The shame of a tidy workshop

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I think the youtubers are pulling the general public's perception askew.

Many of those youtubers pour enormous resurces into gadgets and jigs and organisation aids and workshop furniture and everything is matching and perfect. In a way that no hobbyist can afford. Nothing reused nothing repurposed everything just perfect.
All while the main machines on which productivity and accuracy depends are bog standard hobbyist grade that is neither accurate nor productive.

From the productivity wiewpoint of a part timer a significant part of the time/money spent on gadgets and workshop furniture and such had better been spent on a good planer/thicknesser and a good spindle moulder and a good mortiser and a good bandsaw and a good sliding table saw. The machines that do the brunt of the work and make money.

From a hobbyists point of wiew less time/money should have been spent on gadgets and workshop furniture and on jigs becaure realistically speaking no hobbyist can afford to spend that much.

It becomes some sort of I do not know what.

Most of those folks with gobs of tools either have a relationship with a toolmaker or they're intentionally selling the tools. What we don't know is what they do - what promoted gadgets generate the most revenue. Little safety devices and jigs are a beginner's trap for beginners who are nest building, and I'd imagine they're wildly good for things like amazon pass through links because they're below a "cold buy" price level - something a video viewer won't pause about if they're in a buying mood.

When you look back at older magazines, you get the flavor that they were doing the same thing (an article using something new, and then information on where to buy), but it was more subtle in some ways, and less in others. Credibility from writers was a bigger issue for the magazine because they didn't want a passing-through viewer to look at one article, make a quick buy, etc, they needed subscribers and advertisers and a way to keep the subscribership number high as publishing the magazine itself was actually worth something.

Not sure what part timers do and with what, but even a good mortiser, moulder, slider, etc, is a stretch for someone starting a business. There are tons of sliders and shapers here (in the US) from small ships who overextended themselves and went out of business. Hobbyists tend to see what a business like that will do and assume that it's needed to be a serious hobbyist (vs. the real root of most of the successful makers that I've come across - either outright need and starting from a low budget, or a burning desire - for the fine workers - to really make something fine).
 
I am notoriously untidy, mostly due to a lack of shelf and cupboard space combined with my penchant for not tidying up on a regular basis, so every square inch of machine, bench tops even my thicknesser is covered in tools and various other detritus and I spend far too much of my time searching for stuff. It frustrates the hell out of me.

I have a 45m2 garage that is soon to be sold ready for my new workshop build this year. The workshop will be reduced to 30m2 so I will have to be better organised. I am currently building, or planning ways to improve the organisation of the new shop; so far I have built a wheeled organiser rack for screws, nuts and bolts, electrical bits etc. and a sanding station for all things sanding. I will be building a french cleat system, wood store, etc etc and I will be dedicating the whole of 2022 to the workshop build and fitting out. I am really looking forward to it.

Here's the organiser cabinet currently stored in our junk room, it replaces dozens of glass jars. I hunted around for deals on the organisers and it now has a full compliment; I just have to label them now .

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and this is the sanding station built from an idea on YouTube. It holds my 2 sanders, hand sanders, sanding belts, bench sander discs, ROS sanding discs, drill bobbin sanders and sandpaper sheets.; oh and a very useful and simple ROS sanding disk loader. I'm very pleased with it except two of the ROS sanding disk drawer fronts have the grain going 90 degrees the wrong way so need replacing (I know, I know borderline ocd..)

It will ultimately go on a french cleat wall but for now it will be joining the organiser cabinet in the junk room as it's getting mould whilst sat in the garage. I'm currently preparing a much drier 10m2 outbuilding as a temporary workshop so it will go in there in a few weeks. My apologies if this doesn't gel with some of you, but I need to move away from my current, dis-organised way of working (and I do enjoy building such stuff 😁).

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You cannot tell me your disorganized!!
 
You cannot tell me your disorganized!!
The reality...
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My workshop depends on what the current project is. Currently I’m turning a couple of green logs. There are shavings everywhere. The floor will get hoovered up before the next job, which is re-sawing another set of logs for seasoning. After that I’ll be making a guitar, and the whole place will need a deep clean before, and constant cleaning and tidying during.
 
When looking at some of the ‘organised’ shops on YouTube you have to wonder at the ratio of organising vs working. There often seems to be massive effort spent on building organisation aids or new versions of benches etc. even some of the well respected YouTubers have posted multiple variations of the same MFT build for example.

I have noticed a high proportion of these organised workshops seem to be Americans, with double garage size for a workshop. You never see a cramped American workshop on YouTube and a sponsorship soon follows....
 
I have noticed a high proportion of these organised workshops seem to be Americans, with double garage size for a workshop. You never see a cramped American workshop on YouTube and a sponsorship soon follows....
I agree I don't think they would sponsor my hovel!!
 
My workshop depends on what the current project is. Currently I’m turning a couple of green logs. There are shavings everywhere. The floor will get hoovered up before the next job, which is re-sawing another set of logs for seasoning. After that I’ll be making a guitar, and the whole place will need a deep clean before, and constant cleaning and tidying during.

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For the folks talking about small spaces - I realize you could be in smaller spaces, but this is the shop space of someone is probably as good of a maker as anyone alive.

The second two pictures are of a lute that he had to make on the job, totally by hand. None of it is painting or surface effects, it's inlay and the white stuff is ivory (the inlay on the back is wood).

I know the size of george's workshop it's two floors and large (his wife for a while was a professional jeweler with employees on a second level. I said something to him about wanting to work in a smaller area so that I didn't have to move around a lot and having open space behind me (making tools has kind of eliminated that as my space is big enough for woodworking or toolmaking with open space, but not both plus open space).

He chose to do most of his work in a relatively small area.

The biggest and most well appointed spaces I've seen around here are hobbyist shops where the hobbyist is a surgeon or a business owner or something and a shop pops up wide open looking like an electronics factory full of martin equipment.

But it's also true that I don't know many one man shops that really have much professional work going on in them - most of the guys who tried that are doing site work (trim, contracting, installing kitchens, etc).
 

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