Awe, the smell of freshly cut wood.  Nothing quite like it.  The sound of a new lithium-ion charged drill driving screws into the wall and tightening worktops to their sturdy foundation.  Staring, for what seems like hours, into the room to find out where the placement of tools should go; how the shop should flow; what will be the best way to place things so I don’t have to spend half my day moving things around.

Why, one may ask, would you end up having to move things around all day in order to work?  Well, lets say you have all the tools necessary to build acoustic and electric guitars (quite a few tools by the way) and a shop space that measures 10′ by 12′.  Seems a bit cramp don’t it?  But this is all a part of the adventure.  A new home, a new shop, and the challenge of figuring out how it will all come together.

Luckily I have had some practice with this before.  My first shop was in a kitchen in an old apartment of mine.  I didn’t nearly have as many tools as I have now; but enough of them to keep a steady stream of fine dust particles on most of my dishes, most of the time.  I did more repair here than anything.  I remember once stripping the finish off a Gibson M III in that kitchen.  Of course I had the windows open and a mask on but holy moly did it stink in there.   I’m surprised none of my neighbors came knocking on my door!

This naturally led to my second shop; a 5′ by 7′ storage closet.  This one was sweet.  The apartment complex I  lived at had storage units at the end of each building and at the corner of the building you had the laundry rooms which were a bit larger and had power.  The complex however, converted every other laundry room into a storage room.  I was one of the lucky few with a converted room.  It had power for all my lights and tools.  Someone had previously used it as a welding shop so there was already a work bench!  I was in a converted laundry to storage to metal shop to guitar shop space; how bizzare is that?  Sure it was a bit cramped inside, but I didn’t mind one bit.  I think the only person who did mind was the woman who’s apartment was on the other side of the wall!  She was very sweet about it and said she didn’t mind; but you hammer in enough frets, I can’t imagine someone NOT getting a bit annoyed.

Then some real fun news came in.  A bigger apartment came available, but it wasn’t just an apartment; it was an apartment WITH an attached garage.  Oh yes, Oh yes.  The great many things about this place was that noise would be less of an issue being that nobody’s dwelling was in direct contact with the garage; I had a ton more room, 12′ by 21′ I believe; and it came with a washer and dryer.  Very sweet indeed.  This was real fun because it was my first time designing and building my work bench.  The frame was of sturdy 2″ by 4″ and the top was a hollow core door, both of which were donated by friends.  I covered the door with some carpet (also donated) and I was on my way.  By this time I had acquired more tools so having the space was a blessing.  Everything could be set up and just be used whenever.  It all had it’s own space to live in.  Plus I had ample room for doing odd jobs like painting a bunch of kitchen cabinet doors for the same woman who lived in the apartment adjacent to my previous shop, Hi Sheila!

But as life goes, change is eminent.  Where as all my current apartment/shop moves occurred all within a stones throw of one another my next and final, well, current move, would take me to a whole new zip code.  The Sierra Nevada foothills up past Nevada City.  And what a beautiful move it was.  Wonderful friends and a beautiful surrounding to inspire and create.

But how do I go from a space 12′ by 21′ to one that’s 10′ by 12′?  Well for starters a lot of patience and staring into a room for hours imagining where things go and how their placement effects the overall flow of a steady work pace.  For not only am I moving into a smaller place, but during the transition I had acquired yet some more tools.  Big ones too.  I knew right off the bat that ease of mobility would by key, in particular wheels.  I figured if I can keep some tools on wheels I can keep them somewhat “bunched up” while not in use and just move em over with relative ease when need be.  What I did not want to end up doing is to have tools stored under my workbench and lift them out when it was time to use em; at least the heavy ones.  I’ve managed to almost succeed with that plan; the only item of concern is a disk sander under the bench and that thing is heavy.  But for the time being it’ll work.

I re-worked my workbench during the transition as well.  I got rid of the hollow core door and got myself a big ol maple block top to work on.  This also supports a parrot vise and an under mount bench vise, where a hollow core door would crumble in seconds .    I also lowered the bottom shelf of the workbench to allow more room for tools, jigs, forms and some wood storage.

So what is the flow?  When you walk in the front door (ahem, the only door) to your right is the workbench.  To your immediate left is my jointer and hanging above it on the wall are some clamps and a cork board with pictures of friends and family to keep me company.  Just past the jointer, still on the left , is a metal shelving unit with a power conditioner attached.  The unit was actually meant to be in a recording studio, one of those tall racks that hold all the different compressors and reverbs and such.  Next to it is my edge belt sander.  Both my jointer and edge belt sander are made by Powermatic and I bought used for dirt cheap; thank you craigslist and ebay.  They’re the only two major power tools that aren’t mobile.  Just past the edge belt sander is a filing cabinet that butts into the corner; we’re already at the far wall!  The filing cabinet has anything from guitar related literature, misc supplies, tools and adorning the top of the cabinet is a humidifier.  Now the back wall.  First up is is a Performax 10/20 drum sander followed by a Jet spindle sander, a Grizzly band saw and last but not least my Makita table saw.  All of which are on mobile bases.  These are all real close and personal with one another.  To open the filing cabinet I need to move the drum sander out of the way, to use the drum sander I need to move it away from the wall and so on and so forth.  In actuality though I don’t have to move much around in order to to use it.  Along that back wall I also installed a wall heater and in the center of the room hanging from the ceiling is a Grizzly air filter which is a little daunting hanging right overhead but it does the trick.

Now the kinda bizzare thing about all this is that this is only half of my shop.  The half that involves all the big dust making, noise producing machines that my housemates nor I, would want to deal with from inside a home.  This isn’t the place where you’ll find fret work, electronic repair, neck re-sets and set ups done.  No sir-ee.  All of that you will find done in my bedroom!  Well it’s not really a bedroom.  I mean there is a bed in the room and I do end up sleeping there most nights but it too is primarily shop.  There I have my other workbench that was given to me by my Uncle Steve.  It’s this super nice science laboratory grade workbench made by Kewaunee.  It has sliding drawers on either side and a top shelf held up by two power strip towers.  The bench is very cool and I am very blessed to be able to use it.  On the far wall of the room is a built in shelf that is inset into the wall.  And it just happened to be big enough to fit my Craftsman toolbox.  I can’t open the lid but I have access to all the drawers.  On the same shelf I have more guitar/wood/shop related books, some clamps, sandpaper and a Craftsman bench top band saw.  The Band saw is only good for real easy cuts, don’t attempt to cut in a straight line into something thicker than a half inch.  It’s actually more frustrating to use than not but it seems to come in handy enough for me not to throw the damn thing away.  In the corner I have an old school (don’t know how old, but old…) Craftsman vertical belt sander/disk sander.  After using it for years I finally took off the disk sander since I never used that aspect of it and I’m sure glad I did.  The performance, by which I mean speed, increased big time.

And that’s that.  Obviously there is more needed; a spray booth and a better dust collection system would be nice.  But till that day comes I’ll do what I have always done, find a way.  As the saying goes, “when there’s the will there’s a way”.

And there is always a way.                                                                                                                                                                                              Till next time, keep on pickin.