Another fella and I were aguing the finer points of our messy shops earlier and I mentioned we needed a thread for people to show off what they have.
So here it is.
Post your messy, junked up, ill set up, poorly conceived workspace.
You won't get a prize for this, but once you get it all figured out and set up to your liking your reward will be coming back and seeing what you have changed.
Mine is slowly coming along. I couldn't see the floor this morning so I straightened up a little bit.
I'll start with a couple of pictures
I can post more later, I was just too worn out to get any from the opposite angle.
Let's see whatcha got, don't be afraid, no one will laugh, (snicker maybe… Guffaw, possibly… Cackle, most likely), but never would we laugh!
Take a look at Harry Pope's barrel shop or Einstein's office. All the grand masters work in a clutter ;-) BTW, I know a barrel maker whose shop is a total clutter. His barrels dominate the winner's circle in Schuetzen matches.
Ya got plenty of nice clamps on a good lookin' rack. And, we've seen your tall stool once before. Serves you nicely. Thus, even with a little clutter you sure perform beautiful work.
Topamax, I have watched the guys in Louisville making whiskey barrels. They never have a clean shop, but they always know where what they need is. I can wander for 15 minutes looking for one of 6 tape measures until I finally get out my antique folding measure or go get some coffee.
I did clean up before freidadad came to visit the other day, otherwise there were enough plane shavings on the floor and little wood chunk cut-offs laying around from cleaning up edges of cutting boards that there was no floor to be seen.
By the way, my shop is our old Rec hall at the campground. It's all carpeted and what you see for flooring is the backside of the worlds ugliest formica. The stuff was called "Electric Cowboy" with all that entails. I taped it down with some $12/roll duct tape that has worked well for two years. Some spots I didn't have enough of it for so I used a heavy FEMA tarp and some 6 mil plastic to make a cover.
I've also found that with the crappy post and pier and mud sill foundations and ant infestations over the years, I can't even put one whole green oak log worth of slabs inside to dry.
Handtooler, those are all Harbor Freight clamps, I do have a few Bessy clamps and a few Jorgy, but the ones you see are all HF. Some of those are 20+ years old. (Wooden handles). If I could have gotten the picture from the other ende there are another 40 clamps on the end of my tall assembly table. I figured that if it took 3 HF clamps to do the job of 2 Jorgy clamps, and the Jorgy's were $20/ea but the HF clamps were $6/ea, I was way ahead to buy more of the HF clamps.
a messy shop shows somebody is working there. a clean shop shows a guy who is more interested in making it look nice, so he can find his stuff, and be neat and orderly. I clean mine whenever i get fed up walking around stuff.
There's something about horizontal surfaces in my shop that just attract clutter. Whether my workbench, my outfeed table, router table, or my table saw. It's hard keeping them clean. I was finally so fed up with it that I spent all of last Saturday cleaning it up, or else I would post a picture here.
yep my shop is a disaster area also, but sometimes I rearrange my junk and then I have a organized disaster area, its like windstorm instead of tornado, or flash flood instead of sunami
I know a shop can never be to large but now after looking at the photos I might be glad I'm limited in size , I have no choice but to keep it organized, sweep and picked up or I wouldn't be able to get around at all, actually as much as I hate to say it my workshop is cleaner then my house. LOL
Side note: Dallas I noticed we are close to being neighbors, I'm in south end of Austin, was up in Hutto several days ago picking up a downed Walnut tree (free) grins got some good wood out of that.
One other thing I failed to mention that I know for a fact, once you do a full-on attack on cleaning and organizing you'll find items that you've you been missing for ages and or had forgotten. Ah damn there it is
Dang. You guys are pigs. I joined that club a long time ago.
You know you have a messy shop when you take pictures of your projects in ways to eliminate all the clutter from the picture…and can't really take a picture for that reason. It's at that moment that I clean stuff up.
Rick..... Not fair! I vote you get suspended from the club for excessive neatness!
Blackie_....... Stop by up here sometime, the door's always open. Plus I'll be bringing down more tree's this summer.
We are right on Hwy 79, 1.698 miles south of the stop light in Franklin. LOL.
Rick, I'll bet you also have it completely inventoried and you have a chart/lists of where everything is located; and if you ever do take it out it goes right back in its place before another tool or jij comes out? You aren't a surgeon by trade are you?
Handtooler:* Not a doctor or surgeon, but you're almost correct in your assumption about the rest…..
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