Worst Shop Ever

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I know some of the people on here were born with loads of money, and measured their shops in acres from the git-go, but for some of poor mortals, well we have had some pretty crappy places we called Shops when our priorities meant money had to be diverted eldewhere.

Simply put, what was your worst shop ever?

Now don't be scared to answer. I have a feeling their are some horror stories out there.

Mine was not that bad, but bad enough. It was a "shop" I had located in my house. A 12 by 16 spare bedroom. It worked alright I guess, but it was so small, that I used my tablesaw for a bench. That meant I had to move everything out of the way when I needed to use the saw, then put the project on the router table, until I needed to use the Router Table. Yeah you get the idea. I moved stuff a lot. That was not the worst part though. The worst part was the sawdust. Being inside my house, the sawdust went althrough the house. Heck when I wanted to saw anything long, the "shop" was out of the question, so I set my RAS up on the kitchen table and sawed the boards. Yeah I had an understanding wife.

So what was your worst shop ever?
 
We'll I have to say it's the one I'm in now. If I want to use any tools I have to move stuff. Since the shops temporary I have everything in Boxes. I finally broke down and put up a couple of shelves.

messy shop.jpg

Heres a view of how it looks today. I am trying to build a desc and you can see some of the casework in process.
 
Mine was a small 3.5 foot by 6 foot closet in the high rise apartment that Margaret and I lived in for the first two years of our marriage. I fitted it out with a small purpose-built bench that occupied about half the floor space. With the exception of a Black and Decker drill, all my tools were hand tools. At times, I would expand operation to the balcony or our storage locker in the basement. We were on the 16th floor, so forgetting to bring a tool to the storage locker could be quite annoying. I built a LOT of furniture in this "shop", some of which we still have,
 
Mine was a chart table on a boat, put a moving pad on it to protect the varnished surface. Cut wood on a dock, lining up the cut line on a gap in the dock boards so the saw could slide through the cut.

I even "ripped" a 4' piece of plywood once with a dove tail saw, scored the wood with an knife, then slide the saw back and forth along the line, I used a block of wood to keep the saw perpendicular to the cut. It took awhile (OK a LONG while, but I got it done)
 
Until we moved into this house five years ago, I never really had a woodworking shop. I did other things over the years (gun fixing, general tinkering, etc.) but no workshop. In the house previous to this I had a small corner in the garage that had a hand crank antique drill press, a holder for a hand drill that wa 'sorta' drill press, an old three-wheel Craftsman bandsaw and a small wood fold-up portable workbench. That was about it. At the farm (we didn't live there) I had a lot of antique neanderthal tools kept outside.
 
chopsawstation.jpg


this past summer, that was my chopsaw station.

and this was where I did my scrollsaw work:

porchview.jpg


because, my tools are:
mystuff.jpg


in storage until we move. at this rate, that's until late next spring.

oh, and one more item, my 'sharpening station' which I think I'll cross post over on the 'jigs' thread. :lol:
sharpeningstation.jpg
 
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I've had several Model T size garages as workshops.
You know the kind. Drafty doors, no insulation, woodstove pipe shooting out through a window with the glass removed. Cramped, no room.

Next was at my parents 200 stall boat storage unit. I had three of those stalls together, with the inner walls removed.
Roof leaked like a seive.

I'm in my best shop ever now. 40x64 [and might I say a brand new roof and trusses thanks to mother nature;) ] with 16x64 addition. 3584 sq ft.

I am not moving again. Last shop. I told my wife to bury me somewhere out back on the 31 acres.:eek: :)
 
At times, I would expand operation to the balcony or our storage locker in the basement. We were on the 16th floor, so forgetting to bring a tool to the storage locker could be quite annoying.


I had the same sort of annoyance. Back when I started ww'ing in Edmonton, I claimed a corner (literally) of the unfinished section of the basement for my workbench area. It was about 7' wide, by about 5' deep. More or less.

But that was only half the "shop". The other half was the Tablesaw (and a few other assorted things) out in our detached small single car garage at the back of the property. Had to take the car out of the garage in order to make a cut.

And when it is minus 20, I tell you the table saw motor sounds a bit off.

The basement was mostly just for hand tools, assembly work, and so on. I used a drill down there, but that is about all. The router + tablesaw (the messy/noisy tools) were out in the garage.

So, like with Frank, the walking back and forth was the real irritant.

but it was a place to start, and to catch the bug.
 
travis, when i started out on my own i worked outta the back of an olds...tore out the back seat, the trunk would sleep 6 to begin with.....i could fit a contractors saw and miterbox in one load.....the compressor nail-guns, ladders ect. where another load......from there i graduated to my garage,and front room and master bedroom, back deck ect......then i moved into a friends business basement with 7` ceilings......tod
 
Here in Japan, the first aparto I live in was a 4.5 mat room or about 9' x 9', there was a little cookstove area in the doorway entrance. The hallway was narrow, and the toilet was down the haul.

This place was a dump, but it was a 5 minute stumble from the Aikido Dojo and was only about $160 a month to rent. I made some shelves for the entranceway kitchen, and some other stuff out of crap people tossed in the garbage, all on a crate I got out of the garbage that was my workbench/study-table/kitchen-table. My tool box was an old small suitcase someone had tossed out. The first tool I bought was a hand drill, and a hand saw. Then I got two chisels and a hammer, hacksaw, and finally I got a corded power drill (I still have it a CHEAP Ryobi, then smells like burnt plastic each time I use it).

I made all kinds of stuff in that room that I lived in, all out of found materials and the most basic hand tools. When I bought a small circular saw, which I also still have, a little Makita, that just will NOT die, I had to cut stuff up in front of the aparto, much to the chagrin of the old lady who lived next door, she would be out there yakking at me and sweeping up the sawdust, between cuts, I was on a public road, not much she could do about it. :D

In the winter the power for the small aparto was so bad, if two out of the 4 rooms had their electric heaters running and I ran the saw, the main breaker would trip, and everyone would grouse :D

Ah yes, the fun days :rolleyes:

I do really appreciate my Dungeon! :thumb:

Cheers!
 
Simply put, what was your worst shop ever?

Hmmmm.... My worst was not quite as bad as some of those described here, but here goes.

My first shop was in the basement of a 100 year old house - actually, it was in the converted coal bin. Ceilings were about 6' 6" and the room was about 8 x 12. I bought a ShopSmith because it was the only thing that would fit, though I had to be carefull lifting the band saw off its mounts as I sometimes hit the ceiling. Lighting consisted of a few well placed 60w bulbs. Dingy, dark, but still a passable 'man cave;.;)
 
Mine was a small 3.5 foot by 6 foot closet in the high rise apartment that Margaret and I lived in for the first two years of our marriage. I fitted it out with a small purpose-built bench that occupied about half the floor space. With the exception of a Black and Decker drill, all my tools were hand tools. At times, I would expand operation to the balcony or our storage locker in the basement. We were on the 16th floor, so forgetting to bring a tool to the storage locker could be quite annoying. I built a LOT of furniture in this "shop", some of which we still have,
I just realized that I still have the drill. Even though it is 40 years old, it is used to power a very small bandsaw at Pellow's Camp.
 
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I got back into woodworking by refinishing furniture on the deck of my apartment and doing glue-ups and repairs in my apartment kitchen (a small one at that).

But it was still fun and that is what woodworking is all about to me.
 
Well we had an old shoebox in the middle of the road! And you try to tell people that nowadays...

Now really. My first shop was the worst. It was the basement of our first house, and measured approximately 11' x 17', and it had a stairwell, furnace, and hot water heater in it as well. The ceiling joists were about 1" over my head, and there were many pipes and ducts which were below that level. No matter what I did the ductwork leaked, so while I had heat in the winter because of that, we also had dust from whatever I was sanding or cutting blowing around the house as well. The stairway was a whopping 22" wide - I had to turn sideways to get down the stairs, and carrying stuff up or down was always a chore. There was no outside entrance, and everything had to come through the living room and dining room, then make a U turn in the kitchen.

I started my business there in 1993 and worked there until I was able to rent a space down the street in 1998. I don't miss it, but it did the job.
 
I guess I can't complain since I am in my first real shop. I did have a small space in the garage in a previous house. But my wife got half and I had a convertible that I was not leaving out except for short periods of time. So I ended up with a 10 x 4 space. But I never called that a shop either, just a storage corner. My shop was outside in the driveway.

Sold that one and I didn't even have a garage. Everything was done outside. So when we built this house I was determined that I would have a shop. So my first real shop is nice and big. :thumb:
 
Mine was a B&D Workmate on an uncovered concrete slab. I had a couple of handsaws, the jackplane from hell, some Craftsman butt chisels and a handful of pipe clamps. That was enough to build the all douglas fir workbench I still use. Ripping about 40 linear feet of recycled 14"x4" doug fir on a Workmate is something I wouldn't want to attempt today, but I guess I was really motivated back in the 80's :)
 
I kind of waited to reply to this as I know there are a lot of you out there that have had it far worse than I have and it was great listening to the stories about the Little Shop of Horror.

One valuable lesson I learned a long time ago came from my Grandfather. He rented this apartment in Waterville Maine, an old city so the apartment was just as old. He got to use the basement of the place. I think he was over 6 feet tall and the basement was under that. I know because he spent his whole shop life stooped over.

Needless to say the power available to him was something like 30 amps and the cords and wiring he conjured up was downright scary. But despite his very crappy shop, he managed to produce some very fine stuff. Turnings of laminated wood and wooden toys.

The lesson I learned from him was that it truly is the skill and dedication of the woodworker that manifests itself, not the shop (or in this case...the lack of a true shop.)

I just want to thank everyone for sharing their miserable shop experiences and to let you know, that whenever I look at a shop tour, I look for what is on the bench, not the clutter around it. The skill of the people on this forum never ceases to amaze me.
 
Geez, some of you guys have had it made all along:D I began gathering tools long before I got married and had a few when we tied the knot. Most of the time during school I had a shop of some sort to work in both in high school and college. While I was in college my table saw, jointer, lathe, and band saw were stored at my dad's place in just barely a building.:( When we got married I used my car trunk to store tools in, later on I got an old plywood cabinet from somewhere and put a sheet metal roof on the top and stored my tools in there for a while. After I became a shop teacher I had a place to store my own tools at the school where I worked. Shortly after I got my first "real" job I built a 8 x 12 storage building complete with workbench and moved in there. We relocated and I lost that so I built a 12 x 16 building, then a 30x30, a 30 x 50, and now a 36 x 90. No tellin how big the next one will be:thumb: Plans are to stay put now. Maybe I'll shoot some pics and give you guys a tour of the place before long.
 
Mine was a 6" X 8' detached utility room that I had to share with the washer, dryer, and water heater. My roll-around tool box sat outside in the weather, and my bench was basically just a shelf that was high enough to sit up over the washer & dryer so the wife could reach the controls.

That was 1969 ~ 1972, in a rental house in Norfolk, VA.
 
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