It's not perfectly square, but it holds in position tightly, and is super easy to flip, completely eliminates liting either of these tools and as such makes life on my back easier. So in my book absolute win! On the square issue. It would appear that the holes I drilled for hte axle did not quite end up perfectly center on both sides. My fault, but not bad enough for me to care rnough to fix it. The ply base was slightly taco chipped, but once weight was applied on the floor it straightened out nicely.
The Harbor Freight urethane locking / non locking swivel casters roll REALLY smoothly even around my junked up shop floor. Happy there. Very happy.
The rigid sander and Dremel scroll saw are yet to receive their treatment, but should have no issues. The design is absolutely solid, although my implementation was somewhat intentionally rough and just knocked together.
The work surfaces are more or less at the same height as the BT table / workbench. So all in all,
Oh and considering the volume of stuff I reclaimed to from my cutoffs, I can honestly call this prooject made from at least 70% reclaimed materials
One thing I did notice is the jointer basically barfed shavings when I flipped it. Apparently the dust port isn't quite as effective as I had thoght, even pulling straight to a shop vac!
So what would I do differently for the next one?
Well I am close to out of suitable lumber for the build, so I need to get some 2x4s and plywood. BUT....
#1. The half laps will be cut on the table saw next time, and sized up so that they are properly sized. Mine are sloppy and while it works, it is ugly.
#2. Obtain more of the rotation stop bolts / pins. WIll do this as an add on to this build, but I want the pins to be sligtly longer, with a small piece of chain and a pull ring held in by a nut. Or even just a longer all threaded bolt with a couple of nuts. It is hard to get my fingers on the bolt head to remove it.
#3. Use perfectly clean 2x4s instead of 2x4s with live edges. I bypassed the rabbet / additional storage pockets due to the live edge issue. These 2x4s were just nasty, which is why I had them left over.
#4. NOT use threaded rod for the axle next time. No problem in operation, but the threads made it hard to pass the rod through the bores...
#5. Overall, go slower, and just take my time to measure and insure everything is going where it needs to go holes wise...
So having said that, what would I do the same?
#1. I would absolutely reproduce this design, of course with the rabbet / panel addition. And I would add pegboard. I am sold on it now, with the spare pegboard baskets I have to hold the sander accessories.
#2. Absolutely use the HF casters again. I have them, I like the way the not only roll, but how well they lock and unlock. These are cheap but a real winner functionally.
#3. The green paint. The hunter green gloss paint. I know not everyones cup of tea, but boy oh boy is this really growing on me. In the past I never would have painted my shop fixtures, it's something my dad, grandpa, and uncles / great uncles did, now I know why... Although they all used something akin to battleship gray which I suspect Grandpa bought at an Army / Navy Surplus store in a 55 gallon drum... I don't have enough to do the next one, so I am going to just paint a sample for color match and go to Home Depot and grab a gallon of Glidden gloss color matched to this...
#4. The simple pivot, and pin stop design. I have seen guys do complex embedded rotating eye bolts with handhweels and, nope, unneccessarily complex. A pin stop works great and is easy to do, very little to go wrong...
The Harbor Freight urethane locking / non locking swivel casters roll REALLY smoothly even around my junked up shop floor. Happy there. Very happy.
The rigid sander and Dremel scroll saw are yet to receive their treatment, but should have no issues. The design is absolutely solid, although my implementation was somewhat intentionally rough and just knocked together.
The work surfaces are more or less at the same height as the BT table / workbench. So all in all,
Oh and considering the volume of stuff I reclaimed to from my cutoffs, I can honestly call this prooject made from at least 70% reclaimed materials
One thing I did notice is the jointer basically barfed shavings when I flipped it. Apparently the dust port isn't quite as effective as I had thoght, even pulling straight to a shop vac!
So what would I do differently for the next one?
Well I am close to out of suitable lumber for the build, so I need to get some 2x4s and plywood. BUT....
#1. The half laps will be cut on the table saw next time, and sized up so that they are properly sized. Mine are sloppy and while it works, it is ugly.
#2. Obtain more of the rotation stop bolts / pins. WIll do this as an add on to this build, but I want the pins to be sligtly longer, with a small piece of chain and a pull ring held in by a nut. Or even just a longer all threaded bolt with a couple of nuts. It is hard to get my fingers on the bolt head to remove it.
#3. Use perfectly clean 2x4s instead of 2x4s with live edges. I bypassed the rabbet / additional storage pockets due to the live edge issue. These 2x4s were just nasty, which is why I had them left over.
#4. NOT use threaded rod for the axle next time. No problem in operation, but the threads made it hard to pass the rod through the bores...
#5. Overall, go slower, and just take my time to measure and insure everything is going where it needs to go holes wise...
So having said that, what would I do the same?
#1. I would absolutely reproduce this design, of course with the rabbet / panel addition. And I would add pegboard. I am sold on it now, with the spare pegboard baskets I have to hold the sander accessories.
#2. Absolutely use the HF casters again. I have them, I like the way the not only roll, but how well they lock and unlock. These are cheap but a real winner functionally.
#3. The green paint. The hunter green gloss paint. I know not everyones cup of tea, but boy oh boy is this really growing on me. In the past I never would have painted my shop fixtures, it's something my dad, grandpa, and uncles / great uncles did, now I know why... Although they all used something akin to battleship gray which I suspect Grandpa bought at an Army / Navy Surplus store in a 55 gallon drum... I don't have enough to do the next one, so I am going to just paint a sample for color match and go to Home Depot and grab a gallon of Glidden gloss color matched to this...
#4. The simple pivot, and pin stop design. I have seen guys do complex embedded rotating eye bolts with handhweels and, nope, unneccessarily complex. A pin stop works great and is easy to do, very little to go wrong...
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