Drill Press Cabinet Build Along

[Great-Kazoo]

Please pardon a bit of thread drift, but how well do those insulation panels in the garage door work? And where'd you get them?

There's foil faced and plain foam backed panel kits. I have the foam covered that came with the garage doors. Well worth the price to do it yourself. I also have a fairly well insulated shop.
http://www.lowes.com/pd_222457-10477...nsulation+kits

[JohnnyEgo]

With respect to the extra space and the rear door, how realistic would "U" shaped drawers be?

Not impossible, and I did something similar in my router cabinet to work around the lift gears. You give up some rigidity in the drawer, but these drawers are small enough it probably wouldn't be too much of a problem with overloading.
For my own cabinet, I thought about it but intentionally went in another direction, because I have some things that need to be stored vertically, like the oil reservoir and a pneumatic column hold down.
For Jim's cabinet, he got what he got because I had seven 15" slides laying around, and I wasn't going to buy any longer ones, so he got the same design as mine.

Please pardon a bit of thread drift, but how well do those insulation panels in the garage door work? And where'd you get them?

When I put them in, I ran my infra-red thermometer across them before and after. The surface temperature on the bare panels had been about 5-10° of the outside temperature. With the panels, the surface temp has gone up another 10°. Not much, but often the difference between whether I can see my breath in my garage or the crap melts off the car. That is the only effect I can quantify, but I will say that when I run a heater, it does seem like more heat is retained in the garage than before the panels.

They make kits with different kinds of matting that you can get at Home Depot or Lowes. Many of these are less bulky than the 1" foam sheets, but the foam isn't that heavy and my opener has not had any problems with the added weight over the last three years. I went with the foil backed sheets, which were something like $15 per 4x8 sheet, and I think I used three all told to cover all the panels of my door except for the window row. You can cut it with a carpet blade or other long razor blade, although I used a circular saw in the interest of time. If you go the power tool route, be mindful, as the foam will bind up a blade way quicker than wood.

[JohnnyEgo]

Detail Work, Part II
Ah, the little things:

Rounding over all the hard edges on the outside with a round-over bit and router:


Making sure I have adjustment clearance for the mobile base knobs:


A backer for the rear shelf area, with some peg board incorporated for organization:



This was a lesson learned from my own cabinet, which did not have a backing to the rear compartment. Stuff will sometimes lean over and get caught in the drawer mechanisms of mine when I move it. Lesson learned.

Cutting the notches for bolt access so that I could bolt the drill press base very securely to the two layers of mobile base bottom:

[JohnnyEgo]

Final Install
With the help of a couple of fine folks on here (Mike, Robert), we lifted up the drill press and slid it into the mobile base. Couple whacks with a sledge hammer, and it fit like a glove. We got two 1/2" carriage bolts very securely mounting the drill press base to the two layers of ply mobile base, and got all the shelves and rear door bolted up.


Top hatch in place to allow Jim to get stuff out of the back when the drill press is up against the wall.


All done except for final paint, which will come some day when it warms up over 60° for any length of time.


And most importantly, making space for my wife to get back the garage:



Thanks for sticking with me!