Project Update: Getting the Shop in Shape

It became increasingly clear over the last few weeks I needed to clean and rearrange the shop if I wanted to keep thinking of it as my sacred space. While I recently brought in the new Laguna band saw, I also got rid of Big Bertha, the 18" Foremost. She's not yet out of the shop - the cool Craigslist dude who bought her will be picking her up this coming weekend. As part of the deal, he will also be bringing me a 3"x 10' live-edge black walnut slab. Not too shabby at all.

With a little help from my sons, Ian and Trey, this past weekend, I was able to get some of the crap/scrap wood out of the shop, as well as rearrange things a bit. They also helped me put the Laguna band saw together; it was mostly heavy lifting involving the table and motor, both two-man mounting jobs. I still don't have a 240v plug set up, but I went ahead and put the blade on, anyway.

Along with this, I've acquired a Grizzly 10" Wet Grinder. Over time, I will switch more and more to hand planes, chisels, card scrapers, etc. Given this shift, I recognized that I needed a good, reliable way to sharpen the tools. I got a rippin' deal from Grizzly on the little guy, I just need to figure out where he's going to live in the shop.

In keeping with the resaw theme at Tortuga Early Instruments Worldwide Headquarters, I'll be picking up another 12" x 6' poplar board that I will, once again, resaw down to 3/16" for the bentside lamination. I thought about setting up a bending tool, but I'm not going to do it at this time.  This means, I'll need to glue them together, so I went ahead and purchased some Titebond Original Extended, which will give me 10-15 minutes additional setup time when I work on the lamination.

Finally, the photo below is a shot of the shop as I continue to execute the makeover. It's about a quarter of the way there, yet I feel better about it already. At least I can now walk through my sacred space without feeling claustrophobic.

Until next time...