Saturday Projects

Every once and a while I figure that I (Aaron) need to provide a post that summons a few Tim Allen ape-like grunts. Last year I inherited my grandfather's Craftsman tablesaw. He took great care and it was in good shape. Since we moved into our new home and I have captured the third bay of the garage as my workshop, I have had the opportunity to do a few upgrades to the saw. I picked up and installed a new fence (that's the part that slides back and forth on top of the saw and helps make nice straight cuts) that extends about 3 feet right of the blade. I also built an extension table with a formica covering that sits between the rails for the fence. I initially planned to just put two legs, but the plans changed and the two legs morphed to four and I ended up with a cabinet for my router. I still need to cut a hole in the table top for the router, but that is a job for a different day.

(Do you like the pink legs on the cabinet? Leftovers from a girl's bunk bed)

This transformation has taken a few months and my wife informed me that I need to get some other things built. So this last Saturday I was in hog heaven working in my shop while it rained outside. I built two projects to help organize the garage: a bike rack for 6 bikes and a sports ball holder. They were pretty simple and used up a lot of my scrap wood. I had to buy 8 2x4's, a box of screws, and surgical tubing. Candace is happy.

The bike rack I built from plans I found on the internet and tweaked to fit most of the bikes in our garage. There is even a spot for scooters in the middle!

The ball rack is something that Candace had seen in a store and we just made it up as we went along. It started a lot bigger, but ended up being about 18 inches wide and 12 inches deep. I added some dowels on the side to hold some of the raquets that we have. Below you can see both of the projects in use and how neat and tidy this corner of the garage is for the moment.