Planeman's Workshop

I just found this web site today and it looks like fun.

I am a retired advertising executive who has been building stuff since I was eight (1948) beginning with gas model airplanes. I started my shop when I was about seventeen using the money from working on weekends and during the summer at a local hobby shop to buy a Sears table saw, drill press, and 6” Atlas metal lathe over the next two or three years. In my late twenties I was working as a sales representative for a large local printing company which put me in touch with the major advertising agencies in the Southeast. This led me to building special props for television commercials on the side in my basement which gave me some nice pocket money to buy tools without irritating my wife about my spending money. The money was used to purchase more machinery which led to the extensive shop I now have. One thing led to another and I ended up building artwork and decorative details for large hotels being designed and built by a local architect by the name of John Portman. I also was commissioned to build custom furniture for his home which has many curved walls. All of this was done as a sideline in my basement shop.

Now with my retirement I have a lot of time to spend in the basement shop doing what I want. A short while ago I found some really nice solid oak commercial laboratory floor and wall cabinets that were being removed from a local high school chemistry lab – the school was being closed – and I bought the entire room of lab cabinets. I am now in the process of rebuilding and remodeling my shop using the cabinets. I am refinishing all of the cabinets using a belt sander to remove “Harry was here” and “School sucks!” and the like. I started this past January and it is now August and I am still only about 2/3 finished even though I work almost every day at it. I figure it will be around the end of the year when I get everything like I want it. A photo of where I stand on the shop rebuild was taken a couple of weeks ago and is posted here. The tools and cabinets are not in their final place, just shoved aside for room, and there are a lot more tools than the allowed six photos show.

-- Always remember half of the people in this country are below average.