Flip top tool storage

[SteveR]

I am rapidly running out of shop space....so I need to start piling tools on top of each other..literally lol. My best thought is a portable flip top tool stand similiar to what Wood magazine has shown in the past. I need to make at least one (maybe two) for Dewalt planer, OSS, belt/disc sander, and scroll saw. My main concern is the weight of the dewalt planer and the stress on the pivoting rod, I was thinking a heavy piece of all thread with maybe an insert of sorts (conduit?)expoxied in where it goes thru the wood base and the support frame to help eliminate wear from/to the all thread. Anyone built one and anything you would have done different in hindsight?
Thanks
Steve
Edited for typppos[)]

[jethro]

Steve, there is a flip-top tool stand in issue 111 of Woodsmith magazine. Unfortunately, it's been a long time since I looked at the article, and I don't have it any more, so I can't provide more details. The side picture here might help.

[Leadbell]

Steve,

I built a combination of the flip-top cabinets shown in Wood Idea Shops 3 and 5. For the same reasons that you quote, I used the cabinet design from Idea Shop 3 and the top design from Idea Shop 5 that has a continuous steel rod going all the wat through the top and bearing on brass inserts in the cabinet sides. I have my original Ryobi 10" portable planer (the thing just won't wear out)and a benchtop Craftsman Disk/Belt sander mounted on the stand. It performs like a champ.

For the details on the designs, go to woodmagazine.com and click on "Idea Shops."

Warren

[tropicaffair]

Warren,

Do you have any pictures? I'm in the same boat as Steve - running out of floor space in the shop. I've got the Wood magazine issues with their Idea Shop series. Just looking for additional inspiration I guess.

[SteveR]

Thanks for the input so far all.
I found two versions in Wood Magazine...one type that flips up from under a bench ...the other type Wood has identified as both a "swivel top" and "flip top" both having a planer mounted on one side.
This is what I am aiming for (but not so fancy, basically a 2x4 frame half lapped joints, screwed and glued; heck the one shown should be inside, plus the rest of my tools would be jealous):



with this type, I was concerned not only about the weight of the planer/bottom tool on the pivoting rod (in addition to the added stress on it rolling around a sorry excuse of a concrete floor)...but that the pivoting rod also acts to serve as the upper support for the cabinet sides. I was thinking as a "belt and suspenders" approach, is to extend the sides to the rear a bit (just enough to clear lowest elevation rotating tool), in order to place an additional upper support so the pivoting rod is not the only thing holding the top of base together.

[Tom Miller]

I ran out of room in my shop several tool purchases ago, and have considered making a flip top for my planer and osc. belt/spindle sander. So far, I've come up with a couple ideas/concepts, and that's as far as I got.

The first idea is to make a very large diameter pivot, due to the concerns you mention. I thought I'd make 6" diameter disks out of 4/4 material and have that held in a mating saddle.

The second idea is to put the pivot near the vertical center of mass of the combined planer/sander, so that I'm not wrestling the thing to get it to flip. That means the table top of the flip stand would be off the rotation center, since the planer weighs way more than the sander. But that could make the sander top too high, or the planer bed too low. Haven't gotten that far yet.



Regards,
Tom

[SteveR]

Great thoughts Tom..and I see the dilema with the off-center idea you are speaking of.

Adding to this, I was thinking of adding some dunnage to the base of the stand that has the planer on it. This may help lower the center of gravity of the whole unit. I can invision trying to flip up the planer and at the same time the stand wanting to flip back on its back because of top heaviness.

I noticed the guy in the picture is grasping both ends of the table and probably "gingerly" flipping it over. I was also thinking of mounting the opposing tool to the planer a good bit off-center of the pivot to help when flipping, but when the table is nearing vertical (mid-flip) the advantage is quickly lost and probably a disadvantage as the flip is completed. So that idea is scratched.

I need to weigh these to find the heaviest oposing tool. I think the OSS is my best bet now. Plus it's center of gravity is probably the highest in elevation versus the rest of the tools. So that may help with the pivot.

[bmyers]

Crazy Idea:
Put weight on the light side to counter balance the heavy side and let gravity do the work? Anyone tried this yet?

Bill

[r1968]

Take a look at Sawmillcreek.org. looks like he made improvements over the magazine design.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...highlight=flip
Raj

[tropicaffair]

Raj,

Nice find over on sawmillcreek. Pictures always help visualize a concept. Does anyone really think there's a need for the ballast box he incorporated on the bottom?

[SteveR]

Great find Raj.....thankyou!!! I will take notes on what he did.

Bill, I had thought of the very same thing....still mulling it over.

Russell, I think the ballast idea may be good, because it will be very top heavy. I want to make mine mobile, so the ballast, particularly when flipping, will help stabilize the stand.

I am kinda surprised more folks on here have not built one yet.

Steve

[LarryG]

quote:Originally posted by SteveR

I am kinda surprised more folks on here have not built one yet.

Haven't you heard? We all have such spacious, uncluttered shops that we needn't resort to such tomfoolery as flip-top stands.

But seriously folks: being as space-challenged as the average BT3'er, I've doodled up a few exploratory napkin sketches on ways to make a given chunk of space do double-duty. The two conclusions I keep coming back to are (1) the tools being flipped ought to be as close to the same size and weight as possible, as has been mentioned already; and (b) they ought to have similar infeed/outfeed requirements, and possibly closely-related functions. For instance, a thickness planer and a benchtop jointer would make one excellent pairing; a disc/belt sander and an oscillating spindle sander would be another.

I'm not sure I can explain/defend the second point beyond a vague, "It just seems like the right way to do it." It may have something to do with what it takes to get one tool or the other into operation ... for instance, with a sanding station you just walk up to it and use it, but if you had a thickness planer on the other side you'd have to roll the stand out from the wall, clear out enough space for infeed and outfeed, etc.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot ... a third point is that at least one tool, and preferably both, ought to be one that is infrequently needed. I was thinking about putting my thickness planer and OS/BS on a flip-top stand but realized I use both so often that constantly flipping them back and forth would soon become a hassle. (Come to think of it, this might make a planer/jointer pairing a bad idea, except as a last resort.)

[ironhat]

Better safe than sorry with regard to the ballast. If you've ever had a motorcycle go over the center of gravity while holding it upright you know the sinking feeling of knowing that it's going to fall. With the machinery it would require a bump or a stumble aginst it to set the laws of physics in motion. This happened to me a couple weeks ago while trying to get my jointer onto the mobile base. Got there but too far to the one end and it tipped a little ant that's all it took. All I could do was ease it to the floor.
'nuf sed,
Chiz

[SteveR]

quote:Originally posted by LarryG

Haven't you heard? We all have such spacious, uncluttered shops that we needn't resort to such tomfoolery as flip-top stands.

LOL........I musta missed that memo somewhere

When we moved into our new house, LOML said I could use the entire 2 car garage for the shop!!!....I almost fell over I figured I could still get everything on one side...but with an expanding tool collection......how wrong I was. She was helping do some organizing last weekend in the shop and saw how the shop space was shrinking fast. She said maybe we could add another 15' on the front.......Almost fell over again LOL.... Not pratical right now, but the thought is what counts. I just gotta love that woman!!

I was thinking the opposite of your thoughts Larry. I was going to mount the sanders (OSS and Disc/belt) opposing the planer and SS respectively. My thinking was if, for some reason, I needed to bounce back and forth between sanders (similar functions and usually utilized at the end of a project), both could be flipped on top at the same time. And along the same lines, the planer would be used only at the beginning of a project (messups not included [)]) and the scroll saw is for sure less used.
Steve

[LarryG]

quote:Originally posted by SteveR

I was going to mount the sanders (OSS and Disc/belt) opposing the planer and SS respectively. My thinking was if, for some reason, I needed to bounce back and forth between sanders (similar functions and usually utilized at the end of a project), both could be flipped on top at the same time.

Well, okay, yes, sure. That's good thinking. Or, if one sander is flipped down to the "standby" position, the other sander, on the other stand, is maybe available for use and, while maybe not *exactly* the right tool, will still get the current job done.

(Shows you the value of these discussions. You think you've got it all figured out, and along comes a horizontally-opposed viewpoint ...)

Although I currently own neither, and although this doesn't conform to my "similar functions" theory, I think something like a scroll saw and a Tormek wet-wheel sharpener would be a good pairing for the same flip-stand. Both are in the "You don't need it very often, but when you need it, you need it" category of tools.