Well I have completed my inaugural 1st year full-timing and looking into my next home. After I sold my house, the only thing I miss is my woodworking shop. So I need to get myself a toy hauler for my 2nd "tin can" home. My question goes out to the woodworkers and the workshop people of the community. I am looking for input on my next RV home, what others have done, gottchas, etc. Thanks in advance.
Lucky Mike said
07:16 PM Oct 27, 2015
I am in a class A........with a complete shop onboard including a 3 'x 6 'twin gantry CNC for production......all stored for rapid set-up from the bays to the 10 x 20 EZ-up booth/porta shop...............so my answer...NO Problem......you got this !!!!!!!!!
Paul James said
12:01 AM Oct 29, 2015
I think the question would be, what kind of work to you plan on doing, what would you be making? What sort of mix of hand and power tools are you comfortable with. For me, the first consideration would be what am I going to use for a bench; light, strong and knockdown. I'd give a lot of thought as to how I could fit as many functions as possible into that bench.
If I'm just thinking mobile shop, I'd definitely incorporate a router table into the benchtop, and use an Incra LS for the fence, truly a thing of beauty. The LS fence can be offset, so with a straight bit (Whiteside of course) you can use it as a jointer. And it will do all manner or joinery, dovetails, box joints, rabbets.. even has dust collection. Also very light. Not sure how you would run a router in a campsite though, how do you mitigate the noise? Inside a toy hauler with the door shut?
For sure my portable Swiss made Zyliss vise, it's sort of the Leatherman of vises, it does so many things. It's aluminum so real light, go on YouTube and check out all the ways it can be used. It can be used just like a regular vice, or upside down for low profile. It'll hold bicycles upside down to work on, fishing gear, attach to 2x stock to make as long a bar clamp as the stock. Can even use it as a drill press. I never seen a more clever tool.
The only way to do power tool joinery at a low noise level would be with drills. So that's pocket holes or dowels. In combination with a cordless drill it would be pretty quiet. As much fun as it is to use, a Kreg jig can't do the level of joinery that you can do with doweling, and it can be hard to hide those ugly holes. The kings of the doweling jigs are the DowelMax and JessEm. The DowelMax must be pushing $500 if not already there, the Jessem, even with the expanded kit is under $200 I believe.
If you never used one of these high priced dowelers, they're really fun to use, not fussy and super accurate, the hole always align. Not that I wouldn't bring the Kreg, but I'd bring some kind of doweling jig.
Table Saw. Even the nice job site models are heavy and loud, even the light ones are heavy. Here's where a track saw would be your friend. There's a company called Eureka Zone that makes a track saw system, but you mount your saw to the carrier. All the others I think mount their saw on their track. So if you could adapt say a 5 1/2 inch cordless to their carrier, you'd be in business, and pretty quiet. The problem I imagine that would present would be depth of cut, because the track and carrier both reduce that.
What else? Clamps of course, I'd take a bunch of small Irwin Quick clamps the 6 and 12 inch, a few spring clamps, maybe 4 aluminum bar clamps, say 2 24" and 2 36" or 48". I saw some at Harbor Freight that were quite inexpensive and seemed sturdy enough to do the job, and light. I'd want my deep throat Besseys but they're so heavy, but when you need them..
I'd also get a portable drill press, the kind that has a built-in chuck that rides on two guide rails. You attach your drill to drive it, and you'd be able to drill very straight 90 degree holes (can drill at almost any angle) and drill perfectly to the center of round stock. They're surprisingly accurate and cheap, I have an old General, but I know Wolfcraft and others make them, under $30. I'd bring a plug in drill, the battery operated don't always cut it. Big set of Triumph twist bits, some brad points and maybe my Forstner set. Bits are a little heavy but compact. Maybe just buy hole saws as I needed them.
I'd bring a block plane and low angle jack plane with a shooting board, Japanese pull saw and manual miter box for it, good set of chisels, a router chisel, marking gauge, 2 sided sharpening stone, a good combination square, try and speed square, framing square too. Coping saw, hand scraper, and one of those short cut off saws they sell at Lowes, Irwin makes one for about 15 bucks. They're super sharp when new and hold that tooth pretty well. Takes me a long time to wear one out. My Klein 11 in 1, there's no tool I use more, a really good straight edge, like 24", and that Incra T square with all the little holes, if I can fit it. I never made a home for that thing and never know where to put it. And some Tite-Bond II, or III.
el Rojo and Pam said
06:38 AM Oct 29, 2015
One thought is you might be able to lease a spot in a retirement community that already has a wood working shop for its residents. I think the Phoenix area has several properties.
But we bought a toy hauler in our second year to take our rhino (4-wheeler) with us and to provide a shop for RC airplanes. We're glad we did and the extra room is great.
The Bear II said
09:11 AM Oct 29, 2015
Seems like a toyhauler garage would be the perfect place to have a Shopsmith ( www.shopsmith.com/).
The biggest problem will be if the RV Park will allow you to use power tools on your site. There have been times when we have been parked next to RVs where the owners were using power tools to do some remodeling projects or repairs. It didn't bother us but I'm sure some folks would be upset...I didn't go camping to listen to construction noises.
Recently I constructed stairs and landing out of wood for our 5th wheel while staying at an RV Resort near San Diego. I loaded the wood and my battery powered tools in to my truck and went outside the resort to make all of the cuts and build sections. That way the only noise at our RV site was the drill motor as I screwed the sections together.
I have a battery powered set from Craftsman- skill saw, drill motor, sabre saw, reciprocating saw, vacuum, two batteries plus charger. I was able to make over 30 cross cuts on 2X8 boards using only two batteries in the skill saw.
When I don't want to make a lot of noise- I use several types of these hand saws. Very precise and quick cuts. www.sharkcorp.com/shark-saw/
Terry and Jo said
10:48 AM Oct 29, 2015
Wow! That's a lot of stuff for me, although I'm not a woodworker at all. We do build the occasional item out of wood, but I work with a hand saw, even when we were cutting the 4x4's and 2-bys for our stairs and landing.
Sounds ambitious to me, and that's not something I can really be accused of being. We have a fellow at church that would love to do some full-time RV'ing, but part of his income is building custom furniture. He said he has 40 years worth of power tools to do his work, so I don't see him getting rid of all that for RV'ing.
Well I have completed my inaugural 1st year full-timing and looking into my next home. After I sold my house, the only thing I miss is my woodworking shop. So I need to get myself a toy hauler for my 2nd "tin can" home. My question goes out to the woodworkers and the workshop people of the community. I am looking for input on my next RV home, what others have done, gottchas, etc. Thanks in advance.
If I'm just thinking mobile shop, I'd definitely incorporate a router table into the benchtop, and use an Incra LS for the fence, truly a thing of beauty. The LS fence can be offset, so with a straight bit (Whiteside of course) you can use it as a jointer. And it will do all manner or joinery, dovetails, box joints, rabbets.. even has dust collection. Also very light. Not sure how you would run a router in a campsite though, how do you mitigate the noise? Inside a toy hauler with the door shut?
For sure my portable Swiss made Zyliss vise, it's sort of the Leatherman of vises, it does so many things. It's aluminum so real light, go on YouTube and check out all the ways it can be used. It can be used just like a regular vice, or upside down for low profile. It'll hold bicycles upside down to work on, fishing gear, attach to 2x stock to make as long a bar clamp as the stock. Can even use it as a drill press. I never seen a more clever tool.
The only way to do power tool joinery at a low noise level would be with drills. So that's pocket holes or dowels. In combination with a cordless drill it would be pretty quiet. As much fun as it is to use, a Kreg jig can't do the level of joinery that you can do with doweling, and it can be hard to hide those ugly holes. The kings of the doweling jigs are the DowelMax and JessEm. The DowelMax must be pushing $500 if not already there, the Jessem, even with the expanded kit is under $200 I believe.
If you never used one of these high priced dowelers, they're really fun to use, not fussy and super accurate, the hole always align. Not that I wouldn't bring the Kreg, but I'd bring some kind of doweling jig.
Table Saw. Even the nice job site models are heavy and loud, even the light ones are heavy. Here's where a track saw would be your friend. There's a company called Eureka Zone that makes a track saw system, but you mount your saw to the carrier. All the others I think mount their saw on their track. So if you could adapt say a 5 1/2 inch cordless to their carrier, you'd be in business, and pretty quiet. The problem I imagine that would present would be depth of cut, because the track and carrier both reduce that.
What else? Clamps of course, I'd take a bunch of small Irwin Quick clamps the 6 and 12 inch, a few spring clamps, maybe 4 aluminum bar clamps, say 2 24" and 2 36" or 48". I saw some at Harbor Freight that were quite inexpensive and seemed sturdy enough to do the job, and light. I'd want my deep throat Besseys but they're so heavy, but when you need them..
I'd also get a portable drill press, the kind that has a built-in chuck that rides on two guide rails. You attach your drill to drive it, and you'd be able to drill very straight 90 degree holes (can drill at almost any angle) and drill perfectly to the center of round stock. They're surprisingly accurate and cheap, I have an old General, but I know Wolfcraft and others make them, under $30. I'd bring a plug in drill, the battery operated don't always cut it. Big set of Triumph twist bits, some brad points and maybe my Forstner set. Bits are a little heavy but compact. Maybe just buy hole saws as I needed them.
I'd bring a block plane and low angle jack plane with a shooting board, Japanese pull saw and manual miter box for it, good set of chisels, a router chisel, marking gauge, 2 sided sharpening stone, a good combination square, try and speed square, framing square too. Coping saw, hand scraper, and one of those short cut off saws they sell at Lowes, Irwin makes one for about 15 bucks. They're super sharp when new and hold that tooth pretty well. Takes me a long time to wear one out. My Klein 11 in 1, there's no tool I use more, a really good straight edge, like 24", and that Incra T square with all the little holes, if I can fit it. I never made a home for that thing and never know where to put it. And some Tite-Bond II, or III.
But we bought a toy hauler in our second year to take our rhino (4-wheeler) with us and to provide a shop for RC airplanes. We're glad we did and the extra room is great.
The biggest problem will be if the RV Park will allow you to use power tools on your site. There have been times when we have been parked next to RVs where the owners were using power tools to do some remodeling projects or repairs. It didn't bother us but I'm sure some folks would be upset...I didn't go camping to listen to construction noises.
Recently I constructed stairs and landing out of wood for our 5th wheel while staying at an RV Resort near San Diego. I loaded the wood and my battery powered tools in to my truck and went outside the resort to make all of the cuts and build sections. That way the only noise at our RV site was the drill motor as I screwed the sections together.
I have a battery powered set from Craftsman- skill saw, drill motor, sabre saw, reciprocating saw, vacuum, two batteries plus charger. I was able to make over 30 cross cuts on 2X8 boards using only two batteries in the skill saw.
When I don't want to make a lot of noise- I use several types of these hand saws. Very precise and quick cuts. www.sharkcorp.com/shark-saw/
Wow! That's a lot of stuff for me, although I'm not a woodworker at all. We do build the occasional item out of wood, but I work with a hand saw, even when we were cutting the 4x4's and 2-bys for our stairs and landing.
Sounds ambitious to me, and that's not something I can really be accused of being. We have a fellow at church that would love to do some full-time RV'ing, but part of his income is building custom furniture. He said he has 40 years worth of power tools to do his work, so I don't see him getting rid of all that for RV'ing.
Terry