January: Shop Improvement Month!

For the second year running, I decided to take January as a kind of shop improvement month.  I typically make a lot of Christmas presents, and January is a good time to clean up the shop, integrate new tools, and complete shop tasks that were put off the previous year.  To start, I integrated a couple of new tools (mentioned in the previous post).  An air compressor:

And a lathe, for which I built a stand.  Then I added these tool holders made of pvc and wood:

I used the new lathe to make some file handles that I had needed for quite some time.  I made these out of some scavenged maple from some old broken chairs I got at a yard sale a year or two ago.  These were the turned pieces from the chairs which weren't reusable for much else.

 

I built this little dust collector manifold.  Previously I had a 4" drop in this same location with a "Y" to connect my planer and tablesaw.  This manifold is supplied by an upgraded 6" drop and also includes connections for the tablesaw, planer, and jointer as well as a dust sweep which is the large door facing the camera.

Each connection is controlled by an integrated blast gate.

 

For the blast gates, I made these little wing nuts to lock the doors open or closed.  They consist of a regular hex head bolt with a large wing I made from some scrap steel welded on.

 

I added an outfeed extension and a left hand size extension to my tablesaw.  I have wanted to make an outfeed table extension like this for so long, and just kept putting it off.

 

And lastly, I made a new table for my sanders to sit on.  The old arrangement in this corner of the shop was such a rigged up mess I won't even attempt to describe it here.  This table is based on Matthias Wandel's simple workbench design.  It is a great way to build a table of nearly any size for your workshop, and I highly recommend it.

I had two barrels stored under the sanders in my old setup.  The space under the new table was just a little too narrow, so I replaced the right barrel, which served as a trashcan, with this quickly knocked together plywood trashcan.

 

And last but certainly not least, I upgraded my dust collector.  My brother bought my old 1.5hp model, and I upgraded to this 3hp one.  It's pretty tight space wise, but it has certainly been an upgrade performance wise.

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