I won’t say its done, because it probably never will be. But after finishing a project and getting ready to start a new one, it was pretty clean so I thought I’d share photos.

The sweetest part to me, right now, is the radiant floor heat. I did the final plumbing two weeks ago and fired up the heating unit (80 gallon 75,000 btu water heater in the attic). Temperatures outside have been in the teens. The shop floor has been a constant 73 degrees. Hmmmm. Nice. After Christmas I worked on a project with my daughter, Erin, who was in town for the holiday. I smiled when I saw that she’d kicked off her shoes and was standing in stocking feet while applying finish to the work.

It was really none to soon. Most of the last two weeks have been “Red” pollution days along the Wasatch Front, and wood burning has been prohibited. (I guess it wouldn’t have stopped me from burning a good hot fire in the woodstove, but I really don’t want to be a part of the problem.)

A slideshow of the shop is here:
Slide show on Flickr

If you mouse over the show, you will find a “STOP” button in the lower left, which will allow you to progress at your own rate. If you click on the center of the photo a description will be displayed.

One of Ev’s attitudes was, “The boss is not always right and the boss doesn’t need to know everything.” It suited him well, and by my observation, it suited the boss pretty well too, because Ev did his job and didn’t rub it in too much when the boss was wrong. This particular attitude came to bear on both sides of the equation one day when Ev and I were tasked with unloading some steel rebar from the flatbed trailer behind the Freightliner. Setting off to the task, I’m pretty sure that two things were true. First, I’m pretty sure that the boss told us to unload it by hand. Second, I’m also pretty sure that Ev said it was a damn shame that the company wouldn’t buy any decent equipment, because it just doesn’t make any sense to pull off all that re-bar by hand.

Ev described the job in slightly different terms than the boss. He explained that we’d hook a chain to the two tons of re-bar and link it up under the bucket of our ancient loader. I’d lift the load, and he’d pull the trailer out from under it. It was not a bad plan, except for the load rating and condition of the old loader. It was quite a contraption. It operated without modern hydraulics. The lift mechanism consisted of a cable and drum affair. When the lift clutch was engaged the cable would wind about the drum and the load would rise. The skill of the operator was much more important on the descent. A gentle nudge of the hand to the left on the control lever would cause the drum brake to slip and the load to descend. With the two tons of steel hanging below the bucket, I gave the lever a gentle nudge and the load began to descend with surprising speed. Then I made a mistake. For some silly reason I thought a slow descent would be preferable. I gave the lever a gentle nudge to the right and the drum brake grabbed with an absolute finality. Gravity took care of the rest and everything was instantly on the ground except for the rear wheel of the loader, which implies of course that the loader was no longer horizontal. It was definitely vertical. While my face was still plastered to the windshield, Ev came around and questioned, “Are you OK?”

I affirmed that I was just fine, though slightly upside-down.

Then the second part of the attitude kicked in, “We’d better get this thing set upright before the boss sees it!”

I had to agree. Ev pulled out a chain, brought over a little forklift, pulled on the tail end of the loader and it came down with a bounce.

In 1970, the aging Freightliner was replaced with a somewhat newer model. Ev was OK with that, but he did think that the boss fell a little short of the mark when he bought a new truck without power steering and with a pretty awful paint job. But Ev was up to the challenge. He bought a power steering unit with his own money and installed it on his own time. It was a successful negotiation, I guess. As to the paint job, Ev did the work, and I’m pretty sure that he got paid for it. Well, all except for the blue stripe. Every Dennis Company truck was white, without a hint of color, except for the red lettering on the side. Ev just decided that the truck was going to have a blue stripe. A small protest from the proletariat, but a protest none the less. I liked the paint job and told him so. It was then that Ev hit me with some country wisdom that I’d never heard before, but will always be with me. With his aw-shucks attitude he said simply, “A good paint job, can cover up a multitude of sins.”

This weekend I cleaned up my 1961 Delta unisaw, and gave it a good paint job. I’m certain that Ev was there in spirit. I think he’d like the paint job.

Before	After

For my new shop, and especially for piano action regulation I wanted a nice assembly table, but also I wanted it to be adjustable in height. The pictures below show my creation.

The adjustable height will allow me to do action regulation work comfortably in both sitting and standing positions. The table top is 3′ X 5′ and the surface is dead flat within 0.5 mm. The flat table was constructed in as a torsion box, pretty much as described by the “Wood Whisperer” in this article. It features an oak apron which sits 1/4″ proud of the table top. This allows a 1/4″ piece of masonite to lay inside the apron. When the work surface becomes marred, it can easily be replaced. That’s a nice feature!

I created the adjustable height mechanism by adapting an adjustable height cart sold by Harbor Freight. I removed the wheels and handle from the cart and fitted it to the base. The table top is fastened with lag screws and plenty of construction adhesive. There is a small amount of side play in the mechanism, so the table wouldn’t be suitable for much pounding and hammering, but that’s not what I had in mind. At all heights it is very stable vertically. The table has plenty of mass (about 300 pounds), which enhances its stability.

Minimum working height of the table is 24 inches.


Maximum working height of the table is 48 inches.

The metal parts are from a kit. The walnut turning is my work. With the cool system tools Jim had, it is pretty straight forward to produce an awesome product.

True to my word I did not buy a lathe until I played with Jim’s Rikon mini-lathe. The Rikon is really nice for small work. It is super accurate and exellently machined. But I had in mind something more “industrial” for the shop, particularly something that would fit in with my old Delta/Rockwell collection of tools. By my good fortune, an excellent old Rockwell 46-450 lathe was available on KSL.com classifieds. The lathe was made in 1974, and has seen very little use. Paid about a dollar a pound!

1961 Delta Unisaw

How could I resist? If you are a car buff (I’m not!) its a Corvette — the standard of fine US manufacturing and engineering. If you are a woodworker, its the Delta Unisaw — the standard of fine US manufacturing and engineering. It needs new bearings, cleanup and a paint job, and then I’ll have a beautiful working classic in the shop.

The motor is the original manufactured by Doerr Electric. It is a 3-phase, 2 HP motor. Since I don’t have 3-phase in the shop, I didn’t really know where to start with the motor. Did it just have bad bearings as disclosed at the sale, or was it burned out? By posting on sawmillcreek.org, I got a very generous offer from Shane Whitlock. He said, “Nice grab … I took a look at that one too and seriously considered it but decided to pass. I just got rid of one of my Uni’s so I don’t need to be picking up another. Definitely have the motor checked out, or I am not too far from ya, bring it over and we can tear into it.”

Sunday I drove up to Perry to meet Shane. Whoa! What a deal. Shane has a superior collection of restored vintage woodworking tools in his shop, and is constantly restoring woodworking equipment. I sure fell into a wealth of knowledge. We powered up the motor with 3-phase power he has available in his shop, and determined that the motor is fine, but bearings should be replaced. I’m planning to keep the motor and buy or build a 3-phase rotary converter for the shop. After success with this, who knows, another 3-phase machine could be in my future.

While I was touring Shane’s shop, he pointed out the 13″ Rockwell planer (1982) that he had restored, and offered it for sale. I hesitated, but said, “no … I have two planers”. The next day, I went back and bought that planer! It is more accurate (and much prettier) than the two planers I have, and the price was just too good!

1982 13″ Rockwell Planer

As pictured it has a 120 V motor. As purchased, it has the original 230 V Rockwell motor.

The lighting is beautiful to my eyes – pretty much drafting room quality. Its fifteen dual-tube 8′ fixtures (T-12), for the 28X30 space. About 1900 watts total. I have it wired on two 15A circuits. I haven’t yet "split the ballasts", but will do that. When that is done, I’ll have the ballast in each fixture light just one tube in of its own and one of a neighboring fixture. That way I can have uniform lighting at 50% and 100%, depending on the need at the time.

The fluorescent fixtures are not state of the art. Current lighting is predominantly efficient T-8 (1 inch) fixtures which are very nice and quiet! While I would like to go premium, the cost savings of my used T-12′s (1-1/2 inch) paid for the ClearVue cyclone. I found 20 used fixtures with tubes for $400 and grabbed the deal.

Here’s today’s photos:

None too soon! It’s cold, and I had to get the electrical inspected before I could start insulating. I haven’t dared to put a thermometer out there, but with full ventilation and no insulation, I don’t think the woodstove raises the temperature more that about 15 to 20 degrees.

Here’s the details on the electrical: The sub panel is fed from an 80 amp breaker at the main panel/meter box on the house. The panel is a 200 amp panel. Formerly, it had 2 100 amp mains. I down graded the 100 amp mains to 2 60 amp mains for the house, then added the 80 amp main for the shop. As you can see below, I built lots of diversity into the shop circuits, especially since it is a one-man shop.

Circuit details for the shop:
30A 220: Planer
30A 220: Dust collection
20A 110: Perimeter outlets A
20A 110: Perimeter outlets B
20A 110: Table saw
20A 110: Jointer
20A 110: Attic outlets
20A 110: Storage outlets
15A 110: Shop Lighting A
15A 110: Shop Lighting B
15A 110: Storage/Attic Lighting
15A 110: Swamp Cooler
15A 110: Garage Door opener

Lighting for the main shop will be 15 8′ 2-lamp T12 fixtures that I picked up used at a good price.