BARRETT is an electric pallet stacker (often called a ride-on fork-lift). There are occasions when it is handy to be able to attach a workers platform to the forks and ride up with the materials. The problem is that the controls are protected in the back. Since I am only interested in going up and down, I decided to “remote” just that one control.

I pondered the solution for a few months. My first prototype was based on a modern boat steering linkage with an outer sleeve and a thick inner cable. This worked but had two problems. First, it required that both ends of the sleeve to be fixed to something. Second, it was not slippery enough to automatically return to the neutral / center position.

Remembering the controls of the Stearman (biplane) I settled on using control tubes and a bell crank.

The system starts with a sleeve that slips over the lift control handle. I fabricated a joint so allow for the necessary pivoting motion. I used a threaded coupling so I could dismantle the device when not in use. The connecting rod runs from the control sleeve up to the wooden bell crank. This changes the direction of force out toward the front. The other end of the bell crank connects to the long pole when reaches out to just above the forks and the worker’s platform. This pole needs to be accessible when the platform is no the ground as well as when it is 16 feet in the air. (As some point, I may add a pivot joint. I have not completed the field trials yet.) For the fun of it (and to get some lathe practice in) I turned a wooden knob and attached it to the end of the long pole.

The 1978 Rockwell Unisaw has been performing very well. But I didn’t understand how out of date some of the design thinking was until I went to cut the drawer bottoms for the rolling shop cabinets. The smallest cabinet has drawers which are 28" wide. My JET Contractor saw has a 30" fence. The Unisaw had only a 25" fence. I had planned to delay replacing the fence but the 2-foot fence was not going to work so I placed my order for the Biesemeyer 50" Fence System. I decided "in for a penny in for a pound" so I also decided I’d replace the anemic miter gauge with an Osborne triangular "EB-3". You can see the original equipment on the left and the installed upgrades on the right.

The irony of the upgrade process (once it was shipped to the shop in a tractor trailer truck – OVER KILL), was that I needed the saw to upgrade the saw. So, I installed the fence system, cut all the parts for the extension table, and then partially disassemble the fence to install the extension table. In my case, I only attacked the top of the extension table at three points from below so I can remove / replace it when necessary without disassembling the fence again.

It will take some time to get use to the Osborne. It is very wide. Is has a series of detents on the sliding cross bar so both positive and negative standard angles are easy to reach. It also has a "stop" and extension end so repeatable cuts are easy.

The one issue is that now the magnetic starter is too far under the fence. I’ll need to extend it forward so it’s more accessible and safer to operate. It was a bit of an issue before and much worse now. What really drives me nuts is that the JET has it’s power controls on the left and the Rockwell / Delta has them on the right <ugh>.

If anyone is interested, I’ll post pics of how I built the extension table. The fence system gave simple to follow instructions and I had all the necessary materials in the shop.

I’m very happy with the upgrades. IT goes without saying that I’ve now spend more on the refurb and upgrades to the Rockwell Unisaw than I did on the table saw in the first place … but that was not really hard considering I bought it at auction for the scrap price of $17.50.

I’ve done a number of upgrades, changes, and rethinking when it comes to the workshop. The goal ? Well, I have dreams of grandeur and one day becoming a custom cabinet and furniture shop. But that is down the road. The near term is to build out the home office and the upper cabinets for the kitchen.

The past couple of weekends have been spent testing out the new shop setup and tuning up the various pieces of equipment. IT seemed the easiest way to insure everything was working was to build something and what the shop needed most was a good dose of organization. So, I decided to build some rolling shop cabinets. This would not only organize the shop better but also test out my plan for building cabinets for kitchens and offices, as well as built-in furniture for living rooms, dens, and the like.

Here are two of the three (or perhaps four)  rolling cabinets. The are 37″ tall, 32″ deep, and vary in width to fit the available space.

The larger one on the left is nearly 48″ wide. That’s very wide but I wanted to see what would happen with a cabinet that wide, especially to the drawers. The lower draw has about 100 lbs of tools and holds up fine. This cabinet is my “assembly station”. IT has the glue and screws and small nails as well as the related tools – biscuit joiner, cordless drill / screw gun, pocket screws and jig, brad and finish nail guns, etc. The top is finished with melamine and is large enough for work on doors, drawer fronts, and draw boxes.

The smaller cabinet on the far right is for “mechanicals”. This cabinet has the heavy drill, hand grinder, metal cutter, wrenches, sockets, impact wrench, screw drivers, etc. It is topped with melamine just like the rest.

I preparation for the next kitchen fabrication, I decided I wanted to finally create a worksheet for the project. I’m sure every cabinet making shop has their won worksheet but no one shares them … until now.

This will take a few posts to explain and at the end, I will post the actual worksheet. In the mean time, here are the "moving parts" …

There is a top sheet which gets into decisions that affect the entire project. These are things like how high the counter top will be, how thick is the counter top material, how deep will the cabinets be, will there be doors or drawers for the base cabinets, and are these "inset" or "overlay" fronts.

There are also a bunch of fixed dimensions – the width of the stock for the cabinet bodies (aka the carcasses), the drawer sides, the drawer slides, the face frame material, etc.

From these data, a bunch of calculations take place for the "fixed" measurements – depth and height of a cabinet carcass, depth of a drawer, etc.

Once all of the calculation are done for the overall kitchen, the next step is for each cabinet. There is a page for each cabinet when the overall width of the available opening and the desired width of the cabinet get entered. There are also choices for the drawer configuration – 1, 2, or 3, drawer(s), usable depths, use a door on the lower portion, etc.

In all cases where there are choices, the recommended value is right next to where the actual value is entered.

The last step is the sheep shown here. It takes all the values and generates a cut sheet – with measurements converted to "tape measure" – aka 1/2", 1/4", 1/8" etc.

If you look closely you will notice this cut sheet does not yet include the finish fronts for the drawers/doors. It does include the carcass, the face frame, and the drawer boxes.

I’m feeling very "Tim The Tool Man Taylor" -ish today. While the shop is mostly about wood working, the farm has some more "substantial" tasks to address which is why there is an old garage compressor standing guard (mostly used for the paint booth).

Ten days ago the electric PTO on the mower had one of it’s wires ripped out by a rouge stick. The new clutch should arrive in a day or two. In the mean time I decided it was time to add some REAL POWER tools to the "mechanical" end of the shop.

Including …

… air hose …   … impact wrench …   … and sockets …

I’ve concluded you can get just about anything from Amazon !