Welcome! 大家好! ¡Bienvenidos!
Dad is always trying to stretch every dollar and thus he is constantly fixing things and creating things to make it work. After many years, he eventually settled on the shop that we will tour. This shop is tucked in the unused half of the double wide garage door. A vehicle, the minivan at the time of publish, is parked in a way to maximize side clearance so the doors can be opened all the way. The shop uses what is left, optimized so when stored away, it takes as little floor space as possible.
The heart of the shop… Workbench
Man, what an evolving piece… It’s been modified at least a dozen times and has been discussed before in better detail. This bench is a flat surface, can be an outfeed table, has t tracks and vices to hold the work, and must be mobile (which for a true workbench is a flaw). Currently it sits where it should be, right in the middle and in front to be the first place Dad goes.
The tabletop is a sandwich of a sheet of mdf, a sheet of particle board, and a frame of 2×4’s. From there, four sandwiched 2×4’s act as legs to a bottom shelf, which that is used to mount four lockable casters. An end vise was screwed on one end that runs the entire depth of the benchtop, roughly 26″ wide. Currently, two 2×6’s are used as jaws, giving the vice a 10-½” capacity. The vise is also use to hold other tools, such as this metal vise.
Woodworking Tools
Dad says, “He’s not a wood worker… but that he makes wood work”. He doesn’t try to be a wood whisper, but acknowledges the capability of wood. Wood is a great material, cheap yet strong, and very easy to work with. The easiest way to discuss the tools is through the woodwork workflow.
Wood Prep
Dad stores his wood where ever he can. He has sheet wood leaned up on one wall in the garage, the long lumber leaned in a corner. Usually he purchase his supplies just in time and prepares them on the floor in the garage with the vehicle outside. When the wood is ready, he uses his jointer to flatten one side and square one edge. Then off of that face and edge, he dimensions the stock through the table saw. He’s limited to 6″ wide boards, but he has not found a need to go larger.
Shaping/Joinery
After the board is dimensioned, Dad sends the piece through the cabinet router to either shape an edge or cut joinery. This cabinet was custom made, following Norm Abram’s New Yankee Router Cabinet. The router is a Bosch 11-amp 1617 router with multiple bases. A popular router that works with the MLCS Router Table Top he has fitted to the top of the cabinet. The cabinet unfortunately was abandoned halfway and is more function than form.
Assembly/Finishing or vise-versa…. 
Obviously, the best place is the workbench, but some of Dad’s pieces are too large and so the garage floor has been the place. He does have a cheap air compressor with a long enough hose to reach the other side of the garage. He has various gauge finish nailers, an impact wrench, and a paint sprayer.
Safety
Dad does want to mention a support equipment that’s got a neat story. The dust collector started as a Harbor Freight 2hp dust collector. It was a great unit, plenty of suction, hosed to one tool at a time, very cost effective, and he ran it for years. However, those years were abusive and it’s design was changed to better accept those abuse. It is now a two stage system. First, is a large particle separator via a Oneida Air Dust Deputy. Using a cyclone system, the dust collector can take large pieces that normally pelted the metal parts and tore the hoses, and instead separates these particles before the impeller. The second stage is a large canister filter that doesn’t impede airflow but is still rated at 1 micron filtration.
It does not win the glamour award, but it is space efficient and provide plenty of air suction.