In working on the redesign of my shop, I'm planning some sort of outfeed
table. The table bit is obvious enough. I'm trying to think what else to
do with the space.
The saw eats most of my itty bitty shop, and the outfeed area is a corner
that has always been poorly utilized for one reason or another. I've had
all kinds of stuff there over the years, but have never found an efficient
way to use the space.
I have room for a table perhaps as much as 36" deep while still allowing
enough of an aile to get in between it and the wall to stand there and do
something. (Only about 48" outfeed area; it's the best I can possibly
manage.) I'm tossing around different ideas for how to make use of the
space under the table.
* storage cubbies
* drawers
* shop vac housing
I'm also tossing around different ideas what to do with the top of the
thing.
* router table ?
* general-purpose place to use free-standing Crapsman router table (nah),
homeless belt sander, bench grinder, scrollsaw
* horizontal item accumulator
I'm thinking what to do for the top itself too. I have a waterbed I've been
keeping around for years now, trying to find some use for the thing. SYP
probably. I'm thinking to use this bed for whatever underneath bit I come
up with, but I'm going to have to buy something for the top. I suppose the
top could be anything from a hunk of plywood to a closeout special piece of
melamine-encrusted particle board countertop or something. The ultimate
use I pick out for the thing will have some hand in dictating what I make
the top out of, and the bottom too for that matter.
So anyway, throw out some ideas. Picture in your mind a Crapsman 24/24
Contractor's saw with waffle wings. You have a big dead space behind it
about 48" deep. You want to put something there to catch cutoffs, and you
want to make the space double as something else, or as several something
elses, as efficiently as possible.
Is a router table about the best I could do? The only router table I have
now is one of those silly Crapsman ones with the corrugated top and the two
piece fence. The (Crapsman) router in it is a complete POS that's almost
completely useless. My budget is extremely confined, but I have half a
mind to skimp on lunches and scrounge $99 for a bottom of the line P-C
router, and stick it under some kind of table.
So far, I never have used my stupid two part fence for much of anything on
the POS router table. I usually just use a ball bearing pilot. I don't
really expect having fancy tracks and fence-age would change how I use the
banshee. To me a banshee is a machine for putting fancy edges on frame
members, and putting rabbets on the back of frames. I don't want to joint
with it, do router lettering, mortises, tabletop surfacing, or any of umpty
dozen other things you banshee afflicted people rave about with the thing.
I do as much of that kind of stuff by hand as I can, because I hate the
scream of a router, and I love the gentle shick of hand tools, and I have
no deadlines, and no reason to try to speed things along. I just want a
mechanical way to do a few select jobs that really suck to do with a
combination of hand tools and a table saw. I could just about do a plain
table and stick the Crapsman crap-o table on top of it (with a P-C or
similar router retrofitted onto it) for what little I plan to do with the
thing, but that table is SUCH a POS.
Well, anyway, have fun. Feel free to start raving about the incredible
virtues of banshees too. If I had a real banshee with a 1/2" collet that
actually held a bit securely, and a depth adjustment that worked, I might
even stop hating the screaming, obnoxious things so much. Maybe. I still
don't ever expect to use it out of a table though. A hunk of carbide
whirling at 25,000 RPM 4" from my squishy parts? Nah. Playing with
matches is more fun, and less dangerous.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/