Cleaning the Shop

 This is where I began in my new shop renovation. The intention is to eliminate the old garage bench along the back wall and move machinery in that space (see previous post.)  First I cleared the cluttered bench top, then sorted through all the stored wood salvage shoved underneath for twenty years.  I have one huge box of garbage to discard (can't believe I even saved pieces of cheap wafer board and chipboard back then) and two more tall garbage bins to sort through later...lots of hardwood pieces I knew I'd need someday for jigs and such.  Now there is way too much. 

 I'm keeping four feet of the bench on the right, because it is space for my hollow chisel mortiser and some plastic drawer bins for hardware.  Today I put up brackets elsewhere in the garage to hold odds and ends boards and some 2x4 material I'll save.  There were surprises in cleaning this out.  Between two long cardboard boxes of veneer, lo and behold I came across a thick veneer sheet of maple burl a new acquaintance had given me about 15 years ago.  There isn't enough for my new hand tool cabinet door fronts, but I'll find something to use it on!  And there was my beech coffin plane, too, pictured up on the workbench.

 I also got the new casters on the bottom of the router table cabinet. Now when I'm ready, I can just put all the machinery in place and fill in back wall floor space with whatever fits for storage.
The pegboard will stay until I get the hand tool cabinet built, when much of that will be fitted to the doors and shelves inside the new cabinet. I'll have to see what remains, but I'm hoping I can fabricate a wall storage system for clamps behind the machinery.  I have clamps hung all over the place, and it is definitely not convenient. 

 Tomorrow I'll be setting up a new table for the belt/disk sander so that I can move the huge machinist's vise onto its space across the room, clearing all things from that old bench top, and then I'll get into de-constructing it. I don't yet know what I'll do with the scrap from the torn apart work bench.  So after that, more lumber storage to set up.  Then, some retail product to make, and it will be on to designing the new hand tool cabinet.  I'm all ready fiddling with it on paper, and quite excited!  I'm even making room in the center of it, for a nice box for my wood samples collection.

 More later, when I have the bench gone and the machinery in place.