I'm not showing anyone pictures of my shop. You'd be appalled at the amount of crap I store in there.

That bench is going to be sweet.

 

you might consider using masonite instead of melimine for the top. Just a suggestion.

 

I could be confusing the two. I got the stuff that's like ultra compacted cardboard. One rough side and one shiny smooth side.

 

Progress report: no storm threat today. Allowed me to get some hours in. Got the supports (all funky angles) and socket set drawer installed. The drawer allows me to just open and lay flat my Craftsman case. That way, when I need to take them somewhere, I just close it up and run.

The drawer is made using drawer arms from Home Depot. I think they're less than $20. Then it's just a matter of measuring your open socket case and building a drawer with enough height. Getting the drawer arms installed straight is a little tricky.

 

You can put sheet metal on the top too. You can write on it, measure, and erase marker with alcohol. Just don't be leaning on it watching a thunder storm when lightning strikes nearby. It will burn the metal screw heads into your arm, and spill your beer ….when you get up off the ground. (happened to my neighbor.)

 

I use sheets of the plastic cutting board material. Makes a fine bench top.

 

Nice looking, so far!

Years ago, when we built onto Mom and Dad's house, we got rid of one of the big chest freezers, which freed up some space in the canning room. So I put up some more shelves, to match the spacing of the existing shelves. Except they were deep enough to stack quart and half gallon mason jars 5 and 4 deep, respectively.

I had them anchored to the block walls using toggled molly bolts and the wood shelving was assembled using ringshank nails and an epoxy wood glue.

25 years later, I'm talking to my sister-in-law while she and a brother are cleaning the old house out to sell, after Mom died. My brother is CLEARLY cussing up a storm in the background.

She's laughing, "he's been cussing your name for hours while trying to rip those shelves out of the canning room that you built!"

I told her to tell him to take the molly bolts out, then just use a d*mn sawsall to cut the shelving braces up.

She said it was too entertaining watching him tear things out with a wrecking bar and listening to the cussing!


They weren't beautiful...but I darn sure wasn't going to have to clean up hundreds of pounds of smashed canning jars and food because they collapsed!

 

Got some good build time in this evening after work. Paid for in buckets of sweat! Damn it's hot out there. I was seriously worried I was gonna warp the Masonite from sweat dripping on it so much!

Got the surface installed and the pegboard attached to the wall. In a rush of "ooooh! I'm getting stuff done," I went and attached all my pegboard hardware (well, almost all). Then I realized I gotta take it all off to put it where I actually want it. D'oh!

Still need to rework/upgrade all the shelving to fit and hold my bigger hand tools. The former owner's husband (since deceased) had a good idea for shelving: use wooden stair tread. It has a nice rounded nose and good depth. I plan on reusing as much of that as possible. The adjustable stuff is a little flimsy. Not sure if it'll hold a practical amount of weight. Also need to get the ceiling fan hung up. Just took the one out of the living room for an upgrade. It's a 52"--way oversized for a 10x10 room, but I don't care! It'll move some air, that I know!

If there aren't any posts for a while it's because I did electrical work!