The Woodshop Shed 07 2026

workshop lighting 12' ceiling

Furnished content.
(from WoodNet.net)

So ... making plans for the lighting in my new workshop space to be.
Random internet search results indicate that for my 12' workshop ceiling height I should probably aim for 100 lumens per square foot.
I have close to 1,000 sf, so at, say, 5k lumens per light fixture that's 20 light fixtures.

I know about task lighting, but here I'm referring to just general lighting for the whole area.
I'm also thinking about splittingthe lights between two switches in and alternating pattern.
I'm wondering if it's best to just have straight lines of lights, or to install them at different angles to maximize the lumen benefit and reduce shadows.

I found the Hyperlitesight. Those look interesting and like they would prevent shadows, but I can't get over the thought that it might make me feel like I'm in a bee hive or on a space ship or something. There's ayoutuber I followthat has these, or something like them, and I just feel an approach/avoidance conflict when I see the lights.

These 5500 lumen GT-Litesor thesePerformax 5000 Lumen lites at Menards would work without breaking the bank, but I have to admit that such a low price excites me and makes me nervous at the same time ... kinda like the loml, but I digress ... cheaper price is likely to mean the cheapest and least reliable quality.

Anywho - if you had/have1,000 sf of shop floor with a 12' ceilingwhat would you do for lighting and how would you do the layout of lightsfor that space?

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Walnut

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(from WoodNet.net)

Not often you come across nice clear walnut of this size. 20+" wide x 7' long x 2" thick. Saw it posted on Facebook by a lumber supplier a little over an hour away and did not diddle around. The dark areas are where it got wet from rain on the way home.

I have some leads on a CNC machine to mill these down to thickness. They are already skip planed to 1-7/8" Going to be a dining table at about 1-5/8" thick.

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then...diasaster struck

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(from WoodNet.net)

or maybe it a senior moment, or just plain ineptness on my part.Back around the first of the year I started working on building a serpentine drawer sideboard. This is to replace one we already have (POS) and I was trying to copy it in detail. This will sound like I'm making excuses (I probably am), butmy wife is handicapped so I also do caregiver and all household choresand of course the outdoor stuff. So my time in the shop might be 15 minutes a day, with an occasional sprinkling of 1 hour stints.So when I made this mistake I have all kinds of excuses for doing it, but the truth is it shouldn't have happened.Couple that with me making this project much harder than it should be (building drawers first, then the carcase) and the result is this screw up. The piece has a full width drawer in the center, and2 smaller drawers at the top.I vacuum pressed the 2 drawer fronts and cut one in half for the upper 2 drawers. Then I went ahead and finished the drawer boxes, intending to build the carcase to fit them. The story goes on for several paragraphs that I'll skip, but here's what happened:the 2 half fronts needed t be fit in the same way they were pressed but instead I made the right side drawer with the front upside down.This results int eh curves not matching the trim pieces as well as the second drawer. I'm now faced with disassembling the original and make a new box keeping the front oriented correctly. There was a dozen way for me to avoid this, and none of them worked; I screwed up. here's some pics, the close up is the misaligned front, and how it looks when I sit the drawer in there upside down. BTW another genius move I made was to use brass dowels to hold the fronts to the boxes, that complicates my disassembly process quite a bit, I won't be able to just resaw the rabbit for the sides.

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The Pedestal made from those Beveled Edge Panels

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(from WoodNet.net)

After I made the panels with the supplemental fencethat I showed on another thread, I glued them up and then fit the top to it. The overall dimensions are 22W x 16D x 31H. I put corner blocks inside at the bottom to help reinforce it there.

After filling and sanding the low spots flush, I ran a 1/8" round over bit along all the edges. I painted it with BIN 123 WB primer. At $28/gallon it is a bargain and with a little thinning sprays as well as the BIN shellac pigmented primer I used to use until the price got ridiculous. The topcoat is Duralaq WB white acrylic lacquer. Great stuff, but I'm not sure it's still available. I had a gallon left over from my kitchen remodel a few years and it was a perfect use for a little of it.

I brought it upstairs this morning and willlet it cure for a few days before delivering it to our local library where some sculpture will be mounted on top.

Simple forms like this show every defect when painted. The time I spent filling and sanding the low spots, more than once, paid off. Thepedestallooks about as perfect as I'm capable of.

John

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Building an Urn

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(from WoodNet.net)

My FIL passed away last week. I am building an urn. I want a hexagonal shape. I wanted the top to be a hexagonal cone. I am going to try to find someone in my area with a CNC. I am having trouble visualizing the jig I'd need to carve this with a router. I think it would be a combination of a flattening and circle jig with the flattening jig fixed at the slope I need. I was thinking cut the hexagon first and have the jig register on each side.A CNC would likely give better results.

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Bevels on a Right Tilt TS

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(from WoodNet.net)

I've shown this before, but it's been a while so I thought some might like to see how easy it is to safely make bevel cuts on a right tilt saw. You make a supplemental fence that clamps to the primary fence.

The bottom of the fence is just a smidge below the thickness of the material you're cutting. The left edgeof the blade is set to meet the bottom corner of the fence.

Then you just ride the edge of your workpiece against the fence. Your workpiece must be the final dimensionsif you are beveling opposite sides because the process does not change the dimensions of the part. That's a very good thing. If your workpiece has the correct dimensions before cutting the bevels, it will after cutting, too. And you can run parts of any size, provided you have enough support on the left side;there's no need to adjust the fence for different size parts.

The offcut falls harmlessly under the fence, so there's no danger of kickback.

If the workpiece happens to lift up during the cut, the part ends up with less bevel cut in that area. But you can make the cut again to get it perfect. If that happens making the cut on the right side of the blade, you have a ruined part.

Many folks don't like a right tilt saw because it's not easy to cut bevels. With this supplemental fence, it's just as easy as with a left tilt saw and offers additional advantages.

John

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Metal ceiling in workshop?

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(from WoodNet.net)

A friend of mine has a metal ceiling in his detached garage/barn. It looks good.
It had me considering installing metal instead of drywall for the ceiling in my barn workshop. But what might be potential concerns with having a metal ceiling in a workshop?
Mine will be 12' from the floor.

If I were to do drywall I would trim it out instead of mudding 1000sf of ceiling and only mud over the screws.
I found scratch n dent sources of metal sheets that significantly close the gap between the cost of metal and drywall at the box stores. I will still have to paint it because the source I found currently doesn't have white. Plus I will want a flat ceiling white and not the typical glossy look of factory painted metal. I'll also have to paint over scratches that are either already there or that I cause during installation.
I figure that if I install metal that I'll only have to trim the perimeter or use J channel. Another advantage over drywall ceiling is that I don't need as many ceiling joists. DW will require 16of but My friend has his metal ceiling screw runs 48 apart. I might do 24 though because I just want the extra support for me when I climb up there to put down insulation. Plus I might want to use the space for some light storage.
Anywho - back to sharing thoughts, considerations, and potential concerns regarding a metal ceiling.
Thanks

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Thankful for basement workshop

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Yesterday outside temp 98+ and house cooled to only 82. Basement workshop - about four-fifths below grade - held at 73 F all afternoon, albeit with higher humidity. In the winter with temps down tothe aughts workshop never gets below 55 F. Best of all possible worlds!

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chess set

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Long time lurker, seldom poster, looking for plans, if they exist.
Several years ago,I ran across a photo, online.
Roy Underhill, is looking at a sset of chess pieces, I assume he made.
The pieces are all woodworking tools.
It appears that one "side" is hand tools, and the other is power tools. The woods used are light for power tools, and dark wood for hand tools.
This is the photo:
https://www.woodworkersjournal.com/roy-u...odworking/
I have searched about everywhere I can think of, to no avail.
Does anyone know where I can get either plans, or at least a better photo, to work from?

Thanks, in advance

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Another Drawer Change -- Inset to Overlay?

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(from WoodNet.net)

So, I finally got my drawers to fit in my cabinets, and my wife decided that instead of inlay, she'd prefer overlay. The Blum undermount slides are mounted at the front edge of the cabinet carcass, not even with the face frame.

Should I: (1) leave the slides where they are and just attach the drawer faces to the boxes; or (2) reposition the slides so that they're flush with(a tad behind)the face frame?

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