Cleaning and Now Blocked

It was really good to be back in the shop this weekend after being sick for a little over a week. It felt good. Looking around I realized that I really needed to do some cleaning and some reorganization. The recent influx of some good hardwood from a garage sale and some off-cuts from the last project really made a mess of the shop.

My original bench was covered with a mix of 4/4 stock: cherry, maple, walnut, and some pine. Most of the boards were a mix of 4-10" wide and almost all at least 24-36" long. Not bad for $15. Oh, and (2) 24" Kreg T tracks and the vise clamps, with a clamping Kreg pocket hole jig...for the same $15. Good for me!

So now I had to put it all away. I'm still working on a good method for short stock storage, so a more neat and permanent method would have to wait. For now, my "ladder" frame storage will have to do. That project will have to be a design that takes up almost no space, but can still keep it all organized, out of the way, and makes my pieces easy to find and remove; something I sorely lack today.

Most of my tool storage on the wall behind my bench is about 90% complete, so moving my tools to their rightful places was fairly simple as almost everything already had a home and was in its place.

Unfortunately, I also have 2 buckets of wood "stuff". It's a mix of everything that is really too short to put on a rack and would normally be considered "useless". I, however, hate cutting off a 1" pc for a spacer or something from a perfectly good 4' plank. Sadly, it also means I wind up with a ton of junk that may take me another 30 years to find it all a purpose. Some paring down was definitely needed
here.

So after a small bit of effort, I now have both my work surfaces cleared and ready to work. Just in time, too. My buddy--who is lucky enough to be heading to the Baja 1000 this coming week--needed a quick peg board tool storage rack for the tools they'll need at their pit. Nothing fancy, but
it was fun to actually work with a couple other people around for a change!

Now it's time to figure out the next project. I'm stumped on that one for now...