Table Saw Fence Storage System | 65

All right, so it has been a minute since I've been in the shop. There's been a lot of life stuff happening for the past three months in my life. I won't bore you with the details, but it's made it a lot more difficult for me to get out and get motivated to make videos. I've found that the best projects to kind of get back into it are organization projects. So I've been tackling a lot of small things in the shop that have made a huge difference that I've been wanting to do for pretty much since I moved into this shop. But for whatever reason, organization projects always seem to just get put on the back burner because they're pretty much the least important thing when it comes to wanting to tackle the bigger projects throughout your house and your backyard and all that stuff. So I didn't film any of those, but I wanna just quickly show you what I did in case they can provide a little bit of motivation or inspiration for your own shop projects. So let's quickly look at those and then we'll get into the build video. All right, so the first one is just a really simple storage solution for sandpaper. Now, I built this miter saw station about a year and a half ago, and I had these three drawers as a part of that design. One of them was always intended to store different types of sandpaper. So anything from like hand sanding blocks, hand sanding paper, orbital sander, pads, all those kinds of things. And of course, once you build something like this, you kind of don't have the final motivation to do a kind of minute shop organization project. So these drawers kind of just became a catch-all. So there's glue in here, camera equipment, and sanding paper. So it was just, again, like I threw everything in there, super disorganized. I'm sure everybody who has a shop or is trying to store those types of things usually just ends up doing that. So what I did was just add really simple storage solutions with just a bunch of scrap woods I had that basically allowed me to organize. Hand sanding paper, orbital sanding paper by Grit, sanding blocks, steel wool. These are Scotch-Brite pads for finishing. So a really simple project. I do have a design file for it, so I can at least post it as a link in this video. Took me about an hour to design and an hour to do. Just an amazing little thing that can really transform your organization for something that, for me, had always just been a kind of throwaway catch-all thing. So really excited to have that extra storage for sandpaper. Next up are these drawers. And one of the next projects that I tackled in my free time was just completely redoing the organization of my router table. So when I first got this Rockler base, it didn't have the added dust collection on the back. So what I did was build just two drawers on the bottom. And then when I eventually got the dust collection, those drawers no longer properly fit. So they never really worked very well. So this isn't a super complicated project either. It just takes a little bit of planning. But what I basically did was just shorten these drawers so that they obviously fit the base a lot better. They're a lot smoother to pull in and out. I also added a bunch of just sectionalized storage for things like these throat plates and just other things that felt like they were always, again, just like the sandpaper, getting jumbled around, really messy. So really nice to just have that. This drawer's a little bit of a catch-all because they're just things that don't really have great storage solutions. So I haven't really done a whole lot with that. The other thing that I did was create this singular drawer that has a bunch of router bit storage on each side and then some of the other more essential tools that you use for changing bits more frequently. And it all fits and slides out really nicely, can accommodate the dust collection, move the start on-off switch over to that side. And then again, project only took me a couple of hours, spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to store and how I wanted to store it on this table without having to build kind of a new router table from the ground up because this thing is actually pretty great. Again, just super nice to have things organized in their proper place. So really glad to have tackled that project as well. All right, so the last shop organization project that I tackled was reorganizing and redoing this entire storage area up above the garage. Now, this was something that when I first moved into the shop, it existed, but I basically just threw as many things up here as possible just to clear out the space and start setting up the shop. So it was a very rewarding project to come back, just kind of clear everything out, clean up here, reorganize. I feel like I basically tripled my space up here. So really excited to have that storage moving forward. All right, so now that we finished going through all of the quick and easy shop upgrade things that I've done in the past month just to get back into making, like I said, wanna get into the couple of builds that we're gonna do into this video. So the first one is gonna be a really simple, but very elegant storage solution that will mount to this fence and be a kind of organized catch-all for the things that I usually just kind of always want to have at an arm's reach when I'm working at the table saw. So for me, those are things like pens and pencils, push stick, obviously, safety glasses, tape measures, squares for quick marking, measuring, feather board. So again, this isn't something that is revolutionary, but if you have a saw stop or if you have just a really big T-glide style fence, this is something that could just pressure fit in between this wedge here. Move with the fence, really elegant, very simple, and I think just will make a big difference in me being able to find my tape measures, which I never can. I'm sure people out there can relate as well. So let's go ahead and get started on that build. So like I said, the design of this is really simple and it's gonna be based on the needs that you have, the things that you like to have at arm's reach and keep organized at your table saw. The entire thing is built from half inch furniture grade plywood. It can be any type of plywood, but that's what I have on hand. So what I'm gonna do first is just take my design file, which I've thrown up on screen for you just to take a look at, and I'm just gonna break down all of the materials on the table saw, and then we can assemble it. I think it's gonna go really quick and it's gonna make a big difference at the table saw. So let's go ahead and do that. One thing that I don't like about this design now having seen it is that this wall is directly flush with the inside of the fence. So what I'm gonna do is just rip this to be a little bit thinner and I might end up adding a small chamfer on it just so my hand doesn't hit it cause that edge is really sharp. Okay, so all of the pieces are now cut. So I know I've shown a sketch up model, but I kind of wanted to just break down how this thing is gonna be assembled so that you can help replicate it yourself. So the different components are this little piece that is going to be assembled and ride on top of the fence here. Now this piece is a little bit shorter than the top of this fence. So what I'm going to do, wow, that is a perfect fit. Just gonna use this thin strip of wood to help prop it up. That way it sits above. There we go, it sits above. And then I can put this piece on top, line that up exactly where I want it to go, and then just use one of the wall pieces to help line it up exactly where I want it here. And that's gonna tell me exactly where to attach these two pieces and then everything will cascade away from it here. That will connect to a base that has a series of walls. And one of these walls will connect to this piece that rides on top of the fence. These will just be the end pieces for it. And it's all gonna be held together with just some pin nails and glue. And then, you know, I've made mine a specific width because I already walked you through the types of things I wanted to store, but you could modify this thing to make it as big or as small as you want. I think the key features of this are to have a piece that fits really snugly in the fence. So there's not a whole lot of wiggle room. So that friction fit will be nice and good so that when you move this fence, you know, back and forth, this piece will just glide nicely with it. So that's a key piece to get correct. And then the rest just kind of works itself out because everything's half inch. You just have to make sure your measurements add up perfectly. All right, so this thing is all done. It works really, really well. The last thing I did was just add a chamfer all the way around the base that's touching the top of the table saw. What I noticed was, even though it all came together really well, even just when I move it along here, you can hear just a little tiny clicking noise, and that's just the base here hitting these corners. So by having it chamfered, it just kind of rides over it nice and perfect. But yeah, got everything here. Pens, pencils, tape measure, push stick, clamp. I use that for a sacrificial fence. Digital protractor, which I used to have just magnetized down here. Got a little measuring square and feather board. And yeah, I think it's gonna work really, really well. Super happy with just the simple functionality and the organization of it, how that moving forward. So that wraps up that project. Let's go ahead and move on to the second project for the shop. I lied. I'm actually gonna call it quits on this video. I think between all of the shop updates and organization projects, as well as this, I think this is just a good stopping point. I do have some other shop projects that I want to tackle, but I think I'm going to wait until after the holidays to do so. It was really great to be back in the shop. Great to knock off something that has been on my list for a long time. This project was actually inspired by a video that I saw from April Wilkerson a long time ago, where she made a little caddy to hold a bunch of push sticks. Obviously, this is just a modified version for me to store all of the things that I usually like to have at an arm's reach when it comes to using my table saw. So again, thanks for watching. It was great to be back in the shop, and I'll see you guys next time on whatever it is that I'm building. Bye.