Organization Day

I spent a good portion of today in the workshop. There was, however, very little actual woodworking accomplished. First task of the day was adding to the foam pads on the floor. I've had a few foam pads right by the workbench (the colored ones at the right in the photo), but after my fight with gravity two weeks ago I decided it was time to expand the padding. The padding is easier on the feet and legs than concrete.

In order to put down the pads I had to clean up. Most of that I did yesterday -vacuuming up sawdust, stacking scraps, putting tools away. The interlocking tabs on the new pads are a slightly different size than the ones I already had so the black pads (the new ones) are just butted up against the colored ones. (I really wanted more colored ones but couldn't find them). The pads now extend from the lumber rack (which desperately needs replacing) on one side of the room (behind me in this picture) almost to the raised platform at the other end (most of the wood is on that platform) and under the workbench and from one end of the bench to the wall. I got more today so that I can add them under the scroll saw (you can just see the edge of one leg (red) at the upper right of this picture) and extend them toward the wall where the door is (to the left in this picture).

Once I finished with the floor I turned by attention to my tool storage tower. The tower is based on plans from Lee Valley tools, the purveyor of the metal drawers. The basic design is pretty simple - a plywood box with 10 slots spaced every inch in the sides to recieve the drawers. The tower is three of these boxes joined together with 1x3 strips, 2 per side.

Today's project was to pull out the label maker we got a month or so ago and label the drawers. While I was at it I also added anti slip padding to the bottoms of many of the drawers. Once the labeling was done I pulled out all the drawers, stacking them on the newly installed padded floor.

Once the tower was empty I flipped it over, and removed the casters. When I first built the tower I attached the casters too far from the edges, and the tower has been a bit too unstable. I repositioned the casters at the edges of the base, then replaced the drawers. The tower is still not as stable as I would like but it's better.

I also made a trip out into the wet world (no ice here) to procure supplies for adding shelves to the office, and the additional pads for the floor.