I think it is really hard to wear a power tool out. Old tools have a ton of value.
When I get some room in the shop to move things around I’ll take some pictures of my tool collection.
Morning aerial display while drinking my morning drink.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bthsnpQSW74&t=2s
I noticed I’ve been making quite a few posts regarding the new shop. I think I’ll turn this thread into a ‘shop’ thread and start putting shop updates in this one.
This weekend, it was time to do away with the saw horses. They’ve served me well, but the work surface is small and not necessarily flat. I took Saturday to build a new work surface. It’s a full 4’x8’ rolling workbench. As with most of my work benches, the top is 3/4" MDF with a 1/8" layer of Masonite on top. The Masonite is inset by a pine edging and is not glued down. Gravity keeps it from floating away and the pine edging keeps it from moving. My reasoning for not gluing it down is if the top ever gets destroyed by paint or chemicals, then I can just lift off the Melamine and put down a new sheet.
Here’s the links to the other projects I’ve posted about:
Plywood storage:
Clamp Storage and scrap wood storage:
Here’s a picture of the bench:
[attachment file=110141]
Here’s a picture of me breaking down an entire piece of 1/2" MDF on top of the new bench. It’s amazing how much easier it is to do when you’re not crawling around on the floor.
[attachment file=110140]
And of course, the first project to come off of the new bench is something for the wife’s art classroom. It’s paper storage for her full-sheet watercolor paper.
[attachment file=110139]
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Barn swallows rock! They love it when we mow the yards.
More fun in the shop this weekend.
I picked up my birthday present early. I finally have a somewhat ‘real’ dust collector now. I bought enough fittings to hook up the bandsaw and the table saw. Both of those tools do not have native DC ports, so I had to do some modifications. The table saw was easy, as all I had to do was screw on a plate, but the band saw took a little work and modification of the machine. It hurt to cut a hole in the lower faceplate, but this machine has never been ‘all original’.
I also ordered the Dust Deputy to modify my machine into a cyclone. Once that comes in, I’ll start taking measurements and ordering tubing/parts to hook up the rest of the machines.
I went to walmart and picked up some more extension cords. For the first time in my life, I have all of my larger tools plugged in at the same time. I moved them all around and found places to put them so that I can walk up and use any machine without having to move anything else. We’ll call this ‘setup one’. I’m sure I’ll be moving things around as I clean out more of the front of the shop. I still have a lot of leftover furniture from the move I need to get rid of.
The second picture is of the back half of the shop in the current state.
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You’re making me really jealous. I would love to find a bandsaw like that. I have a crappy late 90s plastic benchtop craftsman one. The poor thing is way over it’s limit whenever I want to use it. I’m actually considering trying the Matthias Wandel DIY band saw, but I probably will never find the time to complete it.
Being able to just walk up to a tool though, that is such a great feeling.
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To add insult to injury… it, the table saw, and my large sander were free 
My Poppy called me when they were moving into the nursing home and told me to come get them.
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So many things are on wheels! Dreamy
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I spent some time over the weekend finishing up the dust collector mods.
I did the typical ‘harbor freight, dust deputy’ 2-stage that is popular on the webs. The first iteration of the build was a failure. I forgot about the 2" lip on the lid, so when I finished building it, I couldn’t get the lid off of the bucket.
Over the weekend, I took some of the machine apart and add a small flex tubing between the fan and the dust deputy. I also picked up a longer piece of the 5" tubing to run from the outfeed of the fan to the intake of the bag system. Finally, I widened the stance of the bottom piece a bit to make it a little less tipy.
Here’s a picture of it prior to the final changes:
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That looks great. I bet that filter bag on the HF will never need to be emptied.
I’m hoping not. The planer kicks up a ton of shavings. I tested it out with the dust collector and had very little dust end up on the floor afterwards.
Please tell my you are getting one of the dust pan ports. Those are amazing. The last shop I had even had a down draft table for hand work. It all seems excessive until you use it then it is just dreamy. Outfitting a fresh shop how fun.
I do plan on putting a dust port on the ground right by the machine. The one tool I have that produces a lot of dust but not good collection is the lathe, which is right next to the dust collector too. I already played with this a little bit and it should work quite well.
I snapped a pic last night while I was in the shop of the dust collector in it’s final state. You can see the flexible tubing between the fan and the cyclone and the longer tube running from the fan to the bags.
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“Shop Computer” got an upgrade last week… sort of.
I picked up some new toys and decided I didn’t want them running in the un-insulated garage, so I put the rack in the shop. None of this setup is actually used in the shop yet, but I’m sure I’ll find a use for them in there at some point.
That’s a Dell r510 with dual hexa-core processors, 128GB of RAM and 25TB of Raid6 storage. The other box is a HP DL360 g8 with Dual hexa-core processors, 128GB of RAM and 1.2TB of 15k SAS storage in a Raid6.
Both are running ESXI 6.7.
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Aren’t you worried about dust killing them? They look awesome.
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I do. I’ll be putting sides and a top on the rack. The front will have an AC filter in front of the fan intakes. I’ll use the expensive 3m filters.
Nice, I have my server and it’s backup machine in the pantry, off the kitchen. Needless to say it’s a little noisier than I’d like, but that’s where the 240V service and all Ethernet cables terminate. At some point I’ll either relocate them to the crawl space or the garage… Not quite as massive as yours, mine are both R710s with 12TB of RAID6 on each. The first machine is running Server Essentials 2012 R2 and the second Windows 10 just as a file share for the first to use for backups.
I thought I had an overpowered server setup with a Qnap NAS in raid 5. I specifically bought it though because the desktop I was using was taking up about 1/4 of our house’s electricity and since it was a fileserver, it was on all the time. The Qnap has something like 2W of power consumption when I’m not actively using it.
I was using the bandsaw yesterday on a project and I noticed the blade was getting rather hot. That usually doesn’t happen on a bandsaw unless you’re pushing it or something’s wrong.
In my case… something was wrong. The thrust bearing on the bottom of the machine has finally given up the ghost and was no longer spinning. In fact, it looked like someone hit it with a hammer. I decided to service the guides and bearings while watching college football yesterday.
I pulled the entire upper and lower assembly apart and soaked everything in antifreeze and alcohol. Gave it all a good scrubbing. Then I used the wire wheel on the buffer and cleaned off all the rust.
The lower bearing was completely shot, so I ordered a new set. The upper bearing felt a little gritty too. It should run like new once I get these replaced.
I didn’t do a full repaint, but it should work a lot better.
Here’s the lower assembly after the cleanup. I’m still waiting for the new bearings to come in before I can put it back on the machine. For reference, the big silver plate was almost completely black from rust when I first took it off and would barely slide through the rest of the assembly.
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