The Shop (Old Pics)
Soon after moving in (and realizing that retirement was looking me in the face), I decided I wanted to get back into woodworking but I needed a shop and tools.
My Dad and Granddad were both carpenters and I had always made things out of wood, but not nearly to the extent I do now.
The house originally had a double garage, but the previous owner extended the utility room into 1/2 of one of the bays, so I had about 300 ft².
He also built 3 wall mounted benches and added a sink, the sink was great, but the wall cabibinet faces would go in the future.
These pics were taken with an old Sony camera, I had at the time, it later died after the warranty had expired, naturally.
These pictures show the shop soon after I started woodworking (2003 or 2004).
Note there is no crowding!
I was still building my woodworking bench.
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Back of the full bay and part of the half bay.
On the left is my woodworking bench, up on saw horses, being constructed.
The radial arm saw, bandsaw, and dust collector are the only tools I had purchased since moving in.
The drill press and hand tools I had previously.
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My original drill press, an old Rockwell Delta I bought in 1966 sitting on a sears machine stand with plywood top and shelf.
It didn't come with a motor so my Dad gave me an old motor removed from his AC, I replaced the centripetal switch and it worked great.
My son John, has the drill press now and the motor is still working great!
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Cabinets and sink at the front of the full bay.
You can see my Radial arm saw, the dust collector (on the wall right of the radial arm saw), and the handtool wall rack and the old plywood trolley.
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The small bay, the gray benches and cabinets were here when I got the place.
Note the brown roll-around tool cabinet, it was originally an IBM punch card file from the `60s (found at a used office equipment place), and works great for saws, clamps, etc.
I put casters on it (like everything else in my shop), its very heavy, but it was designed to carry a lot of weight (this one held 40,000 punch cards and thats heavy).
You can see the two drawers (next pic) in the small bench on the right, I also added the plug strips.
Bill and I installed the window AC through the wall and ceiling insulation.
The AC is a Samsung 1-1/2Ton (18000 btu) which worked great until 2018, I replace it with an LG 12000btu (worked OK but was slow to cool the shop), and in 2020 I installed an 18000 but Mini-Split.
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I added these shelves and the two small drawers under the small bench built by the original owner.
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Just to the left on the East wall I added a router table.
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