My Basement Shop

[Tim Brosnan]

My amateur woodworking shop is the basement of my split level home. I reorganized it a couple of years ago to make it slightly more efficient. The basement is basically two rooms - the main somewhat finished room and a smaller unfinished area where there is storage and the furnace and water heater.

The first step in the organization process was separating a lifetimes accumulation of home repair tools from the woodworking gear and separating the tools I actually use from the various duplicates (anyone need a screwdriver?) The home repair supplies / tools were relegated to part of the red Husky tool cabinet and some plastic bins. Seldom used items items like faucet wrenches, screen door repair, and picture hangars are now stored in the supply room.

The heart space of the shop are the two workbenches. Against the wall is a homemade shop utility table with a replaceable 1/4" mdf sheet that takes the brunt of gluing, some painting / finishing and nearly anything else that needs to make a mess. It's counterpart is a Sjoberg Cabinetmakers bench. I bought the latter a few years ago and it has completely changed how I work. It's my first "real" workbench and I can't imagine now how I got along without one for 25 years. Behind the utility bench is a pegboard for the woodworking hand tools I use most often. I keep chisels, planes, and long rules in the supply room for safer keeping.

On the machinery side of the shop, the center piece is my Delta 10" Contractors table saw. I've had this for almost 25 years and it's never let me down. The blades can be a bit funky to change but I'm used to it by now. I recently built a "Super Charged Fence" for it (see Bob Van Dyke's piece in FWW #231 for how to make one) and I love it.

In addition to the table saw I recently bought a 15" Rikon bandsaw. I'm still learning how to use it nut progress is being made. I have a 3/4" resaw blade in it now and been struggling a bit to get a smaller blade to track correctly.

The machinery side is rounded out with an old Delta drill press, a Craftsman table top planer, and a Porter Cable router table with a homemade fence. All of these machines are pushed, slid, and bumped around to fit what I'm doing. It makes for some workarounds but that's life until I find a bigger shop (which isn't going to happen anytime soon).

Two smaller projects, helped the cause. I installed a set of shelves on one wall (in an existing area) for hand tools and supplies (hardware, glues, tape) and in a small alcove under the stairs created a storage / sorting space for all sanding supplies.

Dust collection is an issue in a shop of this size. Currently I attach my Shop Vac to each tool (except for the table saw) and spend some time sweeping after a project is done.

One noticeable drawback to the shop is that there is an antique 19th century piano dominating one wall. It was here when we moved in and clearly was put there before the upstairs laundry room was built. Bottom line is that it's not leaving unless it's demolished. I'm debating whether to try to sell it (or give it away in return for getting rid of it) or trying to re-purpose the wood and the ebony and ivory keys. Suggestions from the SCC gang are welcome.

Future Workshop Projects: Build a hanging tool cabinet for the hand-tools, paint the walls, improve the lighting, lose the piano, make a more stationery bench for the planer and bench grinder. If I have any room (and time) I may build a dedicated sharpening area.

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[JohnT Fitzgerald]

Very nice!

[Art Mann]

We have a piano similar to that one in a house my wife inherited. We can't even give it away. The carcass is veneered, which means the wood has little value.

[John K Jordan]

My amateur woodworking shop is the basement...

One noticeable drawback to the shop is that there is an antique 19th century piano dominating one wall. It was here when we moved in and clearly was put there before the upstairs laundry room was built. Bottom line is that it's not leaving unless it's demolished. I'm debating whether to try to sell it (or give it away in return for getting rid of it) or trying to re-purpose the wood and the ebony and ivory keys. Suggestions from the SCC gang are welcome.

Yes, older upright pianos are not in much demand these days, you may not even be able to give it away unless it is in good condition inside. The first step would be to get a piano tuner/technician to appraise it and advise. The gentleman and friend who tunes my grand piano does a lot of that. Unfortunately, many old pianos have little value. I have demolished several from this era and hauled them to the dump. The cast iron frame has metal scrap value. I worked to rebuild one for a friend but it turned out it could never be tuned because the wood in bridge dried out and splintered and it was definitely not worth building a new bridge.

(An interesting story about appraising old pianos: my friend the tuner/technician went to evaluate an old piano for a nearly destitute family in a coal mining area near here. The father had died some years before of black lung disease and the family hoped to sell the piano. The piano turned out to be worthless BUT he found a paper bag with nearly $40,000 cash inside! The father had evidently stashed settlement money from his black lung disease inside and didn't tell the family. My tuner friend said he often finds interesting things hidden in old pianos.)

I moved a player piano of that vintage into my basement once - through a picture window! I rebuilt the entire player mechanism, restrung it, and installed new hammers and felts - kept it for years before moving it back out through the same window. One of my sons has it now. (The technology in an old player piano is astounding.)

The ivories are definitely worth something to a piano technician who will use them to replace missing ones for clients. The guy I know saves every one he can get and gave me a handful for my player piano. I THINK many of the black keys are ebonized hardwood and not true ebony.

Is it worth removing the guts (they come out easily) and rebuilding the case into something for the shop? Carving station, office desk with cubbies and drawers, big tool cabinet?

JKJ

[Randall J Cox]

I have a friend who turned one of these into a back bar and has it on his back porch for parties. (We're in Ca where the weather is decent.)

[John K Jordan]

...The carcass is veneered, which means the wood has little value.

Some of them had veneer over good quality wood, some quartersawn.