Some light shop work and a hint of things to come.

One of the main assistants I have in the shop is my Harbor Freight 44", 13 drawer tool box on wheels. I have photographed the box countless times on this blog almost every time I took a picture of some small part or of my latest project. I have had this box for about 7 years now and it has been an awesome addition to my shop from the first day I had it. I thought it was time to make some improvements to it in a new series of posts. These will be related to taking advantage of the space I currently have in my new house to really step up my shop capability with new tools and skills.

Here is the box as the main focus of a post instead of being a mere accessory to the other projects in the shop. I keep the majority of my tools in this box and work on top of it like a workbench. It doesn't have much surface area to work from and with the drill press and other hand tools, the space I do have disappears easily. My idea is to use a little wood work to expand the available area and to get a little more elbow room without spending too much money to do it.
Multiple hours of YouTube surfing later and I had a plan that would take advantage of my desire to stay cheap, build the new surface quickly and not buy additional woodworking tools. The only thing I hate to do from my garage worse than woodworking is yard work so I have very few tools that can be used for wood. I had a plan, took some measurements and shuffled off to the hardware store. I came back with a sheet of 2'x4' cabinet grade plywood and an eight foot 1"x2". With the screws I have in my collection and my one saw, I set out to tackle the project.

My plan was to the take advantage of the raised lip around the top edge of the tool box that is used to stack another tool box on top of the model I have. The 1"x2" would be used to make some cleats that would locate the new work surface front-to-back and side-to-side while filling in the space between the new top and the raised lip. The 1"x2" is actually 5/8"x1 5/8" and it matched the lip height perfectly. I cut two for the sides and one for the front of the box. The cleat in the front would help to keep trash and junk from getting under the new surface. The side cleats would lock the top in the from-back direction. I made them a tight fit so the new top would not shake annoyingly while I was working on it doing whatever.

I marked and cut my cleats and did several test fits. I had to break out my palm sander to fine tune the length a couple of times. Once everything fit I pulled out the drill press and proceeded to drill the holes in the wrong spot. Luckily it only took a minute to recover from that mistake (man woodwork is easy!) and I was ready for final assembly. I had to guess where the cleat went in relation to the top to get the work surface centered according to my plan and ended up guessing wrong several times. I eventually got it right and dropped the top in for the first time. It fit superbly with no squeaks or rattles and didn't move a millimeter. I was very happy.

I broke out the sander and gave the whole top a good once over. For now the top will be bare, but I will get something to protect it soon. I still need to finish the trailer deck and this new work top adds to the need to get some stain or something similar. I don't want the finish to be bullet proof as I'd like to naturally collect a little patina from things like coffee and oil stains to give the new top a little well worn garage charm.

The whole project took about two hours and cost a whopping $26 and change. Add in some more cash later for the stain and for less than $40 bucks I get an extra 2.75 square feet of work area. I'm happy and am planning on a few more shop improvement projects to come in the next few weeks as well as a track day at Chuckwalla Raceway (my first!). The picture below is a teaser for some extra shop fun that I will be working on over the next couple of months. If you can read the Chinese you might be able to guess what I have coming up. Hope you come back for more My Motorbike Obsessions action soon!

Blue