I just wanted to introduce myself and give you a shop tour...
First, a little about me. Although I've been working with wood ever since my dad gave me a junior-sized hammer and hand saw for my 5th birthday, all of my woodworking experiences until recent weeks have been of the general carpentry variety. I've always spent a great deal of my free time engaged in a never-ending progression of projects to improve the various houses that I've lived in over the years. But I've aspired to pursue fine woodworking ever since getting hooked on watching the New Yankee Workshop in the 1980's. Alas, circumstances forced me to put this dream on the back burner for a couple of decades and feed my woodworking interests by reading the written works of masters like Nakashima, Krenov, Maloof, & Frid.
At long last, I began putting together my first woodworking shop a few months ago. My spiffy new shop occupies around 900 square feet of our basement. Since I was starting from scratch in equipping the shop with the large tools, I tried to buy the best that I could afford AND schlep through a 32" door and down a flight of stairs. I would have preferred to wait to post pictures of my shop after I had a chance to get better organized and build some storage cabinets. But I was beginning to feel pretty guilty about learning so much from the posts of others on SMC over the last several months while neglecting to make any contributions of my own to this forum.<O:p</O:p
So here’s the 10 cent tour of the shop:
<O:p</O:p
Well friends, thanks for looking!<O:p</O:p
- At the time I ordered, the Dust Gorilla was a new offering and it seemed like there was a good chance I would not get one with a Baldor motor. Didn’t want to risk getting an import motor and I liked the bigger filter on their older models better, so I went with the 2HP Commercial unit. I attached the steel bracket that Oneida </FONT></ST1:pprovided to wood blocks with lag screws and some homemade rubber vibration damping mounts. The wood brackets are then mounted to the wall with concrete anchor bolts. All of the ductwork is hung from the ceiling by lightweight chain. Although the fan and motor run pretty smoothly, this method of mounting the cyclone and ductwork eliminates virtually all vibration transmission to the rest of the house. I have the pump for the Bag Gripper accessory mounted on the wood block, but still have to wire it, and install the plumbing.<O:p</O:p
- When I opened the shipping crate for the TSS, I had to chuckle. The abundance of “LAGUNA” decals plastered on the saw cabinet and fence reminded me of a 1979 Pontiac TransAm. Fortunately the saw has proven to be anything but laughable overall. The TSS is a great saw. It was a chore to move into the basement. I was able to navigate it through the 32” basement door by stripping the door opening back to the studs, and removing the tables and leveling feet from the saw. It just barely slipped through the opening when it was flipped on its side, with the switch box facing up. Now that I’ve had a chance to use it for a few weeks, my only gripe is with the crosscut fence. It just wasn’t engineered for precision work. I’ll have to come up with a better alternative to the factory fence. I purchased an Excalibur ceiling mount blade guard for the saw. Since this model doesn’t come with a mounting bracket, I’ll have to build one. Minor quibbles aside, this is a really sweet saw. Plows through 8/4 maple with nary a hiccup. Rip fence is robust and true. Slider runs smoothly. Riving knife and scoring blade are great to have. Dust collection is effective. Fit and finish are very good.<O:p</O:p
- What is there to say about the Laguna LT18 that hasn’t already been said? It was a tossup between it and the MM16. Both are nice. I liked the ceramic guides better, so the sale went to Laguna.<O:p</O:p
- I’m happy with the Rojek jointer/planer, also. Moving it down the stairs was a chore (550 lbs. and wasn’t practical to partially disassemble to reduce weight), but well worth the hassle. Being able to face joint a 12” board is a luxury that I won’t soon take for granted. The finish of the tool is mediocre, but the tool is well built. Chip collection is surprisingly effective.<O:p</O:p
- I joined the Festool MFT club, too. It makes for a very practical first workbench. At some point, I’d like to get another MFT to make a bigger work surface. As you can see, I have some space left over in the shop. That will change over time. My wish list is long!<O:p</O:p
- You’re still reading? Didn’t figure anyone would get this far…
Dan
Reply With Quote
Congrats on the new shop and welcome to SMC!!
Looks like a great shop in the works!
) welcome to SMC! Having cruised around for some time, I guess I don't need to tell you what a super place this is and, I see you have the picture thing down right off the bat. Good job!
