setting up shop and new tools

[Joe Skinner]

So here is my shop saga.

Got married last May and we bought a newer, bigger house and put both of ours on the market. However, since the housing market sucked last year, there were three mortgages on the books for a while, causing me not to have money for shop stuff. In December, we finally got down to one mortgage and was able to pay off the cards in Jan. Whooohooo!!! I can get the shop together now.

So I decide that I need a miter saw station along one wall and I might as well build cabinets under it. So I start designing cabinets and drag the 15 y/o (daughter, not wife) to the lumber yard for materials. Funny thing about 15 y/o s, they just aren't into lumber yards.

So I mark the plywood and want to start cutting, but where did that 48" straight edge go to? Must have been left at the old place. So I load up all the plywood back into the truck and take it to a buddy's place to get help cutting it to size. He is much more into it than the wife or .

So a few days later, I have time to get back on the cabinets. Why didn't anyone tell me being married takes up so much spare time? Anyhow, start putting the carcase together and the cheap 'ol pancake compressor dies. No biggie, it was free anyhow. However, the nail gun really wants air and the good compressor is 220v. Another few days and I finally have some new circuits ran in the shop. Needed some more 110v anyhow.

Getting back to work, I finish the carcase and start making the doors. I cut the rails and stiles to length and now need a dado for the panel. So I figure the dado stack in the spawn of Satan, I mean the Hitachi table saw, would be the best bet. One of the many, many things I absolutely abhor about this saw is you have to pry the blades off because for some reason the arbor tapers a bit. So as I am prying the blade off, the arbor comes loose. Normally I would be upset, but now I need to replace this beast. So I start researching new saws and am leaning toward the Jet JPS 30. My wife is looking over my shoulder as I am watching the tablesaw shootout video from Popular Woodworking and tells me the Steel City 35601 looks like a better saw. I tell her it is, but more expensive. She tells me she would rather me spend a few more dollars that listen to me complain later that I should have bought the better saw. Good thinking is one of the reasons I married her.

So, almost a month after starting I finally have a carcase and one door completed. But I have the power in the shop and a great new saw. I mean dang, is this how table saws are supposed to perform. This thing is cool. I can change blades, tilt the blade, and not get dust all over the neighborhood and the wife's clean kitchen. As an added bonus, it has not thrown a single piece of wood at me.

[Ed Falis]

Sounds like marriage suits you just fine, Joe!

[Darrin Vanden Bosch]

You've got a keeper, and she is right about not wanting to listen to the "complaints" later
Darrin

[Don Bullock]

Congratulations Joe. Sounds like you two are off to a great start together. Enjoy -- both marriage and your new shop. Yes, they can both go together but being married does take away from "shop time."

[Bryan Giles]

So I decide that I need a miter saw station along one wall and I might as well build cabinets under it. So I start designing cabinets and drag the 15 y/o (daughter, not wife) to the lumber yard for materials. Funny thing about 15 y/o s, they just aren't into lumber yards.

Got the wrong 15 Y.O (j/k)

My girls (16,13,12,7) are totally into the lumber yard, shop work, etc....

Dad starts cutting wood and the whole crew shows up. Everybody wants to help. Grabbing tools as I request them, moving pcs around. LOL. It's a full fledged factory somedays. LOL.

[Bryan Giles]

Yes, they can both go together but being married does take away from "shop time."

Unless your wife is the one grabbing pictures and ideas and plans for stuff to build and is right there with you (even outside in the cold at times) helping you build the stuff.

I do the cutting and fitting, she does the sanding and finishing. (Ok, she does the cutting to. Ever since I got the EZ rail she has been pushing the saw.)

She is eager to start using the Router and the Planer. LOL. We found a local guy selling hardwood at very good prices per board foot. That'll let me break in the new planer. (Er' Her. LOL)

[Travis Gauger]

Congrats on both the wife and shop. Anytime I am having a hard time justifying the better tool for more money, I ask my wife. Never fails, she tells me to just get the good one the first time as she doesn't want to get asked the same question in a year. The quality of your tools is directly reflected in your final product.

[Loren Hedahl]

My kids when 15 would have been just so-so about lumber yards too except when the older one was about 10, my wife began discussing high school and college costs with some of her older contemporaries. She came up with this wild idea that worked great for our family.

She said, "Why should we pay our kids to go to college, when we had to scrape by in entry level jobs and live in poverty during the years we went to college?"

Her idea was to put the kids on the pay roll, pay them well, and let them buy their own way through college, as we did. Luckily we had a small market garden at the time and the idea worked well. One became an electrical engineer and the other has a degree in acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Both got through college without spending even half their savings.

Can't say it would work for every family, but it worked great for ours.

[Todd Bin]

So basically if you need your shop rewired you are covered and when you are sore from building all of that great furniture you are covered.