Some 20 years ago, when I first became seriously interested in woodworking, I began by making furniture for the house. Money was tight, so I used melamine-covered chipboard held together with dowels and screws, and worked on a cheap copy of the famous Black & Decker workmate in a cold, damp single garage at the end of the garden. My early skills, on the other hand, came from my father, who was a cabinetmaker and later a carpenter too, so my…
PART 2
The tool tray
To form the ends of the tool tray recess, I cut two lengths of 50 x 155mm beech at 45° on one end, and glued them to the rear of the bench-top. I then glued a 25 x 100mm plank of beech across these blocks to form the rear of the tool tray; two pieces of 20 x 10mm beech fitted under the top on either side of the recess provided a lip to support the trays 4mm MDF bottom.
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The problem with setting up a workshop is that it’s rare to have a completely clean sheet of paper on which to design your perfect solution. and you have to make do with what’s available. Usually you’re forced to convert an existing garage, shed or outhouse and this puts an immediate constraint on the layout you can adopt.
Continuing on from part 1 of 'Setting up shop', Alan Holtham sheds some more wisdom on designing your own workshop.
• If you’re still struggling to get to grips with your layout, I’ve formulated the following summary for setting up a workshop, based on about half a dozen previous arrangements of mine in a variety of different situations. They’re presented in no particular order, and the list…
Make time for organisation
While I was working, there was never enough time to set up or maintain a workshop. Since leaving the rat race, however, I’ve finally been able to convert my garage into a proper workshop which has been a source of enormous satisfaction. Apart from the luxury of being able to manoeuvre easily and find everything when I need it, I’ve realised that organisation + self-discipline = efficiency. It’s…
Once I saw the size of the bottle and read the instructions I couldn't help thinking that this new organic rust remover wouldn't be successful from the 250ml of Restore mixed with 4.75lts of water ..yes, that's right, water, a 19 to 1 ratio would remove all of the rust from my 30 year old tools.
Well, here's how it went. Firstly the safety gear. Rubber gloves face shield/goggles and all the windows open for ventilation just…
Refurbished bench top with a new lease of life
I couldn't avoid it any longer: my workbench needed help. It had been looking the worse for wear for a while and something needed to be done. I have to admit that I hadn't been taking as much care of it as I should have, so its decline had accelerated in recent months. It was time to take remedial action.
Before refurbishment: needing a little TLC
Quick refurb
This type of…
...After
Before and...
My workshop used to be a stable block and I thought that trying to insulate the whole area effectively would be an impossible task. So I just insulated and heated one of the 11ft square loose boxes and tried to work on smaller projects in the winter. This year I had some larger commissions and needed to work through the cold weather. I then had a little accident. I was planing the edge square on some…
