shop tour

[Silvan]

The corner with my lathe and the biggest part of my workbench disappeared for some reason. I don't have time to get it back.

This is a really seriously crappy little web page I slapped together as quickly as possible. It's not meant to be an introduction for those of you who haven't been following the fabled termite-infested slice of heaven I call my shop, but rather it's supposed to put pictures behind a few things I've been yammering about recently.

You should have seen it before I put 30 hours into cleaning it up. I have no before pictures because I don't want anyone to know how bad I had let it get. I also omitted the shot of my son the first time he saw the new shop. He looked quite genuinely flabbergasted to see what Daddy had been up to for the last couple weeks worth of shop time.

may do a better tour going bit by bit, or I may not. I figure who cares, really. Anyway, this is a good taste of what I've done with 10x12. I think I could get a better perspective on how it all fits together with a wider angle lens, but the digital camera won't zoom back closer than the equivalent of 50 mm.

[skeezics]

now ya went and done it!!! looks like you are using the space available well. think you might come by and arrange my mess????? btw.. hows the missus comin along?

skeez

[Silvan]

For $50,000, sure. :)

Goin' back to work next week, though still three more weeks before she gets the last of the tubes out.

[Mark Jerde]

I like your plane stand. Like many things in my home & shop it appears to be something someone decided he or she could live without and you gave it the opportunity to live out its golden years in useful service. ;-) I have three nice used desks in the house. Total investment -- $15.00 -- for one. The other two were free for the hauling. Heck, if I was a billionaire I'd still be looking at people's trash as I drove by to see if there wasn't something I could use. ;-)

-- Mark

[Robatoy]

[snipperectomy]. Heck, if I was a billionaire

One morning, on 'Heavy Items Day', I saw a 7-foot stainless chemistry-lab countertop with integral sink. Must have come from a school. No dents, finished all around. It polished up like a new one.

I think it is time for a thread....I hope it gets some legs.. What is the best thing you have ever found in somebody else's trash?

You'd never find anything out at the garbage in front of my house. I keep everything. Ask my wife.. she'll tell ya.

A WW2 vet who lived next to my partents' house kept all of his AA, C and D dead batteries. "One day, somebody going to invent a charger for these" He'd only throw them out if they started leaking.

[Larry Jaques]

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 19:42:38 -0500, the inscrutable Silvan spake:

"Daddy, where'd all the STUFF go?!?"

Hey, the next time you go out there, see if you have any spare WHITE paint. Paint the walls and watch the shop come to life and double the worth of your existing lighting.

[skeezics]

hmmmmm..... wonder if i could ship the shop to china for cleaning. labor is much cheaper but the shipping may kill the deal! lol.. well traveling to work today is pretty much out of the question so maybe i'll clean the shop as well. grrrrr..... hate cleanig!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KEWL!!!! glad to hear she's doin better.

skeez

[mac davis]

Cleaning the shop just to get it clean sucks...

However, if you're about to start a new project, especially if the project includes buying a new, space eating tool, then cleaning isn't bad at all.. hell, it isn't cleaning, then.. it's making room for a tool and sort of fun..

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

[skeezics]

yeh but!!! im dreaming of a new 20" planer but i gotta wait and see what the tax man says first. i am having a hard time deciding what write off er i mean tools to get next. cant think of much else i need. what a predicament to be in huh? guess this will be the year of upgrading! hehehehe.... guess ill be cleaning just to clean this time.

skeez

[patrick conroy]

Ah! Shop Sweet Shop!

Most of us care! :)

[Silvan]

Used to be a microwave cart or something. I have another one of those in the back corner with my drill press stuff on it.

Here, I've thrown out some new stuff. Whee.

Um.

think.

Anyway, I'm definitely a bottom feeder like you. :)

I love my $5 desk. Or I did until SWMBO put a computer on it. It's as big as a battleship, but now it's covered with a computer, and it's impossible to use all 14 acres of space for anything, owing to the need to locate the computer chair and input devices smack in the middle of the thing. Sigh.

[Silvan]

Or if you're cleaning because you're tired of moving the same pile of stuff around among different horizontal surfaces. Move it off the workbench to chisel something, then move it off the TS to cut something, then move it off the DP to drill something, then move it off the TS to cut something... :)

You really should have seen before pictures of that thing. It had gotten really bad. Like, can't walk more than 2.75" without tripping over something bad.

Not a lot of junk or trash though. I barely threw away one bag of assorted shavings, trimmings and useless scraps. It just needed places made for good stuff.

I did good today. I chiseled some stuff and I actually put all my tools back where they came from and brushed off the workbench. Wow. Amazing concept, ain't it?

It won't last. :)

[Silvan]

I've been contemplating that for years. Problem is there's fourteen cubic tons of dust on everything, and nails sticking out everywhere, and various weird edges and stuff. Painting it will be hell on whatever I paint it with, and hell on the brushes too.

I need to paint it with some of Dad's energy reflective coating stuff. It's so white it makes regular "ultra bright" white paint look like a dingy gray by comparison. It's $40 a gallon though. Urk. That's really why I haven't painted it. He wants me to use *his* stuff, see, nudge nudge, poke poke, why aren't you using my paint son?

Uh, because it's $200 a bucket Pop. Duh. And I only need, like, 1/10 of a bucket to do the job.

[Mark & Juanita]

Keep it up, you may find out you like it that way. Especially with a small shop, the less cluttered you keep it, the easier it is to get things done. As you noted, the key is finding good storage for everything. The shop at my former residence was a lot smaller than what I have now, it really forced me to be very efficient in storage and meticulous about housekeeping.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 00:21:07 -0500, the inscrutable Silvan spake:

Can you say "airless" or "HVLP". I thought you could. Even a $16 HF utility spraygun would work. I'm going to use one on my ceiling the next time it needs it if I don't buy a little 600cc HVLP gun first.

10x25' clear or black plastic sheeting is $4 most places. Mask and shoot.

You don't want a glossy or too-reflective surface. It gets nasty on bright, sunny days. Reflection is a no-no.

"'Cuz the $5/gal whitewash works just as well for a shop, Dad, but if you supply the good stuff, I'd be happy to use it. Bring some over and you can help me. Y'know, a male bonding thingamajig."

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[Silvan]

[Silvan]

I don't have anything to power a spray gun. I haven't actually looked at HVLP stuff, but I have the sense that it's a lot more spendy than it's worth for this application. I'm not interested in spraying anything else in particular. I don't, as a rule, like spraying.

There is no sun. No windows. I don't open the doors because there's a lot of traffic on my street now, and I don't like advertising.

I'm still waiting for that free paint. :) It's a bit of a double-edged thing though. If I use cheap whitewash, it's tantamount to treason, and my parents *do* keep my kids for free, which saves me $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. If we had to pay for daycare, my wife would have to quit her job because it would no longer be profitable for her to work just to pay the daycare expenses. That would put a real cramp in the ol' shop budget. So it really is a bit of a thorny problem.

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 03:33:07 -0500, the inscrutable Silvan spake:

No compressor? That sucks. So rent/borrow a small one, perhaps your dad. You'll get a couple coats on everything in a day.

No, but lighting can bounce, too, especially task lamps. Glossy paint has no place in the shop, at least not mine. The foil-coated pieces of insulating foam I stuck to the recesses of the door (frame and panel) are beginning to get on my nerves, and they're on the south side, away from sunlight.

I feel the same way, though there's not a whole lot of traffic on my dead-end street. I've opened my gar^H^H^Hshop door twice since I've lived here. Once to move in, the other to fix and adjust the springs so it COULD open.

It shouldn't be now. Why not bemoan the medical bills to the old man and say you can't even afford to buy whitewash, let alone his diamond plated schtuffs. Uh, you might rephrase that just a touch, though.

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[bridger]

so give it a good coat of white primer. then tell him about where on the side of the can it says to apply the topcoat within 4 days....

[LRod]

Well, it doesn't blow. You meant to say that, right?

- - LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999