Power Tool Storage
In cleaning up the garage after a couple weeks of heavy-duty weekend-warriorsmanship, I decided I'm not using my storage well enough. I'm having difficulty getting everything put away without heaping it up. There's two sets of double wall cabinets that I picked up on clearance about four years ago. They're cheap pressboard, but they're serviceable and seem to be holding up fine.
I picked some choice specimens from the scrap pile and used the illustrious Kreg Jig Jr. to screw a sub-shelf together. (Honestly, I look for excuses to make Kreg Jig Projects) I made it shallower than the shelf-pin holes so I could hang the blade-guard of the circular saw below its edge and still get the door shut. It's a better use of vertical space.
A thin (reclaimed pallet wood) shelf below the tool shelf holds extra blades and accessories. The whole sub-unit is able to slip out in one piece if necessary. There's plenty of room for more on the base of the cabinet. I stored my beloved Jorgensen Miter Saw way up top, where I'll need a step stool to reach it. I haven't used it since I got the mighty
DeWalt Sliding Compound Miter Saw, but maybe I'll have a use for it and bring it back to the fighting front lines. Otherwise, I'll Craigslist (a verb now?) it later for a few bucks and clear the space.
I made a similar unit over in the
cordless-tool neighborhood, but without the sub shelf. It needed the room for the drill and impact driver to slip in and out, with their batteries attached. I'd robbed the factory shelf for another cabinet earlier, but this worked better due to the circular saw trick. I may add a second story riser, but this is doing the trick now. I drilled a hole in the base for the charger cord so I can top up batteries right in the cabinet. This cord is pugged into a switched receptacle so I can simply shut it off from below when I close down for the night.
I ran out of time for goofing around with the Kreg Jig and the Miter Saw making these high-end, custom-crafted beauties, so I just picked up a simple wooden box I'd made when I was practicing with the dovetail jig. Perfect! Yep, that's a
dovetailed, 3/4" custom sander stand. You just can't put a price on such hand crafted finery when you're stacking a pair of wood chewing DeWalt sanders (
Random Orbital &
1/4 Sheet Orbital)
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| The routers are upside down to protect the bits that are set juuuuuuust right. |
Done. All the tools are put away. I still need to re-jigger my whole storage setup at some point. I still have nail guns piled in a mechanic's tool chest drawer with other assorted stuff.
I even vacuumed the shop before coming in for pizza. Perhaps tomorrow after work, I'll pull out the planer and start working on interior door number three. This floor isn't meant to be free of sawdust for long.