Northern California musings from one who fell out of the nut tree.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Check Off Another One

That's one more of my woodworking projects in the "finished" column. I just turned the final screws on the workcenter I designed for use in my woodworking area. There are two major things I designed this piece for. One, to act as a sturdy base for my router table, and two, to provide a drawer for my bits and blades (anything with a cutting edge) so that I can put a dehumidifier in with it to keep them all dry.
You see, it gets a bit damp in our garage during the rainy season. There's nothing more disheartening than to go out to the shop in the spring and see a sheen of rust over all my router and drill bits. So my desire was to build a cabinet with some drawers, and make one of the drawers very deep so that I can have all my bits in slots, and some dehumidifying silica in the drawer to wich the moisture out of the air. So that's what it does.
I also designed the top to be interchangeable. I can mount the router table up there using the four bolts protruding from the top. However, I can remove the router table and make other tops that use the same bolt arrangement. My plans to this point include a bench grinder top, a clamping/saw guide top, and a flat top for just general use.

Oh, and here is the original design drawing I did for the workcenter. I stayed mostly to the plan, except I decided not to flare the scrapwood bin on the left, and it seemed to make more sense to have the small drawer on the top and the deep one in the middle.
I haven't decided yet whether I am going to paint or stain the unit. I had planned on just leaving the wood bare. Now I'm thinking I might want to give it some finish, so that the same moisture I'm trying to protect my tools from doesn't do a number on the unprotected wood.

Next up? The long-awaited coffee table!