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Kurt Wolko
03-16-2015, 10:22 PM
All,

I guess after almost 5 years of lurking here, it's time for an introduction.

My father gave me a great start in understanding woodworking. After I graduated college, he and I started to build a wood shop in the basement of his home, which he, my brother and I used for several years.

I now have all that equipment as both my brother and father are gone, and am slowly getting back into woodworking after a very long dry spell.

This site certainly has a great wealth of information.

Over the years, I have also acquired a lot of tools, and, combined with what I have from Dad's shop, I'm a bit overwhelmed.

Which lead me to the thought of building some cabinets and toolboxes for a lot of the tools. Right now everything's a mess and has been since all this stuff came out here, and I'm just now starting to get some spare time to do something about it.

Over the years I've picked up Tolpin's Toolbox book, and Lon Schleining's Workbench book. Lots of great ideas there. Dad also subscribed to Woodsmith and I have a bunch of the early copies of that publication as well. He made the workbench that was in Woodsmith #50. I still have to finish it up with the cabinets and am looking forward to doing that hopefully once things warm up a bit.

Tool storage is a priority for me right now as I have what Dad left me and what I've acquired over the years. Recently I purchased two sets of plans to help out. The first is Jan Zoltowski's tool cabinet from FWW. I like the layout of the cabinet and it looks like a great way to store a lot of tools in a small footprint.

The second is the machinist's tool chest from Aircraft Spruce. For the price, I had no idea what I would receive. The plans arrived today.

I was totally amazed at the level of detail in these plans and would recommend these to anyone who is considering a machinist style tool chest. You get 6 "d" sized (22 X 34) highly detailed sheets with a very complete bill of materials. I am very excited to get started soon>

Anyway, thanks for this site, it's great place to learn something new.

Kurt

Andrew Hughes
03-17-2015, 1:02 AM
Hi Kurt,A tool chest from spruce sound great hope you can find time to post some pics when it's done.Aj

Ken Fitzgerald
03-17-2015, 1:35 AM
Welcome to the Creek Kurt!

Frederick Skelly
03-17-2015, 5:50 AM
Welcome Kurt! Look forward to seeing pics when you get the storage built. I'm also going to checkout the plans you mentioned.
Fred

Mike Heidrick
03-17-2015, 9:21 AM
Welcome and Thank You for the heads up on the plans. You looking for any other plans or magazines?

Glad to see you are getting the bug.

Prashun Patel
03-17-2015, 9:50 AM
Welcome Kurt. You've intrigued me. Will be curious to see pics as you progress.

Kurt Wolko
03-17-2015, 10:52 AM
Welcome and Thank You for the heads up on the plans. You looking for any other plans or magazines?

Glad to see you are getting the bug.

I have some of the ShopNotes publications from Woodsmith from a couple years back. One set of plans I really like is converting a contractor style table saw into an enclosed workstation with a built in router table. I am a little space limited and this design allows me to get 2 tools out of one. With my space limitations, I am reworking the plans a little bit and hope to design a retractable caster mechanism so the workcenter can be moved around the shop.

Lee Schierer
03-17-2015, 12:02 PM
Welcome. Finding a place for tools can be challenging. I've gone through the same thing as I inherited some tools from my Dad and needed to make room for them in my small shop.

We look forward to seeing some of your work as you move forward.

Kurt Wolko
03-17-2015, 12:23 PM
Welcome. Finding a place for tools can be challenging. I've gone through the same thing as I inherited some tools from my Dad and needed to make room for them in my small shop.

We look forward to seeing some of your work as you move forward.

I was looking last night and saw a Youtube clip by Carl Holmgren on retractable casters. If you have about 15 minutes to watch it, he has some very good ideas for mobilizing equipment.

Lee Schierer
03-17-2015, 10:36 PM
I have several pieces of shop equipment on casters to make them mobile.