I got started on the backbench for my shop this week. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can finally take stuff out of boxes and put them away and get more organized. I designed the bench to have 9 equal sized (28" wide) sections so I have a limited number of face frame and door parts to make. One section will have three drawers as pictured, while the others sections will have a drawer over cabinet. The upper cabinets will be a mix of open shelves, cabinets with glass doors, and a set of tool bins on the left. The tool bins on the upper left are intended to hold power hand tools and will hopefully have small drawers below each bin that will hold tools, wrenches, sanding disks, etc. specific to that tool. These small drawers are not shown in the computer rendition. The Sliding Compund Miter Saw installation is not pictured either. A 6" DC port with blast gate comes through the floor into the sixth module. The farthest left lower cabinet will hold a shopvac which will be piped to the bench and to a floor port under the assembly table for dust collection from biscuit jointer, sanders, etc. ; it will include a mini cyclone also. The rendering doesn't quite represent the appearance I am going for. I hope it will look like the Arts & Crafts kitchen cabinets pictured in the latest issue of Fine Woodworking.
My 3D rendering:
Dimension rendering:
I used a simple 3/4" ply platform frame. (vertical pipe is shop compressed air):
The bottom shelf is 3/4" melamine particle board just biscuited together:
I cut shallow dados in the bottom shelf to hold the melamine partitions. The dados fall directly over the platform ribs so they don't weaken the shelf. The round hole is for the DC pipe for the SCMS:
I used a router and a simple jig to cut the dados. The dados are 1/2' wide. The 3/4" partitions have shoulders rabbeted on the bottom edges so that there is no melamine in the glue area of the dado:
Here are the partitions glued into the dados and temporarily braced. Since I did not have to make the cabinets in one place and install them elsewhere, I am just making one big unit. Leveling wedges are also visible in this pic. While checking plumb of the platform and partitions, I discovered that the back wall of my shop is not plumb- out by 1/4 bubble!!:
Spacer blocks mostly done:
A piece of ply temporarily sitting on the frame. The top will likely be 3/4" oak over 3/4" ply:
That's it for today.
My 3D rendering:
Dimension rendering:
I used a simple 3/4" ply platform frame. (vertical pipe is shop compressed air):
The bottom shelf is 3/4" melamine particle board just biscuited together:
I cut shallow dados in the bottom shelf to hold the melamine partitions. The dados fall directly over the platform ribs so they don't weaken the shelf. The round hole is for the DC pipe for the SCMS:
I used a router and a simple jig to cut the dados. The dados are 1/2' wide. The 3/4" partitions have shoulders rabbeted on the bottom edges so that there is no melamine in the glue area of the dado:
Here are the partitions glued into the dados and temporarily braced. Since I did not have to make the cabinets in one place and install them elsewhere, I am just making one big unit. Leveling wedges are also visible in this pic. While checking plumb of the platform and partitions, I discovered that the back wall of my shop is not plumb- out by 1/4 bubble!!:
Spacer blocks mostly done:
A piece of ply temporarily sitting on the frame. The top will likely be 3/4" oak over 3/4" ply:
That's it for today.
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