Mahogany Bench

Well the garage is taking some serious shape. A little bit more cleaning and moving a few tools allowed me to make a bench with my neighbor Eric this past weekend. I can't give out to many specifics the bench is somewhat of a suprise to his wife and she reads the blog so I can't give out too many juicy photos. I got to try out my Festool Domino and I must say that thing works as good as advertised. Its going to take my woodworking to a whole new level.

A weekend of Work

The garage improvement project is improving nicely. I spent the weekend working away, Lee came and helped me on Saturday and my neighbor Eric worked a long day with me on Sunday helping build some shelves. I had quite the pile of stuff in the driveway for a week and thankfully Monday was spent putting objects back in the shop and on the new shelves. Here are some pics and it still looks like a mess but believe me you didn't see this place before we started. Another day or two just cleaning and organizing and the place is going to look amazing.
This wall used to be full of some horribly crappy shelves from the previous owners garage. We tore the old shelves apart saved the salvaged wood and rebuilt two super sturdy shelves. I started organizing all my wood clamps, they have been in piles spread around the garage for a few years now.

Thursday

The garage as it looked Thursday morning, I spent the day building shelves for their new locations in order to move enough stuff to finish insulating and putting the osb up on the walls.
Shelf for wood scraps and other heavy tools.
Another storage shelf, you can't have too many. All of these where built from scraps I've collected lately.
New shelf for all the various nails and screws.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning was a bit chilly, Lee and I fired up the heater moved more stuff out into the yard and started insulating the walls that we could. I just went with batt insulation for the walls, I'm a firm believer in blown in cellulose insulation but for a detached garage it just didn't make sense.

I decided to go with osb sheets for the walls it cost the same as sheetrock and will be much tougher to abuse. I got to really try out the new saw and I must say that thing is awesome. Most the time I was able to just sit the track on the mark and cut it, no clamping necessary.

Monday and Tuesday

Lee and I spent all of Monday and Tuesday hanging drywall on the ceiling of the garage. I ended up renting a lift from Home Depot and it was well worth it. Its amazing how much brighter the garage is just from the drywall. The insulators should be coming next week and I have a lot left to get done. I have accumulated so much stuff that I have a whole pile of stuff in the driveway and in the backyard, luckily the neighbors havn't complained yet.

A week in the Garage.

I've decided to go ahead and get the garage situated the way I want in order to crank out some woodworking projects in the coming months. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the time while I'm slow with work other than use the pile of wood I have and the tools to make some cool furniture projects. This got me interested in finishing the garage the way I want before I get in the middle of another project. So last week I finished wiring the ceiling in preparation of sheetrocking and insulating the ceiling. I've been working today on a shop layout to enable Jessica to park her car in the garage some of the time. So a massive shop organization is underway to eliminate unwanted items and some much needed shelving is being built to organize all the tools I've accumulated in the past and to make way for a few new ones. I'll post more next week of the progress pics.

Here is a sketchup model of the finished shop layout. It will probably take me a long while to get it all built in like shown. But I wanted a plan for wiring etc. before I got started.

DeWalt Tracksaw

I recently got a new tool to try out, somehow DeWalt found my blog and wanted me to review a tool for them. Its a new circular saw with a guide rail that offers extremely precise cuts and awesome portability. I got it just in time for christmas and actually just in time to use it on installing some cork flooring in Lawrence (more pics at StudioBuild). I must say the saw works as advertised and I really like it. I'll be posting some more pics as I get to use it on some more projects soon.
Guide track
The saw in action.
Splinter free cuts.

If any of you want to come try it out. Just let me know.