layers downwards. 

This is a very quick and easy way to organize any bits so the next time you have a few scraps you’re tossing out, take 15 mins to make a few holders then place them near the work area you would most likely be needing them. You could even take it a step further and write the sizes of the items in front of their hole so you know exactly what they are, or what’s missing if it isn’t put back.

Moving on to clamps. These have just been piled up on the floor like everything else so I started off by grabbing some 3/4 plywood cut off from sheathing the inside of my shop. You don’t need huge pieces for almost any of these projects, so remember to search through your scrap wood first. 

I started off by marking off by measuring how deep a shelf would need to be to store four clamps, then I measured out a triangle that size. Since I’ll need a few of these, I rough cut my boards in squares then taped them all together to cut once at the bandsaw. 

Next I used wood glue and screws to attach these to a backer board. I also used the help of two spacers to speed up this process but it goes so quick either way as it’s very easy. 

Before hanging my clamps up, I first did something I should have done years ago but never took the time to do. When a friend gave me these pipe clamps, he made these wooden blocks for the pads. They not only extend the footprint of the clamps some, but they are also easier on the project when clamping down. You can see he used two screws to hold each wooden pad into place which is a good idea, but often the pad slips out. Instead of messing with the screws any longer, I applied a little Titebond Instant Bond, applied pressure for a few seconds then repeated on the other pad. This permanently attaches the wooden blocks and removes the headache of messing with keeping them under the screws hold. 

To hang up the clamp rack I placed a French cleat on the wall, making sure to grab studs on this one since the clamps all together aren’t light. Then I hung up all my clamps. It’s surprising how little room they take up when they are organized. 

Up next was cord reels. I have a ton of outlets along my wall, which is great. But I placed outlets at every light so that I could eventually also have hanging cord reels over work areas in the center of my shop. These are Rockler Extension Cord Reels that are 30’ long that has a 12 gauge wire to support any heavier tools I want to run. 

I decided to place two on my woodworking side and two on my metal working side. The first being right by my mobile workbench. Since I have a duel outlet by my light, I used the open outlet for the reel. Once it was secure into a rafter, I set the length of the stop so that I could easily walk under it without knocking my head, but also easily reach up and grab a hold of it to use. 

Oh one of my favorite small adjustments, just because I’ve never seen this gadget before, was the solution to this light problem. See when the door is open the light is almost wasted, and I wanted a way to isolate it from the rest of the lights on the circuit so that when my bay door is up, I can switch it off while the others remained on. I found these remote controlled outlets on Amazon that gives me the power to do just that. All I had to do was plug in an outlet to the outlet on the ceiling then plug the light into the new outlet. Now I can just hit a button my remote and turn the light on and off! I think that’s neat.

Annnnd the coolest part is I still have five other outlets I can use around the shop for this one single remote. I have no idea what those uses will be, but I’m sure something will pop up. 

The last thing I did before calling it done was to organize the drawers of my tool box. I’m constantly needing to find a home for a lot of little things – from drill bits, to hair ties, to carmex and extra ear buds for my hearing protection… And this Rockler Drawer Organization System is by far the best system that I have come across for this task. As you can see, you can pull the units directly out of the box and easily click them together to form individual trays that is 100% customizable by either leaving the rows empty or positioning trays or dividers to suit your individual storage needs. The tray sections are actually made from a synthetic rubber so they can flex. And, you can actually use a pair of scissors to cut them to different lengths. Once the rubber trays are down, you can leave them as-is. Or, you can customize it even further by placing plastic bins or dividers anywhere along the notches in the trays.

And with that organized, I’m calling my to-do list done!

As I mentioned before, nothing too crazy and nothing too time consuming. But it is amazing how much more efficiently you can work once things are more organized. I will of course keep continuing to evolve my shop over time. And I will of course continue to show you guys updates along the way. In the meantime, I hope your shop is evolving and is a happy place for you, too.

Thinking about installing your own mini split AC heating system? First, check out this project where I installed my own in my shop!

This was such a cool week in my shop, and I mean that very literally as I got AC installed. 

Temperatures in Texas get hot hot hot during the summer and with as much as I’m in the shop, an AC system is an absolute must. I went ahead and filmed the process of the installation even though I didn’t install the unit myself (I’ll cover why later on). So in this tutorial, I’ll cover why I went with the unit I did and give you an overview of the process so you can kinda know what to expect if you’re looking into doing the same. 

I partnered up with two companies for this project so I want to say a big thank you for Carrier Systems and Mini Split King for sponsoring this video.

The first step in the process was to figure out how big of a unit I would need for my space. The factors that play into this are the square footage of the space, how high the ceilings are, R-value of the R-value of my walls, ceiling, windows, and garage doors. When the AC guys ran the numbers they came back and told me I pretty much built a yeti cooler and I would only need a two ton unit to heat and cool the entire space. 

And if you recall the video when the spray foam was being added, I mentioned that even though it’s more expensive up front it is so effective that it saves on the heating/cooling step and this is a great example of that in play.

Before Mini Split King showed up, I pulled off the wall sheathing directly underneath where the unit was going to be mounted to the wall. Then ripped the very top sheet in half and remounted only the top half. This is so the unit can be mounted to the wall but the install guys will have access to the bottom of the unit.

Now Carrier has a large range of mini splits able to handle anything from a garage to a house to a shop the size of a house. ; ) I’m going with 2 one ton units that are, by far, the most efficient unit on the market with a SEER rating of 42. 

One huge advantage to going with a mini split is it’s a ductless unit, meaning instead of having to run traditional ducting in the attic to distribute the air, it only requires an outside unit called a condenser, then a hole in the wall to connect that to the inside unit called the air handler. 

I’ll have one placed on the back wall of each section of my shop so that I can either have both running to heat or cool the entire space, or once I install a bay door in between the two sides of my shop, I can have the option to only heat or cool the side of the shop I’m currently working on. The cooling will be amazing for Texas but it’s worth noting this unit can heat with temps down to -22 outside.

The unit comes with a mounting bracket on the back that can be removed then placed level on the wall. Since this is my woodshop, the guys mounted my unit up pretty high on the wall to keep it away from as much sawdust as possible, although it will still get dust pulled into the filter and need to be cleaned regularly. 

Then they punched a hole through my sheathing which will allow the plumbing of the unit to be fed into the wall and down to another hole that will lead to the outside unit. Although the air handler is about ____ x _____ you can see it is pretty light weight. 

With the unit securely in place, he next started routing the communication wire which will allow the inside unit to talk to the outside unit. 

***A few other features built into this unit is a dehumidification function: Unlike the dry function on regular mini splits this is the only system in the market with a true dehumidifier function built in that will not over cool the space trying to remove humidity. This is great for Wood shops. It has wifi so I can control the unit from my phone annnnd it has a sensor a sensor on the bottom right that you can set to follow you around the shop and direct the vents towards your location.

You can see with the door of the unit open, you can see the filters. With this being in a shop, it’s recommended that I clean the filters out once a week. Cleaning will mean slipping them out (which is simple enough), dunking them in some water, then letting them air dry. Another preventative measure I took since this is a shop is I attached a layer of roll out filter on top of the intake of the unit to catch a lot of the dust before it enters into the internal filters. 

Next up was to drill a hole in the bottom of the wall all the way to the outside unit. To keep the outside of the wall from tearing out, Joe started from the inside until the center bit of the holes punched through the outside sheathing. Then he moved to the outside and finished the cut. This hole will be where the interconnecting refrigerant, control and drain lines will be ran through to the condenser. 

Once ran these lines can be cut to their proper length and attached, then also tidied up so they fit snugly back into the wall channel. 

All in all the inside install took about an hour to an hour in a half. And before you ask, yes it is simple enough to install yourself however there are two key factors on why it’s still a good idea to hire the job out. One is if you buy a unit direct and install it yourself, you won’t get a warranty through the manufacture. If you go through a certified HVAC contractor your unit will have a ten year warranty attached to it, and often the installers will also have some sort of warranty. Mini Spilt Kings offer a two year service warranty when they do a job, so that’s a huge reason to hire the job out. The second reason, I’ll get into in just a second after I show the installation of the outside condenser. 

The condenser can be set on the ground on a concrete slab or mounted to the wall. Since I still have some grading to do, I chose to mount mine to the side of my shop, about waist height. 

A bracket is placed level on the side of the building where two arms are attached. Then the unit can be set into place and secured down. You can see it’s relatively light weight where one person can lift it. 

Next the lines coming out from the inside of the shop can be cut to length and attached to the condenser.

And now comes in point two on why hiring out the install is a good idea. Before adding refrigerate, the system got pressurized with nitrogen to check for leaks and then bled out so that they could connect a vacuum pump that draws out all the air and humidity from the lines.

If this step is skipped then the moisture that is in the lines will always remain in the unit and attach to different parts inside causing corrosion and premature wear and tear on the unit. Once the micron gauge gets to at least 500 microns then the refrigerant can be released throughout the unit, and that means it’s ready to be turned on. 

I then went inside the shop and closed the doors and lowered my garage doors. By the way, having these new Wayne Dalton garage doors closed is just as bright as having them open thanks to all the windows. I’m so thrilled with how much natural light they let in.

With the shop closed up I then powered both air handlers up to full blast! And goodness me, are these things quiet!

I turned them on turbo since this is the first time cooling the space, so this is the loudest it will ever be…..which is pretty dang quiet if you ask me. Check out the video above and see.

For finishing details, the guys added in a surge protector so that this $60 protector will need to be replaced instead of the entire unit. I also used some Titebond Weather Master Sealant to caulk around the hole put into the shop then last thing was to replace the inside panels of my shop wall. 

I just want to quickly point out, this is exactly why I went the long route of using screws over a nail gun to sheath the inside! It hasn’t even been a year and I’ve removed a few panels here or there to get inside the walls for some reason or another. So I recommend doing the same if you build or have something built. 

Ok and that about wraps it up. Having an heat and cooled space is going to be simply amazing. Again, big thank you to Carrier and Mini Split Kings for working with me and sponsoring this project. 

Here is a link to the units in case you’d like to check them out.

Thinking about building the ultimate workbench? Check out this DIY project where I build my own ultimate workbench using plywood!

Ultimate DIY Workbench Plans

$9.99

Shop now

Well, since finishing the shop build I’m now back to building the other things I’ve been needing. First on the list is a proper workbench. I’ve built a couple of workbenches in the past but not of this size. I kept it simple by using a full sheet of 4×8 plywood for the top but jazzed up the ends with some French cleats for hardware bin storage. Down below I outfitted the feet with some quick release casters from Rockler. All and all the table came out perfectly and is going to serve me well for future projects. If you’re interested in building your own ultimate workbench, you can find the plans here. Check out the video down below to learn a bit more.

Ultimate DIY Workbench Plans

$9.99

Shop now

Things I Used In This Ultimate Workbench Project:

Triton Track saw
Purebond Plywood
ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Jobsite Saw
Triton SuperJaws
Titebond Original Wood Glue

Glue Brush
Triton Drills
18 Gauge Brad Nailer
Rockler Shop Block
Rockler Bandy Clamps
Rockler Bench Cookies

Miter Saw Stand
Miter Saw
Titebond Thick and Quick
Rockler Quick Release Casters

Be sure and sign up for my newsletter at the top/right of this page so you don’t miss new projects!

Ultimate DIY Workbench Plans

$9.99

Shop now

Some of the links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will get a small commission from the sale of the products.  In a small way it helps to keep this website alive and kicking and I appreciate your support in this way. Cheers – April

Thinking about installing shop walls in your building? Check out this DIY project where I show you exactly how I added new walls to my new shop!

It’s all coming together you guys! All the insulation and wiring is installed and now I’m finally over the hump of sheathing the walls and covering the ceiling in a corrugated polycarbonate material from Tuftex. The ceiling and walls look incredible : ) Admittedly, it’s been a heck of a lot of work and my body is some kinda sore. If you haven’t already check out the last video covering the wiring and insulation found here or you can start from the beginning of the shop build out video here. I appreciate you stopping by to learn more about the process.

Some of the links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will get a small commission from the sale of the products.  In a small way it helps to keep this website alive and kicking and I appreciate your support in this way. Cheers – April

Thinking about installing lap siding or board and batten? Check out this DIY project where I walk you through the steps I took to install my own siding!

The shop is coming along, and man is it kicking my butt! Admittedly, the building process is a labor of love and I really do enjoy it to the fullest. This week I installed all of the lap siding and board and batten siding. I was inspired by a fellow builder who designs and builds a lot of structures with a wainscoting on the bottom third of the exterior walls. My wainscoting features a board and batten style which I suspect will look incredible once it’s painted. The lap siding seemed never ending but with good help and a rented scissor lift, it was knocked out in only about 2.5 days. If you haven’t already, check out the video below to see how it all went. As always, thanks for stopping by. – April

Things I Used In This Installing Lap Siding Project:

Custom Tool Belt
ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Titebond Caulking
Triton Superjaws 

Triton Superjaws 

Titebond Construction Adhesive
Lap Siding Gauge Blocks

The links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will get a small commission from the sale of the products.  In a small way it helps to keep this website alive and kicking and I appreciate your support in this way.

Cheers – April