Kelly's Secret Shop

This is my play, uh, work area. It's 1,800 square feet and everyone thinks it's just another house on the block (it's about 50' from the house). I like that, in light of the contents and how many dirt-bags there are around. Especially at the end of the growing season when jobs die and the workers are packing up to leave the area.

There are three dust collectors. The four bag unit in this photo, the same make and model, but with cartridges, and a HF one dedicated to the miter box. The latter was bought to work with the Super Dust Deputy in this photo for yard clean up. I modified the HF "2 horse" with a new cart so it's easy to roll down to the lower yard and such for pine .cone and leaf cleanup work.

I did have a big Oneida cyclone and loved it, but, now that I'm tired over again, turning it off an on every so many minutes is hard on such units, so I just put two big ones in with one at each end of the shop.

The one in this picture doesn't use gates. Instead, hoses from the planer, table saw, jointer, lathe hang from the ceiling, two to a hook (counterbalancing each other) and I just unplug and plug in the one I want. It's as fast as switching two gates, and with less air loss.

I'm a big fan of push shoes, when running my cabinet saw. Thus the overhead rack. If I forget to grab one, they are within reach, and there is a size for any lumber I run.

This is my band saw "collection." The 14" Powermatic in back runs a Carter Stabilizer blade guide full time, since it's dedicated to the finer stuff. If you've never used one, I can say they are everything they're cracked up to be.

I ate up a lot of good flat stock making blade holders. Everytime I turned around, it seemed the one I made was too small. It either couldn't hold the same blade the saw had before the riser block, or the new saw just demanded more room. This simple solution handles everything  I can throw at it.

Before the cover, the miter was the biggest contributor to dust. After, I haven't had to clean behind the saw in a couple years.

In this picture suggests the regular state of the shop. That is, I usually have about 400 projects going at once.  If I run out of materials, get bored or pissed, I just move to the next project for a while.     ;)

There are four lathes in this photo (the big old Delta beast can be seen between and behind the legs of the big Jet). Long story.  Now, I'm down to just the big Jet, which was a freebe from a local school.

Actually, there is one more lathe. It's a slow speed lathe I probably posted about elsewhere. It's an idea borrowed from pool stick and fishing pole builders.  It uses a 0-15 RPM motor to turn items from an inch or two to several feet long, allowing me to lay epoxy on the surface and keep it from drooping.

This is the buffing and grinding section. The grinder has a couple CBN wheels, a diamond wheel and a stock wheel.  It came off craigslist as a 240 volt screamer (I added the stand, which will get draws, when I get to project number 3,287). It worked great, but I am no fan of high speed grinders for 99.99% of what I do. Another garage sale blessed me with an industrial sewing machine motor and controller, and I didn't even have to sing or dance.  Now, I can reverse the unit and run it from 0 to 2,400 RPM, making it great for lathe knives and even delicate work.

Pretty much the carving section. A whole lot of Foredom, Ram, and ultra high speed dental type stuff. They get used in the sanding station at your back as you look at these. It's a must. You can even router in it, it grabs dust and debris so well.  Fire up the Foredom with 1/4" shank tungsten bit and chew on wood with it and it's amazing to watch the wood dust fly off, then do a 90 down into the sanding station.

This sandblast cabinet has undergone a lot of changes. It has the foot pedal, a cyclone dust collector, which exhausts outside, and the stock window was modified so it and the covers protecting the glass can be changed just by turning jig knobs. Too, I added real lighting so you can  actually see what you're destroying.

And here is clamp central. Yeah, yeah. I know. Not enough (about 25 last count).

Also in the photo, and not, is the router related stuff. The over-arm pin router is obvious, but not so much the drawer cabinet with the collection of bits, bases and whatnotses. Farther yet to the left and wholly out of site is the router table with a Bad Dog lift, Freud fence, and a 3 horse, variable speed Porter Cable.

Just some of the attempts at organization.

This is the layout wall. The swinging panels added about 64 square feet of wall space on which to organize layout equipment. Add to that, I can store items on the actual wall between the panels.

And there is the storage section. Like this big beast of a roll around storage rack with nearly a half ton of wood on it now.

All the rest, like the tile saw, HVLP, airless, granite router, couple hundred pounds of plastics and so on are here, there and everywhere.