I also bought a dado stack. Here’s what I think.

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A few months ago I bought a table saw and a dado stack set to help with some major projects I have coming up this year. I reviewed the DeWalt table saw yesterday. Today it’s the dado set’s turn.

I’m not a sophisticated woodworker. No high-quality, rare hardwood, micro-tolerance projects for me. So admittedly, I did not go after a precision dado set but rather something passable that would work with the more rough work I do. I picked up the Freud 8″ Stacked Dado Set for All Saws (SD208S).

The set comes with two outer blades, three chipper blades, a pair of spacers, and a bunch of shims in two sizes, all for about $100. It came in a fairly durable plastic carry case with a compartment on either side. the blades and spacers all go on two central spindles with screw-in caps to hold them in place in the case. It also includes a cardboard instruction card that doubles as the packaging front cover. Inside it tells you the necessary configurations to create stacks of all sizes from the minimum to the maximum.

The instructions are fairly good, so it wasn’t difficult for me to put together a test stack of half an inch to try out. Once I was more comfortable with dados I switched to a 3/4 inch stack in order to mass-produce some 1/5″ dados. The rips went well, with only a little splintering and tearing. The sides and bottoms of each dado were smooth. I have no micrometer, so I can’t verify the sizing was accurate to any particular degree of tolerance, but I tried the intended board size in the groove and it fit well. Considering I was making two cuts to achieve the 3/4 inches, and had sized the stack just a touch wider than 3/4 to allow for overlap, any discrepancy is more likely to be poor measurement on my part. In any case it’s good enough for what I’m doing. I suspect, as thin as the shims get, if precision is essential you can probably adjust accordingly.

I found putting a stack together to be fairly simple. The shims, being flimsy, tend to flex and lock to the arbor, making them a little harder to remove, but I suspect that’s normal and goes with the territory. Considering how much easier this is to use than my router (I don’t have a router table), I’m not going to complain.

All in all, I’m pleased with it. I just hope I never lose the instructions. I understand Freud is a fairly good brand. This particular set is rated a 4.7/5 with 430 reviews on Amazon. Should I need another dado set in the future I’ll likely look at Freud first.

I bought a table saw. Here’s what I think.

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I recently wrote about the factors that I considered in shopping for a table saw. Today I’m going to tell you about what I bought and review my experience. Behold, the DeWalt DWE7491RS 10-inch Table Saw:

All assembled and ready to rip! Makes sawdust like no tomorrow!

I actually bought this baby back in January, but other than assembling it, I’ve been unable to try it out until this week. My project list demanded immediate attention, and mostly that involved slinging a paintbrush, followed by a posthole digger. Maybe a story for another blog post later on.

I suppose if I were cool and hip I’d have created an Unboxing Video for you all. But…no. But here’s the box it came in:

Big box! I could sleep in it! Took two deliverymen to lug the thing inside.

I got the special edition, which came with a rolling stand. The saw itself came pretty much ready for use. The stand came assembly-required.

Some assembly required. Some better instructions would be appreciated.

So, let’s start with the stand. It’s essentially a hand-truck with foldable legs, to which you can attach the saw casing. It’s a bit tricky interpreting the instructions, but I managed with only mild cursing. And getting the saw itself maneuvered into place to attach it to the frame is difficult, especially doing it by yourself. Don’t do it yourself. Get some help. Don’t be stupid like me. It wasn’t pride, merely impatience. Everyone else was out of the house at the time.

But when I got it assembled my opinion changed considerably. They really designed this stand well. It’s sturdy. It rolls well. The folding legs have large, well-placed latch levers that are easy to operate, and they’re strong enough to bear the weight of the entire thing as you stand it up. And once you get it set up you realize the full extent of their genius: the legs on the side facing the front of the saw are canted at a steeper angle than the ones in the back. They don’t stick out and trip you when you’re working in front of the saw. The ones in back are at a good angle to brace the saw as you push wood through it. It also places the work surface at a very comfortable height just above my waist level. Maybe I’m easily impressed, but it left me very hopeful. If they put as much thought into the saw as they did the stand I would be in for a treat.

Unfortunately it took me three months to find out. Yes, I saw a few things immediately while just looking it all over and making sure it had everything it was supposed to come with. They made it to be portable, and everything that could possibly fall off (with perhaps the exception of the miter gauge) has a storage spot on the chassis somewhere and won’t fall off easily. That will make it take more time to set up and take down, but I can live with that.

So as I said, this week I got to try it out. After positioning it in the proper spot (ie. not pointed toward anything I want to keep (still remembering that board that kicked back years ago and tried to give me an appendectomy), I got out the instructions and started setting it up. It takes a bit of practice. The blade guard assembly goes in quickly once you find where the release lever is, and learn how to line it up right in the receiver when you can’t see down past the throat plate very well. The anti-kickback device, in all its spring-loaded glory, is a bit tricky to get into place. The fence take a bit to figure out, but goes into place easily enough.

They tell you in the instructions that everything from the fence gauge to the skiving knife were already adjusted in the factory and shouldn’t need recalibration. As far as I can tell, they’re right. I haven’t seen anything to make me doubt so far. I’ve yet to try out the blade angle mechanism yet, but everything else seems to work just fine right out of the box.

The miter gauge feels a little cheap. I may look into something more solid at some point, but it works just fine for what I’ve been doing so far. The rip fence adjusts via rack and pinion mechanisms on both sides, and locks with a lever that is a little hard to find quickly, but otherwise seems solid. The fence measurement scale is not immediately intuitive, but works well once you figure it out. There’s probably something about it in the instructions, but I was too eager to get started at that point.

After ripping some slices off some scrap wood I tried out changing the blade out for a dado stack (My review of the Freud 8″ Dado Stack is here). I did have to buy a separate dado throatplate, but DeWalt makes one specifically for the saw (DWE7402DI). It sits a little lower that the tabletop, unfortunately, and impacted some of my test cuts by making the depth uneven when one end of the board was able to sink a little:

First time test cuts with the dado stack. Irregularities are as much operator error as deficiency in the equipment, though knowing about the throat plate being uneven with the table top helps.

UPDATE: My older brother read this and offered some quick advice. The throatplate comes with screws along both edges that can be adjusted to raise or lower how that edge sits in relation to the table top. I hadn’t even noticed, but it seems obvious now. Just another reason why I like keeping my older brother around.

Those four screws around the edge…turns out they’re important!

The specs say the saw will handle a 13/16″ dado stack. I got up to that when I got down to my project in earnest, ripping a 1.5″ dado in two passes. Every cut came out nice and uniform. I think my stack set will accommodate even wider, but I don’t think the arbor would safely take much more.

I will admit I don’t have much of a baseline for comparison, but so far I’m pleased with my experience. The saw seems well designed, and it offers features most jobsite saws don’t, like the rack and pinion fence adjustment. Or a fence, for that matter. The fence also works in about three different configurations for more convenient cuts, and has a flip-down extension for narrow cuts. The blade area is designed to pulls the sawdust down and out through a 2.5″ dust port in the back of the unit (I have a shop vac; I’ll have to try attaching it sometime), and seems to work pretty well. The wider dado cuts showered me with sawdust, but that may just be the nature of wide dado cuts. It’s still considerably less mess than using my circular saw, and most all of the sawdust was concentrated in the back.

The power switch is designed to make it very hard to turn on accidentally (and it is–if anything it’s too hard to turn on) and very easy to turn off. A quick slap of that section of the front chassis will connect with the switch enough to shut down. The blade stops fairly quickly, too (a few seconds).

Perhaps I’ve been working with circular saws for too long, but I was surprised at how quiet this saw is. Rather than the high-pitched screech of a circular or miter saw, it’s more of a low growl. It’s still loud enough to merit ear protection, of course.

In short, there is nothing cheap or flimsy about this saw. While I’m not experienced enough to speak to how precise it is, so far it seems to work well enough for what I’m doing–I’m not making complex cuts or ripping hardwoods or crafting to fine tolerances. Any errors I’ve seen so far are due to operator error, more than likely. Perhaps I’ll come back sometime in the future and provide an update, but so far I am pleased with my purchase.

I actually tried to order this saw late last year only to find it completely out of stock. Everywhere. I encountered that again in January when I first tried to order it–there were none to be found online, in brick-n-mortar or anywhere else (for less than an exorbitant markup, anyway). It was originally backordered into March or April, but I checked back a few weeks later and found some in stock. I pounced. It’s a very popular, highly rated model (currently 4.8/5, with 2639 reviews on Amazon). At $600 it’s on the high end of jobsite saws, but with the stand included I feel the value is there. It’s going to come in particularly handy later this year when I’m building some projects at the far end of the yard.

Table saws are awesome and scary: A layman’s look at what to look for.

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I’ve been building up a collection of power tools over the years as my various projects require (okay, some projects are just an excuse to get a better tool than the one I have). One tool I’ve never gotten around to, however, is a table saw, partly because they’re expensive, partly because I’ve been able to make do with my mitre saw and circular saw, and partly because table saws scare me (I once took a 2×4 to the gut from kickback and feared I’d sustained internal injuries for a while).

I’ve started getting into more sophisticated projects lately, however, and I can’t always just trot down to my neighbor’s house to have him rip a few boards for me. He doesn’t mind, but so far all I’ve ever asked for is a couple of quick, simple cuts. That’s about to change. I decided it was time to start looking at what options there are for getting my own table saw.

My research turned up some simple details. There are basically two types of table saws: shop saws and jobsite saws. Shop saws usually come built into their own heavy-duty pedestal, have top-of-the-line motors and drives, and are built for precision. They often will cost $1000 or more, plus additional accessories, also built for precision.

Jobsite saws are smaller, more portable, potentially less powerful, and not really intended for precision work. They’re meant for more “bulk work,” like cutting sheets of plywood or particle board and rough cuts like would be needed on a construction job site (go figure!). They’re probably not the go-to saw for people building quality furniture, for example. You can pick up a decent jobsite saw for around $300 on up.

This was all interesting information, but did nothing to make my decision any easier. I decided to talk to my older brother, who is a long-time woodworker and owns the table saw that attempted the splenectomy-by-2×4 (he taught me properly, I just failed to fully comply). To my surprise he admitted he was thinking of getting rid of his expensive shop saw and was considering a jobsite saw instead.

He then proceeded to tell me which one he was considering–the exact some one I was currently favoring! You don’t know how bizarre it felt to be on the same page as my brother on anything concerning woodworking.

I still don’t consider myself an expert, but here are some of the things I considered in my search for the optimal saw:

Use Case – I’m a business analyst, so I’m used to a certain lingo. Use case simply means “how do you plan to use it?” Do you have a shop or a work area that is convenient to your projects? If you do all your work in a shop, you might want to consider a shop saw (wow, pretty radical, right?!). Those will be best suited to precision work and will be equipped to work with typical shop systems like dust collectors. If you do a lot of work at some distance from your house or shop, like building sheds or fences, portability may be the most important consideration.

Capacity – This is usually only a consideration when a fence (a rail along one side of the saw that guides the wood parallel to the blade) is involved. If you have no fence, there’s essentially no limit to how side a piece of wood you can cut, assuming you can control it. Fences allow for better control and closer measurement, but unless you remove them, they limit the width of the wood that can pass through. If you cut a lot of 4’x8′ sheets of plywood, for example, you’ll need at least a 24″ rip capacity to be able to cut one exactly in half.

Precision – If intricate cuts and joins and tight tolerances are important to your work, you’ll want a good shop saw with tight control over things such as blade depth and angle, fence adjustment, leveling, etc. You’re more likely to find what you need in a shop saw. Jobsite saws are more intended for quick-n-dirty, “good-enough” work. Most often their controls are going to be more “eyeball it and hope the locking mechanism doesn’t shift.”

Power – This gets a little fuzzier from my experience. Is it horsepower, voltage, amperage, or RPMs you most want? From my surveys of Amazon and similar sites, it’s anyone’s guess. But you’re more likely to get more control from a shop saw, like variable speed. Evidently RPMs matter when cutting certain types of materials, and the ability to adjust from 2000 to 4000 RPM, for example, may make a difference. Also, I would assume that higher horsepower is better for cutting harder woods. And then there are the vagaries of “worm-drives” versus…whatever other types there are. I didn’t get that far into it. But if you’re a serious woodworker you’re probably not going to want to listen to my input here anyway. I’m a layman looking for a tool that will give me basic, all-around performance.

Construction – A lot of jobsite saws have plastic housings and surfaces. Again, if you’re not looking for precision, that’s probably okay. I would imagine, however, that in time a plastic top is going to get scratched up, and that could impact how smoothly the wood moves through the blade. Shop saws are usually steel, built to take abuse, and still function with precision. But boy are they heavy and hard to move! (I’ve helped my brother move his.) On the other hand, a jobsite saw isn’t exactly light, and only some of them come with carts to help move them.

Dado Capability – This may not be all that important to everyone. A dado is a groove or a trench cut into a board. These can be made using a router, or you can use a table saw with what is called a dado stack, essentially a collection of blades and spacers that can cut a groove to a certain width. The maximum width of the dado of a given saw may make a difference. If, for example, its maximum width is 1/2″, it would be a waste to buy a 3/4″ dado blade set, as you’ll only ever use 2/3 of its capability. Wider is better, but mainly in efficiency. You could use the blade your saw comes with (if the kerf (thickness of the cut) is 1/8″ wide) and just make 8 narrow cuts side by side to get a 1″ dado. Or you can rip twice with a 1/2″ dado stack–a lot less work.

Other Considerations – Blade size may matter. The thicker the material you will likely cut, the wider the blade you’ll want your saw to be able to handle. A 10″ blade at best could never cut anything wider than 5″, and since the spindle (arbor) that the blade turns on generally can’t go higher than the underside of the table top, you’ll never be able to cut even half a blade’s width. I bought a saw with a 10″ blade, and can cut to a maximum depth of 3-1/8″ with the blade at a 90″ angle to the table, or only 2-1/4″ deep at a 45-degree angle.

The size of the worktop may be important, as well. There probably isn’t a standard size, so pay attention if you think it might matter to what projects you anticipate. You may also want to look at safety features, such as blade guards, anti-kickback devices, quick-stop blades, and the like.

The manufacturer may matter as well. I’ll admit I don’t have much wisdom to bestow here. There are some brands with good reputations, but whether the difference between them and their next closest competition is significant enough for the layman to notice, I don’t know. I’d recommend reading reviews, even though they can sometimes be more confusing than helpful. As for how to interpret reviews and star-ratings, I have my own strategy, but that’s another topic altogether.

So there you have it, the depth of my layman’s knowledge. I have since purchased my choice, and my review can be found here. I hope this is at least a little helpful.

And I’m back. Almost.

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It’s been a while. I issued a pre-emptive mea culpa a while back in anticipation of some surgery I had coming up and suggested I might not be posting until it was all in the rear-view mirror. Well, it’s all nearly in the rear view mirror now, and I’m trying to gear up to come back.

So, what have I learned over the past couple months? Well, for one, to quote Count Rugen from “The Princess Bride,” “If you haven’t got your health, then you haven’t got anything.” Knowing for the past couple years that this surgery was possible I’ve made a conscious effort to exercise more, eat a little less, and generally be in better health. I’m fortunate in that my health has never been that bad to begin with, but good health with really helps when facing major surgery. The average hospital stay in my state for the type of surgery I had is six days. I was there four. It may be that I was just so ornery they wanted to get rid of me, but I’ll claim a victory for exercise and eating right.

But even then, once out of the hospital I was under significant restrictions on my physical activity. I wasn’t allowed to drive (not a big deal right now, as I seldom go anywhere anyway), lift anything over ten pounds, and had to avoid reaching very far from my body. Just those few restrictions were frustrating. It’s amazing how much of my normal activity violates at least one of those last two restrictions. I’m fortunate enough to have a desk job that I was already doing from home, so I could get back to work only a week after returning home, but so many other things I wanted to do, or felt I should do just weren’t allowed. I’ll admit I’ve felt pretty useless.

So I can only imagine what it’s like to be someone whose health in general places restrictions on their activity. Value what health you have, and do what you can to maintain it, even improve it. It’s difficult to be self-reliant without good health.

On a similar note, I’ve learned that monitoring your health is important, too, for other reasons. Because I’ve known this was coming I was able to be prepared. As a contractor, I’m on a high-deductible insurance plan. But since I knew this surgery was coming I’ve spent the past couple years saving up enough to cover it.

By contrast, during my recovery period my son crashed while mountain biking and ended up in the emergency room. Frankly, that’s something I should have predicted and tried to save up more money for, but I didn’t. I wasn’t quite so prepared for that one. But thanks to this gentle reminder (which could have been much worse), I intend to be next time (knock on wood, spit three times over my shoulder).

Lesson three was the gentle reminder that sometimes we just can’t be self-reliant. I’m grateful for the wonderful medical staff who took such good care of me. I forgive you for waking me up every two hours; it was your job to make sure nothing was going wrong. Aside from than that, you guys totally rocked! Thank you! And thanks to my wife and my two boys at home who picked up the slack for all I couldn’t do. And also for all those who offered their help. As grateful as I am there wasn’t much my family couldn’t handle, I’m glad to have more family and friends gladly standing by to help.

This week I’m scheduled to see my surgeon. If all has gone well, my restrictions will be removed and I can start getting back to normal. I’ll still have to take some things easy and work my way back, but I’ll get there. One of the first things I need to do is get back on track with our self-reliance plans. And hopefully that means more posts in the works.

Are we really driving safer?

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In an effort to lower our car insurance premium we recently enrolled in one of those safe driver programs where they put a device in your car that talks to your smart phone and tattles on you to corporate. So far we only did it with my oldest son and I, and I have to say, I find it more annoying than informative.

It may be that other companies’ devices are able to gather more information to tell what’s really going on, but I doubt it. Ours basically uses an accelerometer to tell if you start too quickly, turn too tightly, or brake too suddenly. I assume it uses GPS data to tell how fast you are going and what the speed limit is in that area–which raises concerns, as such databases are not always correct. Since it also works with an app on your phone, it also can monitor your cellphone use while you drive.

It does okay. I do need to remind my son to slow down, and to not use his phone while driving. But it’s not as smart as one would hope. It can’t tell if you’re just checking something really quick on your phone while at a light. It can’t tell if you’re braking hard because you aren’t paying attention to the car ahead of you or because someone pulled out in front of you. If you brake hard, it dings you. If you corner quickly it dings you, even though sometimes you are making a left turn and want to get out of the way.

In short, it can’t tell if you’re a bad driver or consciously trying to avoid an accident. If some jerk cuts in front of you and then hits the brakes hard you’re supposed to just run into the back of him while you brake slowly, I guess.

We’re still in our first monitoring period, so it remains to be seen just how much this will impact our discount, but we’ve never been able to manage better than around 94%, and have usually been in the high 80% range. I’m starting to understand that commercial with the people yelling at other drivers, “DON’T MESS WITH MY DISCOUNT!” Because you can be safe driver (I’ve never had an accident, and it’s been nearly thirty years since my last ticket) and yet responding to someone else’s bad driving will still bring your score down.

If we don’t get a good discount this next time I’m yanking the whole thing. I don’t need to stress while I’m driving.

Unfocused and missing in action

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Speaking of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I recently received a Need up-side the head. You’d think that fifteen-plus years of monitoring a pending health problem would make it difficult for it to surprise you, but… surprise! It’s time to deal with it in a surgical way.

I guess the one advantage to this being something always hanging out there on the horizon is that we’re financially prepared for this. That part shouldn’t be an issue. It’s just the actual surgery part that I’m struggling with. The risk is low at my age and general health, low enough that most people would gladly take that bet, especially if the stakes were lower.

In any case, I’ve not been thinking self-reliance much lately, and probably won’t be again until this is all in the rear-view mirror. Though much of what I’m currently working on is self-reliance centered, or should be, I’m not interested in talking about it yet. I’m sure that will come. I may post some, I may not, but for the next month at least it’s probably safe to assume there’ll be no more content forthcoming. Unless there’s someone else out there who would like to guest post for a while.

Until then, see you all on the flip-side!

Total Gangsta!

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Sorry the posting has been light of late. There are reasons for that, and I’ll get to it some other time. But I stumbled across this today and had to share. Barricade Garage is becoming one of my favorite YouTube channels for the humorous yet pointed way they look at modern issues. I think we would all be better off if we could look inward and examine our own ways of thinking and our own flaws before we attempt to tell everyone how to fix their own. That is true self-reliance.

Is self-reliance a white invention?

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I don’t want to get political on this blog, but this week saw a rather…interesting…publication from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The publication* attempts to spell out the elements of “White” culture that, because of the white majority status, may have been adopted by minorities. As with most generalizations, it’s difficult to know what to make of it, but I did find interesting what it had to say about self-reliance:

Rugged Individualism:

– The individual is the primary unit

– Self-reliance

– Independence & autonomy highly valued + rewarded

– Individuals assumed to be in control of their environment, “You get what you deserve”

Taking all of this at face value, it would appear that self-reliance and individuality are inherent in being “white.” Less clear, however, is whether they can be assumed to be unique to Caucasian peoples, or even if there is any ethnicity to which they are not inherent. Certainly cooperation and compliance are more prevalent in some other cultures than in America, as witnessed by the willingness in other countries to adopt blanket measures against the COVID-19 virus.

But is this generalization even true of Americans as a whole? Identity has become a major issue in America, with individuals relating more closely to factors other than race. I’m not so sure we can claim that the individual is the primary unit anymore–if it ever was. Likewise, independence and autonomy is increasingly downplayed, even criticized. Helicopter parents and lawnmower parents are witnesses for the contrary opinion.

In some ways independence and autonomy are still valued and rewarded, but there seem to be plenty of rewards for going with the herd these days, as well. Both sides of the increasingly prevalent “cancel culture” reinforce this. Usually the one being canceled was doing something independent and autonomous, and the mobs doing the canceling seem to lack independence, if not autonomy.

I would also argue that the individualist and the self-reliant understand they are not in control of their environment. What they “deserve” scarcely enters into their calculations. What they want is what drives them, coupled with focused, committed work to overcome or compensate for an environment that is ambivalent at best, hostile at worst. They don’t assume the environment is just going to roll over and give them what they want.

What one “deserves” is more the watch-cry of the entitled, a most decidedly reliant group if there ever was one. It’s the motivation of the proverbial “Karen,” who assumes he/she deserves everything precisely the way they want it, with no more effort on their part than to harangue into compliance those who stand in their way.

It would be interesting to conduct a study of non-white immigrants to the United States, and to other countries. Do those immigrants who succeed here do so in spite of their non-compliance with dominant, white culture? Or do they succeed because they came here already equipped with similar values instilled by their native cultures? Or is it that they recognize in American culture the same values they have sought to develop, and that drives their decision to come here instead of other places they could go? Can immigrants without those values succeed just as easily or well in countries with entirely different values?

I’m willing to accept, depending on definition, that America, by and large, is an individualist society. Individualism, however, is a two-edged sword, and could just as easily manifest in very un-self-reliant ways. But in any case, if the above assumptions on individualism and self-reliance can currently be considered true, it’s also true that those values are very much under siege, and the undermining of those values is largely the source of any decline in the effectiveness of our culture. If it is indeed becoming increasingly harder to “make it” in America, there’s as good a chance it is due to the quality and approach of Americans trying to make it, as any change in the environment in which we operate.

From a self-reliance standpoint, at the heart of self-reliance is the assumption that we are not in control of our environment, but that knowing that, we can do things to be prepared for when things don’t go our way. We can anticipate the most likely fluctuations in that environment and be prepared with backup plans. We can build up reserves of whatever we need to ride out periods of scarcity and uncertainty.

If the self-reliant attitude were truly intrinsic in American “white” culture this blog wouldn’t be necessary. It would be as redundant as sites pushing the value of education, or clean water, or wearing clothing. But it is precisely because many of those values listed by the NMAAHC are not prevalent in modern culture any more that we see much of the turmoil we currently experience in this country. It is a return to those values that is needed if we’re going to reverse the decline we are in.

*- The publication has evidently been removed now because of the controversy.

Practice makes prepper?

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I live in a part of the world where self-reliance is almost literally a religion, though few actually follow through on the counsel given. But one couple, who live about 40 minutes from me, have been preaching self-reliance and emergency preparation themselves for a while. Then last year they decided to test their actual preparedness by not going to the store for 90 days.

Needless to say, when COVID-19 hit this year, they were ready:

“In a day, things went from normal life to, ‘Oh my goodness,’” said Kylene, remembering when everything came to a screeching halt in mid-March. “For us it was very surreal, because of what we’d already been through. We had a plan and we knew what to do.”

Read the entire article here, and check out their website here.

Fun with prototyping, Part 2

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I was able to get out and work on my canned goods storage/rotation system this weekend and finished my prototype unit. Here’s how it turned out:

The pictures aren’t the best; my apologies. As you can see, though, it’s still rough, still…a prototype.

What I ended up with holds two types of cans, 28 oz. cans in the lower half, 14.5 oz. cans in the upper half. I did this because it was clear after the first half that I wouldn’t be able to fit four more levels of the 28 oz. cans in my unit, so I decided to try how many levels of the smaller cans would fit.

I realized pretty quickly that I would not be able to fit four levels of smaller cans in the remaining space. At that point I was slanting the shelves at a 2-inch slant front-to-back, so I tried reducing that to a 1-inch slant. I also lowered a few of the bigger can shelves to that slant as well. As it was, I still couldn’t make it all fit. There wasn’t room to put the cans in at the top, as there was still the 2×2″ support beams across the top, even when I tried laying the very top shelf flat instead of the usual slant.

Next I tried taking the 2×2’s out, figuring at that point I had enough shelves screwed in across the sides to stabilize the unit. That worked. I suppose at that point I could/should have added a slant to the top shelf, but I didn’t. I was more concerned about how well the unit would hold up.

My next step was to take the unit down into our basement and see how many cans I could fit in it, if the gravity feed would work correctly, and if it would hold up. Sorry I didn’t get pictures of that. But I can tell you that the bottom half holds 20 of the larger cans. It does have some difficulties feeding, which I will need to work out. It’s not a big deal, but it does involve reaching into the unit to clear the blockages.

As far as the smaller cans, the upper section held twelve of those just in the first two shelves, with room for at least one more. I didn’t add more, as I didn’t want to add a different vegetable at that point. Not having a slant on the top shelf is an annoyance, as you have to manually push the cans to the back before they begin to feed. I’ll definitely have to fix that, as my current plan for the storage room will put that shelf up near the ceiling, making it hard to push.

All in all, the unit was sturdy enough to hold the weight. If anything, loading it with cans made it more sturdy. The feeding is the primary issue. The transition from an upper shelf to a lower shelf is one issue that can likely be addressed in the next iteration.

The other problem is that the cans rub against the sides and the friction slows them down or stops them altogether. For that I blame the materials I’m using, at least for now.

Pegboard has two sides, a white, smooth side and a brown rough side. I went for appearances and put the smooth side out. In reality, when these are lined up next to other units you won’t even see the outside surface. On the next test I’ll put the smooth side inside, which should reduce the friction against the cans. When the slant on the shelves was 2″ the friction wasn’t nearly as big an issue, but reducing that to 1″ lessens the pull of gravity. I don’t think I can get by making the slant steeper, so I’ll have to find other ways to help overcome friction from the sides.

A third issue, related to the second, was that occasionally the shelves were too narrow, and when screwed into the sides they pulled the sides in too much, narrowing the passage enough to catch the cans. I hope to have better tools by the time I try the next prototype and be able to get more uniform cuts to my wood.

I’m still impressed with the versatility of the pegboard. The ability to see through the walls, so to speak, is invaluable, as is the ability to move shelves around without having to drill new holes in the walls. I’m hoping to find a way to position the screw holes in the sides of the shelves more uniformly in the future as well so the shelves will be more level side-to-side.

I also plan to experiment with having less support structure. If I cut the shelves uniformly they should provide lots of stability to keep the tower from leaning. I may be able to get by using 1×2″s along the back instead of 2×2″s without losing any stability, and at this point I’m not sure I even need any support along the bottom and top edges, which may open up more vertical space for shelving. I’m really hoping I can make this work with good efficiency using standard sizes (ie. 2’x4′ pegboard panels) to minimize waste. If I have to make each unit 4.5 to 5 feet tall, for example, I’ll have to cut 4’x8′ sheets to size, which will waste the last three feet of pegboard.

The biggest success I’m seeing so far is the potential efficiency in storage and rotation. While a series of shelf a la Donkey Kong isn’t entirely efficient, it’s more efficient than standard shelves. Being able to line these units up side by side will increase our storage capacity considerably, and make rotation much less work. I’m excited to move on to Phase Two of this project in finalizing the design I’ll then start “mass producing,” as well as getting a final idea of cost. It appears so far that I’m spending about $30-35 per unit, but I’m hoping to pin that down tighter.

Stay tuned!