My shop

I feel so inadequate after seeing that shop. I keep mine "relatively" clean, as in I vacuum up the chips frequently, so as not to track them upstairs into the house. (A VERY BIG NO-NO!) This is what it normally looks like. It is well lit, warm and dry.

almega said:

I feel so inadequate after seeing that shop. I keep mine "relatively" clean, as in I vacuum up the chips frequently, so as not to track them upstairs into the house. (A VERY BIG NO-NO!) This is what it normally looks like. It is well lit, warm and dry.

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Very nice workshop almega and beautiful machines. It seems that we have same milling machine, but yours seems to be equipped with CNC. Have you upgraded your mill by yourself, or bought it with the machine?

I too have only a portable shop-vac and I insert the hose every time to the machine I am using. Mainly to bandsaw and a scroll saw.

Welcome Moxis, I love your projects, especially the Bugatti.

Moxis said:

Very nice workshop almega and beautiful machines. It seems that we have same milling machine, but yours seems to be equipped with CNC. Have you upgraded your mill by yourself, or bought it with the machine?

I too have only a portable shop-vac and I insert the hose every time to the machine I am using. Mainly to bandsaw and a scroll saw.

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I don't have CNC on the mill, just a DRO, otherwise everything I have is manually operated. A lot of CNC equipment in my past, very precise and very efficient but I now enjoy the journey as much as the finished products made manually.

Jonathan Coates said:

Welcome Moxis, I love your projects, especially the Bugatti.

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Thanks Jonathan! It was a pleasure to build the Bugatti. To be able to do that I bought all the books describing the car that I could find. Also we visited Angoleume France where they race with these old cars, so it was possible to photograph Bugattis which there were many.
And finally I was lucky to find a nice Frenchman who had renovated his Bugatti and gave me about 500 pictures which he had taken during the renovation process, so I could make everything as in the real car.

I would very much like to build another model of some old car, perhaps of the brass era, like the one in attached picture. The problem is only to find somebody somewhere in the earth who has renovated his car and documented the process with hundreds of photographs. And who would be willing to give me access to those pictures. Or find a suitable car in the nearby museum and take the pictures by myself. I have tried this for months without any luck so far.

Moxis said:

Thanks Jonathan! It was a pleasure to build the Bugatti. To be able to do that I bought all the books describing the car that I could find. Also we visited Angoleume France where they race with these old cars, so it was possible to photograph Bugattis which there were many.
And finally I was lucky to find a nice Frenchman who had renovated his Bugatti and gave me about 500 pictures which he had taken during the renovation process, so I could make everything as in the real car.

I would very much like to build another model of some old car, perhaps of the brass era, like the one in attached picture. The problem is only to find somebody somewhere in the earth who has renovated his car and documented the process with hundreds of photographs. And who would be willing to give me access to those pictures. Or find a suitable car in the nearby museum and take the pictures by myself. I have tried this for months without any luck so far.
View attachment 153101

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Perhaps you could write to Jay Leno and he may respond.

almega said:

I don't have CNC on the mill, just a DRO, otherwise everything I have is manually operated. A lot of CNC equipment in my past, very precise and very efficient but I now enjoy the journey as much as the finished products made manually.

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Thanks almega! For long I have had wish to add CNC for my mill to be able to mill also 3D parts. But that would lead me unevitably into the situation to get some 3D software and learn how to use it. In fact I downloaded a free version of Fusion360 and started to learn it, but very soon found out that my old brain just cannot remember any more all the necessary commands, so I had to skip that. And then I understood that there is nothing wrong to do machining in the old school method manually. Slowly but accurately enough, and at least understanding what you are doing.

almega said:

Perhaps you could write to Jay Leno and he may respond.

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In fact I have done that already. We discussed with him about his Mercer car and he promised to help me to get all the information I need, but unfortunately that didn't work. He gave me contact information of the guy who knows everything about Mercer cars, but he didn't have that kind of photographs which I would need.

Moxis said:

Thanks ajoeiam! The plate Tool Rules is very important, besides it are a few rusty tools made of chocolate.View attachment 153070

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Love it - - - rotflmho (rolling on the floor laughing my head off!!!)

The chocolate oes - - - priceless!
Except - - - - I like to 'look' at tools.

Ciao senor! (Mi itialiano molto arrugginito - - - lol)

Mot people won't even contemplate entering my garage... too much stuff, too dirty and messy EVERYWHERE! The camera doesn't show how bad it is... - so I won't try to take photos.
If you can imagine what it is like, then you are very crazy... like me? I don't sweep up the muck - it's shovel and buckets for me! - But it houses a car, motorcycle, lathe, Milling/drilling machine, welding hot bench and an assembly cold bench, grinders, welders, shelves of models and stuff, house paint and tools for woodworking metal working and decorating, leaves litter and other muck that blows in on windy days (many!). Car jacks and stuff, Large ladders, some garden tools. Spare wood and stuff stored on the floor (beneath the car), Fuel storage, paint storage, etc. and needs access for house drains, and other plumbing...
So I am jealous of your lovely empty space and clever bench. Your head must be equally clean and tidy, as mine is the opposite.
Well done sir!
K2

Steamchick said:

Mot people won't even contemplate entering my garage... too much stuff, too dirty and messy EVERYWHERE! The camera doesn't show how bad it is... - so I won't try to take photos.
If you can imagine what it is like, then you are very crazy... like me? I don't sweep up the muck - it's shovel and buckets for me! - But it houses a car, motorcycle, lathe, Milling/drilling machine, welding hot bench and an assembly cold bench, grinders, welders, shelves of models and stuff, house paint and tools for woodworking metal working and decorating, leaves litter and other muck that blows in on windy days (many!). Car jacks and stuff, Large ladders, some garden tools. Spare wood and stuff stored on the floor (beneath the car), Fuel storage, paint storage, etc. and needs access for house drains, and other plumbing...
So I am jealous of your lovely empty space and clever bench. Your head must be equally clean and tidy, as mine is the opposite.
Well done sir!
K2

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Thank you Steamchick! I just envy you because of your garage. It is just as it should be. I would love to work in the place like that!

Steamchick said:

Mot people won't even contemplate entering my garage... too much stuff, too dirty and messy EVERYWHERE! The camera doesn't show how bad it is... - so I won't try to take photos.
If you can imagine what it is like, then you are very crazy... like me? I don't sweep up the muck - it's shovel and buckets for me! - But it houses a car, motorcycle, lathe, Milling/drilling machine, welding hot bench and an assembly cold bench, grinders, welders, shelves of models and stuff, house paint and tools for woodworking metal working and decorating, leaves litter and other muck that blows in on windy days (many!). Car jacks and stuff, Large ladders, some garden tools. Spare wood and stuff stored on the floor (beneath the car), Fuel storage, paint storage, etc. and needs access for house drains, and other plumbing...
So I am jealous of your lovely empty space and clever bench. Your head must be equally clean and tidy, as mine is the opposite.
Well done sir!
K2

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HaHaHa, I’m with you! To work and/or move around my workshop/garage you have to walk sideways like a crab. Between all my machinery, presses, benches, 3d printing setups, a couple freezers and gun safes, as well as a BMW motorcycle, if I add one more thing it might over-pressurize and detonate!!!

John W

Well, after Steamchick's confession, I feel a lot better. It's not just me then.

The real truth is worse than my confession.... I am continually touching things that just stick out a bit... then half a dozen things then jump on top of me!
I re-make parts that follow gravity to the floor. One day they will be shovelled-up but too many parts evaporate at floor level to waste time searching for them. I need spectacles to see, so what I can see in my hands or on the bench simply dissapeares out of focus at floor level. And there are plenty of shelves and storage buckets for parts to leap into at the first taste of free-fall.
K2

Todays crie de coeur on the learned helplessness we suffer in shop chaos landed on me like a ton of bricks. I thought I was alone in the world. Hello.My name is Somniosus and I am no longer alone. Thank you steamchick, moxis and others for letting me share my program. Namaste to you all fellow sufferess.



12 step program for workshop chaos

From Somniosus

Admit powerlessness: Admit we are powerless over the immense chaos in our workshops and that our workshop lives have become unmanageable. Symptoms include dropping things and never finding them again and buying new tools even though you have 5 of that item but cant find any of them. Another symptom is the purchase of a workshop floor magnet primarily so you can shove under things trying to find those missing bits that fell to the floor, never to be seen again.

Find hope: Believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Usually that power in my house is my long suffering partner SWMBO and the call to arms is finding aluminum bits in the hallway where the cats can get at them.

Surrender: Decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God/SWMBO as we understand her to be.

Take inventory: Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of our stuff. Does the workshop try to do too much? Is having a snowblower, diving compressor, diving equipment , electric bike, metric ton of brass and aluminum stock, 2 welders and a spare 10 kw generator, large metal lathe , milling machine and large amounts of vertical storage, creating an indoor 3 dimensional overlapping layered labyrinth akin to a 3 d tiger trap, really a good idea in a single car garage? Arggh this is actually the case.

Share inventory: Admit to God, to our partners, ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. You could also give stuff away or sell it, that would be a different type of sharing inventory vs the hoarder baggage I am afflicted with. BUT you know as soon as anything leaves it will be the one thing you really need.

Become ready: We’re entirely ready to have God or SWMBO or both help remove all these defects of character, while secretly readying ourselves to build a separate building for all this stuff.

Ask God/SWMBO : Humbly ask Him/Her to remove our shortcomings and organise us, but for the love of same don’t give away the really good stuff

List amends: Make a list of all those we have harmed in our disorganised , deplorable and lamentable disorganisation, workshop depravity and generally not having our acts together with everything cross referenced and filed by alphabetic order and make amends to them all. My list starts with the cats who really hate it when they get aluminum shards on their paws.

Make amends: Make direct amends to all such entities wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. In the case of the cats I have promised to build them more animatronic toys they can stalk and kill as soon as I can find my bench in there.

Continue inventory: Remember that a raven can recall the locations of over 400 different objects. Keep taking that workshop inventory, stay away from the attractive but cheap tools on Ali Express that always cause you buyers remorse, and when that carbide insert 100 pack turns out to be made from blue bubble gum admit you were wrong, promptly admit it. Actually I think this step is really about giving away your workshop and its contents to the indigent, retaining only a saffron robe, a begging bowl ( which you turned on your lathe as a last act of contrition) and a prayer stick, and becoming a wandering mendicant. Who wants to make stuff anyway.

Pray and meditate: Now that you no longer have that pesky shop with all those sliding mounds of vertically challenged stuff falling to the floor, taking all your time, which constantly reminded you of the fragility of life and its fleeting ephemeral nature, now through prayer and meditation, you can improve your consciousness and connect with God, your spouse or both . They may in fact be both, we don’t know, we are just trying to stay warm in a Canadian winter wearing a saffron robe during a cold freeze. We do this to understand Him/Her, praying only for His/Her knowledge to give us the power to carry that out.

Help others: Having a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, and being very cold and quite hungry now because no one has put any alms in my bowl, I carry this message to fellow disorganised but well meaning shop people /tool and mess-oholics to practice these principles. May you regain control and engineer on.

I can really identify with the "Take Inventory" paragraph- I have extended my workshop no less than four times, to well over four times it's original area, each time finding the truth in the saying- more space does NOT equal more room- just more junk!
Now if I could just find that new set of allen keys...........

I built shelves on the wall of my shop, and have things stored in banker's boxes.

I have started numbering the boxes, and created a spreadsheet to track what is in each.

So now I can look down an alphabetic list in the sheet, find the item I am looking for, and then go find the box with that number on it.

I have a lot of my storage boxes in the sheet, but there is still work to be done.

And things are much better since I went (years ago) with a "no trash on the floor" rule.
Any trash that is not thrown on the floor does not have to be picked up/cleaned up.
And no bags of trash left in the shop, since those are a big fire hazard.

And I am trying to adhere to a "clean it as you use it" rull for all the machine tools; ie: leave the lathe and mill perfectly clean after every use.

Once I get behind on cleaning, then it becomes a very difficult situation to resolve.
Keeping it clean as you go prevents any big cleaning headaches, and is just a good habit to get into.

.

If you can make those rule stick then I am very envious of you GreenTwin. Almost all the workshops I grew up in and around seemed to follow the rule "don't put it away, put it on the floor/bench/machine tool/anywhere but away" and after 75 years it's kinda hard to break the habit.
I am trying though- since I completed the last workshop extension, I have been trying to follow the mantra "don't put it down, put it away" and I have to say, it seems to be working.
It helps that I designed, 3d-printed and screwed to the wall, holders for lots of things like battery tools, chargers, batteries and many other tools that I use frequently. It's still quite novel to be able to find things as I need them instead of after hours of fruitless searching! And of course, all the diversions such searching produces- you know- oh, that's interesting/I wondered where that was/I didn't know I had one of those/etc.etc
But I still drop crap on the floor, and the cleaning service (ie, me) really doesn't clean up as often as they should.

I bought a toolbox that is pretty tall, to save floor space, and have put a lot of my tools in it.

So guess what I do now?
I search the entire shop looking for tools, and finally sit down in despair, and I glance across the shop and see my toolbox.
Bingo......its in the toolbox, which is the last place I would ever look for a tool.
Happens over and over again, LOL......old age.

The toolbox is great though, and my motto is "every tool in its place, and a place for every tool".

Like I said, a work in progress, but I have come a long way since I started doing serious workshop work in about 2009.

I expanded into a shed for some of the foundry molding work, and set up several work tables.
The worktables were somewhat of a mistake, since tables collect items that should be put away.
Late last year, I took down all of the shed worktables, and if I need to do some molding work, I get out a folding table, do the work, and then put the table away, or at least don't open another table until that table work is done.

Seems like it would be natural to keep a shop clean, but it has been a learned behavior for me.

And a clean shop is a much safer shop too.

.

GreenTwin said:

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Seems like it would be natural to keep a shop clean, but it has been a learned behavior for me.

And a clean shop is a much safer shop too.

.

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Your first statement above is true of all of us I believe.

I have learned to accumulate things - - - they're what enables me to build and/or do things.
(Those that call it hording are those that just don't do things or can't!)

Not only is a clean shop safer it enables you to work more accurately.
In my experience the shops where the tightest tolerances happened - - - - they were clean.
(Haven't worked in one but those that use air gauging - - - ie your tolerances are stated in millionths - - - - well they seem to rival operating rooms for cleanliness.)