Tom Watson wrote:

The shop is a tool.

Alright you smug *******, it worked.

One corner has always just been a collection point for odd cutoffs and
sawdust, plus random bits of junk.

One of the largest sources of general clutter was my assortment of random
bits of various types of wood and metal. I had four boxes of small pine
boards and a 3' high stack of 3'x6"x1/2" 11-ply hardwood plywood (birch?)
bits that were eating up all my shelf space under the cabinet.

So I pulled all the crap out of the wasted corner, vacuumed up all the
sawdust, plastic dust, metal fragments (the horizontal bandsaw is over
there, and due to its requirement to be a certain distance from the back
wall in order to be useful, it makes that corner hard to do anything with),
cobwebs and carpenter ant ****, then put a big TV box in the corner. I
assembled all my various bits of scrap and tossed all the wood into the
box. All the metal (angle iron, bar stock, various bits of pipe and
fittings) went into a big drawer under my work bench.

Then I moved to the tool cabinet, which was a mess. I had two empty
toolboxes and a couple of little tote tray things full of junk, plus a
stack of shingles, some odd windchime chimes, a digital timer, a soldering
iron, some sanding belts and sundry other things under there. A can of
Bondo had opened and dumped part of its contents on some of the junk in one
of the tote things.

That one went in the trash, junk and all, except for the 100' dog chain I'm
keeping for some reason. Everything else got pulled out, gone though, and
sorted into piles. Since I had freed up shelf space by moving the boxes of
wood, I put most of my jigs onto the shelf, along with various other things
I can't quite remember. On the floor, I arranged the empty toolboxes to
take up less space, and put my socket set and a couple of other logical
things on top of the pile of shingles.

I left the treadmill belt sander where it was, against the back wall, but I
put a roll of vinyl flooring and various metal rods and assorted rocket
launching accoutrements behind it to better use the space. (I have a real
belt sander now, but I'm keeping the thing because I will surely find a use
for the motor and rollers some day.)

I moved to the cheapo shelf thing that holds my bench grinder. Pulled all
my drill press jigs and sundry bits out, vacuumed, dusted, and organized.
All the various wrenches for various tools went into the tray from one of
the toolboxes. All my windchime making jigs, drill press vises, fences,
and other attachments went onto one of the shelves. My Forstner bits and
my good wire drills went on top, since I almost never use the bench
grinder, and that keeps them close to the drill press.

Next I vacuumed all the shavings off the drill press and its base, waxed up
the column, quill, chuck, and table. Then I moved on to the workbench,
tossing wood scraps into the wood scrap box, metal scraps into the metal
scrap box, leaving my tape measure, marking pencils, and the components of
the project I'm working on on the main area of the workbench, with my bar
and angle iron stock neatly arranged toward the back.

I went through my little drawers and consolidated them, then I dumped
several boxes of nails and screws into drawers, arranged my soldering stuff
on top of the thing, and drilled some holes in one of the studs to make
places to stick my center punch and a couple of oddball drill bits. I made
a home for my de-barking (walking sticks) butcher knife, a container full
of pop rivets, my safety glasses, ear protectors, and bow saw. Then I put
my various ball pein and claw hammers back on the pegboard, put my tin
snips, high tension hack saw and a couple of crescent wrenches back up.
There are still some empty pegs because my box end wrench set has gone
missing, and I no longer remember what was supposed to go on some of the
others.

Then I moved on to the laundry basket full of crap under the end of my work
bench. Worked through it, got all the shed stuff out to the new shed,
including the basket. I found ****loads of damage in that corner, so I
vacuumed up all the carpenter ant/termite ****, spider webs, spiders,
earwigs, and various dirt and dust, then I sprayed termite killer all over
that wall of the shed. (The people who built the thing did a bad job, and
it's going to rot and/or get eaten eventually. Nothing I can do but buy
time. Wood sitting on the ground is termite bait.)

Next I worked through the floor. Scraps to the appropriate scrap box, tools
in a pile. Some tools went to the cabinets, some to the pegboard above the
workbench, and my large collection of assorted random screwdrivers, knives,
pliers, and various other things from broken sets all went into one of the
tote things, under the workbench. All the miscellaneous bits of salvaged
hardware, left over hardware, and just generally potentially useful random
bits of crap went into the random bits of crap dishpan under the workbench.
My circular saw, two jigsaws, portable sander, and portable drill went onto
the shelf under the workbench. My heavy truck S-cam metal shaping doodad
went under the bench, and my small sledge hammer went onto the floor beside
one of the bench legs.

Then I vacuumed the workbench, scraped all the crud off my anvils (railroad
track and a small chunk of I-beam), scrubbed all the flux and solder and
lead crud from around my bench vise, and waxed the vise and anvils with
steel wool. I put the pop riveter, tenon marking doodad, rubber mallet and
sundry other things on the pegboard, then I went around everything with a
carpenter's pencil and drew outlines and wrote names on the wall.

Next I pulled out my router table and table saw, vacuumed under them,
sprayed termite killer, vacuumed out the corner, put my pipe clamps in
order, put my shop vac accessories in the corner, put the shop vac in the
corner, and vacuumed the rest of the floor. I decided to dump a lot of
random finishing nails, screws, and assorted other bits of useful but
difficult to pick up crap, and vacuumed until the floor was mostly clear of
debris.

Then I made places to hang my crucible (for pouring lead into Pinewood Derby
cars, mostly) my Coleman lantern, my roll of fishing line and rigged up a
way to hang my box fan.

Then I swept everything, and made a final pass, discovering that I still had
a flower pot and a set of mostly broken drill bits on the drill press
table. I found homes for all that stuff, then I put my bicycle back into
the shop, move the shop vac hose to the belt sander dust port, turned off
the lights, locked up the door and popped open a beer.

It took me ten hours to clean all that **** up. I hope you're happy!

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
Confirmed post number: 16430 Approximate word count: 1643000
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/