"It's Good To Be Inspired In The Workshop"

[Julie Moriarty]

I was watching this video showing some padded supports a man made for his B&D Workmate. He put a lot of time and thought into these two normally simple supports and as he explained all the detail he put into them, I was wondering, Why? Then about 1/2 way through, the author says, "It's good to be inspired in the workshop"

Then it made all the sense in the world.

[Von Bickley]

I will just keep on using my saw-horses.....

[Chris Padilla]

That is Marty Backe.

Sometimes I like to make my jigs nice and take a lot of time on them but it just depends on what I'm doing.

Most of my jigs are 'one-offs' and are only used for that project so they are slapped together with whatever scrap wood I have in my various buckets and cardboard boxes and then taken apart and tossed back in the boxes just in case I can use the scrap again. And my wife wonders why I have so much scrap laying around....

[Phil Stone]

I was watching this video showing some padded supports a man made for his B&D Workmate. He put a lot of time and thought into these two normally simple supports and as he explained all the detail he put into them, I was wondering, Why? Then about 1/2 way through, the author says, "It's good to be inspired in the workshop"

Then it made all the sense in the world.

It certainly feels good to create something, especially something of one’s own design. A tension I feel in my own approach to woodworking is one of creating tools vs. creating final products. I feel like I could spend forever making jigs and cool gadgets for woodworking (and I think ww magazines really encourage this). But this feels self-indulgent to me, ultimately. If I can’t turn out some interesting furniture, or objects to share with others, then what am I really accomplishing?

I tell myself: life is short. Your shop will never be perfect. Make some “stuff”, not just workbenches and jigs. The most amazing workbench is nothing if it isn’t used.

I’m not attacking this gentleman’s work; in fact, I applaud his creativity. It just brought to mind my own tendency to exert compulsive amounts of time and effort over the design of my “shop”.

[Peter Aeschliman]

It certainly feels good to create something, especially something of one’s own design. A tension I feel in my own approach to woodworking is one of creating tools vs. creating final products. I feel like I could spend forever making jigs and cool gadgets for woodworking (and I think ww magazines really encourage this). But this feels self-indulgent to me, ultimately. If I can’t turn out some interesting furniture, or objects to share with others, then what am I really accomplishing?

I tell myself: life is short. Your shop will never be perfect. Make some “stuff”, not just workbenches and jigs. The most amazing workbench is nothing if it isn’t used.

I’m not attacking this gentleman’s work; in fact, I applaud his creativity. It just brought to mind my own tendency to exert compulsive amounts of time and effort over the design of my “shop”.

Yeah, it's a balance. We read woodworking magazines and watch carefully produced woodworking videos showing pristine shops, with the nicest tools, not a spec of dust, everything stored neatly in its designated spot, and we can let that influence us into becoming almost obsessed about the shop itself rather than being obsessed over the furniture we make.

That said, I do like the central point- that it's good to be inspired in the shop. I've found that if I slow down, think about shop layout, save money and delay gratification to buy the nicer tool rather than the cheaper one, focus on that last bit of accuracy in your tool setup, etc, I do much better work and enjoy the process much more.

I'm in the midst of a build-out for a new woodshop in my basement. It's a big project and I'm spending tons of time on things I know I'll appreciate in the long run. But lately I've been getting discouraged by the scale of the project. When I have that thought, I force myself to think about the many years ahead of me, enjoying the fruits of my labor by working in a shop that looks and feels nice, is efficient, and is my space to escape from the stresses and frustrations of life. So a shop can mean more than just pumping out furniture.

I had a very freeing epiphany a few years ago about this hobby: all that matters is that I enjoy the process of what I'm doing. A hobby is about having fun. It's the area of your life where you get to be self-indulgent (within reason of course). That's where the therapeutic nature of it comes from. So if you enjoy making fancy-pants add ons to your work mate, then go for it! If it inspires you, who's to say you shouldn't do it?

It's a good reminder to be self-aware of your happiness and to ignore everyone else's standards of what it we should enjoy.

[Mike Heidrick]

Tagline!!!

[Ole Anderson]

I enjoyed that little video for several reasons. I like his nice soft voice and I like how well that lapel mic picks up that voice. I am somewhat into audio for video. Mostly I like it as it shows me that he cares about things in addition to the "higher" use of our shops which to many is making beautiful furniture for others. Personally I have no problem with those that enjoy making fine fixtures and jigs as much (if not more) than producing a complicated piece of furniture or other item to be taken out of the shop. I fall into that category. While I have done a few bigger pieces, a computer desk/hutch, two storage units, a mission bed, kitchen cabinets; I still remember making the router table between Christmas and New Years that I needed for that first big project. Every time I need that router table for a bigger project, I remember building it. I don't have anything big on my agenda at the moment, but I still sneak into the shop to do something as simple as a picture frame, or ripping a 2x4 for my son as he rehabs a house.

And then here something super simple I just did, but one that has a special meaning for me: 40 years ago my dad who was a surveyor, and I surveyed the lot I now live on. As part of that survey we drove a railroad spike into an 18" cottonwood tree to mark where the property line was between my house and the neighbors'. Last year we cut down that tree, now 42" in diameter. While grinding the stump, the operator presented me with a present: an old railroad spike that was buried far into the tree that the grinder spit out. I mounted it with hot glue to a simple piece of Hickory left over from my kitchen project. And just now I made the connection that when my dad died suddenly 26 years ago, he was in his kitchen.

[Julie Moriarty]

For years I did what needed to be done and usually walked out of the shop, leaving it a mess. I worked full time, had kids to raise and a house to maintain. The workshop was just a room where I fixed things or occasionally actually made things.

It probably took me a year after the kids moved out and I retired before I went back down to the shop and decide if I could create something. I didn't really feel inspired until I started making my first guitar. The hand work it required made me really appreciate woodworking.