I have to divulge a secret...I actually did some other small projects while I was working on the crib. You know how it goes; you're working on a large project and then you see all of these other little things that you want to do. At least if you are like me, you won't let yourself build the other little things until you finish the big thing you're working on.
Over the past weekend, before I finished the crib, I decided I had to get a couple of small things out of my system. Turned out to be just the ticket, though, as once I finished my little recycling projects, finishing the crib off was actually enjoyable.
So anyway, my bro-in-law had given me a stack of small plywood scraps he had collected while installing dishwashers...he tells me they use plywood to keep the cardboard more rigid. So I got a wild hair and decided to build some shop "furniture" with it. Figured that would be the best use for it as none of the plywood was similar in color and all of it had staple holes.
First up was the "sander shelf". No, again, this isn't an original idea (are you seeing a trend?). I saw a plan for something similar in one of the wood porn magazines and altered it just a little.
As you can see, it's not quite fully stocked yet. Basically, the idea each grit of the hook-and-loop paper discs for my random-orbit sander gets its own shelf. The discs are placed onto the dowels, which lines them all up. Plop the sander onto the discs, lining up the holes on the sander pad and you're good to go. The little cubbies on the right will someday hold 1/4 sheets of sandpaper for my finish sander...just as soon as I cut the full sheets up. The paper towel holder was added more as an afterthought, but at least it will keep some paper towels handy and more importantly, in one place.
Next was a blade rack. As time has moved along, I've started to accumulate saw blades. Some nice ones, some downright crappy ones. I had them all hanging on the pegboard next to the table saw, but after a while that got to be a pain as I had to move one blade to get to another and I was always afraid one of them was going to take a Newtonian plunge to the floor. Again, this isn't at all an original idea...I actually got the idea for this from one of the guys that used to frequent the Amateur Termite forums...now long dormant.
The basic idea here is to keep the blades from banging around inside. To do that I put a piece of 1/2" dowel in the center of each shelf, which does a decent job of keeping everything in its place. The shelves slide into 1/2" dadoes in the plywood sides. I need to make a couple more shelves, but to be honest, I ran out of plywood. Besides, I don't have enough blades to fill it up yet anyway. The nice thing about it is that I can sit it on the floor underneath the table saw, using some otherwise wasted space, and now have more pegboard to clutter up.
Last little project is going to be a router bit cabinet as I get tired of digging in the sawdust inside the router table cabinet looking for bits. Then I believe I'll be over the little things that have been bugging me and will be moving on to the next big project. Perhaps I'll even come up with a psuedo-original design for something.
Posted by Rob at July 29, 2004 9:28 PM