The shop is on its way!

We finally decided to keep the shop in the garage, and to put the table saw (when we get it) in the basement. The cost of erecting walls in the basement, and having good dust collection would have broken the bank on materials cost alone, so we had to scrap the idea of a more elaborate basement shop.

We'll be using one bay of the two-car garage, as well as some space at the very end. Since there is no insulation in the garage, that's the first thing on the list, and is scheduled for tomorrow. That will be followed by bringing up power from the basement, to be surface mounted, and installing a ceiling heater. At that point, we'll be operational.

Yet to be decided is storage, curtain partitions if needed to contain heat, and some additional tools like a drum sander and dust collector to supplement our shop vacs. We're still not sure about an air cleaner.

I'll post progress pictures as we go, and hopefully will be able to get some new projects going. Can't wait!!!

Dust collection system for the drill press

In addition to making dust while sanding, I also create quite a mess with Forstner bits. So, I needed to supplement my box fan and filters with something that could handle coarser material. I considered making a device which would hold the shop vac hose in place, but found a commercial product that seems to work quite well. Several different nozzles are available, and this wide one gathers dust and debris from a large area. Other nozzles can be placed closer to the drill bit.

I spent several hours sanding today, which gave it a good test run. When I did this much sanding down at the community shop, I needed to vacuum my hair, arms and clothing. Today, I barely needed to clean up. I don't know how the shop vac will hold up under such constant use, but for now, between the two systems, I have an effective, inexpensive way to keep things relatively clean.

Dust collection for the combination sander

Since space is an issue, we decided that the shop vac would do double duty as a dust collector for the combination sander. The problem was to figure out the best way to connect the vac to the 4" dust port. The answer was a deli container that fit into the dust port, a piece of wood cut at an angle to fit the deli container, a hole cut in the wood for the shop vac hose, some rubber roofing membrane to stabilize the lip of the deli container, and a hose clamp to hold everything in place. And the best part of it is that it works really well!