New Additions to the Woodshop

[mike]

Thanks to the attendees of the intro to hand planes class, (6 members, 2 outsiders), we now have a few new items for our woodshop.

First off, we have a 2-sided diamond honing plate. There is a course and fine side. Don’t ask me what grit they are, they work just fine . I demonstrated this in the class by sharpening a plane blade to razor sharpness, and demonstrated that ‘razor sharpness’ was not hyperbole by shaving some hair off my arm. I now have a little bald spot on my arm.

Secondly, to go along with the diamond honing plate, we now have a honing guide. For shared tools, it isn’t really appropriate to hand-sharpen tools that can easily be set in a honing guide. We’ll need to construct a depth gauge for setting angles. For plane blades and chisels, you should be using the honing guide.

Third, we now have some winding sticks. I made these for the class but they are quite useful if trying to judge twist on a board.

The last item we have directly as a result of the class is a shooting board. If you want to get a specific angle, or trim up a board, this is a great jig. Basically you use a hand plane on its side in the track and place your wood either with a wedge against the fence for non-square cuts or directly on the fence for square cuts. If you don’t know how to use it, ask one of the members that took the class and we’ll get you sorted.

Additionally, a few generous members has recently donated:

3 Hand Planes (1x Block, 1x Smoothing, 1x Fore Plane)

A set of nice turning tools

A pen mandrel

A lathe chuck

A mini machinists square

A japanese-style pull saw

A marking gauge

And some other items as well! We are really starting to see our hand-tools fill out. Our hand planes are in a very respectable state, and all are producing great shavings. Most of the things people used to borrow from me for woodturning are now provided by the space.

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Call To Action
We need your help! Now that we have what is turning out to be a great set of hand tools, we need places to keep them and make sure they are respected. We need to create something to hold and display our nice hand tools, and a sharpening station.

There are many different designs, and this is where your creativity can come. We need people like you to build storage for our hand tools, or a usable sharpening station so we can keep our tools sharp, but our sharpening items free from dust.

Please help us create these homes for our tools!

[LauraA]

What sort of storage / protection design are you thinking of? My skillset is sewing, so I can make heavy denim or canvas cases / pockets if that’s what is needed, or are you thinking more like a hanging shelf?

Could also design something like those wall-hanging shoe-pockets, except for tools and small parts

[mike]

Wow, those are pretty awesome! I left it pretty open so that cool ideas like this could emerge.

Originally I was thinking something like this for the hand planes, but I love your idea!

https://goo.gl/images/AAW7a6

[ninetynein]

I had something more like this pictured

Exploring the H.O. Studley tool chest

Dare to dream! Haha

EDIT: Actually, this is the specific link I was thinking of

Studley Tool Chest

[mike]

Just wow… I just cant… wow.

[Jason_OBrien]

Hi Mike (and company), if you want to talk hand tool storage options, let’s meet up at VHS, sometime. I’m a woodworker and have a couple weeks of down time, right now.

[mike]

That sounds great. Unfortunately I’m within days if not hours of paternity leave but @Logan_Buchy and @smunky have been championing a lot of the woodshop setup. You two want to coordinate thoughts?

[LauraA]

@mike solution?

[Jason_OBrien]

Yeah, sounds good. I’m going to meet Laura at the shop at 8pm, tonight, to get the lay of the land.

[Logan_Buchy]

I’m in San Francisco this week but am excited to get back out VHS once I am back. Looking forward to meeting you Jason

[smunky]

@Jason_OBrien, @LauraA, and @Enquire and I were talking last night about using the area in front of the sliding door/where the lockers are as a place for a tool storage rack to be located.

The general thinking is we don’t need to utilize the full width of that door. Anything large coming into the shop is going to come into the shop from the outside door. My only concern would be that if there is something large (more than 4 feet wide) being assembled further inside the space that needs to exit out the back, then they’d be obstructed by the tool storage solution.

Maybe the smaller tool storage in that location could be semi-permanent, so that it could move out of the way if full access to the inner door’s opening is required.

[Janet]

Just ma 2 cents but I feel 'tis best not to block that sliding door imo just for free flow of things back and forth if required.

[dbynoe]

So on the master plan we have been going with
https://talk.vanhack.ca/t/venables-master-plan-space-layout/8805
That whole area is designated as a DMZ… basically a clear area. This goes from the door clear back to where that corner between the wood and metal shop. The group decided on this at the space layout meeting because open, flexible space is really important for a working shop.

The DMZ will be shared with the welding area for their large projects, and with the woodworking area for things like assembly and tablesaw infeed/outfeed. It also gives us a big open area that tools can be rolled into temporarily and set up and used. But nothing should live, or be stored in the DMZ.

Ultimately we also need to keep a clear space at least 6’ wide the whole length of the shop so that things can be moved through as needed, and under no circumstances are we going to be blocking access doors. Just no.

[smunky]

Maybe something like this with a shadow peg board on both sides would be useful for housing the smaller tools. It could possibly slide in next to the CNC or table saw and move around where needed.

@mike was concerned about dust accumulation on the tools. Do you think a clear shower curtain drapped over both sides, anchored at the top would be suitable to keep most of the dust off?