The Dale C. Maley Family Web Site

I have a fairly complete woodworking shop. About the only power tool I don't have is a jointer.  I used my father-in-laws jointer in the 1980s but chose not to buy one.  I have a long Record jointer's plane I can use if I ever join and glue long boards again. 

Here is a link to a larger version of this panoramic photo.

For wood models, I try to keep an inventory of maple, oak, walnut, padauk, and purple heartwood. I'm using up some walnut split wood I have stored in boxes for 30 years...the rest of my inventory is shown in the photo below (as of May 2010): 

My usual sources for my wood include:

Oak/Maple...................Menards
Padauk and Purple Heartwood......Rockler
Walnut....Well's Timber Plot

I got the Rockler clamp stand for Christmas 2008.  It has worked out great.  Bar clamps and pipe clamps were always hard to store hanging on a wall.  This cart lets me easily store all my clamps.....and it is portable.

Here is a link to the Rockler storage cart. You can review my product review of this storage cart at Rockler's web site.

Back in the early 1980's, my father-in-law and I bought this very heavy duty planer. It still runs find and requires 220V. On my recent projects requiring small planed pieces, I used my Wagner Saf-T-Planer on my drill press since pieces need to be at least 12" long for this old planer.

I bought this old wood shaper in the 1980's.  Unfortunately, somebody had swapped the original 3400 RPM motor for a 1750 motor....and it did not have enough RPM to run the large cutters well. I need to swap motors and see how it runs at 3450 RPM.

I just don't have the knack for sharpening these tools without some kind of guide.  I bought this plastic angle holder back in the 1980's......and it works great for sharpening these tools.

I picked this up at a sale somewhere. It still functions correctly.

In December 2009 when I cleaned up my shop, I decided to add some more shelf storage. Even after sorting and throwing away old stuff, I still needed some more space. This pre-built unit worked out well:

This also reduced work steps per project for my mechanical marvel projects....because drill bit set and plastic boxes of wood (maple, oak, walnut, padauk, and purpleheart) are close to the drill press.

One of the handiest and most used tools I have is the Wagner Saf-T-Planer.  I use it on my drill press to plane small pieces of wood for small projects.  I have the old 12" wide Sears heavy duty planer.....but it is more trouble to set up and clean up than it is worth on small projects. 

After heavy use for 2 years, I finally broke down and sharpened the tool. I was surprised how easy it was to sharpen.  I put the white grinding stone, shown in the picture above in my drill press at the highest speed. I held the cutter in one hand and ground the inside radius per the instructions. I marked the cutter locations with a pencil so I knew where to put them back to. After sharpening, the cutter planed like new again.

This is a great tool because the natural design keeps your fingers away from the cutters. The instructions say you can sharpen often because there is plenty of extra grind stock in the cutters.  I highly recommend this tool for planing small pieces    

In 2011, I purchased a scroll saw.  I have never used one and I think someday I will make some things that are designed to be made using a scroll saw.  I saw favorable reviews for this model and purchased it.  I have used it a couple of hours and it seems to work ok.  I really like the quick change blade feature where you just flip a level to release the tension, pull the blade out of the top pin holder, insert your piece needed an ID cut out, place blade back into top holder, and flip the lever.

I usually cut tenons using my radial arm saw. The many cuts I make, and the resultant sound drives my wife crazy.

I saw a heavy duty table saw tenoning fixture on Rockler's web site.

I had a hard time assemblying the tenoning jig.  See Rockler's web site for customer reviews. Here is a photo of my assembled unit:

It seems like it will work fine and will make tenon cutting a lot easier.

Router Bit Organization 

 I finally accumulated so many router bits, that I could not keep them straight.  I made a mounting board using scrap plywood, and it worked great!



Small Workbench and Shelves

I made this to store router bits and scroll saw accessories........



May 2016 Update

I bought a Delta mortise at a Fairbury garage sale for $80. I mounted it on a $29 Harbor Freight steel stand, then put a wood box in between to get it at the perfect working height.

New Layout Needed

With the addition of the Delta big sander and Delta mortising tool, I probably need to update the layout of my shop.  I made a drawing of my shop in Google Sketchup, and was able to find similar tool models in the Sketchup Warehouse.  Here is my as-is layout, rendered from Sketchup using I-render........

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