This fall we bought a new house, and with it a garage that’ll make a perfect workshop. At our old house we had a classic Chicago-style, detached 2-car garage with an alley behind the property and no driveway. We needed both ports for our cars, and were not allowed to park in the street so the garage could never be used for the plane. Our new house has a 3-car garage and driveway, so I just leave my truck in the driveway, 2 garage ports are used by Cara’s car and miscellaneous tools and junk, and one port entirely dedicated as a workshop.

More...

Since the slats are assembled in halves, and both halves are short enough that I don’t need the tables end-to-end, I rearranged the workshop to a better layout. Previously the workbenches were stretched across the room diagonally (the only way it will fit end-to-end), and it made it difficult to navigate. This is unfortunately some of the worst dimpling I’ve experienced, so I’ve posted onto the Zenith forum to see if others think it’s worth going back and trying again, or if there are ideas to get a tighter fit on other slats sections.

More...

I picked up this California Air Tools (10020C) “ultra quiet” compressor earlier this summer, and absolutely love it! The name isn’t an exaggeration; it is the quietest compressor I have ever heard. Given that I am working in a spare bedroom upstairs, that’s fairly important. I’m already thinking of adding another tank to it though, but that’s something for another day. Unfortunately today after I charged it up, I found the regulator would start leaking if the regulated pressure was slightly below the tank pressure.

More...

Now that the shed is built and the materials are safely at home and stored, we finally had time to get the workshop setup in our extra bedroom, formerly an office. We put down some thin, cork underlayment we found for $30 at the Restore. It should keep the floor protected from dropped tools and other mishaps. Dragging a table across it will definitely rip it, but otherwise it seems fairly sturdy, and we have plenty of leftovers to replace it if needed.

More...