Some thoughts on storage

Space is always at a premium in a small garage.  My workshop also has to serve as (in order of volume required):

- A store for the family bicycles
- The garden shed (mower, tools and BBQ)
- Kids' sports equipment store
- Domestic 'root cellar' (bottled water, tins (cans), toilet paper, etc)
- Boot & shoe cleaning facility

All of which require at least some degree of ease of access and protection from dust & other workshop detritus.

This doesn't leave a lot of space (but I have no other) for storage of sheets of ply, lengthy baulks of timber or bulky epoxy.  There is no permanent heating (an electric blow heater when I am there), which gives issues with epoxy storage in winter.

The five sheets of ply and 25m of 25x25mm stock pine that I had ordered for the Moonfish build arrived today.  The pine was in 4m lengths, which I managed to store under the build bench - but the ply presented a conundrum:

 This is 2 sheets of 6mm ply leaning up against the domestic dry goods shelves (protected from dust by polythene sheeting); they can't stay there !

A quick check of the nesting diagram in the plans:

confirmed that it would be OK to slice all but 2 of the sheets in half lengthways.  After some careful marking out and setting up a fence, that is what I did with the Skilsaw.

Problem solved; the half sheets now rack up nicely under the build bench:

The remaining 2 full sheets, which will form the deck, are the first to be used in the build process - so will go up on the bench ready to be joined together and marked out.

Things are still tight, but there is room to work - and for all the other users of the space to get at their stuff.

(The epoxy storage issue ?  Well, I bodged up a hot box - but that's another post)