I’ve got a small shop…
Personally, if I had unlimited resources, I would still work in a small area… it’s simply less steps. But it seems like lately my small space has been shrinking… Wood finds and gifts, new machinery, and it is after all, the overflow room of my apartment…
Recently, I’ve been of a mind to clean it and re-organize, but it’s a daunting task at this point… a rare, “I don’t even know where to begin” type of thing… “Begin at the beginning!” you’d say, right? But it’s not clear to me where that is anymore and, for once, I don’t have a “Vision” of what I want to reach for…
But yesterday I was sure of a couple of things… I’ve had this old Craftsmen “Scroll Saw” sort of thing that hasn’t been used for years now, and it was only marginally useful to begin with… It’s not easy for me to throw things away, but out the door it went!!
I saved the motor (it works like a charm) and the roll-around that it was on. That was something I threw together 8-9 years ago, from a thick slab of pine my Brother gave me and an old hospital IV stand that someone had thrown away…
I cut the upright of the IV stand with a pipe cutter down to about 2” and drilled a hole through the pine… simple…
It looks like it’s crooked on the wheels, but I determined the center of gravity of the slab by balancing it on a baseball on the floor… and drilled the hole where it balanced… that actually worked pretty well, it’s very stable…
With that “Platform” clear, it was on to step two…
When I got my jointer, I was a very happy Woodworker!! I mounted it the day I got it onto the old bureau I refer to as a “Bench”...
Well, truth be told, it’s the handiest machine in the world… when I need it… but I don’t use it enough to have it be a “Permanent” fixture on the bench…
I’ll bet you can guess where this is going!! That’s right!!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the Rolling Jointer!! LOL
It fits right into the slot recently vacated by that “Boat Anchor” of a saw…
When I need to use it, I’ll just roll it out, put a scrap of angle iron V-up in front of the wheels (to chock it), hook up the vacuum, and I’ll be good to go!!
And the best part is…
I’ve got my bench back!!! :)