the amish woodshop you asked for

[curtis rosche]

heres the pictures of the amish wood shop that i work at that so many of you have asked for.

1. the deisel that runs everything
2. the air compressor that runs when the deisel is
3. the huge compressor for when the air pressure gets low.
4. the hydraulic pumps that power the place
5. the main air tank for the shop. the weld mark you can see on the end of the tank is about six feet up
6. one of the smaller air tanks.
7. the deisel shanty and the back of the shop and the third air tank
8. the lines that run to the shop from the deisel

[curtis rosche]

table saw
the hose set up for all the tools, when you close the valve it forces the fluid through the motor instead of by passing.
sander
chop saw
bandsaw
shaper with feeder
hoses for shaper
dust collector

[curtis rosche]

our horizontal panelsaw and the set up. this thing uses a little low voltage from a battery to run the switches for it. this is the only thing that we use that has electricity and it cant be run with out it.

out multi drill
our onsrud pin router
and our pocket hole drill

[curtis rosche]

our panel sander and the hook up.
a closer shot of the dust bin
shots from both ends of the shop
one of the many old carts we use to stck wood on and move it around the shop, some are from tobacco as the barn used to be a tobacco shed, some are old freight cart.

[curtis rosche]

our show room and out top sellers, dvd rcks and veggie bins,
the veiw i have every day for lunch


i will elaborate more if needed, but right now i am running out of time and am very busy

[David Weaver]

Looks familiar. I know a couple of guys out near carlisle (amish) that have a similar shop setup, but their main tanks (brothers, two different shops) might be a bit smaller. Still, they have huge converted tanks to store air in like that.

IIRC, their diesels are around 60 horsepower. No shortage of power on anything in the shop.

You guys have dust collection? (because the guys I know would call dust collection a broom and a dustpan).

(EDIT: Looks like I see dust collection in the second picture. That's high class!!)

[curtis rosche]

the deisel is 110hp cummins turbo.
we shattered the paddles in the collector last week and had it welded back together

[Bobby O'Neal]

Very cool.

[Dan Hintz]

Curtis,

Maybe you mentioned it in an earlier thread and I missed it... how did you end up finding this job? Sounds like a lot of fun, though I'm not sure I could do it full time... would kind of take the fun out of the hobby.

[Bruce Page]

Curtis, thank you for the fascinating tour . Is the hydraulically powered machinery bought that way from the manufacture or is it basically converted on-site?

[curtis rosche]

i found this job because i spotted the dust collector from the road and decided to stop in lol

machines are bought both ways, new ones have electric motors on them, then are taken off and sold. used ones normally have the hydraulic aready on it, but most amish out here call a local company to do the plumbing. there are multiple companyss that specialize in the hydraulics for the amish.

[Charlie Reals]

Great tour Curtis and congratulations on being able to make a living doing something you like. Nice atmosphere to work in.
Charlie

[Tom Winship]

Thanks for sharing, Curtis. I went through some Amish shops up in northern Indiana a number of years ago. Nice people.
I guess what I've never understood is the part about electricity. They can use other forms of energy, so why the ban on electricity?

[Dan Hintz]

It's not a ban against electricity, it's living on the grid that's an issue.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Dan,

There are numerous Amish communities around the country. The Amish people around the small farming town my wife grew up in Illinois used electricity.....in the barn. The first time I saw this my FIL was driving, it was December and we were leaving a cousin's farm headed back to town. Here were 3 Amish school children walking from the house to the barn in their winter coats. I asked what was going on. My FIL explained that they had electricity in the barn and used kerosene lamps in the house. The kids found it easier to study by the electric lights in the barn. The Amish living conditions are set by the elders of the local church they attend. The Amish children in the area my wife lived attended local community schools. Even within that small community there were Amish with different life styles and dress habits..and there were Mennonites...and Apostolic Christians.........

[Lee Koepke]

Fabulous!

Its amazingly clean to!!! Several years ago we wandered through that section of PA, and its beautiful country. I tried to stop in a couple of woodworkers shops, but they werent open. I did get a few bottles of home-made rootbeer!

[curtis rosche]

The Amish only use electricity and things if it is important for their work. Our saw can't be set up in a waythat doesn't use electricity. The Amish farm across the street uses a farm tractor for some operations but only if they can't get by with pulling the implement with a horse. The only thing they use it for is seeding and pumping manure into the spreader. But then they use eight horses to pull the spreader. Some Amish "get away" with certain things because they slightly abuse the access they were granted by the elders to things like the tractor or small amounts of necessary electricity. But, in order for them to become a bishop or high up in the church them must get rid ofthose things. They find them waste full. They think air conditioning is horrible and a waste.

That being said, all the Amish around here have phones, cell phones too. And they have an electric pump that pumps their sewage to the drain field. (some of them run hidden wires off the pump).




Our shop is always that clean. We normally have more carts around though. Everything but the drill has good dust collection. We only clean once every two weeks.
I should add a picture of the air powered elevator we have for going between floors

[Steve Schlumpf]

Thanks for the photo tour Curtis! Looks like it would be a very interesting place to work!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Curtis......Tell your employers thanks for sharing their shop with us. I would love to see how those companies convert those motors from electric to hydraulic.

[Larry Edgerton]

Thanks!

I have always admired their ideas and way of life, but never applied any of it to my own life until this economic meltdown. I have been using the basic idea of only having what is usefull. I got rid of my cars, bikes and boats that were just not necessary, sold a commercial building that was not paying for itself, and am in the process of combining shop and home on one property. I still want to buy fun stuff, but I don't. I have cut 70% of my overhead, and life is indeed simpler.

Great place to work, I an envious.

Larry

[Greg Peterson]

Thanks for sharing Curtis. That is one of the more impressive work places I have seen.

[Bill Cunningham]

That compressor looks like an old two stage IngersolRand.. very easy to work on, re-polish the valves every so often and they will run forever..

[Brian Elfert]

Why not just run the tools on electricity produced by a generator off the diesel engine? That has got to be less expensive than replacing the motors with hydraulic and all the hoses required. A generator keeps them off the grid.

[glenn bradley]

Curtis, I finally got a chance to read through this thread. Fun stuff. thanks for taking the time and effort to post and describe the pics.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Brian....I just did an advanced search using "Amish" as the search word. It's amazing how often this topic comes up and....you asked a very similar question 4 years ago. In reading the thread, one gentleman replied that some churchs felt that giving in to using electricity for one thing...would lead it to being used for everything and their beliefs were against that. I do remember some years ago one member here is Amish and explained the reasoning behind the general ban on electricity.

I find it interesting that they manage to find ways to use different modes of powering their woodworking tools and yet they use the same tools we do.

John Hart, another Moderator, bought an Amish farm and IIRC....his shop has a drive shaft running the length of it with pulleys to belt drive tools and a diesel engine driving the shaft.

[Brian Elfert]

I forgot that I asked the question before. Obviously I didn't remember the answer. It seems like an expensive way to run a business, but I guess if your household expenses are low you don't need to make much money.

[curtis rosche]

brian, im not sure about this, since i dont pay the bills., but i think it is cheaper tham electricity if we are running all the tools at once, we used to have a 30 inch planer in here, but that got moved to their house to be used with the deihl panel saw we bought, but we would have the shaper and planer and sander going at once and the dust collector, i think its cheaper.
also, some days all we do is drill holes and use the chop saw and spray finish. all those things can be run off the air tanks and the engine wont have to be run for a day or two depending on how heavy we use the machines.


Ken,
they dont convert the motors them selves, they simply unbolt the electric motor, then bolt a hydraulic motor on, its the same hydraulic motors that are on skid-loaders and farm implements. just a higher rpm. if you look in this picture, you can see the motor all the way over to the left. its basically from the white connector on the shaft to the other side of the black bracket, only about 5 inches long, and about 3 across. it runs the saw at 3600 rpm i am led to believe, and it is a 3hp motor with enourmous torque.

all they do is bolt it on where it fits. some places they add shims or a new mounting bracket. if you look in the picture of the edge sander, the electric motor is still there, but it had the winding torn and the capacitor shattered. the motor had to be kept because the motor shaft is directly mounted to the drive wheel. so the hydraulic motor runs pulleys attatched to the other end of the shaft.

[Rod Sheridan]

Curtis, thanks for taking the photographs and posting them.

I had to chuckle at photo #1, looks like the engine silencer is near the wood floor above.........Keep a fire extinguisher handy................Rod.

[curtis rosche]

Rod, thats a concrete slab. poured ontop of wood forms, you can see the wood grainw hen you are up close, but it is solid concrete