Wood WORKING...

[ian maybury]

Just getting back into a making phase and starting my bench after a couple of weeks of design and dealing with admin and unrelated stuff. The thought struck that we tend to talk a lot about the 'WOOD' or the aspirational and technical parts, but less about the 'WORKING'.

Which is fine, but really masks the reality of the grind of days, weeks and months of work. I've been building up my WORKshop (that word again - building re-layout, wiring, lighting, tool and equipment upgrading, dust system build, proper bench, new router table, machine alignment and set up etc) for over a year now, and have to say that it really has been quite some slog. It's easy to lose sight of the sort of commitment to labour we make when we start a project.

Maybe it's just that I'm in my late 50s, and that between past illness and age my energy isn't what it used to be (back in the day it was possible to crank up a head of steam, and then go maximum attack until the project was complete - these days i have to pace it a bit) - but it really does take some determination and commitment to get this sort of stuff done.

I guess I'm hoping that over time, and as the work shifts to making and develops a degree of repetitiveness that it'll become easier, but it's as well that the set initial up is at least nearing completion.

:) It does get easier I presume..... does it????????

ian

[Carl Beckett]

Well Ian, my experience I am sad to report is that it does NOT get easier.

I think it depends on what phase of life you are in. One of the woodworking equipment guys told me a large fraction of their sales were to guys that finally retired and wanted to set up an entire shop at once, to enjoy in retirement.

I feel lucky - I have young kids and a highly demanding job - yet I still get 'some' time for woodworking. Not nearly as much as a time when I didnt have kids or was single (although ironically, when single my shop time was less cause I was out doing other stuff....)

These days its limited shop time, which means being more efficient, organized, and patient to get something to completion. I have... at least three projects that have been in process over a year (but new ones came in and bumped priority). The other part of the priority is whether you want to spend time doing shop building as a project, or building projects in the shop. I go back and forth with this one.

And remember: You cant have too many projects 15% complete. ;)

[Don Jarvie]

Yes it will. Once your shop is set up the way you like it you will find it more enjoyable to be out there and working on projects and not the shop. I will say that just when you think your done your not. Ex, I made a workbench out of 2x4s because I needed a place to handplane wood and guess what, I want to make a better one know.

What I find works and this reinforces the never finished cycle is I will lay out tools in certain areas and use them for a while and then move them to a final spot. I need to live in the area for a while so I can see what works and what doesn't.

[ian maybury]

Thanks guys. sounds somewhat promising I guess. A bit of moral support is good, so thanks.

One of the issues right now which rings a few bells is the idea that the shop is a bit of a continuing evolution. Right now quite a lot of what I do is actually being driven by the specifics of what I need to get jobs done.

The logistics get complicated. I need to build up the panel support frame on the slider of my Hammer K3, but the shop is quite small and so I need to figure a way to store the stack of beech for the bench first which is occupying its space. So it's going to be a case of first cutting it to length, then stacking in smaller spaces in a sequence so that I can get at it to plane it up.

All good fun....

ian

[Brian Tymchak]

... the shop is quite small and so I need to figure a way to store the stack of beech for the bench first which is occupying its space. So it's going to be a case of first cutting it to length, then stacking in smaller spaces in a sequence so that I can get at it to plane it up.


That sure brings back memories.. of figuring out how to work around the 150 bf of 8/4 Ash that was to be my bench. The only place I had to store the lumber was where the bench was going to stand. I did the same thing as you mention, rough cut the boards to length helped shorten the pile some and then I ended up restacking the pile many times as I would pull pieces to mill. One thing that helped me was to build saw horses over the pile the same height as the table saw. Once I got the tops done, I used those on the saw horses for a work surface to build/assemble the base pieces. Ripping, jointing, planing 9' boards in a small shop took so much longer than I had initially figured it would because I had to figure out the logistics of every cut, actually rehearsing the cut a few times with the wider and heavier boards.

That project took a long time, but it was well worth it.

[Jim Underwood]

I sure hope it gets easier. I've been planning to add a room for my cyclone and compressor for a couple of years. I have almost saved up enough money to buy materials... Once it's built, cyclone and ductwork and airlines installed, perhaps the shop won't be so hard to get organized...

[ian maybury]

It's possible Brian to get blind sided on space. Then eventually you make a creative move and it's like having a whole new area. Then you wonder how it took so long to see the option. There's times it really pays to really sit down and think stuff through.

I commandeered the solid fuel store next door to my roughly 3.4 x 5.2m garage shop Jim, but had to punch a doorway through the intervening masonry wall. So it's now an office, sharpening and filter room - and the store door has become a side entrance that saves opening a set of heavy timber doors into the garage all the time.

I was able to split the install of my DIY Pentz cyclone between it and the loft upstairs by allowing the cyclone to poke through a hole in the loft floor. That way the space the fan takes up is not in the office, and the noise is reduced too. The building mods, cyclone build, wiring, lights and ducting and filter cabinet install turned out to be quite some undertaking.

It's done now and working really well, but I sure can understand the motivation of the guys that decide they are going with all bought in stuff. In my own case the budget was tight, borrowing wasn't an option and I wanted to get the best machines I could possibly manage. (I ended up buying Hammer stuff)

There's lots of storage and stuff to be sorted - the bench is the last large scale set up job. I think you will really appreciate having a good dust system. I've gone from a Robland combo and a mobile 1kW bag filter, and have a proper floor sweep and so on. Catching most of the dust, and being able to whizz around to clean up really changed the way I work.

The other major revelation has been installing high intensity full shop fluorescent lighting, plus local task lighting. I'm just reaching the stage where I need a lot of light, and again it adds so much pleasure to working.

ian