Hey, Tom,

Do you have a website with pictures of your shop? I would love to get a
real view of how you organize everything. I think it would be instructive
to see in pictures what you've said in words here.

Mike

--

There are no stupid questions.
There are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.


"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
I was reading the most recent thread about messy shops. This is the
latest in a revered series of messy shop threads. Prolly the nastiest
one was started by O'Deen, when he had the balls to post a picture of
the MOAMS.

The shop is a tool. If you think of it as merely space in which to
store tools and do wooddorking, yer missing the boat.

It is a tool that you must either make or modify to suit your
purposes.

I'm fortunate in having my current shop because I was able to build it
to suit my purposes but I have worked in plenty of places where I had
to utilize the space that was given to me and make it work as best as
possible.

Tricking out a shop space and figuring out how to keep everything
available is kind of like living aboard a small boat. If you aren't
faithful in putting things away, pretty soon you won't be able to do
anything that you came there to do. Everything will become a
struggle.

The shop is a tool.

I had a buddy who made beautiful chairs. His shop looked like a ****
storm and he spent half his time looking for tools. Yet, he was a
fanatic about keeping his tools tuned up. His edges were always sharp
and his equipment was immaculately maintained. But he would lose his
sharp tools in the mess on the bench (another tool - not a horizontal
surface to pile crap on) and he would pile more tools on the equipment
when the bench piles were tottering.

I tried to tell him that the shop was a tool and that, if he thought
of it like he thought about his other tools, he could prolly get half
again as many chairs built in the same time. He would usually just
look around at his mess and say, "I can't find anything. Let's go get
a beer."

We pretty much know that what a saw is supposed to do and we pretty
much know what a plane is supposed to do. What's a shop supposed to
do?

I guess, at the most basic level, it's a place to work that's out of
the weather. We need to keep our work and our tools and equipment
safe from nature's desire to turn them into junk.

At a more interesting level, a shop is a tool that helps us to do our
work more efficiently.

If you begin thinking on an operational level, you'll need a place to
take in and store material, a place to do the basic sizing of the
material, a place to do joinery, a place to do assembly, a place to
sand and finish. These might all have to be the same physical space,
depending on your circumstances.

When I worked in a one car garage, I got into the habit of having all
of my "stationary tools" on rollers. Even though I now work in a
twelve hundred square foot shop, those tools are still on rollers so
that I can reconfigure the used floor space to suit the operation that
is being performed. The jointer, molder, bandsaw, shaper and boring
machine are kept in what I call "The Bullpen". The bullpen has wire
shelving screwed to the ceiling and that is where I hang doors and
panels during the finishing process. The tools come out of the
bullpen to do their work and then are moved to accommodate the
finishing process.

The chisels, planes, wrenches, etc. are stored in a roll around
Kennedy tool box and various wall hanging cabinets that are close to
the workbench (also on rollers) where they are likely to get used.

There are other wall hanging cabinets in the shop dedicated to router
and shaper stuff, sanding, pocket joinery and biscuit joinery, drills,
saws, etc.

There is a ten by ten area that is the spray booth and storage area
for finishing supplies.

There is a big roll around clamp storage rack that holds all of my
clamps.

There is another roll around that holds sheet goods.

I know, it kinda sounds like the Taj Mahal. When I was working in the
one car garage I used boxes to keep things together and one of my most
useful tools was a dolly to move the boxes around with (sometimes
things had to get moved out of the shop, especially when assembling
and finishing - but, because they were in boxes, according to purpose,
I was always able to find what I needed and, because I always worked
from design through finishing in an orderly manner, the space only had
to be reconfigured a limited number of times in order to get the
project done.)

The shop is a tool.

And it is entitled to the same thoughtful maintenance as our other
tools. Just like your Momma tried to teach you, "A place for
everything and everything in its place."

You wouldn't let yer plane sit around with a nick in it and you
wouldn't let yer tablesaw turn into a rust bucket.

Well, don't let the maintenance go on the biggest tool that you'll
ever own.

Clean the damned thing up and keep it that way.

Yer Momma would be proud.




Regards, Tom
Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker
Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania
http://users.snip.net/~tjwatson
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