Workspace Setup & Tool Shopping

When it comes to tools, you could often call me a tool nerd. I spend a lot of my time perusing the local Harbor Freight, Lowe’s, and Home Depot looking at the different tools. I also spend time looking at more quality tool outlets online such as Festool and Woodpecker (yes I do more woodworking than machining right now.).

I also have a really nice workspace already setup. Like I mentioned earlier, I do quite a bit of wood working and I’ve got a 4′ x 8′ table (two sheets of plywood glued together so it’s super sturdy) as well as a rolling 2’x4′ table that I use for my miter saw, and for assembly. And this is all in a 3-car garage that is slightly bigger than a standard 3-car garage. It has the two car slots at a slight angle to the single car slot, so I have two extra little triangles of space. It’s just shy of 1000 sq. ft. so I’m very happy about the space I have to build this in. My wife will be able to keep her parking spot while I get the space I need to build! (or at least I hope I get the space I need! Happy wife, happy life!)

I started at the normal place for information, Van’s website. They have a full list of tools that they recommend for the build, which also includes some specialty tools for certain models, of which the RV-10 is a member of.

They also had a list of companies that you could work with to get these tools. The one shown the most, and one that I’ve seen the Plane Lady mention quite a bit in her videos, is Cleaveland Tools. They had a well maintained website and a set of curated videos going over the tools that you would need to choose between. They have the majority of the tools that you will need for this build in my opinion, all except for a pneumatic Cleco tool, which I feel I will need down the road. But I think I might just get a few extra of the Cleco pliers and have the kids help me out with installing these things. A family that builds together, stays together! LOL

I put the items that they recommend for the RV-10 build in my shopping cart and made a few additions. One was the 2.5″ flange-nose pneumatic yoke for some of the tight areas that the Plane Lady mentioned in her videos. I also chose to use just the C-frame dimpler rather than the compression dimpler. I’ve watched a few reviews of these tools and it seems like people are torn between the two and no appreciable difference can be shown as to why I should spend so much on the compression dimpler. That’s why I decided to get the C-frame. Plus it will give my kids some time building their muscles swinging a hammer doing the dimpling with me 🙂

In total, with shipping and taxes, those tools are going to cost me $3250 to get, which is almost as much as the empennage kit. But, I am always of the mindset that you get what you pay for. If you cheap out on a tool, it’s more than likely going to do a cheap job, which I prefer to not do if I can help it. I’m still going to hold off on the tool purchase for now until I can talk with the local EAA chapter about what they would recommend tool wise, but at least this would give me a good ball park of what to expect.

Finally, I know I will need to upgrade the lighting in my garage. I upgraded it some when I first moved in, as they thought two 60-watt bulbs for a nearly 1000 sq. ft. garage would be sufficient…. I bought two florescent fixture kits that provide 5000 lumen each. But little did I know how little 5000 lumen is for such a large area. I struggle at night to work out in the garage on my wood working projects, at least if I’m not close to the fixtures. With that problem in mind, I’ve planned a few things. I plan to do the following to the garage:

• Under-cabinet lighting
  • I have four wall-mounted cabinets that have some very cheap stick on push activated lights. I want to get rid of these temporary solutions for this:
  • https://www.lowes.com/pd/BLACK-DECKER-5-Bar-LED-Under-Cabinet-Lighting-Kit-Cool-White-5-Pack-9-in-Plug-in-Light-Bar/1000332145
• Ceiling mounting lighting
  • I have some ok lighting right now, but I want to add the following plugged up to the outlets for the garage doors:
  • https://www.lowes.com/pd/Honeywell-Linear-Shop-Light-Common-4-ft-Actual-5-83-in-48-03-in/1002653388
  • You can link up to 10 of these in a row and since they are LED, you run less of a risk of pulling too much current and overloading the circuit.

I hope to get these installed soon and I’ll post the process here. Here is the garage in it’s current incarnation.