We recently moved to a new house, and I am finally ready to start woodworking again. The garage is insulated and heated, and pretty big once the cars are out of it. The problem is that the garage floor is sloped. I assume that they do this for water runoff to keep as much water away from the foundation as possible, but it is a pain when setting up the tools.
I still need to level my bench, but some shims should do the trick with that, I am having problems leveling all of the other tools though. Everything is on a mobile base and must be put away frequently so that the cars (at least the wife’s car) can be brought in. How do I level the tablesaw and outfeed table easily so that I don’t spend half my time setting everything up just to have to put it away? I’m not so worried about leveling the tablesaw, the blade is square to the table no matter what slope it is set on, but outfeed is a nightmare. The planer is even worse with infeed and outfeed rollers not connected to the planer itself. I considered attaching dedicated tables to each of the tools, but there isn’t enough storage space for the tools with the tables attached. Does anyone have any ideas on how to reliably set up tools on a sloped floor that can be “quickly” put in place and taken down?
Replies
A 3 legged milking stool will always sit fine without shims. Your machines are mounted on 4 caster mobile bases. Try making a rather wide 6 or 8 inch tapered shim that will fit the gap of all your mobile bases. When you get your machine in position, jam the giant shim in the middle of 2 casters to lift them off the floor slightly. Stability will still be ok. I've seen 3 legged table saws and shapers before. Maybe it will work, and the test will be easy to do. Good luck.
Yo,
Don
If you've got to constantly move them around you've got a tough situation. Maybe building a low, but level platform is the answer. Other than that, you could mark spots on the floor, cut shims to level each machine base, color code the shims and do this little cha-cha-cha every time you need to work.
A drastic alternative, and offered more tongue-in-cheek than anything, would be to level the bench and then dump all the power equipment in favor of hand tools.
your outfeed table need not be level with the tablesaw, have it drop below 1/8 to 1".
you can also buy feet with adjusters for your bench and elsewhere; set them once,mark location and reposition when needed.
If the floor slopes about 3" from front to back, That's not really very much. If you use roller stands for the outfeed, you can raise them to whatever height you want, as long as the material doesn't roll back into the blade. My new garage is the same way and I haven't had any problems with the machines not being level. I have a Grizzly 1023S with 7' rails on the Shop Fox mobile bases. I don't worry about level, I worry about flat. As Jackplane said, levelling feet are available for whatever will be stationary. If you look at the casters on your mobile bases, they are probably removeable. Therefore, if you shim the casters after determining where these machines will be used, just mark the floor where the casters will be so you know where to locate them. Either with a different color or 2 letter marks, BS for bandsaw, TS for tablesaw, etc. I plan to make a folding outfeed table for my saw soon, which attaches to the back rail. It will have fold-down legs and locking hinges. The legs will be adjustable for height, too. This outfeed will be more to eliminate spaces between the rollers when I cut boards. It may also be two halves, so I can cut full sheets or boards without having to set up the whole thing.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
My basement shop floor dishes about 3" from the "shallow end" to the center, so I understand where you're coming from.
Take a look at the "Ultimate Roller Stand" from Lee Valley. It has multiple adjustments for height, tilt and leveling. I also second highfigh's suggestion of a fold-down outfeed attached to the TS.
I'm a little confused about your "infeed and outfeed rollers not connected to the planer itself." What kind of planer is it? If you're referring to rollers that you added, are they really necessary?
Scott,
I have the same situation. I used to spend time Friday night leveling my table saw and other equipment I was going to use that weekend. It was time consuming.
Now I don't bother to do it at all. As long as the blades, fences are square to each other and the tool doesn't teeter totter. It's fine. I do have my bench and drill press level since they don't move. I still level my assembly table so I can use a level to check square.
BTW. Be careful using a three legged stand for heavy equipment. My dad had his table saw on one and it fell over while he was moving it.
Enjoy.
Edited 1/27/2005 10:58 am ET by Len
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