Monkey

I’ve been needing some form of mobile rack to hold the boards that are knocking around the shop in various states of completion, as well as parts of boards in progress. Helen found this for me on Craig’s List today. It was a real bargain and perfect for the task. Its width is adjustable, up to eight feet if necessary, and it has 17 bars per side. The bars slide side to side, and they telescope out to something like 40″. A most excellent addition to the Monkey Shop.

We, after a long wait, I finally have decent heat in the Monkey Shop. Last Friday we finally had a Reznor unit heater installed. It’s natural gas, with a small thermostat on the wall below it. It’s surprisingly small: about 24″ x 12″ x 18″. It can increase the temp in the shop by 10 degrees in roughly 10 min. It’s a separated combustion unit, meaning that air for the gas flame comes from outside instead of from the shop. Everything we have in the shop is separated combustion now: the Reznor, our furnace, and our hot water heater, so I don’t have to worry about fumes from finishes or wood dust igniting.

So far, I’d highly recommend it.

I got something else at the Woodcraft sale yesterday, too: a tenoning jig. I got Woodcraft’s model, which is the same a lot of name-brand ones out there. I turned out to be a nice jig, once I cleaned it up. It came packed with so much oil and grease it was amazing. I had to completely disassemble it to get all the goop off of it. Then I cleaned it up with some kerosene and waxed the machined faces really well then put it all back together. It cut my first tenon on it after squaring it up to the saw and it worked really nicely.

I’ve wanted a decent drill press for a long, long time and today I finally got one. I took advantage of the summer sale at Woodcraft and got a Powermatic 18″ drill press (PM2800). The table is much bigger than normal, and it has wings that extend to support longer work. It also has a continuously variable speed control from 400 to 3000 RPM and a digital speed readout. I’m super happy with it so far