# poor retired plumbers take on a router table



## Coleve (Oct 31, 2012)

Hi There Fraternity

Well it’s been a long journey. When I decided to retire I made up my mind that longevity is born through purpose. That is to say, in order to sustain your place on earth after you retire you must strive to maintain a belief that you belong here as long as possible. 

That is my belief, born out of experience.

When I was inducted as a plumbing apprentice in 1967 my journeyman who was in his 60’s told me that as a first-year apprentice his weekly wage was six pence in old money. (two and a half pence) By the time he finished his apprenticeship i.e. 5 years plus 2 years improvers, he was married with a daughter his wage has risen to the giddy heights of two and sixpence (twelve and a half pence) as he travelled through life his priority was his family and little else, mainly due to the opportunities that never existed in these days and of course lack of money, poor diet and little technology. 

When he retired he unfortunately faded away purely by way of not having the purpose, money and vitality needed to pursue after a working life. And in these days little opportunity.

That man who I admired gave me the impetus to strive for that very vitality he himself could not capture but led me to recognise that very need, and I am forever grateful to him to this day.

About 5 years before I retired I started to build my workshop, based purely on the belief that after 46 years at the proverbial coal face I needed to keep busy i.e. purpose. 

And here I am. I retired at 59 and am now 67. Would I still be around as a coach potato, who knows? I only know that I feel I need impetus to keep me going and that as far as I am concerned is made up mainly of two elements, firstly my wife, who if you read my posts keeps me active and my workshop that invigorates me every time I step into it. It gets my inventive juices going and in return I try as much as i can to keep it as innovative as I can. So here goes.

Now for you guys that do read my postings I do not have to remind you as to how poor I am. I still get pocket money, thus almost everything I built was from what I had lying around and a wee bit of imagination to bring them together. So here goes. 

Now I have a fairly decent table saw. It’s a Wadkin 3 phase machine with a 4 hp motor built about 50 years ago and is all solid cast iron. The fence was not so good so on a trip to my son in Houston I brought back a new fence system from Very Super Cool Tools, which I installed (previous post). I then built an out-feed table (another previous post). Finally, I decided to incorporate a router table, which is the final segment and I hope complete installation.

I will not go over step by step the installation process as the photos are fairly self-explanatory.

As you can see from the initial photos my original router table which I knocked together from an old shop butchers block about 10 or so years ago, and to be honest it was never very good. It suffered from multiple inaccuracies in every direction and it took up a fair floor space to boot. 

Now my new invigorated table-saw had a side extension that I didn’t really use and its dimensions were close to the butchers block so off I went. Stripped off the old top and had a kitchen island top left over from a job, so cut to size and edge banded it. As for the fence system that is made up of what’s left of my own kitchen worktops. Did the same and edged them on all sides. Didn’t want open chipboard faces showing. 

As for the ironmongery, I purchased the Dakota pack from Rutland’s. Only down side was I couldn’t alter any of the threads as I didn’t have dies with the old imperial threads. At the time of purchase, I didn’t realise they were from America and not metric. 

Using the build process I figured that the control I would use the most was the fence placement, and originally the controls were to be at the rear and not very easily accessible, so spent a day coming up with an extended version that would make them more user friendly, by raising them above the fence by welding extensions on to the slide bolts and forming extension sleeves to bring me above the fence all secured by 15mm pipe clips.

During this process I also did not like the hose extractor floating about in mid-air so routed it along the back of the fence in 40mm (1 1/2) waste pipe, just to give it a cleaner look.

As far as access was concerned I have found no matter what you do in attempting to remove sawdust, you do I end up with some build up and as such I decided to include Perspex removable inspection. I checked online for Perspex and it was around £20. So up into the loft and asked Marlon Brando and Robert Duval if I could have the Perspex from the front of their photos. I made it a lift off as I wanted the door completely removed when adjusting the router. 

I used the same insert plate, and it’s larger than the standard one, which I considered purchasing in case I wanted to install a lift system, but in the end, I do not use this enough to warrant £300. So manual it is. Gave it a coat of matching paint.

The router itself is a Dewalt which I purchased from a Cash Generators shop for £40. 

I installed a large dust collection Shute under the router with a 63mm branch to take the fence hose and linked it to my dedicated table saw vacuum via a tee piece and two blast gates as I didn’t want them open at the same time. Fitting the blast gates was a nightmare as I could not get access to them to open and shut. The photos show how I overcame the issues, and they work a treat. One problem was the balance on the router between the overhead 63mm duct and the in house 100mm one. Hardly any suction to the smaller one. In the end I inserted a small adjustable restrictor plate which allowed me to balance the suction between the two ducts. 

I also purchased a small sealed led spotlight from B&Q for £8 and fitted it within the router housing to activate when router switched on.

For the wiring I wanted the same set up I have for the table saw, that is a have a live feed to the extractor direct from the saw switch bringing them on simultaneously. To achieve this for the router I just set the router switch to permanent on position, and ran a second live to the extractor from the router on/off isolator, again works a treat.

Lastly, I decided I needed somewhere to store it and made a shelf for it under the table saw with the waste coupling that disconnects firstly.

As you see the finished project is not perfect or streamlined, like a bought one as they say, but it works effortlessly.

Cost was approx. £100 mainly for the extract parts.

Would I do it again. No and no, what annoyed me most about the build was the improvements I couldn’t see in my head when designing and building, only after the fact as it sat in front of me with my mind whizzing around stating I could have done that instead or should have done this. 


My builds have to test me. There are no challenges in the second only corrections, and that gives no value to your creation.

So, there it is lads, what’s next? Quick before the couch beckons. 

Colin
Scotland


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

What a nice, practical setup. Thanks for sharing it with us. I think you are right about vitality being connected to a sense of purpose. I too started building up my shop starting about 10-12 years ago. I'm 75 now and finally more or less retired. I try to keep busy and still work with my daughter who has taken on my consulting business. Hard to completely let go, so I do a lot of writing for marketing purposes. I keep a little extra income coming in that way as well.

My very first commitment was having a 12 x 24 foot shed installed, wired and insulated it after my wife had an electrician install a 60 amp sub panel next to it. I had some health issues for awhile that slowed me down, but now I'm up and at 'em again. Thanks for sharing your story Colin.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Colin; great looking project, _as usual_!
I may have missed something in the pictures, but where does the 'make up air' in the router cabinet come from? There should be a ton of it pouring through, to carry away the debris.
The only obvious inlet was the bit hole in the router plate(?)...


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Further to my previous comment, air coming from the fence hose directly into the outlet hose actually lessens the efficiency of the suction coming from the cabinet; basically acting as a major leak in the 4" hose. Probably does a great job on the fence inlet though.


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## RainMan 2.0 (May 6, 2014)

Wow that’s an impressive build and super functional. Thanks for sharing Colin


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## Coleve (Oct 31, 2012)

Thanks for your comments. You share the same outlook on life as myself heartening


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

Colin: My mother (gone 24 years now) began my thinking this way. She adopted it from a book titled "The Magnificent Obsession," a '50s era novel. Contribution to others in my adopted field gave me a good living, but more important, a place to improve the lives of tens of thousands of children and adults over the past 36 years.


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## fire65 (Oct 29, 2008)

Very nice work and love your shop. What size joiner do I see there in the background, that thing looks huge.


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## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

Absolutely amazing.


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

Nice job Colin but pay attention to what Dan said. If you hold a ping pong ball in your hand and you put a vac hose over it tight to your palm and turn the vac on then off 10 seconds later the ping pong ball will still be in your hand, not in the vac. You need an airflow for the vac to move anything through the pipe. For that 4" pipe you need an equal amount of openings in the box, i.e. 12.5 square inches.

Also keep in mind that the router has a built in cooling fan that moves air from the top of the router past the bit. Your setup is trying to move air the opposite direction against the router's flow direction. This can cause the router to get hot so you want to keep an eye on that.


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## JFPNCM (Dec 13, 2009)

Colin:

Appreciate your background, my first job in the trades was as a plumbers assistant, 60 hours a week for 20$. I didn't make a career of it however. Your shop projects look great and well done. Welcome aboard.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Apparently I need a life, I was thinking about the 'make-up air' thing all morning... 
Maybe Charles or some of the other members have some thoughts on where the best location for the air _intake_ should be, relative to the base mounted outlet already there?
Intuitively I'd have thought up high so that the airflow goes past the underside of the table where the bit is, but I may be out to lunch on that(?).


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## Multiwood (Feb 24, 2013)

Great read Collin and a super nice build. I am confused tho I didn't think there was such a thing as a poor plumber.


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

I have thought about adding to the pickup on my fence with one just under the table at collet nut height, much like some of the optional bases have. Anywhere below the router and you are working against the routers air flow for cooling the router. The only exception would be Herb's setup where he attached an accordion style hose from outside the box directly to the fan end of his router. In that case it doesn't matter where you put the DC pickup, it will help pull air through the router.

You just have to remember that a vacuum works by creating a low pressure zone. Atmospheric air, which is at a higher pressure, will move in to fill the void. It's that air current that transports particles to the vac unit. You don't want a low pressure zone at the router fan intake. You can compound the problem by creating a venturi effect where air is moving rapidly past the fan intake opening from one side of the box to the other. That creates a vacuum right at the intake opening. The venturi effect is what makes a carburetor work. Maybe when I have time I'll try to sketch some illustrations but I'm not much of an artist.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

That makes sense, Charles. Having a substantially deeper cabinet isn't really helpful then? If I understand you correctly, Herb's router draws clean cooling air directly from _outside_ the cabinet, via flex hose, independent of what's happening inside the cabinet.
In that case having a small fan forcing air threw the flex hose would aid in cooling as well as adding air volume to the dust collection pick-up? Something like a bathroom fan would only add about 600CFM to the cabinet, not nearly enough for a 4" hose but definitely an improvement(?)...


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## Coleve (Oct 31, 2012)

The jointer I think you call it in the US is a plainer/thickneser here. It’s a Wakin which is a commercial machine of 3 phase which is 414volts. It has uppper and lower beds. The upper bed is 12 inches wide and the lower bed can take a 12 deep board. It is an extremely well balanced and accurate machine with the one drawback being the length of the upper table at only 4ft. It makes straightening boards a little difficult.

Colin


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## MT Stringer (Aug 15, 2012)

Very nice. I like your overall work area.


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

DaninVan said:


> That makes sense, Charles. Having a substantially deeper cabinet isn't really helpful then? If I understand you correctly, Herb's router draws clean cooling air directly from _outside_ the cabinet, via flex hose, independent of what's happening inside the cabinet.
> In that case having a small fan forcing air threw the flex hose would aid in cooling as well as adding air volume to the dust collection pick-up? Something like a bathroom fan would only add about 600CFM to the cabinet, not nearly enough for a 4" hose but definitely an improvement(?)...


Dan I also incorporated an adjustable make-up air vent in the side of the box.

Herb


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

I noticed that it's partially closed; is that by trial and error, Herb?

Oh! And nicely executed!


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## neville9999 (Jul 22, 2010)

I'd have been happy if I did that myself. Nice Job. N


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

DaninVan said:


> I noticed that it's partially closed; is that by trial and error, Herb?
> 
> Oh! And nicely executed!


I adjusted it to where it was cleaning out the box. It gets a lot of air in the bottom where the cut out for the router is located. I had to allow for the posts and stuff on the router lift.
Herb


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

Double Post


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

Triple post.


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## jj777746 (Jan 17, 2015)

The advise regards cooling airflow around the router is something I had not given much thought to so will be incorporating into my new RT build. Thanks to Charles,Dan,Tom & of course @Coleve ,Colin what a fantastic job.Jamesjj


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## TenGees (Sep 12, 2012)

Sweet set-up, Colin. Turning a little green with envy here.


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

DaninVan said:


> That makes sense, Charles. Having a substantially deeper cabinet isn't really helpful then? If I understand you correctly, Herb's router draws clean cooling air directly from _outside_ the cabinet, via flex hose, independent of what's happening inside the cabinet.
> In that case having a small fan forcing air threw the flex hose would aid in cooling as well as adding air volume to the dust collection pick-up? Something like a bathroom fan would only add about 600CFM to the cabinet, not nearly enough for a 4" hose but definitely an improvement(?)...


It would make a difference initially. It's like using a bicycle tire pump to pump a bicycle tire versus a truck tire. The end result is the same. It just takes longer to get there. Herb's setup draws fresh air from outside the box into the router and seals the router fan intake from the vacuum inside the box. Since energy always flows from areas with high potential to areas with low potential, and compressed air is a form of energy, you could turn the DC on without turning the router on and you would still get air flow through the router because outside air at higher pressure is trying to fill the void left inside the box and the router is one path to the inside (provided you get a good seal between the hose and the router).

Adding something like a bathroom fan might be a good idea. The more air going through the router the better I would think. Heat is one of it's major enemies, especially for the electronics. Another thing to think about when you put the DC and router in a box is that one of the things being sucked in is the heat the bit is generating. Add that to insufficient cooling air and it can get pretty warm inside that box.

Anytime you turn a fan on it takes air molecules and pushes them forward. This forms a high pressure zone in front of the fan. The reason for this is that the air molecules that are being pushed forward run into ones already there and the collisions prevent some of the molecules from readily moving away from the area. That's really what creates pressure is the molecules banging into each other. The more collisions, the more pressure. The router already creates a high pressure zone at the bit with it's internal fan. That's what I like about a fence mounted pickup. The DC at the fence creates a low pressure zone at the same spot so the two work together. With air flowing the other way into the box you get the molecules the router is pushing one way into the molecules trying to go the other way and you get some stagnation in the process.

This was a bit technical and long winded but if you understand what is actually happening then it's easier to figure out what to do about it.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Good explanation, Charles. One could use the wind tunnel approach and let a little smoke flow into the inlet ports and watch what happens when everything is running. Maybe something like a joss stick for smoke source.


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## Stick486 (Jan 4, 2013)

DaninVan said:


> Apparently I need a life, I was thinking about the 'make-up air' thing all morning...
> Maybe Charles or some of the other members have some thoughts on where the best location for the air _intake_ should be, relative to the base mounted outlet already there?
> Intuitively I'd have thought up high so that the airflow goes past the underside of the table where the bit is, but I may be out to lunch on that(?).


for the box...
DC boot the bottom of the box... I did a 6'' line..
port the front and back... or sides.. but not all all 4 sides at the same time...
start w/ w/ 2'' holes... 
it took 8 for a 7518....
fillet the inside corners to set up a vortex..

for the motor...
add a tube to the router's air inlet be it flex or hard pipe like snaplok...
make the inlet long enough for the end to be in free air no matter the height setting of the router...
going through the boot w/ the air tube doesn't hurt a thing...


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

Seems to me, given the reality of dusty shops, that you'd want a filter over any fan supplying air to a tube attached to the router bottom. Nice big box and filter. The box would give you something to attach the bathroom fan to. That &@%# dust is insidious.


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## Stick486 (Jan 4, 2013)

DesertRatTom said:


> Seems to me, given the reality of dusty shops, that you'd want a filter over any fan supplying air to a tube attached to the router bottom. Nice big box and filter. The box would give you something to attach the bathroom fan to. That &@%# dust is insidious.


not any more than any tool used normally in the shop..
a filter would be a restriction you can do w/o...


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## Coleve (Oct 31, 2012)

*Update on my poor Plumbers router Table*

Hi there again.

Well my self-indulgent smugness has been wiped from my self-indulgent face after hearing the well-informed comments from my learned router fraternity. 

Firstly, I have to thank you for your kind comments on the build, but more importantly the physics and science of sucking air, from Dan and Charles for which I am very grateful 

So, where I went wrong. Firstly, by drawing air from the bottom of the cabinet, and in doing so reversing the flow of air through the router, negating its cooling. 

Secondly not allowing for the equalizing of air pressure within the cabinet, by introducing an external source.

So today I sat in front of my latest creation and cried, as I contemplated the complete stripping out of the extract system and starting again. I’m afraid it was too much to bear, so decided on plan A first. Plan B was to take up baking should plan A fail.

Plan A was to visit my local hardware shop and buy some rectangular ducting used on cooker hoods etc. My idea was to reroute the extract from the bottom to the top of the cabinet, hopefully reversing the air currents. But I did not want it permanent, as I still wanted the bottom extract for when I do a clean-up. I therefore made it up and created two support brackets that hold it in place. I made sure the area of the rectangular duct was equal to the extract hose.

I then found an old 4-inch circular vent which I fitted at the bottom of the cabinet hoping it might also draw though the router. I made up a regulator to the rear of it to adjust air flow.

I have tried it out and have to admit is removing a greater part of the finer sawdust, time will tell.

Now as much as I appreciate the advice on this project, what you lads didn’t realise that your well-meaning support has cost me another £20 to rectify. I can’t believe you guys gave me such advice knowing how poor I am. I had to go to the wife and get an advance on next week’s pocket money. In future could you impart such advice that is cost neutral. Cost neutral is a new politically correct term I recently came upon and it works for me.

Speaking of terms. I was watching the programme on the building of London’s new 5-billion-pound sewer. The supervisor went to his manager and said, quote, we have a problem. No, we don’t he replied, we don’t he asked, no what we have is quote, a solution opportunity. So, gentlemen of the router fraternity, thank you for providing me with a solution opportunity.

Please feel free to enlighten me on Plan A and whether it will in your opinion work and if so what tweaks or adjustments is required. Or alternatively get that piece of crap out of there, in which case Bake Off here I come. Do you mix flour the same as cement?

Yours
Colin
Scotland


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## Stick486 (Jan 4, 2013)

air is sucked into the router through the top end of it.. (black. end)...
sleeve/tube the black end of the router and protrude the sleeve right through the bottom of the box...
if you can't do this as a one piece do it it as a two piece sliding arrangement...

if that rectangular piece w/ all those turns is for the sawdust extractions... those turns are going to make your CFM and efficiency suffer... 

suggest a right angle style boot (dust hood) for the DC pick up... 
they come in a wide range of sizes, styles and take offs...
here is one used in HVAC forced air system...
and you get to use the KISS/MISS way...


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

Colin that's interesting that it is picking up more of the fines with that arrangement and those are the most dangerous for our health. I have to get around to adding that under table pickup to my table it seems now and quit procrastinating. My problem is that I designed my table to be able to work from either side so I need to be able to attach the pickup from either side of the table so that the hose is on the other side.

Your new fittings do have radiused bend so they should be okay IMO. Hard 90s creat vortexes in the corners. As an example of what happens think about snow blowing over a fence. On the windward side it may be bare but on the lee side of the fence the snow builds up. This is because the wind creates turbulence as it goes over the fence which slows the velocity and the wind can no longer keep the snow suspended in the air stream. The exact same thing happens in a DC system. If for example you need to change diameter it's much better to use a long tapered reducer that it is to use one only a few inches long with an abrupt change from one size to the other.

Keep in mind you still need to be close in square area of vac openings to the square cross sectional area of the main hose which is about 12.5 square inches for a 4" hose. With the pickup at the fence and the one under the table you might be close enough.

One more FYI. If you have a 4" main and you are using a tool that only has say a 2 1/2" drop going to it you'll have pretty good flow and velocity in the smaller hose but when that reaches the 4" main the flow expands and both pressure and velocity drop. On tools that can produce lots of shavings you risk plugging the line. You are actually better off to open another blast gate that's close and preferably upstream from where you are. If you open one that's upstream you may actually get better suction because as the added air passes the opening to your tool it creates a Venturi effect at the opening which increases suction there. This is how one of those little fittings you use to drain a water bed works. You hook up a hose to the fitting and the tee end is in the water bed. When you turn the water on the stream from the hose passes across the end of the tee causing a pressure drop there which sucks water from the water bed instead of filling it.


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## honesttjohn (Feb 17, 2015)

There's no such thing as a "poor" plumber over here. A lot are "fiscally stupid" but don't have to be poor.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Thanks for keeping us in the loop, Colin! Try the smoke trick at the venting _inlet _and let us know how the airflow is working. (Out here on the Wet Coast, reefers are the most prevalent source of smoke.  )

Over here, the Fed. Gov't likes to talk about 'revenue neutral'. This is supposed to make the bleeding taxpayer feel so much better about being fleeced by the politicians.
For some reason I don't feel better about it at all...


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Colin; nice recovery! Sorry, forgot to give you full marks in my last comment. 
Not a criticism in any way, but I have noticed that you like commercially available solutions rather than homemade...thinking of Herb's round vent rather than the bought one you picked. _Absolutely nothing wrong with that_, but it does cut into the beer fund over time. In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm equally at fault for exactly the same reason. This doesn't even take into account the stuff I buy then don't use...


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## DaddyDave (Jul 21, 2018)

Colin,
Great job on putting your shop together, as I'm sure you know, the greatest thing about woodworking is that we continue to face challenges and learn something new every day! Your efforts on building your shop is a reward for the courage of your convictions that you learned as an apprentice many years ago! Let's offer a pint and make a toast to the mentor that showed you the way! Stay well and keep busy!


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