Category: Shop

Things I've made and what making them taught me

Tent for Spray Painting Outdoors

My entertainment centre is coated with General Finishes Enduro White Poly.  I really liked the results I got with this finish, but I found it a bit messy to work with.  In particular, it seems to travel further through the air without drying than some of the clear coats I use and it left a …

Making a Dewalt Sander work with a Bosch (or Festool) dust hose

My Dewalt random orbit sander serves me pretty well, but I’ve never really had a lot of luck connecting dust hoses to it.  Until now, I always had a hard time finding one that fit snugly enough to stay on and didn’t get in the way while trying to use the sander.  I recently discovered …

Folding Out Feed Table for my SawStop PCS

I recently snagged a rare deal in the Toronto used machinery market:  a used 3HP SawStop PCS with a mobile base.  It’s a great machine and it takes up less space than the Ridgid TS-3650 contractor saw it replaced.  Unfortunately, when you get a new table saw, you realize just how deeply integrated into your …

Installing a Cast Iron Router Wing in my SawStop PCS

For the past few years, I had been running a Ridgid TS-3650 and one of the more popular articles on this blog was about how I installed a cast iron router wing in its left side.  That worked great.  A few weeks ago though, I got really lucky and spotted a used SawStop PCS on …

Router Wing Dust Collection

Most of the time, when I use my cast iron router wing and my router lift, I use it for work at the edge of a board, and the dust port on my fence works fine.  It always lets a little bit of dust escape to be swept up, but never enough to bother me. …

Lathe Tool Rack

This little project is aimed at reclaiming a bit of inefficiently used wall space near my lathe.  My old lathe tool racks hang on the wall and they are a bit of a space hog, because the tools are arranged horizontally and they vary in length from a bit over 24″ to less than 12″. …

Hammer A3-26 Shop Made Extension Tables

I have a Hammer A3-26 jointer-planer, and it’s a great, compact machine (I reviewed it shortly after getting it). It can joint and plane wood up to 10″ wide, but packing a 10″ jointer into the space normally consumed by a 6″ jointer does make handling long boards more difficult.  The longest board I’ve jointed with this …

12" F clamps hanging on two small clamp racks, each holding 5 clamps.

French Cleat Clamp Racks

These super simple clamp racks are designed to hang on french cleats that I recently screwed to my walls.  The fact that I was screwing so many things to the walls and then moving them around to rearrange things in the shop was becoming a bit of a domestic controversy so I decided to putty …

Installed

Upgrading a Delta 50-760 Dust Collector with an Oneida Super Dust Deputy

One of the problems with canister filters is that they work really well, and an air filter’s job is to remove particles from air.  Sounds silly to say it, but after you install a canister filter on a dust collector, you’re going to find yourself having to clean it, especially with a single stage dust …

Little Shop Cabinets

I originally started this project with the intention of building a single small cabinet for my router bits.  Having found some inspiration at Wood Magazine, I sat down with Sketchup and worked out a design. The Wood Magazine plan is free.  I decided I wanted two smaller doors, and I didn’t want to go to …