The Importance of DIY Projects and Tool Use in Sheds

As someone who has spent years working with tools and creating projects, I can attest to the importance of having a well-stocked shed filled with various gadgets and gizmos. In today's world, where everything is disposable and easily replaceable, there's something to be said for the satisfaction of taking a raw idea and turning it into something tangible using one's own two hands.

I recall my grandfather, who was a skilled woodworker and mechanic, spending hours in his shed tinkering with projects. He came from an era where tools were built to last, not thrown away like they are today. His war experiences had left him deaf, but that didn't stop him from continuing to work on his beloved machines. His friends had fallen in the war, leaving him alone for a time, and during this period, he turned to woodworking as a way to cope. He would often retreat to his shed, surrounded by the quiet of nature, and spend hours creating beautiful pieces of furniture.

Fast forward to today, and I've found myself appreciating the same sense of solitude and hands-on creativity that my grandfather experienced. There's something special about entering a space that's your own, filled with the tools and projects you love. In an age where we often buy things without thinking twice, only to discard them when they no longer serve us, I believe it's essential to take a step back and appreciate the value of crafting something with one's own hands.

One of my favorite tools that embodies this spirit is the milk crate. It may seem simple at first glance, but trust me, this humble vessel can be transformed into a multitude of creative projects, from painting stands to storage units and even stools. I've found that it's incredibly versatile and can be adapted to fit any project, no matter how big or small.

The shop vac is another tool that has become essential in my workshop. Its powerful performance and surprisingly quiet operation have made it a game-changer for me when working on projects like hardwood flooring installations. Ryobi, the manufacturer of this incredible device, offers a range of settings to cater to different tasks, making it an indispensable asset for any DIY enthusiast.

As I look around my shed, filled with a diverse array of tools and gadgets, I'm reminded of the importance of keeping things simple. In an era where technology is constantly advancing, there's something to be said for going back to basics and using one's own hands to create something new. Whether you're working on cars, woodworking, or simply need a tool to hang a picture, it's often the simplest solutions that prove to be the most effective.

For me, the ultimate tool in any workshop is the milk crate. It may seem like an unlikely candidate for greatness, but trust me when I say that it has become my go-to solution for everything from storage units to painting stands. Its versatility and adaptability make it a true workhorse, capable of handling even the most demanding tasks with ease.

In conclusion, as we move forward into an uncertain future, I believe it's essential to hold onto the values of DIY projects and tool use that have been passed down through generations. By embracing this approach, we can tap into a sense of creativity and hands-on innovation that's been missing from our modern world. Whether you're a seasoned DIY enthusiast or just starting out, I encourage you to explore the world of tools and projects with an open mind and a willingness to experiment.

In the next episode of "The Mighty Car Mod Shed," we'll be returning to our usual programming, but for now, it's time to bid farewell and thank you for joining me on this journey through my workshop. I'd like to extend a special thank you to Marty, who kindly allowed me to take him on a tour of his shed and share his expertise with the world.

Before we go, I want to hear from you! If you have any tips or tricks for setting up an effective workshop, please don't hesitate to share them in the comments below. And, as a special treat, use the coupon code "shed" at checkout to receive a discount on your next purchase from Ryobi.

Stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll be diving back into the world of cars and exploring some exciting projects that are sure to get your engines revving!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey it's moog here from mightycarmods and welcome to my shed dreams so when i'm not at the mighty cardboard shed with marty working on cars i'm usually hanging out here which is my own shed but i do not do any car stuff here i do um lots of other stuff which i will run through with you starting off at the construction this here is a about six and a half meters by three in a bit it's about 20 square meters all up and uh i've fully insulated it as well so it's insulated walls ceiling and the way that i've actually lined it is i've lined the whole thing with plywood because that means that you can mount stuff easily sometimes you know people do gyprock or whatever inside sheds but then you're carrying wood around and you can bump holes in it and stuff like that so i've done that and then i just gave the whole thing a bit of a white wash which was just white paint mixed with water because otherwise it felt like you were in a coffin but having your walls like this is awesome because if you want to mount something you literally just choose where you want to go and you just go bang and you mount it and it's done which is really cool so a friend of mine came and helped with the electrical so we got lots of light up here and we've got lots of power points that are all um at the bench height and i'll go through them shortly heaps of power there lots of storage underneath and all the power is actually running from a big solar array so there's around 10 kilowatts of solar and running a battery system as well so at night time this place is running off batteries which i think is really cool so during the day the sun is pumping the solar uh on top and that is charging all my ryobi batteries over here and so everything i'm making is kind of in that way i don't know if you call it carbon neutral but it means that all my projects are powered by the sun which i think is really cool so let me run you through the workshop the shed i'll show you how it's set up and hopefully give you some tips on how you can set up a mad shed for yourself at home as well so around 15 years ago is when i set up my first shed with maddie so this was a couple of years before we even started mighty cards at that time we were either working at a high school or working in a studio i think and this here was my very first bench now my shed was around two meters long and it was around 70 centimeters deep so basically this bench took up the whole space so i had this bench i had some pegboard above it with some basic tools and then i would be standing outside so you'd kind of open the doors these sliding doors it was just one of those cheap ones that you kind of rivet together so you'd open the doors and then the shed just had this mention and so since then there's been an evolution i went from there to kind of a bit of a garden shed and then eventually got a little bit more space for this and this kind of houses all the different things that i need to do now when you're setting up a shed at home the first thing you kind of want to work out is what the purpose of your shed is so i don't have any gardening stuff in here other than kind of a chainsaw or whatever but like whippersnippers mowers and all that stuff is in a separate gardening shed this here is a maker space now the way that i've oriented the benches is i've oriented them in the direction that the shed flows and what i mean by that is if you're carrying in a big bit of wood basically you don't want to be getting your wood and loading it in here and then kind of having to turn it around to go on a bench the other end so i can just come straight through the door put it on the bench and that's ready to go particularly if i've got to use a miter saw or something i can drop that up here it's already in the direction that everything needs to go so that's just kind of a basic ergonomics thing and what i'd also say about making your shed comfortable is that in here i've got um wi-fi there's air conditioning so there's good internet there's good music there's good sound i think if you're going to spend some time in your shed you may as well make it comfortable and it's one of the controversial things that again well before mightycon was marty and i were working for a magazine writing articles about setting up recording studios and people would often ask us like what's the most important bit of kit like what is the most important thing in a recording studio and we wrote a big feature article about that and our answer was a really good chair like a really good studio chair because if you're going to be sitting in it for 8 9 10 16 18 hours a day which we often were sometimes got to sleep in the studio in your chair in a sleeping bag we wanted it to be really comfortable so likewise i want my shed to be really comfortable i want it to be a good space i want it to be laid out ergonomically i want to be able to find everything where uh where and when i need it so here is my very first workbench that i had it's got a drill press on it underneath there's some storage of just things like um there's gaffer tape there's masts and ppe super glue just random things like that down this end i've got a little vise it's mounted offset a little bit because of the way that this bench was constructed this is always locked and the keys are up here but this is just basically where more dangerous or chemical stuff goes so in here i've got my range of glues i've got all my paints i got all my oils there's the wd-40 no more gaps things like that so that all just goes boom in there um on top of that i've just got some concrete because a friend recently asked me to make them a circular fire pit base out of concrete and so that was made actually using uh garden edging so works for um works for body kits and it works for molding all sorts of cool things out of concrete and then using some of these like some tie downs so anyway next up i've got my lathe so i've just started getting into doing some you know turning of wood making bowls and things like that and actually it was a mighty car mods fan that inspired that because i was at some markets recently but there was a mighty carmods fan there who just started doing some wood turning and um and i said to him you know how's it um how's it all going and it was a market store he'd been there for five hours and he hadn't sold anything yet and so i i bought something from him and we've got that at mightycar mods and when we get in there and we put our keys in there and i thought this is really cool so i kind of got into that so that's there down here i've got a drop saw i've got a thicknesser i've been using those for years and years and years and then a couple of years ago got a bigger compound miter saw this shed by the way i said at the very start of the video you've got to work out where your sheds for my shed is set up for home maintenance diy experimentation a bit of electrical stuff so there's no car stuff going on here there's no welding going on here it's just wood and fixing so pretty much i have friends that are asking me to make them tables so like outdoor tables outdoor furniture i have friends that ask me to help them make decks to make screens to make dining tables inside sometimes i get people who are saying to me you know like my great grandfather made this toy and now my other kid wants another one can you replicate it so sometimes i'm getting something and pulling it apart and trying to make something else these bench tops here these are just from the hardware store this is just you can buy these as a panel they cost like 70 bucks i've made up these frames here for them to sit on actually we've got a video on our second channel on mcmtv2 which is how to make these workbenches really simple really cheap really easy you don't even need power tools you can do them by hand but obviously power tools makes it a little bit easier um and the evolution of this shed is that it started with one bench then started with two then started with some more and then my kind of little pista resistance is this here so i've made this big bench this is made out of tasmanian oak really proud of this it's a really beautiful bench it's just a nice tactile place to come and work and it also has a stop on the back of it and i think this is one of those simple things when you're setting up a shed you don't want there to be gaps behind because otherwise you're working on things and you're losing stuff all the time so these here are all bolted to the walls and this here has a stopping plate on it so that if you're kind of working on something that is up against the back here you can kind of give it a good hit to kind of hit things in so moving into the tools i've kind of got this laid out those of you who are a little bit handy out there might see that it's starting from measuring then it's getting to cutting then it's getting to assembling and then it's getting to finalizing assembling and fixing and then it's getting over to the tools over there which i'll get to shortly so over here i've just got my whiteboard which is where you write all your notes you need a whiteboard or a blackboard or you need something just to write all your notes and stuff on mightycon was cable ties gloves first aid kit got my music up here over here i've just got all my screws and i've laid them out in a kind of an order where they start from small and go to larger so these are starting at 20 mil and going up to 100 mil and then there's different gauges because i just want to be able to go you know what i need a 40 mil 8g and so you go cool 1 2 3 4 there's the 40 mil there they are and these here are just the packets they come in and some people say oh they always fall down do i stick them on you can or another little trick is you just hold them up tip all your screws down and then when your clothes back in it's now held in place just a cool little tip i've also got lots of um lots of just little random bolts and stuff like that nothing like marty's bowerbird selection that we have down at car mods because his collection of stuff is very very impressive but for the basic stuff i've got to do fixes and repairs and things you know i've got that and then over here these are my grandfathers i've just got a selection of tins um that have just got lots of nails and different bits and pieces in them and um they're just again they're really cool because they're old so over here we're going to marking and measuring over here we got speed squares set squares saws tapes a lot of people they kind of go i'm going to buy a tape the thing is you always need lots of them and the reason that you need lots of them is because sometimes i do lots of my work outside because i have my gear so it's portable you want to take it outside you're measuring something out there then you want to measure something else in here and why i've got doubles of things you might see that we've got kind of two of these and two of these is because ideally you want your mates to come and hang with you as well and so particularly with ppe you don't want to be arguing about you know who gets at the person on the drop saw or the person on the router and so i try and double up with all of that stuff so as we move along you've got a variety of different saws you know everything from cutting gyprock which they call drive drywall i think they call it in america but that's a weird term then hacksaws here is for cutting off little um pieces of dowel so if you're kind of doing hidden joints and stuff like that then that's a really beautiful saw for cutting those off and then just your standard kind of saws for cutting bits and pieces pens and pencils with a little box that i made i'll show you how i made that shortly a variety of different hammers you need lots of hammers i don't have as many hammers as marty not that it's a competition about who has the most hammers or whose hammer is the biggest because it really is about how you hit the nail in with it up here probably my two most used tools um is my ryobi drill and rohby driver they've always got batteries on them they're always right there they're hanging there like gunslings because you just pick them up boom you're ready to go you're drilling holes with this you're driving in that i have had those for years and years and years and you can tell they're getting pretty hammered but they both are still working and they're both going strong so i got them a variety of different spanners and things that are supplemented with some other ones this is just the stuff that i want to be able to get to kind of regularly and easily a bunch of screwdrivers again more ppe i want it close i want to be able to grab it when i need it hence why i've got goggles here if i'm doing some routing or something and then i've got my gloves over here and then wd-40 because you always need it and i'm really proud of this because you know wd-40 is um has been a brand that everybody's known for years and years and years and we're really proud to become part of the wd-40 lineage with the mighty carmods can and i feel really really proud of that i think that's really cool because it's just i don't know it's us on a can and it's awesome so i like that over here again there's some more protective gear and this is the ryobi wall now what's probably funny is somebody's probably looking at this right now and going he must be sponsored by ryobi and i am but there is not one thing on this wall that is a sponsored product so everything here i owned either before our sponsorship or i have purchased it there is nothing here actually maybe maybe the workshop blower i think that might be the let me sit that right there there is nothing on this wall that has been a sponsored item because i owned all of this stuff first and that's the interesting thing we often get people saying i want to start a show or i'm a race car driver how do i get sponsorship the thing is if you genuinely really like a product and you've been using it for ages it's easy and i'll never forget i was actually in this shed when i was having a chat with someone for ryobi for the first time and i sent them a photo of this wall and they're like okay it's legit so i think if you're thinking of approaching a company whether they make underpants or chocolate or whatever it is if you actually use it and you legitimately use it then do what you need to do there's lots of tools up here this i use all the time circular saw nail gun's awesome um everything that i need to grab and just want to get quickly is right there the way this is set up is i want to really quickly be able to go i want to grab this i need a pencil i want to grab that and then just go and i want power right here and close to it as well now down here i've got some clamps i've got paper towel and probably my favorite tool in here ryobi vacuum i'm going to talk more about that soon because i've got a couple of favorite tools that i'll run through at the end of the video well i've got my big vacuum down there i've also got a smaller one that sits up here on top of the bench and that's just something that's really portable and easy to move around if i'm cleaning up things as i'm doing them in here uh an old australia post satchel and inside here i've got lots of rags and also the um mighty carmods microfiber cloths which you can get from the mighty cardboard's website and then just lots of cut-up stuff that's used for cleaning up spills applying oils things like that this is a tall pro tool case this is huge it's freaking massive why have i got this one when i know a lot of you are probably saying hey isn't there a mighty car mods toolbox i missed out i didn't get one they sold out so there was we have a special edition mighty carmods toolbox by tool pro and i let everyone know about it on facebook and uh marty and i were like hey go grab one and we even gave one away that we signed and then it was only a few days later or maybe a week later i was like i actually want one of them myself no i didn't get one of my own toolboxes uh unfortunately so maybe in the future i will that there is our mighty car was chopped uh chopped fingers their little toolbox things we might try and find a way to give you all one of them for free i reckon like um we're going to work out how to do it check the description i'm going to let you know how i can give you a toolbox one of them for free over here we've got clamps heaps of clamps because they're awesome up here we've got a mini cooper steering wheel from japan that we found i love japan i have a real affinity with japan and goats like two separate things um and hence why i've got some kind of transport signs and other stuff from japan that mighty and i've collected on our travels let's go through the toolbox quickly up the top we've just got some junk we've got more things that um you know cutting holes there's gloves there's cable ties you know money come on tape things like that uh moving down over here i got all my sanding stuff so from 40 grit up to 240 if you do need to stand in weird places you can also get a paint stirrer and you can get a glue gun and you can just glue a piece on there and that lets you get into weird places which is kind of cool so that's all my sandpaper over here is uh drill bits specifically and then the next one is um more drill bits drivers stuff for you know multi kits of things how to get through walls um this is my favorite tool here i'm going to show you them at the end i'm going to show you them at the end because that's just i love those things um down here i got my craig pockets uh pocket jig so this so craig is kind of like a tool that lets you attach things in a new kind of wacky way or a unique way but it's really quick really efficient i've got a torque wrench in there as well i know i don't do much car stuff in here but i do do like motorbike service and things like that so i do have you know basic tools for that stuff uh down in here i've got my um got my planes and i've got more roby stuff that i just don't need all the time in here so you know impact wrench another driver down in here i've got my um and you might have seen these on the main channel as well these are my ratcheting spanners ratcheting spanners are awesome and these here they're good value they're tall pro they're from super cheap auto they work i don't need them a lot in here compared to car stuff but when you do need to get to something and you want to make it easy like a ratcheting spanner is definitely the way to do it down here got stuff for attaching things to walls rivets staple gun um a few more tools in there bits and pieces this is my electrical stuff i've got a proper electrical kit that you've probably seen at mighty carmods but this is just the basic stuff for home heat shrink um a kit that's got kind of things for like disassembling computers and phones and stuff like that i don't use that heat because i'm usually breaking things more than i'm fixing them in here i've just got a fan which i use when i'm drying things um i've got a couple of these because they're really handy particularly when we're camping and then i've got arroyobi inflator which you've probably seen on the main show and then a big belt sander which i do when i'm kind of doing um big dining tables and stuff like that and they just kind of really need to eat into them i got that and now we're moving on to the most technologically advanced thing in the room um this here is my carvey and so this here is a basically a computer controlled carving device that can carve out of a variety of different materials and it's cool because it closes up so it keeps it fairly quiet and keeps it fairly fairly contained so in here you can make everything from things out of wood you can make bottle openers you can do all sorts of things that's a really cool online piece of software where you can design things up so whereas 3d printing is kind of additive construction that is subtractive so you're putting something in there and it's actually cutting it away so this space here is left because i bring my laptop in here and i've got all my cables again i want super efficient so i can just use those and up here is where i keep my stock it's got a working space of like 20 by 30 centimeters and then in here is all my carvey tools so i've got different bits in here you've got vernier calipers and then i've got all the different materials for it you know for making chopping boards or making designs or of course when you've got one of these things it's like having a ute and everybody asks you if they can use it or if they can borrow it so that kind of happens all the time down underneath i got my table saw i got you know some work benches and stuff and then i've got a bag which is always empty and this here is easy to grab because invariably what happens is i'll get a call and someone will go can i borrow your ute and can you make me a deck i've had to kind of learn the skills from watching youtube videos and stuff like that so you know it's it's been fun it's been a learning curve but it's always um measured twice cut once but i'm usually then cutting three times and then going to buy some more stuff when i make a mistake uh so that's that end of the room i'm going to show you a couple little things on this end of the room and then i'm going to show you my favorite tool so let's have a look down this end so any workshop one of the main things that you've got to manage is where you store all your supplies and stuff for this that's kind of mostly a fixing stuff around the house and a wood workshop the main things that i need are wood but because i don't have heaps of space i'm usually just buying it for the project that i need and i'm not storing lots of it i don't really want to fill the roof with like lots of storage but it is one way that people do kind of sticking it all up there but i like it having kind of open and feeling comfortable in here so i've just got a little storage area over here that's got kind of off cuts in it there's some short bits down there and then here's where i keep all of my dowel because i do lots of kind of hidden you know hidden joins and things like that and over here and i've got to do a shout out to colin furs because he inspired this and i was like this is freaking awesome this sanding station used to be sitting on this bench over here and it would just kind of blast all of its mess over here or sometimes i'd try and vacuum it outside but he has it mounted on a door like this and i was like that is such a good idea and i've got my blower here because what that means is is that i can open this and when this swings out i can actually be working outside so that whole thing can swing out and i can be doing my sanding outside and then just use that and blast it out i've also got power on the outside of this building as well because i'll take my mitre saws my sanders all those kinds of things and i'll do as much as i can outside and when i'm working outside i've just got a really simple little workbench that looks like this and i basically take that outside set that up clamp all my work pieces onto it and i can do all my work outside and it saves just kind of all a mess because most kind of professional or even really good amateur setups people have proper dust extraction systems i don't i've just got a shop vac which i connect to the equipment as i go which brings me to the last point i'm going to show you my three favorite tools that i have in here so number one uh is uh these chisels so these were my grandfather's chisels and um and he was awesome he passed away a couple of years ago but he was the biggest mighty carmods fan he was in his late 90s and he would contact me and he'd say i saw you on the telly or i saw you in the newspaper and you'd always ask really engaging questions and he never missed an episode and so um he left me these and so whenever i'm working on projects with these chisels i kind of feel like there's something really special so recently um i made a spice rack and i used his chisels and then i used all of his old nails and stuff to join it it was just a really nice way of kind of i don't know reliving the stuff that he went through and i think it's kind of very different times whereas now you can just buy tools and throw them away and he came from an era that you know he was um he was in the war and there was obviously lots of unemployment afterwards and he'd gone basically deaf and running machine guns and lots of his friends had died and and he would kind of go back into his shed and and he'd make stuff and i think that's something we're really lacking now that you kind of buy things and throw them away and regardless of what your skill or what your ability is i think there's something about going into a space that's your own space and making something even if it doesn't work out but just using your hands and making stuff that i think can be lacking and i think um yeah i think that's really important so when i use these it just kind of reminds me to keep keep things simple and so i love using those uh my next favorite tool uh here is this shop vac so this here i use this recently to run when i was installing some hardwood flooring for someone really powerful surprisingly quiet shopvacs are normally so loud so i had another one for years and it sounded like it just sounded like a tornado this is really quiet it's really powerful comes with lots of different settings yes ryobi is a sponsor of the show but no one has asked me to tell you this i'm telling you this because i'm very confident that if you got one of these you would go yes okay i agree that's freaking awesome and then the last thing i'm going to show you my favorite tool in this workshop and what i believe will be your favorite tool as well this is i think if you're going to have a shed at home regardless of whether you're doing cars whether you're doing wood whether you're fixing stuff this is the one tool that i think everybody needs stay right there and i'm going to show you because this here this is this is a game changer as far as i'm concerned are you ready everybody i don't know if you can buy these i think maybe you have to steal them i didn't steal it but anyway here it is the number one tool that you should have in your shed a milk crate i'm telling you this here is freaking awesome this is a painting stand this is a storage device this is a stool to get up to get on things this is something that you can put wood on and you can drill through one of these is just a super super handy thing to have they could just they're super versatile they can do lots of different things and it's funny because people are always like i need a special jig to do abc quite often you don't you can use this you can put it that end of paint on this end you can clamp on you can put a bit of wood you can saw through it you can attach miter gauges and stuff to it to go on different angles and um i think it's just a really really handy thing to have so there it is that is my shed thank you very much for having a look everybody i hope you enjoyed this video and i hope everybody that's in lockdown in different states is kind of doing okay and uh next episode we will be back to our usual programming back to the mighty carmod shed but um there it is that is my shed that's where i like to hang uh thank you very much for watching i'd like to say thank you to marty also for taking a tour of his shed and also for filming this video and letting me talk and tell you all my stories and i would love to hear about your shed and particularly if you've got any mad points about your shed because a lot of the ways that i've learned how to set this up have come from watching other videos and comments so if you've got any comments about awesome workshop tips whether it's about lighting extraction tools storage organization please let us know in the comments and hopefully we get a bit of a compendium in fact what we might do is get all the best stuff and turn it into a blog post of some awesome shed tips so please put some tips down below and of course um the coupon code for you for the next week is going to be shed when you type that in you're going to get some i don't know what you're going to get but you'll get something so we'll work it out by the time you see this video it will be working and we'll leave that on there for a week or so thank you very much everybody thanks for watching the show and uh back to cars what have we got car wise next time martin or oh it's not a i mean it is a car but it's a it's a vehicle no it's a car isn't it there's some stuff happening and it's turbo it's good all right i'm totally stealing this hiya all right bye thanks everyone byehey it's moog here from mightycarmods and welcome to my shed dreams so when i'm not at the mighty cardboard shed with marty working on cars i'm usually hanging out here which is my own shed but i do not do any car stuff here i do um lots of other stuff which i will run through with you starting off at the construction this here is a about six and a half meters by three in a bit it's about 20 square meters all up and uh i've fully insulated it as well so it's insulated walls ceiling and the way that i've actually lined it is i've lined the whole thing with plywood because that means that you can mount stuff easily sometimes you know people do gyprock or whatever inside sheds but then you're carrying wood around and you can bump holes in it and stuff like that so i've done that and then i just gave the whole thing a bit of a white wash which was just white paint mixed with water because otherwise it felt like you were in a coffin but having your walls like this is awesome because if you want to mount something you literally just choose where you want to go and you just go bang and you mount it and it's done which is really cool so a friend of mine came and helped with the electrical so we got lots of light up here and we've got lots of power points that are all um at the bench height and i'll go through them shortly heaps of power there lots of storage underneath and all the power is actually running from a big solar array so there's around 10 kilowatts of solar and running a battery system as well so at night time this place is running off batteries which i think is really cool so during the day the sun is pumping the solar uh on top and that is charging all my ryobi batteries over here and so everything i'm making is kind of in that way i don't know if you call it carbon neutral but it means that all my projects are powered by the sun which i think is really cool so let me run you through the workshop the shed i'll show you how it's set up and hopefully give you some tips on how you can set up a mad shed for yourself at home as well so around 15 years ago is when i set up my first shed with maddie so this was a couple of years before we even started mighty cards at that time we were either working at a high school or working in a studio i think and this here was my very first bench now my shed was around two meters long and it was around 70 centimeters deep so basically this bench took up the whole space so i had this bench i had some pegboard above it with some basic tools and then i would be standing outside so you'd kind of open the doors these sliding doors it was just one of those cheap ones that you kind of rivet together so you'd open the doors and then the shed just had this mention and so since then there's been an evolution i went from there to kind of a bit of a garden shed and then eventually got a little bit more space for this and this kind of houses all the different things that i need to do now when you're setting up a shed at home the first thing you kind of want to work out is what the purpose of your shed is so i don't have any gardening stuff in here other than kind of a chainsaw or whatever but like whippersnippers mowers and all that stuff is in a separate gardening shed this here is a maker space now the way that i've oriented the benches is i've oriented them in the direction that the shed flows and what i mean by that is if you're carrying in a big bit of wood basically you don't want to be getting your wood and loading it in here and then kind of having to turn it around to go on a bench the other end so i can just come straight through the door put it on the bench and that's ready to go particularly if i've got to use a miter saw or something i can drop that up here it's already in the direction that everything needs to go so that's just kind of a basic ergonomics thing and what i'd also say about making your shed comfortable is that in here i've got um wi-fi there's air conditioning so there's good internet there's good music there's good sound i think if you're going to spend some time in your shed you may as well make it comfortable and it's one of the controversial things that again well before mightycon was marty and i were working for a magazine writing articles about setting up recording studios and people would often ask us like what's the most important bit of kit like what is the most important thing in a recording studio and we wrote a big feature article about that and our answer was a really good chair like a really good studio chair because if you're going to be sitting in it for 8 9 10 16 18 hours a day which we often were sometimes got to sleep in the studio in your chair in a sleeping bag we wanted it to be really comfortable so likewise i want my shed to be really comfortable i want it to be a good space i want it to be laid out ergonomically i want to be able to find everything where uh where and when i need it so here is my very first workbench that i had it's got a drill press on it underneath there's some storage of just things like um there's gaffer tape there's masts and ppe super glue just random things like that down this end i've got a little vise it's mounted offset a little bit because of the way that this bench was constructed this is always locked and the keys are up here but this is just basically where more dangerous or chemical stuff goes so in here i've got my range of glues i've got all my paints i got all my oils there's the wd-40 no more gaps things like that so that all just goes boom in there um on top of that i've just got some concrete because a friend recently asked me to make them a circular fire pit base out of concrete and so that was made actually using uh garden edging so works for um works for body kits and it works for molding all sorts of cool things out of concrete and then using some of these like some tie downs so anyway next up i've got my lathe so i've just started getting into doing some you know turning of wood making bowls and things like that and actually it was a mighty car mods fan that inspired that because i was at some markets recently but there was a mighty carmods fan there who just started doing some wood turning and um and i said to him you know how's it um how's it all going and it was a market store he'd been there for five hours and he hadn't sold anything yet and so i i bought something from him and we've got that at mightycar mods and when we get in there and we put our keys in there and i thought this is really cool so i kind of got into that so that's there down here i've got a drop saw i've got a thicknesser i've been using those for years and years and years and then a couple of years ago got a bigger compound miter saw this shed by the way i said at the very start of the video you've got to work out where your sheds for my shed is set up for home maintenance diy experimentation a bit of electrical stuff so there's no car stuff going on here there's no welding going on here it's just wood and fixing so pretty much i have friends that are asking me to make them tables so like outdoor tables outdoor furniture i have friends that ask me to help them make decks to make screens to make dining tables inside sometimes i get people who are saying to me you know like my great grandfather made this toy and now my other kid wants another one can you replicate it so sometimes i'm getting something and pulling it apart and trying to make something else these bench tops here these are just from the hardware store this is just you can buy these as a panel they cost like 70 bucks i've made up these frames here for them to sit on actually we've got a video on our second channel on mcmtv2 which is how to make these workbenches really simple really cheap really easy you don't even need power tools you can do them by hand but obviously power tools makes it a little bit easier um and the evolution of this shed is that it started with one bench then started with two then started with some more and then my kind of little pista resistance is this here so i've made this big bench this is made out of tasmanian oak really proud of this it's a really beautiful bench it's just a nice tactile place to come and work and it also has a stop on the back of it and i think this is one of those simple things when you're setting up a shed you don't want there to be gaps behind because otherwise you're working on things and you're losing stuff all the time so these here are all bolted to the walls and this here has a stopping plate on it so that if you're kind of working on something that is up against the back here you can kind of give it a good hit to kind of hit things in so moving into the tools i've kind of got this laid out those of you who are a little bit handy out there might see that it's starting from measuring then it's getting to cutting then it's getting to assembling and then it's getting to finalizing assembling and fixing and then it's getting over to the tools over there which i'll get to shortly so over here i've just got my whiteboard which is where you write all your notes you need a whiteboard or a blackboard or you need something just to write all your notes and stuff on mightycon was cable ties gloves first aid kit got my music up here over here i've just got all my screws and i've laid them out in a kind of an order where they start from small and go to larger so these are starting at 20 mil and going up to 100 mil and then there's different gauges because i just want to be able to go you know what i need a 40 mil 8g and so you go cool 1 2 3 4 there's the 40 mil there they are and these here are just the packets they come in and some people say oh they always fall down do i stick them on you can or another little trick is you just hold them up tip all your screws down and then when your clothes back in it's now held in place just a cool little tip i've also got lots of um lots of just little random bolts and stuff like that nothing like marty's bowerbird selection that we have down at car mods because his collection of stuff is very very impressive but for the basic stuff i've got to do fixes and repairs and things you know i've got that and then over here these are my grandfathers i've just got a selection of tins um that have just got lots of nails and different bits and pieces in them and um they're just again they're really cool because they're old so over here we're going to marking and measuring over here we got speed squares set squares saws tapes a lot of people they kind of go i'm going to buy a tape the thing is you always need lots of them and the reason that you need lots of them is because sometimes i do lots of my work outside because i have my gear so it's portable you want to take it outside you're measuring something out there then you want to measure something else in here and why i've got doubles of things you might see that we've got kind of two of these and two of these is because ideally you want your mates to come and hang with you as well and so particularly with ppe you don't want to be arguing about you know who gets at the person on the drop saw or the person on the router and so i try and double up with all of that stuff so as we move along you've got a variety of different saws you know everything from cutting gyprock which they call drive drywall i think they call it in america but that's a weird term then hacksaws here is for cutting off little um pieces of dowel so if you're kind of doing hidden joints and stuff like that then that's a really beautiful saw for cutting those off and then just your standard kind of saws for cutting bits and pieces pens and pencils with a little box that i made i'll show you how i made that shortly a variety of different hammers you need lots of hammers i don't have as many hammers as marty not that it's a competition about who has the most hammers or whose hammer is the biggest because it really is about how you hit the nail in with it up here probably my two most used tools um is my ryobi drill and rohby driver they've always got batteries on them they're always right there they're hanging there like gunslings because you just pick them up boom you're ready to go you're drilling holes with this you're driving in that i have had those for years and years and years and you can tell they're getting pretty hammered but they both are still working and they're both going strong so i got them a variety of different spanners and things that are supplemented with some other ones this is just the stuff that i want to be able to get to kind of regularly and easily a bunch of screwdrivers again more ppe i want it close i want to be able to grab it when i need it hence why i've got goggles here if i'm doing some routing or something and then i've got my gloves over here and then wd-40 because you always need it and i'm really proud of this because you know wd-40 is um has been a brand that everybody's known for years and years and years and we're really proud to become part of the wd-40 lineage with the mighty carmods can and i feel really really proud of that i think that's really cool because it's just i don't know it's us on a can and it's awesome so i like that over here again there's some more protective gear and this is the ryobi wall now what's probably funny is somebody's probably looking at this right now and going he must be sponsored by ryobi and i am but there is not one thing on this wall that is a sponsored product so everything here i owned either before our sponsorship or i have purchased it there is nothing here actually maybe maybe the workshop blower i think that might be the let me sit that right there there is nothing on this wall that has been a sponsored item because i owned all of this stuff first and that's the interesting thing we often get people saying i want to start a show or i'm a race car driver how do i get sponsorship the thing is if you genuinely really like a product and you've been using it for ages it's easy and i'll never forget i was actually in this shed when i was having a chat with someone for ryobi for the first time and i sent them a photo of this wall and they're like okay it's legit so i think if you're thinking of approaching a company whether they make underpants or chocolate or whatever it is if you actually use it and you legitimately use it then do what you need to do there's lots of tools up here this i use all the time circular saw nail gun's awesome um everything that i need to grab and just want to get quickly is right there the way this is set up is i want to really quickly be able to go i want to grab this i need a pencil i want to grab that and then just go and i want power right here and close to it as well now down here i've got some clamps i've got paper towel and probably my favorite tool in here ryobi vacuum i'm going to talk more about that soon because i've got a couple of favorite tools that i'll run through at the end of the video well i've got my big vacuum down there i've also got a smaller one that sits up here on top of the bench and that's just something that's really portable and easy to move around if i'm cleaning up things as i'm doing them in here uh an old australia post satchel and inside here i've got lots of rags and also the um mighty carmods microfiber cloths which you can get from the mighty cardboard's website and then just lots of cut-up stuff that's used for cleaning up spills applying oils things like that this is a tall pro tool case this is huge it's freaking massive why have i got this one when i know a lot of you are probably saying hey isn't there a mighty car mods toolbox i missed out i didn't get one they sold out so there was we have a special edition mighty carmods toolbox by tool pro and i let everyone know about it on facebook and uh marty and i were like hey go grab one and we even gave one away that we signed and then it was only a few days later or maybe a week later i was like i actually want one of them myself no i didn't get one of my own toolboxes uh unfortunately so maybe in the future i will that there is our mighty car was chopped uh chopped fingers their little toolbox things we might try and find a way to give you all one of them for free i reckon like um we're going to work out how to do it check the description i'm going to let you know how i can give you a toolbox one of them for free over here we've got clamps heaps of clamps because they're awesome up here we've got a mini cooper steering wheel from japan that we found i love japan i have a real affinity with japan and goats like two separate things um and hence why i've got some kind of transport signs and other stuff from japan that mighty and i've collected on our travels let's go through the toolbox quickly up the top we've just got some junk we've got more things that um you know cutting holes there's gloves there's cable ties you know money come on tape things like that uh moving down over here i got all my sanding stuff so from 40 grit up to 240 if you do need to stand in weird places you can also get a paint stirrer and you can get a glue gun and you can just glue a piece on there and that lets you get into weird places which is kind of cool so that's all my sandpaper over here is uh drill bits specifically and then the next one is um more drill bits drivers stuff for you know multi kits of things how to get through walls um this is my favorite tool here i'm going to show you them at the end i'm going to show you them at the end because that's just i love those things um down here i got my craig pockets uh pocket jig so this so craig is kind of like a tool that lets you attach things in a new kind of wacky way or a unique way but it's really quick really efficient i've got a torque wrench in there as well i know i don't do much car stuff in here but i do do like motorbike service and things like that so i do have you know basic tools for that stuff uh down in here i've got my um got my planes and i've got more roby stuff that i just don't need all the time in here so you know impact wrench another driver down in here i've got my um and you might have seen these on the main channel as well these are my ratcheting spanners ratcheting spanners are awesome and these here they're good value they're tall pro they're from super cheap auto they work i don't need them a lot in here compared to car stuff but when you do need to get to something and you want to make it easy like a ratcheting spanner is definitely the way to do it down here got stuff for attaching things to walls rivets staple gun um a few more tools in there bits and pieces this is my electrical stuff i've got a proper electrical kit that you've probably seen at mighty carmods but this is just the basic stuff for home heat shrink um a kit that's got kind of things for like disassembling computers and phones and stuff like that i don't use that heat because i'm usually breaking things more than i'm fixing them in here i've just got a fan which i use when i'm drying things um i've got a couple of these because they're really handy particularly when we're camping and then i've got arroyobi inflator which you've probably seen on the main show and then a big belt sander which i do when i'm kind of doing um big dining tables and stuff like that and they just kind of really need to eat into them i got that and now we're moving on to the most technologically advanced thing in the room um this here is my carvey and so this here is a basically a computer controlled carving device that can carve out of a variety of different materials and it's cool because it closes up so it keeps it fairly quiet and keeps it fairly fairly contained so in here you can make everything from things out of wood you can make bottle openers you can do all sorts of things that's a really cool online piece of software where you can design things up so whereas 3d printing is kind of additive construction that is subtractive so you're putting something in there and it's actually cutting it away so this space here is left because i bring my laptop in here and i've got all my cables again i want super efficient so i can just use those and up here is where i keep my stock it's got a working space of like 20 by 30 centimeters and then in here is all my carvey tools so i've got different bits in here you've got vernier calipers and then i've got all the different materials for it you know for making chopping boards or making designs or of course when you've got one of these things it's like having a ute and everybody asks you if they can use it or if they can borrow it so that kind of happens all the time down underneath i got my table saw i got you know some work benches and stuff and then i've got a bag which is always empty and this here is easy to grab because invariably what happens is i'll get a call and someone will go can i borrow your ute and can you make me a deck i've had to kind of learn the skills from watching youtube videos and stuff like that so you know it's it's been fun it's been a learning curve but it's always um measured twice cut once but i'm usually then cutting three times and then going to buy some more stuff when i make a mistake uh so that's that end of the room i'm going to show you a couple little things on this end of the room and then i'm going to show you my favorite tool so let's have a look down this end so any workshop one of the main things that you've got to manage is where you store all your supplies and stuff for this that's kind of mostly a fixing stuff around the house and a wood workshop the main things that i need are wood but because i don't have heaps of space i'm usually just buying it for the project that i need and i'm not storing lots of it i don't really want to fill the roof with like lots of storage but it is one way that people do kind of sticking it all up there but i like it having kind of open and feeling comfortable in here so i've just got a little storage area over here that's got kind of off cuts in it there's some short bits down there and then here's where i keep all of my dowel because i do lots of kind of hidden you know hidden joins and things like that and over here and i've got to do a shout out to colin furs because he inspired this and i was like this is freaking awesome this sanding station used to be sitting on this bench over here and it would just kind of blast all of its mess over here or sometimes i'd try and vacuum it outside but he has it mounted on a door like this and i was like that is such a good idea and i've got my blower here because what that means is is that i can open this and when this swings out i can actually be working outside so that whole thing can swing out and i can be doing my sanding outside and then just use that and blast it out i've also got power on the outside of this building as well because i'll take my mitre saws my sanders all those kinds of things and i'll do as much as i can outside and when i'm working outside i've just got a really simple little workbench that looks like this and i basically take that outside set that up clamp all my work pieces onto it and i can do all my work outside and it saves just kind of all a mess because most kind of professional or even really good amateur setups people have proper dust extraction systems i don't i've just got a shop vac which i connect to the equipment as i go which brings me to the last point i'm going to show you my three favorite tools that i have in here so number one uh is uh these chisels so these were my grandfather's chisels and um and he was awesome he passed away a couple of years ago but he was the biggest mighty carmods fan he was in his late 90s and he would contact me and he'd say i saw you on the telly or i saw you in the newspaper and you'd always ask really engaging questions and he never missed an episode and so um he left me these and so whenever i'm working on projects with these chisels i kind of feel like there's something really special so recently um i made a spice rack and i used his chisels and then i used all of his old nails and stuff to join it it was just a really nice way of kind of i don't know reliving the stuff that he went through and i think it's kind of very different times whereas now you can just buy tools and throw them away and he came from an era that you know he was um he was in the war and there was obviously lots of unemployment afterwards and he'd gone basically deaf and running machine guns and lots of his friends had died and and he would kind of go back into his shed and and he'd make stuff and i think that's something we're really lacking now that you kind of buy things and throw them away and regardless of what your skill or what your ability is i think there's something about going into a space that's your own space and making something even if it doesn't work out but just using your hands and making stuff that i think can be lacking and i think um yeah i think that's really important so when i use these it just kind of reminds me to keep keep things simple and so i love using those uh my next favorite tool uh here is this shop vac so this here i use this recently to run when i was installing some hardwood flooring for someone really powerful surprisingly quiet shopvacs are normally so loud so i had another one for years and it sounded like it just sounded like a tornado this is really quiet it's really powerful comes with lots of different settings yes ryobi is a sponsor of the show but no one has asked me to tell you this i'm telling you this because i'm very confident that if you got one of these you would go yes okay i agree that's freaking awesome and then the last thing i'm going to show you my favorite tool in this workshop and what i believe will be your favorite tool as well this is i think if you're going to have a shed at home regardless of whether you're doing cars whether you're doing wood whether you're fixing stuff this is the one tool that i think everybody needs stay right there and i'm going to show you because this here this is this is a game changer as far as i'm concerned are you ready everybody i don't know if you can buy these i think maybe you have to steal them i didn't steal it but anyway here it is the number one tool that you should have in your shed a milk crate i'm telling you this here is freaking awesome this is a painting stand this is a storage device this is a stool to get up to get on things this is something that you can put wood on and you can drill through one of these is just a super super handy thing to have they could just they're super versatile they can do lots of different things and it's funny because people are always like i need a special jig to do abc quite often you don't you can use this you can put it that end of paint on this end you can clamp on you can put a bit of wood you can saw through it you can attach miter gauges and stuff to it to go on different angles and um i think it's just a really really handy thing to have so there it is that is my shed thank you very much for having a look everybody i hope you enjoyed this video and i hope everybody that's in lockdown in different states is kind of doing okay and uh next episode we will be back to our usual programming back to the mighty carmod shed but um there it is that is my shed that's where i like to hang uh thank you very much for watching i'd like to say thank you to marty also for taking a tour of his shed and also for filming this video and letting me talk and tell you all my stories and i would love to hear about your shed and particularly if you've got any mad points about your shed because a lot of the ways that i've learned how to set this up have come from watching other videos and comments so if you've got any comments about awesome workshop tips whether it's about lighting extraction tools storage organization please let us know in the comments and hopefully we get a bit of a compendium in fact what we might do is get all the best stuff and turn it into a blog post of some awesome shed tips so please put some tips down below and of course um the coupon code for you for the next week is going to be shed when you type that in you're going to get some i don't know what you're going to get but you'll get something so we'll work it out by the time you see this video it will be working and we'll leave that on there for a week or so thank you very much everybody thanks for watching the show and uh back to cars what have we got car wise next time martin or oh it's not a i mean it is a car but it's a it's a vehicle no it's a car isn't it there's some stuff happening and it's turbo it's good all right i'm totally stealing this hiya all right bye thanks everyone bye\n"