Where Woodworking Begins

For the past 16 years I was the owner and developer of the number one trade and tax accounting software program for active traders. The product is known as TradeLog™ and can still be found at www.tradelogsoftware.com.

Since sitting in a chair for many hours at a time developing software is not the most healthy profession, I definitely needed a comfortable and ergonomic workspace (shown above).

I designed the office cabinetry using Sketchup™ CAD software. The cabinet faces are made from solid maple, the boxes from maple plywood, and the desktop from solid mahogony and mahogony plywood. The desktop features a recessed keyboard shelf which sits neatly in the corner of the desktop.

The completely dimensioned Sketchup™ drawing was sent to a local cabinet shop HMC Custom Cabinets Inc for construction and installation. It has served me well and continues to be a very comfortable office work space.

In January of 2017 I sold the business to my brother-in-law and have since retired from the software world. I now am refocused on what I love most, working with wood.

A few months before I retired, I began setting up a woodworking shop in our basement. Sad to say, my tools had been collecting dust despite the fact that a large part of our basement was already tricked out with pegboard and MDF cabinets. It was about time to put this to good use.

Our basement garage area was divided by a wall into two separate garage bays. I commandeered the larger bay which is 15' wide x 22' deep and includes an 9'x7' garage door and 32" man door.

The first thing I concentrated on was rebuilding my table saw and router table into a mobile station.

Next, I moved some base cabinets around so I could drop a shop vac and vortex dust separator under the counter to service my Bosch sliding miter saw as well as my Grizzly 14" band saw.

I then moved on to building a solid workbench and out feed table from an existing laminated maple counter top. I built a custom end vise and added a Veritas twin screw front vise. I originally had a shelf just below the bench top, but decided to add a full depth drawer to better organize my most used tools such as chisels and marking tools. I re-purposed some 300# full extension drawer slides that were originally used on an entertainment center slide out for a 36" television.

Since there already was pegboard on 3 walls I was able to hang most all of my tools so they are visible and within reach.