Readneck (or cheapskate) shop tips.

[greatdane2]

I finnaly got my shop put back together and took a few pics of the result. If you are fed up with my crap,I am sorry just ignore the rest of this.
I mentioned before about buying used lateral file cabinets to go under work benches or just against a wall. The next lot ars cabinets you see in office cubicles above a desk. I bought 13 of these for $85 at an auction. These came from a Bank of America and are very heavy duty. As in not the crap that the Office depot ect. I don't know how to post pics and then keep going with words so I will just keep adding threads.
Alan.

[greatdane2]

I also bought a bunch of 8' long black/white boards. With the white side down it makes the shop brighter and the also made it easy to do the ceailing in the small room.I just screwed these 8 x 4 panels to the trusses. These were about $4 each. They have insulation board on the inside, so that helped as well.
These black boards allso came with a real nice aluminium bottom shelf for chalk and eracers. I cut them into shorter lengths and drilled holes in them to make a great tool storage when fastened to the wall.

[greatdane2]

Next, I bought a computer moniter adjustable shelf, guess where? It is very heavy duty and works great between my scrollsaw and finishing bench. Just swing it around to where I want it. $18.
I am posting all this stuff to give people an idea of what and where they can improve thier shop for a lot less money than buying new.

[greatdane2]

I also got a couple of flat screen holders. These are free standing so I just fastened a piece of plywood and a clamp at the top. It lets me put up a picture or pattern of what I am working on. These cost $5. each.

[JohnB]

G'day Alan,
That's a pile of junk for a little cash, my type of stuff

You sure have put it to good use, I'm sure that the original designers would never have pictured their stuff doing what you've done with them.

I love ingenuity like that

[greatdane2]

I also wanted a tall chair, and this one was $20. It was a tad short so I made a small plywwod box and screwed it on between the seat and base.

[greatdane2]

I have allways had a problem with my lamp/magnifying glass that I use on my scrollsaw. Each time I change the blade I would have to move it out of the way and then play with it to get it just right again.I am not sure if the pics will show this, if you go too " BusyBee tools" they have what I am talking about. It is an arm system to hold a funnell for a 4" vacum hose. I fastened it by the base at the back of the scrollsaw cabinet in line with the saw. I took the arm assembly that came with the lamp and fastened it to the vertical arm assembly. By cutting the arm to the right hight. This allows me to swing the lamp/magnifying glass to the side when I do a blade change and then swing it back to where it was. It was around $45. and for me it was money well spent.

[greatdane2]

As mentioned before I use a lot of lateral file cabinets below by work benches etc. Nearly all my work benches are made from office desks. Again bought at auctions, I just use the top. Most are 1 1/2 to 2" thick, ald have a good formica top. they come in all sizes.If you want you can stack the drawer unit that come with these desks off to the side. If you get one with the metal drawers they just unscrew. The last one I got was 72" x 34" for $20. One of the next pics shows my wire feed welder stored in a lateral file cabinet. These cabinets will take a lot of weight. The other is the benchtop I just built, I used 2x4s to make the legs etc;

[greatdane2]

And the last one is a blade holder. I used a stip of 3/4 plywood with shelf brakets top and bottom to fasten it against the wall. Under this I used a good drawer slide unit, this has 3 sliding parts and so comes out quite a ways. to the outer end I used a 1/4" bolt with a lock nut to loosely fasten a round plywood disc. I drilled 1" holes around this to hold glass test tubes. The tubes I bought at a kids science store for $1. each.
This slides out even with the front of the saw so I can see which one I want, and then slides back out of the way.

[turningnut]

I guess I need to start going to auctions...great stuff cheap. NICE!

Mike