# what's your pet hate in the shop?



## SCOTSMAN (Aug 1, 2008)

I can't stand anyone
(Bronwen is well warned so she's ok )
not to sneak up behind me and say something when I am working on a machine.I work mostly alone and one day when putting wood precariously through a saw very small piece of wood and a sixteen inch blade with 7.5 hp saw removing just a tad a mm or so,and discover someone is right behind me not intentionally to scare me but not thinking it through I soon tell whoever it is, to wait in the next room or outside til I have finished alldangerous machine work.Alistair


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## alba (Jul 31, 2010)

Alistair that is mine as well
I dont even mind clearing up after someone
I've often thought of locking the door but that
could be more dangerous if I had an accident.
Jamie


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

*what's your pet hate in the shop?*

Hmm, I'll have to ask my 'shop-cat' on that one… Seems like she likes everything about my shop, since she acts like she owns it and all… I am just the door man… *;-)*

Notice the *'shop-cat'* over-seeing my work (upper left):










On a serious note, this cat will stay on a 2×3ft throw rug where ever I place it in the shop, and then STAY there when I am using the machines. I can even change the rug locations on the fly, picking up the cat and rug and replacing them both on say the TS since I was switching machines, AND THE CAT STAYS PUT! It doesn't jump when I fire up any of the machines and just seems to know to stay put.


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## RonInOhio (Jul 23, 2010)

I'd wish my cat would stay where I want her to and not where she wants to. She is particular 
about where she perches. I bought her a nice comfortable pet bed and she won't go near it.


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## ToddJB (Jul 26, 2012)

Scotsman, mine too! The love of my life startled me once and I shoved an angle grinder with a cutting wheel on it into my thumb knuckle.

What was she saying? "You should really be wearing safety gloves" Ha. How ironic is that? Shame on both of us.


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

Pet hates it when I fire up a router.


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## longgone (May 5, 2009)

I tried letting my cat stay in the shop but he just would not wear the dust mask…


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## jonnybone (Jul 14, 2010)

Hey scots, I think your signature is gonna come in handy this one…

I tell all my animals, hate is a four letter word-

Although one my personal pet hates is when I look around the room and catch a nameplate that says Made in China. That's when i need a dog hug.

Oh yeah , I school the heck fire out of anyone who pulls a quiet entrance and makes my ass fall off. Make loud footsteps, walk into the back of the door, do something !


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## woodcox (Nov 21, 2012)

Finding the carcases/gifts left by my three cats strewn about the garage is on the top of my list. Next would have to be dealing with the snow melt off the wife's car.


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## Thalweg (Jan 27, 2009)

My pet labrador retriever hates it when she isn't getting the requisite amount of attention. She has little patience if I'm working on something and not paying attention to her. She's good for about 20 minutes, then she wants out.

My personal pet hate is visits from SWMBO, (the supervisor) for the daily critique, ie: when she explains how I'm doing something wrong. She knows because she saw it on HGTV once. HGTV needs to go away.


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## DKV (Jul 18, 2011)

I really hate it when my cat sneaks behind me and says, "Boo!". Did I just cover both options?


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## Puzzleman (May 4, 2010)

At my home shop, I wired up a red light bulb (100 watt) that anyone can turn on and off to get my attention. It is separate from the shop lighting. When it flashes, I see it and finish my operation or stop at a stopping point.

Came up with it after someone trapped me on the shoulder and put my thumb halfway through a band saw blade.


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## BrandonW (Apr 27, 2010)

The red light is an excellent idea. I'm sorry you had to cut your thumb before coming up with it, though.

My pet hate is when my cats pee in the sawdust. It's probably my fault for (1) putting their litter box in the garage where I work, and (2) not sweeping the floor as often as I should. Still, it really pisses me off when they do that.


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## bondogaposis (Dec 18, 2011)

My pet peeve is the lack of space. I need a bigger shop.


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## Dal300 (Aug 4, 2011)

The damned kitties won't put any of the tools away or clean up after themselves… ever!

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.


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## woodworker59 (May 16, 2012)

obviously we have a misinterpretation of the question, some are answering the question as asked, what is your "pet" hate in the shop, which means what bothers you the most that someone else does.. 
others are telling us what their animals do in their shop… 
I believe you are asking what others do in your shop that bothers you the most???
I hate it when someone picks up one of my finely sharpened tools and starts poking at something with it.. or drops it on the floor.. (cause you know its gonna land sharp end first)...Its funny they never seem to cut themselves with it, just ruin the edge… thats mine.. Papa


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## mandatory66 (Jul 26, 2012)

Noise! (Buying & learning to use hand tools to quiet the shop) and Sanding.


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## whitebeast88 (May 27, 2012)

i am the same with someone coming up in the shop,especially when i'm running the ts.i worry my 5 year old will come out.i have to be careful and not get distracted.


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## BusterB (Nov 25, 2012)

Can see that having someone startle you when running machinery would rank pretty high…but mine is people using tools and not putting them back where they go. Nothing worse than spending 20 minutes looking for something. Barney the shop dog is the worlds worst about this….lol


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## mark88 (Jun 8, 2009)

i would have to say its when someone else helps themselves to using your tools, even if they put it back, it bothers me when they don't ask. And to top it off, when you find your tools that they used where they shouldn't be. My workshop is my sanctuary.


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## mark88 (Jun 8, 2009)

AH! buster you beat me to it lol


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## Momcanfixit (Sep 19, 2012)

Every year, my husband buys some bathing suit calendar, babes in bikinis, whatever. I don't take any huge moral offence to it, but I don't want the danged thing in the house, it's tasteless and crass.

So guess where it ended up? - in the place he thinks of as our garage, and I think of as my shop.
Annoys me every time I walk past it.

And before you wish you could trade your pet peeve for my problem, imagine working on your tools just below a calendar of guys in in thongs…..ick


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## BrandonW (Apr 27, 2010)

Sandra, you should just add a guys-in-thongs calendar to the garage, that'll show him.


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## paratrooper34 (Apr 27, 2010)

My biggest pet peeve is mess. I cannot stand it when my shop is messy. I put tools away right after using them. I sweep the floor a lot, them follow up with a vacuum if it is bad. I have a small shop so the mess can get out of hand quickly. Plus I think it is a safety issue.

And on the other part of the topic, my two shop cats keep me company and like to hang out with me in there. They are not big fans of the vacuum though.


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## carver (Nov 4, 2010)

I have trained myself to ALWAYS put EVERYTHING back where it BELONGS but havent' been able to teach other people how to do the same to my regret.


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## jeffski1 (Nov 29, 2008)

can't stand a messy shop,im not OCD but everything needs a spot in my shop…


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## runswithscissors (Nov 8, 2012)

I had a cat once who was fascinated with my job of chainsawing a tree into firewood. Every so often I'd have to pick the cat up and set him out of the way so he wouldn't get hurt. It was the neighbor's cat at the time, but he liked listening to the chain saw so much, he adopted us.


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## albachippie (Feb 2, 2010)

Interesting topic there Alistair!

I wouild have to agree with most of the above re being startled. My shop is small, and, for various reasons, most of my machining is done with my back to my door. My wife and 5 year old know the protocol, wait for the noise to stop before entering. But my 2 year old just doesn't get it yet! It does make me very aware of who is around.

I don't have pets!


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## mojapitt (Dec 31, 2011)

Wait till your labrador barks behind you when you think you're alone. Hope it wasn't recorded.


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## mojapitt (Dec 31, 2011)

Sandra, I am a conservative, I would throw the calender away and not mention a word. Put up a nice piece of wood instead!


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## FeralVermonter (Jan 1, 2013)

We don't have pets… we have critters. One of my biggest "pet" peeves is when the monster white skunk who lives in our neighborhood sneaks in under the garage door-I usually leave it open a foot or two for ventilation, and he won't come in while I'm in there, but if I forget to close it when I go in… At this point he's pretty chill with me, since he knows I'm not much of a threat, so I can-cautiously-get around in there, but it sure ain't comfortable.

Best trick I've found for dislodging a skunk burrowed between your toolboxes: great big industrial fan. Skunks like to burrow. Get enough air moving around, though, and he feels like he's out in the open. No muss, no fuss.

Then there's the invincible feral tomcat who sometimes takes up residence in the barn upstairs. I've tried literally everything I can to evict him. Started with the humane stuff, exhausted those possibilities-I'm no softy, but I do try to be humane when I can. Then I tried poison. He ate it, and, it seems, came back for seconds. Rabbit traps. He'd set 'em all off. Then poop on them. So then I took some glowing coals, put them in a cast iron pan, brought it up there, put that in another, bigger cast iron pan, and dumped about a pound of cayenne pepper in-instant brutal smokebomb. That got him out-that night. But the next night, when I still couldn't set foot in there, he was back. I have, several times, lost my mind and went through the barn swinging a bat… one such time, he jumped out and tried to bite through my boot! Locked the room off for a couple of months-he survived by eating the scraps of sheet metal roofing I had thoughtlessly left up there. Played loud music. He played his louder.

The bats, though… I was starting to like those little guys, before they went wherever they do for the winter.


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## JesseTutt (Aug 15, 2012)

My shop is an old garage with an added extension. To keep the price down I could not excavate down and put the extension's floor at the same level as the garage's (I would have to have poured a complete foundation if I wanted the extensions floor below ground level). So I have a foot high step in the middle of the shop. This is both a walking hazard as well as isolation for the heavy tools.


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## Canucksar (Jan 15, 2013)

my biggest problem is when the stone foundation leaks and i get a river running through.


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## Porchfish (Jun 20, 2011)

Well my nearest neighbor is 1 mile down the 'Ole dirt road, so if someone was able to enter the shop and interrupt my work, I would be startled for maybe a half second or so, but then I would be so pleased to see another interested soul, that I would probably spend the rest of the day boring the crap out of him/her telling them the story and or history of everything in my shop ! Peeve ? well OK, maybe my wife's unannounced visits to the shop when I am busy talking to a project or a piece of equipment that might be showing persistent signs of obstinacy ! The moment she breaks into this one way conversation to tell me the coffee is ready can be irritating…. for about a second or two, when the realization that she had been standing there long enough to witness the exchange between myself and my inanimate "antagonist"...then it is as funny to me, as it is to her ! (old guys can be fun to watch…so says me wife !) So shop distractions can be one artists bugaboo and another's godsend !


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## albachippie (Feb 2, 2010)

That's funny Porchfish! Made me laugh out loud!


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

The thing that bugs me the most is that I'm running out of room. I sent my wife to the hardware to get a building stretcher and she came back without one and looked more than a little mad. I guess I should have thought that one through a little more before I did it.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com


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## BritBoxmaker (Feb 1, 2010)

Sue has learnt to stand at the doorway, having knocked first!


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## woodsmithshop (Sep 10, 2008)

Scotsman, that is one of mine,

Mark, that one is probably the number 1, I had a contractor remodeling my kitchen once, one day I was at work, ( the wife was home) and the contractor went into my shop and used my TS, also he cut things that was not wood, without my permission, I do not allow anyone to use my tools or be in my shop without me being in there also. previously I had done all cutting on the saw for them.


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## SCOTSMAN (Aug 1, 2008)

Some great replies there and similar to mine to many of them.The red light is a great idea too.When someone sneaks up behind you it could be very dangerous seriously I love you guys keep up the good work. Alistair


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## DKV (Jul 18, 2011)

Apostrophe. Funny how those little ticks of the language work. You could say this post is doubly enjoyable because of it.


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## MrRon (Jul 9, 2009)

The weather. It's either too cold, too hot, too humid or a combination of the 3. I usually have no more than 2 months worth of perfect weather.


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## Momcanfixit (Sep 19, 2012)

Some good laughs over these posts.

Monte - I agree, the calendar should go. But I think it's sort of an assertion of cavemanishness (new word) on my husband's part. A cry of "she may own the tools, but she don't own ME!!" I have to cut him some slack in that department, he does get ribbed by some of the neighbours…

Vermonter - that's laugh out loud funny!


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## Dal300 (Aug 4, 2011)

Sandra…. Use the old WWII and Korean war method. A Black Felt Tipped Marker across the offending places, especially a little box across the eyes, LOL.

Redacted!


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## renners (Apr 9, 2010)

My pet hate is when my wife comes in in the middle of making a cut, routing or sanding something, to tell me "we've got no milk", which in actual fact means 'tea is more important than whatever you're doing so go out and get milk now'.


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## oldnovice (Mar 7, 2009)

I guess my pet peeve would be lack of room.
It seems that whatever is not supposed to be in the house is relegated to my shop/garage.


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## DonBroussard (Mar 27, 2012)

I made 13 5-board benches as Christmas presents out of an old family barn made out of cypress. My wife asked me to make them for her first cousins who used to play in the barn so they would have a souvenir of their grandfather. I set up my production schedule to cut all the boards to length (13 bench tops, 13 boards to rip for aprons, and 26 legs), ripped boards into aprons, and then cut the small side pieces and notched the bottoms on the 26 legs. After I cut out the material for the 13 benches and was just getting ready to begin assembly, my wife asked me if I could make just one more! Wish I had known that a few days before. Now I have to recreate all the setups again. I think I'll make two more just in case . . .


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## Tootles (Jul 21, 2011)

I'm with you oldnovice. My shed, which is my workshop, is the dumping ground for whatever is being pushed out of the house.


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## DMC1903 (Jan 11, 2012)

Our yellow lab loves the shopvac, she starts dancing and jumping when I crank up that noisy beast. 
She enjoys being vacuumed, it's funny to watch


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## runswithscissors (Nov 8, 2012)

Getting distracted, setting a part or tool down, and then not being able to remember where I put it.


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## FeralVermonter (Jan 1, 2013)

What I REALLY hate, is when I've just cleaned the shop all the way, nice clean clear benches all the way, and then I set something down… and I can only find it twenty minutes later, dead in the middle of my nice clean 18 sq. foot shop table…

Have yet to enjoy the experience of sneak-up-related-injuries in the shop, but it's happened plenty of times in the kitchen… Until one day I stabbed my teenaged dishwasher with my razor-sharp boning knife (TOTALLY accidentally, I swear on your momma's honor. Actually happened to me, when I was a teenaged dishwasher, which is a strange sorta karma).

He is, fortunately, a good sport and an understanding soul, and he apologized to me as much as I did to him. But here's the genius part: he then suggested that he tell everyone else on staff that I'd stabbed him on purpose. He's also a tough little bastard, so we just glued*/bandaged him up and he worked a double shift, blood seeping through his bandages every couple of hours, telling the story to everyone on shift… He had a lot of fun telling tall tales, and nobody ever snuck up on me again.

*Crazy glue. Seriously. That's what it was invented for. At least, that's what I tell my staff.


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## sixstring (Apr 4, 2012)

When I have guests and we are talking about projects or whatever, at least one person will always put their beer or drink down on top of my table saw. I pet peeve is when I comment on it and get the look back like I'm crazy or paranoid… At that point I kick them out of the shop.

Serious lack of respect.


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## MrRon (Jul 9, 2009)

Scotsman…........(a sixteen inch blade with 7.5 hp saw) 
What kind of saw do you have? That's a pretty big saw for woodworking. The only one that size I know of is the old Delta, Milwaukee radial arm saw. I had a chance to buy one, but couldn't see having one that big. The only places I've seen them was in lumber yards.


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## SCOTSMAN (Aug 1, 2008)

Yes I am reaLLy well pleased with this it takes from 12 to sixteen ionches and has a scoring blade with sliding table here it is info and all.Alistairp.s the second link is exactly my saw

http://www.wadkin.com/products/view/209

http://www.wadkin.com/uploads/files/Wadkin%20CP%20Panel%20Saws.pdf


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## BritBoxmaker (Feb 1, 2010)

As they say here in Devon, 'proper job'.


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## teejk (Jan 19, 2011)

note to Sandra…those calendars have to go! send me the address and I'll send the tubes with return pre-paid postage so I can dispose of them properly for you.


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## jonnybone (Jul 14, 2010)

Feralvermonter! You are a complete **shole for trying to poison a cat or swing a bat at one! I'd have you throw in jail for animal cruelty.


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## FeralVermonter (Jan 1, 2013)

Oy, vey… can't you recognize a tall tale when you hear one?

Did you believe that the cat played his music loud, too? And that he actually ate sheet metal roofing?

Now, I left name-calling behind in the schoolyard… but I will say that your response shows a profound absence of critical thought… Of course a sense of humor might have helped you interpret my post, but that might be out of reach for some. No: a mere moment's reflection should have sufficed, for any clear-thinking person, to reveal that the story shouldn't be taken seriously…

I do apologize, though, if I've offended your sensibilities. Don't know where you come from, but the tall tale is a fine old American tradition, still vital in the rural parts of our country. Offense was not my intention: a moment of humor was my only aim.


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