Brian and his “Better Half’s” Workshop

Shop Tour - Submitted by Brian Krause from Portsmouth, VA
Added on March 12, 2012

Our shop is set up in a 24’x 24′ garage in a residential neighborhood. The shop is fully insulated including the garage door, with an AC unit in the side door. I say “our” shop, because to my great fortune, my wife enjoys woodworking nearly as much as I do. We mainly build furniture for our house and as gifts for our family.

The main machines are a Felder KF700P saw/shaper (90″distance left of blade with slider/outrigger) and Felder AD 741 16″ jointer/planer. When my wife and I went to the Felder open house a few years back, she saw how easy and safe it was to cut a piece of plywood or heavy plank, and she was sold! The precision and safety of these machines is remarkable. The bandsaw is a PM1800, drum sander is a Jet 22-44 OSC and the Shopsmith, I inherited from my father.

The dust collection is performed by a Delta 50-850 modified with the 4″ restrictor plate removed and Thien baffle installed. The duct is all 6″ tapered to 5″ at the machine drops. The runs are short, and the performance of the Delta is nothing short of miraculous compared to the stock setup with 4 inch ducting. If you have this collector, these modifications are easy and highly recommended.

On a quick note, we recently bought the PM1800 bandsaw after much deliberation and testing of the major European brands in 18-24″ sizes. There is very little out there as to reviews on this machine, so if you are interested about it, let me know. All I will say is that it is really a monster of a bandsaw, with a versatility that few of the other saws offer.

Hope you enjoy the tour, and I just wanted to give a public thanks to my wife for making all of this possible! Also, thanks to all others who have posted shop tours, they are VERY enjoyable to look through.

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