Garage-Mahal 3.0

[neohic]

41 minutes ago, 89 MJ said:

Ah shoot, I was looking at the pic on my phone and it looked like 6. 
 

Some good stories with them. My brother has a few guitars with cool stories and he has a couple of basses that I occasionally play too. For the most part I stick with my violins and mandolins. My nicest violin is actually one that my 5th great-grandfather brought here from Germany when he immigrated. It was built in 1721, IIRC. 

Sweet! What seems like about 57,000 years ago, I started with the violin when I was in 5th grade. Playing, performing, or just enjoying… music is a wonderful thing that everyone should have in their lives. 
 

Edit: guess I didn’t get into pedals. Some of them are old and used. Most have been repaired to some extent. They all found a home together recently on a leftover piece of 11 ply birch plywood and some Velcro. 
 

[89 MJ]

42 minutes ago, neohic said:

Playing, performing, or just enjoying… music is a wonderful thing that everyone should have in their lives. 

I agree! It is a great hobby to get into, regardless of the degree that people decide to take it too.

[neohic]

Desk is done minus drawer pulls. Went a little overboard with utilizing plywood scraps I’ve been saving. 

 

 

Then I let the dust settle down to put a few coats of polyurethane on. 
 

 

There… now I’m ready to work remotely. 

[Pete M]

nice   that's a lot of layers. 

[neohic]

Few changes today. I’ve decided to get rid of a two drawer tool cart I have in favor of one less thing on the floor. Hammers needed to move…

 

 

… and the miter saw cart needed an additional work space. 
 

 

It’s not somewhere to sit or anything real heavy, but it is somewhere to put something to sand or set tools on. I also had a go-to spot on the old tool cart for common bits, glue bottles, and lacquer thinner. 
 

 

Best part is it forces me to put away tools so the new top can fold down. There’s still the same back corner a drill press will eventually go. I smoked a drill using a 4” hole saw this week so a drill press took a good jump on the priority list. 

[MiNi Beast]

Functionality. Nice. 

[neohic]

Started a sink project today. 
 

 

I don’t have plumbing in the shop so this little sink will drain into a future bucket that lives in the cabinet. Water will be a container that lives on the counter and gravity will run the whole operation. Don’t have a water container figured yet. I’ll cruise the local Goodwill to see what could work. 

[Pete M]

5 gal bucket for both? 

[jdog]

I use a 5 gallon container with a spout on it, I believe they use them for oils in the restaurant industry. Ill get you a picture

[neohic]

6 hours ago, Pete M said:

5 gal bucket for both? 

 

2 hours ago, jdog said:

I use a 5 gallon container with a spout on it, I believe they use them for oils in the restaurant industry. Ill get you a picture

Yup… but I’m hoping to just find something that I don’t need to put a bunch of effort or cash into. 

[jdog]

1 minute ago, neohic said:

 

Yup… but I’m hoping to just find something that I don’t need to put a bunch of effort or cash into. 

We had ours for a while, they can be found for free, and lasts a couple months before needing refilled. 

[jdog]

On 10/3/2022 at 3:09 PM, neohic said:

 

Yup… but I’m hoping to just find something that I don’t need to put a bunch of effort or cash into. 

This is what I use, you can find them cheap

[neohic]

6 hours ago, jdog said:

This is what I use, you can find them cheap

Heck yeah! That’s exactly what I need. 
 

In other news, I opened my front door to find that the drill press fairy stopped by very discreetly. 
 

 

Over the past couple months I’ve ran up to MN for one reason or another three times. One was for fun, another to volunteer to help my dad build his new shop, and the last was to help out after my father-in-law passed. My wife flew up before me and I waited a few days before driving up. I arrived and my father-in-law held on for several days… it’s a complicated story so I’ll just say that he had health problems. I had plenty of waiting to do so I spent more time on my dad’s new shop. I managed to get the main power run and we flipped the lights on shortly before I drove back home. 
 

 

My dad surprised me with sending me the drill press I had my eye on. Thanks, Dad!

 

 

Good bit of shop infrastructure. 

[jeff351]

I have that same drill press. Its great! 

[neohic]

[neohic]

Bit of an update on the shop… not much has changed. That’s okay though! I still consider this shop a “best of album” when it comes to having things dialed in just how I like it. What I’ve found with this shop is that I really like having work stations on wheels that get rearranged depending on what the project it. The welding table has gone through a couple changes over the years but it has never been just right.

 

 

Unfortunately it also is a large, flat spot that collects things. In the past I added a shelf for grinder storage, a bench vice, and a pile of tabs and hooks for things. None of it was ever awesome. Time for a refresh!

 

What I thought was that I originally made it too tall. The top is 42” and I always had things mounted to it. I always stand when I’m welding so the height there is good. The problem comes in with the bench vice. I recently picked up another, so my homemade vice is getting moved to a stand-alone mount. The new (very old?) vice got hung under the table and swings out to a comfortable work height.

 

Then there’s the grinders…

 

 

I’ve got space for five grinders without any of them sitting on top of each other and almost enough space for an appropriate amount of wheels. Years ago I was given a pile of cut wheels and I’m still working through them. I’m not a fan of cut wheels, but the price was right.

 

The main reason for the table refresh was the addition of a fume extractor. I’d say that most of my fabrication projects happen when the weather isn’t so great and I find myself holed up in my shop. I’d be in there all day, take a step outside, and then that’s when I realize that the air inside is blue. I try and weld with a respirator on, but that doesn’t help much when ALL of the air in the shop is disgusting. Enter a fine extractor to catch most of the junk and heavy metals at the source.

 

 

This also means that I need to cut a giant hole.

 

 

My plan is to a turn big, single basin sink into a down-draft table. The big hole in the top will be cut into two lift out covers that sit on slats hung from underneath. When the covers are on, I’ll still have the whole tabletop to set junk on in the future. In the meantime, I’m waiting to cut anything until I’ve got all my material to finish the job.

[Pete M]

brilliant!  I'd say this is a much better idea than slowly poisoning yourself.   

[neohic]

1 hour ago, Pete M said:

brilliant!  I'd say this is a much better idea than slowly poisoning yourself.   

Slowly poisoning?!… it’s been 20+ years at this point that I’ve been doing this dumb stuff.  Damage has already been done. Repercussions are being processed.

 

Use your PPE, kids. Future you will thank you. 

[coheed]

53 minutes ago, neohic said:

Slowly poisoning?!… it’s been 20+ years at this point that I’ve been doing this dumb stuff.  Damage has already been done. Repercussions are being processed.

 

Use your PPE, kids. Future you will thank you. 

As someone who's had asthma since birth and has been in or around the welding field for about 10 years at this point I only started using a P100 respirator about 2 years ago. The difference it makes is astounding. 

 

Even if other dudes are a holes and try to make fun of you, the PPE is worth it. 

[89 MJ]

I like this idea a lot. And as a bonus, I'd think it should help keep the shop a little bit cleaner too.

[neohic]

2 hours ago, 89 MJ said:

I like this idea a lot. And as a bonus, I'd think it should help keep the shop a little bit cleaner too.

Absolutely. This fine extractor can be used for painting also. There’s a magnet based attachment for when the welding activities venture away from the table also. Should’ve had something like this years ago.