Happy New Year, everyone! Hopefully everyone has fully recovered from their New Year’s Eve partying and is back in the shop. I certainly am.

As with every new year, I try to tackle a few small but important projects (I call them “fixgasms“) around the shop. The term is not exclusive to the workshop. A fixgasm can be anything that’s been on the to-do list for too long and won’t really take a ton of effort to complete, but will have outsized impact when done.

First one up is a drawer for the drill press table. The table frame is Douglas Fir and joined with glue and pocket screws. I’ve come to really appreciate pocket screws for these types of shop furniture. The top is 3/4″ painted plywood reclaimed from some kitchen cabinets. It’s slick but pretty water resistant.

The drawer is made from scrap 1/2″ plywood, also joined with glue and pocket screws. The drawer bottom is 1/4″ plywood glued and nailed on. The drawer front is white pine and there is a 3/4″ lip underneath to use instead of a separate drawer pull. The drawer inside dimension are about 16×12 and 3.5″ or so deep. More than enough for drill bit sets and accessories.

I used some full extension drawer slides from the home center and they work well enough (they are “soft close” according the packaging). I contemplated making oak drawer runners, but laziness won out in the end.

The next fixgasm on my list (for today or tomorrow) is to hang some wall mounted clamp racks and free up floor space. I never really move my mobile clamp cart around the shop, so it’s pretty much just in the way. It’s also way too big and not a super efficient use of space anyway.

I hope you all find some time in the coming weeks to tackle those little but important projects around the shop.

JPG