Assembly/Outfeed Table

This a project I've been needing for some time now. The only good work surface I had was my table saw top and while that worked pretty well, it also was aggravating when I needed to use my saw and had to clear everything off it. I also needed an out feed table for my saw instead of trying to hold the pieces from falling off the back of my saw, which i didn't like doing because of the safety aspect of it. The storage underneath would also be a welcomed commodity, never enough space to store stuff!

I had a surplus of leftover 2x4's from various projects that I would use for this project. I wanted to be able to double the pieces up for more strength and weight. I'm calling this a poor man's half lap system haha. I also wanted to be able to double up the top to get a nice rigid surface to work off of.

After cutting all the piecing to length using a combination of my miter saw and cut off sled on the table saw. I first started out by assembling an upper and power frame in which I use pocket screws to join them together. It's also a good idea to drill pocket holes in the sides to attach the top later on, I cut some cleats out of scrap ply to attach the bottom shelf being that it would be inset of the lower frame. I added center supports and went ahead a doubled up the two sides before attaching the legs. 

 I pre drilled and counter sunk screws into the frames to attach  the legs. I attached a small block to the bottom of the legs to hold the lower shelf up, in addition to the height of the casters, this would give me enough room for the dust collection to pass under the table. 

Once I had the legs attached I cut the lower shelf to size with my track saw and screwed it into place from underneath with the pocket holes I drilled earlier. I attached the outside aprons using only glue, by laminating these I would eliminate any visible joinery from being seen.  I attached the inside of the legs using glue and screws.

Before attaching the caster I had to cut another piece to attach to the inside of the legs on both sides. the casters were to wide for the legs and the addition piece on the insides would give me enough room to attach them. 

The last step was to cut the top. I cut the first piece of 3/4 play to fit and attached it using the pocket screws I drilled earlier. I then cut a slightly over sized piece of 3/4 mdf and laminated it to the top of the 3/4 ply. Once the glue dried I used a flush trim bit in my router to flush the mdf to the piece of ply underneath.

I haven't yet decided how I want to edge band the ply, but I know for sure that I want to. This table should serve me well and is probably something I should have built a long time ago. It's nice to be able to also store stuff underneath and free up some more space in my shop.

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Saw Blade Storage

It was getting to be very aggravating every time I wanted to get my dado blades out of the box they came in. It never failed the chipper that I would need would be on the bottom of the stack and I would have to dig them all out to get to that one blade. I also figured it would be nice to have a place to store all my 10 inch table saw blades as well. 

I started scouring the internet for different ideas and there were lots of them out there. I saw this particular one from the wood magazine website and really liked the design, so I printed it off and went to work. 

I have plenty of small plywood scraps lying around the shop so this would also be a good opportunity to use some of those up. I had two pieces that would be about an 1" 1/2 short of what the plans called for, but I figured from looking at the plans that it wouldn't really be a problem. So the first thing to do was to square up the pieces and cut them into the sides and back for the holder.

 Once that was done I taped the sides together and laid out all the marks for the 1/4 holes and and drilled them. The plans called for the slots to be at a 60 degree angle, I found that my 30/60/90 triangle came in really handy for this task. Once all the lines were drawn it was over to the band saw to make the cuts for the blade slots. This was a fairly simple task to do. I also marked out a small radius at the top of the sides and cut that out mostly for looks.

 The next step was to sand off all the points and sharp edges on the sides and I used a combination of hand sanding and my spindle sander for this.

The plans called for dowels to be drilled in the back and sides to hold the shims on the back and the throat plates on the side but, I opted to not use the side dowels as I didn't wanna store my throat plates there. I drilled out the hole in the back and cut the dowel on the band saw and also cut a notch in the dowel to keep the shims from possibly sliding off. I just glued the dowel in with wood glue.

 To attach the two sides I pre drilled four 2" screws and counter sunk them into the back also using wood glue for a good bond.

 I wanted a way to hold my riving knives as I have two of them for my saw, one fore thin and one for full kerf blades. I used a piece of crap 2/4 and drew the finger opening of the riving knife onto the wood. I thin cut out the shape on the band saw and shaped it on the spindle sander. After that I cut a slice off the front and cut some of the material off the remaining piece and then glued the front back on using spring clamps. Once again I sanded the piece smooth on the spindles sander until the riving knife would slip over the piece on the front. I attached the holder to the back of the saw blade holder using drywall screws pre drilled from the back side.

Once the sides were attached I cut two small pieces of french cleat and attached them to my french cleat wall. The plans actually called for a screw at the top and bottom to be screwed into a stud but I opted for the french cleat system because I already had that setup.

 All that's left is to store all your blades along with the shims and the riving knife. I am really gonna like this system of blade storage, it will be much easier access than what I had before.

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