That looks great Bosco659 - I am going to swipe that idea for my own little welding area.
On my pole barn, I have made some progress recently with a useful addition to my workbench. When we cleared out my mother-in-law's home in Kingston, ON after her death in late Jan. 2023, one of the most challenging tasks was looking after Cathie's father's (he had died many years ago in 1968) model railroad layout. It was a big Lionel O-gauge setup and while it was intact, I don't think anyone had run it in over 55 years.
He had been an engineering prof at Queen's Univ. in Kingston, so it was not surprising to find that the train layout was on a set of large old engineering drawing tables, each of which had an accompanying drawer. These tables and drawers were all made long before I went to Queen's as a student in the mid-70s - I guess they dated back to maybe the 1920-30s timeframe. I suspect these tables and drawers were made either in a university workshop or perhaps at one of the half-dozen federal penitentiaries that dotted the Kingston area at the time. I think they must have been declared surplus in the 1950s and he had scored them cheap for his train layout. Anyway, some of them were given away, some were scrapped, and some of the drawers and three table-tops I brought back to Harrow.
Last week, I spent several pleasant days cutting down the drawers to make them suitable for my big workbench in the barn. It was a substantial of work but lots of fun as they are all a bit different in size and construction and I wanted to incorporate modern drawer slides so that the drawers could support more weight. Luckily, Princess Auto (much like Horrible Fright but with a lower content of Chinesium) had full extension drawer slides on sale during the fall of 2024 so I was prepped on that score. I carefully preserved as much of the drawers as possible - especially the “military" style painted numbers that are stenciled on the fronts. Because of the dimensions of the bench, I had to shorten each drawer (front to back) and make the top one only about half depth. I am pleased with how they came out. I even found a package of five drawer pulls in just the right style on the clearance table at Canadian Tire - for $4 - so good score there too.
I will stain the spruce bench frame to more closely match the drawers and tart-up the drawer edges to hide the ends of the steel drawer slides once everything is back together. BTW - the bench top is a 10' x 2' x 2" thick piece of high-end kitchen counter butcher block that I found in an online auction for about $150. It must have been marred during manufacture or shipping but for my purposes, it is just fine. I like it because it is strong as he!!, flat, straight and very stiff.
Anyhow - check it out!
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In addition to the workbench, I stumbled upon three old flatscreen Sony TVs that I had sort of forgotten about when we moved out to the county in Sept. 2021. As the pole barn is a mancave as well as a workshop, I want to be comfortable and relax in there the odd time when "things" are happening in the house with which I'd rather not be involved.
The bigger TV is a 55” Sony which is up high about 20 ft. away from the workbench at the far end of the barn. It is a tad small for the distance, but its OK. The smaller set is a 32” Sony on a full motion mount (
very cheap at Princess Auto) mounted just off the end of my workbench about 5-8 feet from where I am usually standing. I can swing it out from the wall to watch it or fold is back flat to the wall if I don't want it sticking out. It is perfect for watching YouTube and really getting a close look at things. Both have Amazon Firesticks™ to give them web access and the whole setup is perfect for me. I have one more 32” Sony which I will put up on the wall opposite the workbench for when I am working on something in the middle of the workspace.
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My wife thinks I am nuts for having three TVs in the same space – but heck, we own them and the Firesticks and mounts cost less then $60 for each TV – so no great cost for lots of benefit. I haven’t figured out how to synchronize the TVs so it can be challenging to get them all playing the same video simultaneously, but I fiddle around until the sets are close to the same point in the video and then I just mute the sound on one TV and it works fine.
Cheers,
Pete
