The Amateur Crafter - Project 0: Shop Design

First order of business, design a shop. How do I do that again? Well, from the previous post, I decided that I wanted the purpose of the shop centered on three main functions: knife making, wood turning, and small cabinet making. Small cabinet making may be adjusted to mean simply, small wood working projects. With this in mind, the machines that I’ll be purchasing are going to have to be small from necessity. But basically, most of the work will flow around the main workbench already in place and around an additional workbench I plan to either purchase or make.

Photo A: lower side door entrance

From photo A, one can see the size of the shop okay, but the photo doesn't really show how small it is. And yes, that is a 10”compound miter saw mounted to a shop-made tool stand blocking the doorway into the next room. Technically, the size of the room is 12’ x 16’ but that doesn't mean that I’ll have that much space. Along the back wall, there’s enough space for another workbench and maybe some wall mounted cabinets for tool storage. That’s probably where I’ll stick a woodworking band saw and maybe a small wood turning lathe. Additionally, to the far right corner, I’ll have some sort of dust collection system. Undecided as to which type yet but I know I’ll probably need one.

Photo B: left of the outside entrance

The furnace can be seen in photo B, right next to a pretty stout desk left by the previous owner along with that pegboard. I’m not really big on pegboards and I’ll probably remove it at some point and mount a cabinet there. But the furnace takes up a good chuck of space right next to the door. So, I’m actually missing about a 4’ x 3’ section of the room.

Photo C: Massive workbench

The previous owners also left this large workbench. It measures 10’ x 2 ½’ and even though it’s a bit of an eyesore, it’s pretty stout. I’ll probably try to add a thin sheet of plywood on top to improve its looks – somewhat. It looks like it was made with standard 2” x 4” pieces laminated together with wood glue and screws. The top surface and the middle shelf is ¾” plywood.

Photo D: Decent space available

Side “view” from the entrance to the washer/dryer room. There’s a great deal of empty space available as well as wall space for cabinetry.

Photo E: Entrance from far room.

The problem with the location of this entrance way is that it only leaves about 10” from the right wall. Now, I can construct a narrow bench there but I need to be able to either move it away on casters or have a possible fold-down bench. I haven’t decided yet which. Most likely the simple workbench on locking casters will be a stronger workbench. And by the way, if you’re looking for a table saw, don’t bother with that particular Skil model that can be seen in the photo. It’s a 3310 10” table saw that comes with a pretty lame table. It’s labeled as cast aluminum but I think it’s more of a mixture of pot metal. Also, the miter slots are not standard size and if you want to create a small mitering sled or a cross cutting sled, you’ll have to purchase parts from Skil for the railings. I've not found an aftermarket provider for them. For the beginning hobbyist, it’s a fairly cheap table saw that won’t break the bank. But if you want to have greater flexibility in terms of shop-made add-ons, rigidity, and aftermarket accessories, go ahead and buy a better table saw – possibly the next larger size. It will likely come with a better table and with proper, standard-sized miter slots.

So to start with, I think that I’ll purchase a small metalworking band saw. I have to point out that band saws for woodworking won’t cut metal as well. One cannot simply swap out the blade and expect it to perform just as well on metal as it does on wood. The reason for this is because woodworking band saws operate at a higher SFPM (surface feet per minute). For the new crafter, that basically means blade speed. Wood is a softer material than steel (obviously) and to cut steels, blades must move at about a fraction of the speed and will also require more TPI (teeth per inch). For a metalworking band saw, I have basically two choices: one being a horizontal/vertical 4” – 6” capacity, or a type that’s called a “portaband.” Each band saw has its pros and cons. The floor model (either a dedicated horizontal or dedicated vertical) will probably offer greater stability. But that comes at the price of a higher cost (normally) and more floor space taken up by the larger machine. A horizontal/vertical can be setup to provide a small decent horizontal type band saw and normally comes with a small plate and a locking mechanism to allow vertical band saw work. The problem with this is that normally the plate provided for vertical work is a meager size and does not provide much rigidity – a term I’ll use frequently throughout this series of articles; also it will not offer any reasonable size of working space for vertical cutting. Typically these types of band saws might be good at one type of cutting (i.e horizontal) and somewhat below average ability at another type of cutting (vertical). Rigidity means stability which usually equates to safer use. The portaband saw is a much smaller alternative, and comes at a much cheaper price. A portaband saw is hand-held instead of mounted on a stand and uses smaller blade sizes (i.e. cheaper). But this will have a much smaller capacity and will probably only find use in my shop as a knife-making machine. Due to the size constraints of the room I have to work with, I’ll not likely have an application outside of knife making that the portaband saw can fulfill. Also, for greater rigidity the portaband saw must be modified and mounted on a wall or workbench by the consumer if he/she requires stability, which I will. Fortunately, there are aftermarket resources that can provide kits to help modify the portaband saw for the purposes of mounting on a wall/workbench/table or to allow it to be held in a large vise. Because space is at a premium in my shop, I’ll purchase the portaband saw with the aftermarket kits.

Purchasing the right, good machinery is best accomplished after doing a bit of research on what’s available. Look up various models from a variety of manufactures. Check out customer reviews on websites if they’re offered. Go visit hardware stores or other distributors if any floor models are available for viewing. Basically, do your homework. It may take a lot of time prior to the purchase, but you’re not as likely to purchase a machine more like the consumer grade equivalent of a “lemon car.” And, from the research, you’ll be able to purchase something that may have a good reputation and even a loyal following. I’m thinking of a Makita, or a Milwaukee, or a DeWalt. I’ll not purchase a cordless. I very much want this to have 110v power. The reason for this is because I’ll also purchase a foot pedal for turning the portaband saw on and off, which means that the trigger will have to be fastened in the on position. Once I get that machine in, I’ll be sure to show my mods.

Further posts on Project 0 will involve space, machine and workbench location and work flow.

The Amateur Crafter

A Man Without a Cause, a Shop Without a Worker, or Maybe a Worker Without a Shop

I am a machinist, a (former) vehicle mechanic, and a shop teacher. I’ve practically lived nearly my entire adult life in a shop of some sort. Academically, I’ve been attending school for some degree or certificate nearly every year either full-time or part-time since I left the U.S. Air Force in 1998. I’ve sacrificed several of the earliest adult years of my life to serving my country in parts of the world that I grew to hate (not anymore but I would be dishonest if I said that I never hated my time in Saudi Arabia – topic for another blog article I suppose). I’ve studied very hard going to school full-time while working full-time, at the risk of my own health, trying to complete a degree in order to hopefully have a better chance at success. And I’ve dutifully assisted people as students that I still feel to this day aren't worth the time and effort to work up a good spit on much less try to teach a set of trade skills to. It seems as if I’ve constantly been fulfilling my responsibilities to some unit, institution, or organization for a higher cause that I’ve always felt duty-bound to support.

Am I being a bit pissy? Yep. And I’m tired of doing so much for others and not enough for myself. Yeah, this is going to be about me. I’ll admit that this probably paints a very bad picture of me as being selfish. I’m not going to lie. I’m might be getting that way. Mama’s little boy right here is getting tired of the boiled squash and he’s ready for some pie. Don’t get me wrong. I like squash, when it’s properly battered and deep fat fried. Fuck boiled squash. I want something more. Something selfish. Something that screams, “This is entirely for me here. I fully intend to enjoy it!” And I gotta say, it’s about damn time.

Over the past several months I’ve been getting extremely restless. Hurried. Irritable. Kind of like dealing with a spell of diarrhea. Maybe it was my ongoing and seemingly never-ending studies in grad school. On that note, it could very well have been having to write yet another paper on yet another article, lecture, research topic or whatever, for yet another professor what’s-his-name and report yet again on how much I learned from doctor dood-da-ma-phloj-gee and his/her ongoing and vitally important research. Maybe it was some of the people where I teach that just don’t seem to get it. You know, those types that constantly whine about how bad they’ve got it and he/she doesn’t work half as much as some of the laziest students in class? Maybe it’s because I’m approaching that “middle age” bit in life where we’re all supposedly going to have some sort of mid-life crisis and I’ll want to overcompensate by purchasing a hot new really expensive sports car (That won’t happen). Or it could be a combination of several factors that just seemed to keep dragging me down physically and emotionally. Whatever the reasons, I came to a realization a few months back, that I’m just not being selfish enough! Hopefully I’m not sounding real bitter. But it’s high time I went well out of my way to do something just for me.

I suppose that nearly everyone has something that he/she wants to do before “it’s too late” or before “I pass away.” I’ve heard people talk about wanting to travel and see famous places. Yeah. Been there, done that, still doing it but it’s really starting to piss me off. Well, technically the airlines, TSA, and bad travelers are the ones pissing me off but still the whole traveling experience is getting on my nerves. I’ve heard people say that they wanted to learn a foreign language just to learn it. Or maybe some people just want to try out that one crazy thing that they would never do such as bungee cord jumping or skydiving. Well, for me, I just want to get back to my shop and craft something. One problem though, I don’t technically have a shop. And while I do have access to the shop at school where I teach, I’m usually too busy doing administration to go out and work in it. Let me just take this opportunity to restate what I’m usually doing – administration. Oh! What glorious fun that can be right? I miss being able to just make something in the shop, just because I wanted to. Just for the challenge of making it. I didn’t care if the project didn’t work as intended. It didn’t even matter if the project was completed or not. Just go out, tinker around, make a mistake or two (hopefully not at the cost of a digit) and learn something.

So, why don’t I just go back into the shop and have fun? Oh right, that whole don’t-really-have-a-shop thing. At some point I realized that I had the space for a small (very small) shop in the basement. I don’t know when I had this eureka moment but it was a revelation. There’s my shop! That’s where I can go and tinker around. It’s a bit small (12’ x 16’ – not excluding the space lost from the furnace and some of the plumbing) but I could make it work! But I had to be careful. I only have so much space to work with. I could only stock a certain amount of equipment in the shop. How can I equip it and be successful? Certainly, professional grade equipment was out of the question. I just don’t have the space for a decent metal turning lathe. And, anyone that’s purchased or been involved with the purchase of a professional machine knows that what you purchase is a machine. No tools. No tool holders. No fixtures. You get A MACHINE and that’s it. So whatever you spend on it, expect to spend a lot more for the extras. Initially, when I started to think about shop design and layout, I was unsure about the purpose of the shop. At first, when I began to research equipment for footprint, cost, and upkeep, I tried to think about its worth. I started to think about going cheap for machines and hopefully they’ll pay for themselves if I could make money off of them. But how could I make money that way if I’m just going to be a hobbyist? This was the wrong approach. I decided to rethink the purpose of the shop and its worth. How do I define its worth? Would worth be defined as the ability to make money from it as if it were a production shop? Would it be more of a service and repair type of shop where I would service some group of clients in perhaps an industrial environment? Would it be more in terms of assets that I could evaluate for the purposes of reselling? Ultimately, what did I want to get out of this shop?

That particular question right there, “What do I want to get out of this shop?” really stumped me. I was genuinely dumbfounded. What the hell do I want to get out of this shop? It had been so long since I invested myself into a project just for me that I had forgotten what it was like to think about what I wanted to get out of it. I actually had to stop and mull this over for a while before I decided (tentatively) on a purpose for the shop. And even though I had some ideas, I realized that eventually just like my blog, its purpose could change. And it did. I thought at first that I would make a shop with maybe small cabinet making, turning, or perhaps fretwork in mind and also a few metal working machines such as a milling machine and a lathe. Eventually though, I had to accept the fact that I didn’t have the space for all of that equipment. However, I did have enough space for pursuing one of my passions, knife making. I’m not a knife maker or even a serious knife collector. I don’t have a massive collection of unusual or highly sought after knives. I may know a bit more about knives than the average consumer. But I still wouldn’t call myself an amateur knife maker. I’ve always enjoyed learning about that process and I’ve always loved seeing the work of various professional custom knife makers. But I’ve never had the opportunity to pursue that as a hobby before. Usually, I never had enough space, or enough money to start a shop of my own. Even approaching it as a frugal hobbyist, one can spend a well over a few thousand dollars in tooling and equipment depending on how much one wants to accomplish within the shop. And to pursue it with greater productivity and easier construction in mind, the price tag for a well-equipped shop can be in the tens of thousands of dollars assuming of course that a facility already exists and is awaiting installation of equipment. If a building must be made, then the price goes up even higher.

I decided that the ultimate purpose of this shop was to allow me a chance at pursuing hobbies for life enrichment. I probably wouldn’t be able to pursue all of the hobbies that I wanted to, but I had enough space where I could pursue several. The reason I want this shop is so that I can learn to: make a knife, or turn a wooden bowl, or build a small wooden cabinet, just because I want to learn how to do these things. It doesn’t matter if I become hugely successful at whatever projects I take on. What matters is that I have the space and hopefully most of the equipment needed to make those projects. There’s no reason that the shop has to “pay for itself” as if this were going to become a business. It simply needs to be properly stocked and maintained. When I figured this out, I understood that I didn’t have to look for the cheapest machine/tools/etc. possible, I just had to find the best materials that will give me the best “bang for my buck.” This could be a low to mid-range consumer grade machine to a very high-end professional grade tool. Whatever the shop needed to fulfill its purpose, that’s what I should invest in. Understanding this opens up the possibilities for stocking good equipment for the shop, albeit at a slower, less financially stinging pace. I finally decided on keeping the purpose of the shop to just those things: knife making, woodturning, and small (very small) cabinetwork. It’s quite likely that I may not have enough space to do all of those but I am going to try and design the shop just for those three purposes. And it doesn’t have to be written in stone. I could very well change one of the purposes of the shop later down the road. So, as of this writing, another purpose behind this blog is to list my ongoing shop adventures. Also, I’ll most likely post some of this on my simple YouTube channel, probably in a lame Windows Movie Maker format. But I’d like to document where I’m starting out with this shop and where I’m going with my projects. I realize that this means I will probably come into conflict with some of the “purists” out there that see what I’m doing and exclaim, “You noob! You shouldn't (insert some description of what I’m doing on a project here) that way! You’re doing it wrong!” Well I’ve actually already encountered some of that on a couple of machine shop forums (despite the fact that I teach this) and just a bit of that on one knife making forum (despite the fact that I want to learn it). I’m sure most of us know someone like that. Everyone probably knows some uber snob with such huge amounts of experience in a particular field that he/she can’t be bothered to properly give constructive (a.k.a. helpful) feedback. But that’s okay. I’ll just write about what I learned from a particular project and move on to another. I’ll just keep writing about particular projects that I’m involved in and whether or not those projects were successful. And by successful, I mean, completed. Done and done. No time constraints. No client. Just a completed project that I wanted to do.