Community Brag Posts

I was looking for a way to better organize my basement workshop. After looking at your Ultimate Workbench / Miter Station project, I became both inspired and motivated to organize my workshop bench equipment and power tools. I was tired of moving equipment around in my small shop area to use it and the amount of time required to clean up the saw dust during and after project work.

I modified your plans to allow me to incorporate the use of a solid maple shop table that I have had for over 30 years and provide a means to have my main benchtop equipment (miter saw, table saw, and drill press) be readily available for use. I substituted the 3/4 inch plywood top with a 3/4 melamine top with a popular edge trim to allow the workpieces to freely move through the miter saw, table saw and assembly stations. In addition, I added a removable miter saw fence using the Kreg Precision Trak system to facilitate miter saw work setup and to make multiple repeatable cuts. I made the fence easy to remove and store by using 5/16-16 inserts on both the work surfaces and on the he overhead material storage rack allowing full use of the workbench surface.

I also incorporated a separate rolling cart that served as an assembly table, table saw outfeed table, shop air compressor and pneumatic nail gun storage, router and router accessory storage and Kreg Cutting Guide Storage.

I wanted to have ready access to my cordless tools, so I built a separate wall mounted cabinet that holds my drills, impact tools and drill bits. Of course, that lead me to build a wall mounted battery charging station to consolidate and organize all the different battery chargers and spare batteries. Tried to make all things Easy to See, Easy to Get and Easy to Return.

Finally, I spent quite a bit of time researching how to design and add a dust collection system. I ultimately went with a simple, but effective system that incorporated the use of a Dust Deputy Pro, 14 Gallon Rigid Shop Vacuum, Powertec 2 1/2 inch Clear PVC tubing, Blast Gates, Flexible Hose along with Dust Rite Hose and adapters to connect my portable wood working tools. The dust collection components work work well together capturing about 85% of the generated saw dust, but I want to give a special shout out to Shop Nation which supplied a custom 3D printed dust collection adapter for my Hercules Miter saw. It is really amazing how much of saw dust generated by the miter saw is now being channeled directly to the dust collection system.

I now smile every time I enter my workshop :)

Had a horribly messy front entrance so really needed this shoe cabinet. It's dimensions suited my space better than an Ikea one, and accommodated more shoes. This being my first project, I am glad I started with this instead of a loft bed, since I made alot of mistakes (& corrections) along the way. Although some of the problems occurred because of pieces that ended up being convex. I chose to fill in the gap between the two boards on the front of each bin. It worked out really well.
Really love the Kreg Jig! So worth the investment.

Could not figure out how to properly use magnet catches. Did apply one to one side of the top drawer but it doesn't work too well--pulls the bin too far in. 

I worked on the benches and table for three weekends. All are finished in Ebony by Rustoleum. I used the non-Kreg plans for the benches and the updated Kreg jig plans for the table. I spent a lot of time at Home Depot selecting straight, flat boards for the table top. I literally dug through all of their 1 x 6's and laid them out on the floor in the store to find a good fit. I finished the benches with three coats of Minwax semi-gloss, and I finished the table with three coats of Minwax gloss. I prefer the higher gloss so I may put a coat of gloss on each bench so they all match. I also put some heavy duty furniture felt on all of the legs so they slide easily across the wood floor without scratching! I've been using a sad hand-me-down table and folding chairs for the past couple of years. I couldn't be more pleased with how this turned out.

I live in Alaska and the lumber for the benches cost about $35. The lumber for the table cost $65. I spent about another $100 on wood conditioner, stain, polyurethane, screws, sand paper and a brush. So all total, I have about $200 invested.

I made this using the $10 Cedar Tiered Flower Planter plans. Painted Red White and Blue with stars.

It's a little twist on Ana's Coat organizer. Turned out really useful and did not cost me anything since I ussed scrap wood. I wish I would build have built one for coats as well.

My family is expanding, which means more laundry! (I am 39 weeks pregnant now) So I decided to build a big enough hamper for us (two adults, one toddler who constantly dirties his clothes). For finish, I tried to mix two stains "weathered oak" and "dark walnut" and I think it came out really nice! I must admit I love my new hamper!

Two Piece Portable Outdoor Wood Chair

$120 for 2 bases, one top ... less if you have scrap lumber and pipe

The hard part of some woodworking is what to do with the stuff BEFORE and AFTER it goes through the tools.

We need an infeed and outfeed table for routers, drill press, and saws but have no room to install a permanent workbench with an adjustable tool lifter.

We saw the coffee table to desk height adjustment mechanism and lightbulbs went off! This adjusts! We can take the top off! It stores!

The first photo shows it adjusted to align with the miter saw's cutting area.

As built, there are a couple of changes:

1 - It's taller. Lowest table height is about 30" ... add 8 inches to each leg.

2 - We only used 1 leg brace, about half way down the leg. Cut it to fit after you get the legs screwed to the top.

3 - the wobble of the adjustable bar on the threaded rod is not good for precision woodworking ... the second picture shows the guide pipe that keeps the threaded rod straight up and down.

4 - No pocketholes (sorry Anna) because this is a workbench, not fine furniture.

5 - The tops are cut from one sheet of 4x8 3/4 in melamine coated MDF ... 2 are 2x6 and one is 2x4.

This could also make an adjustable craft table. Raise or lower it to handle fabric for your sewing machine.

Built Patrick's Router table and added a rockler table, fence, and lift to finish off.