Shop Tour

Here's a few photos I took tonight. It's a mess because I didn't arrange a single thing. I just went in a started snapping away. Sometimes it's cleaner, sometimes it's even less organized. 

The floor is snap together foam pieces so it's forgiving on any tools I drop. I've also thrown some carpet remnants in there too. The cabinets are the result of years of patient deal hunting. This is tough to do when you are anxious to get a shop started, but if you can wait there are fantastic deals to be had. I've probably got somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 in the cabinets and countertop.

The first picture is most of my shop. The countertop straight ahead is where I do my painting. To the right is the carving and grinding areas. On the left is a counter where I work with my patterns.

 

There's an area even further to the right that I keep my bandsaw, drillpress, workbench and sanders. The wood duck is sitting on a downdraft table I built for grinding. It's hooked up to a dust collector to pull dust down and I've got a fan with a filter running right in front of it to capture what the downdraft table misses. 

This spindle sander here is really handy for keels. I keep pre-cut chunks of cedar and head-stock underneath it. That and the downdraft tables were clothing display cabinets from a department store than went out of business. 

Here is one of the coolest and handiest things I've ever built in my life. I got the idea from Gary Hanson. It's a roll of freezer paper in the back and it's sandwiched between two magnets in the front. When I'm done painting, I just tear off the section with dried paint on it and I have a fresh palette to work with.

 

Here's the carving area of my shop. If I'm not grinding, I'm sitting here using knives and chisels.

 

Here's some shelves to the left of my painting area. I've got a file cabinet where I keep patterns and reference pictures. 

Finally, here's the "backshop" area where I've got the unsung heros of the workshop. my planer, jointer and dust collector.