PennyCreekWoods

Restricted space is the best description of my so-called "shop"! I have one small bench that is fixed, and just one tool on a dedicated and fixed stand. That one is my Dewalt 788 Scroll Saw, my main tool for almost all my work. However, there's still a lot to do, prepping stock, sanding, drilling and routing scrollsawn pieces. A Ridgid oscilating drum/belt sander takes care of most of the sanding, backed up with several random orbitals. BTW, the new low profile Porter Cable RO is AWESOME.HIGHLY recommend it for your first and last RO sander! My Dewalts (Plural) are lonely, on the shelf! Also have a 1" strip sander with a small disc on the side. Recently purchased a used Delta benchtop drill press, which I love except for the relativley short stroke.

Everything else is on wheels! At the heart of the shop is a Shopsmith with a bunch of upgrades. I quickly tired of stepping over all the add-ons, so I built a cabinet, on wheels of course, to house all the stuff. In it now resides the 12" planer, 4" jointer, bandsaw, 6x48 belt sander, and my 24" Leigh dovetail jig. The whole thing is topped by an old Government Issue MDF tabletop, which proved to be almost dead flat, really heavy, and covered on both sides with Formica. As it happened, when I built the cabinet, there was a large recess in one side, which I turned into a place to hang a router. Adding a router insert, a miter slot and a fence completed the picture. Now the thing serves as just about everything, with fence and/or router removed as required.

Another smaller bench with a woodworking vise at the end is also on wheels. My latest acquisition is a Ridgid 14" bandsaw, also on a mobile base. Built into the stand is storage for the Kreg fence and resaw attachments.

Essentially, working on any project reqiures moving at least one of the wheeled devices, and it's not unusual to move them all, sometimes many times, in the course of a 4 or 5 hour shop session! I hope to be building a new house soon, and will grab most of the basement for a real, dedicated shop! My old Craftsman 10' tablesaw, which has not seen the light of day for many years, will be at the center!

Anybody wanna see pix? It's ugly and it's WAY too time consuming, but with a little thought and planning, it's not too bad. You can get used to almost anything, I guess!