Shop Tours...
Roy Griggs and His Shop
My name is Roy Griggs and I am 55
years old, was born and raised in Texas with all that, that entails,
and have been doing woodworking in one form or another all my life.
Mother says that when I was 4, I came running in the house and told
her "I hit my damn finger with the damn hammer and damn it hurts"...
my father caught some flak for that one.
SWAMBO and I live in Broken Arrow,
Ok., where the Co. I used to work for moved us from Houston, Tx. I
was fortunate enough to get an unattached 1500 sq. ft. shop (30 x 50)
when we moved here and SWMBO got the garage for the first time in 28
yrs. of marriage. SWMBO is the artistic side of me and we often
collaborate on design. She started college in art but wound up with
2 degrees in education and has been a Special Education teacher for
almost 30 years. I was a drafter/designer in the petrochem industry
for 20 plus years but recently changed profession.
After many years of collecting a
large assemblage of power tools and many years of using same I am
rediscovering the joy of using hand tools.
You know what they say, "Sometimes you get lucky"? Well this
is one of those... Big Time!!!
Above is a picture of the main work area in my shop. If you were
standing at my bench facing the back wall (to the right) you would
be facing North. The sun glare in the middle of the picture on the
left is from the evening sun shining in my entry door. Facing the
tablesaw you would have one of two single garage doors at your back,
10 feet from the saw with the other to its left. My shop is
approximately 30' deep and 50' long.
This is looking east toward what I consider the back of my
shop. Wood storage, chop-saw, jointer and tablesaw. The chop-saw has
to move in the winter because that entire end of the shop gets taken
over by my loving wife's' tropical plants. I gotta get her
greenhouse built...
Back at the back there, is my steel workbench (3'x6' 1/2"
plate on 2 1/2" sch.80 legs), my anvil (a cheapie cast steel),
grinders, vices, etc... this is the area where I do my metalworking.
My torch and welder are located at the front beside the garage door,
so I can take that work outside. Left of my steel bench is a
partition that holds a collection of the mechanic tools that I use
most, sockets, wrenches, etc. It's hard to see but between the bench
and the wall is 1958 Delta drill press; that needs to be rebuilt.
The brown and gray upright left of the partition is my heater, it'll
keep the shop comfortable till it gets down to about 10 deg. F
outside. Of course a lot depends on how much cold air is being blown
in around my drafty garage doors.
Fastener storage, small parts, welder at bottom left and torch
next to it. The MIG machine sits by the steel bench but wasn't in
place when that picture was taken. This is the wall to the west of
the garage doors (they are just to the left).
To the east of the garage doors, center right one of two air
conditioning units in my shop, behind it the air compressor and hose
reel. Mower that won't fit in my shed. Parts and paint, etc.
storage.
This is looking along the back from east to west.
This is my lathe area, excuse me, our lathe area; big lathe is
mine , little lathe is SWMBO's. The partitions provide wall space,
storage area, and mess containment. If the placement of the planer
seems odd, it is placed for in-feed and out-feed room and proximity
to the dust collector.
Looking back into my lathe area...
Sanders and the dust collector on the left...
This is my "I'm just in the shop to relax" area; TV, stereo,
lounge chair, icebox, and my dartboard, my bookcase is hidden by the
wall on the right.
This bookcase holds a selection of books on woodworking and
about 3 years worth of magazines.
Obviously this is a power tool workshop...but I'm focusing more on
hand tools now. I'm still using the power tools at this point but
now I am using handtools for more things than ever before. And as I
learn to do more tasks by hand I will use the power tools less and
less.
My bench area and the wall area I built have become the focus of
almost all my wood working now days. The wall was originally built
just to support a sagging ceiling (attic overload) but became the
natural place to keep my hand tools. The chop-saw used to be in
front of the wall for awhile, bu that didn't work. It is always a
work in progress as I am constantly changing and adding tools. None
of it very well built just kinda thrown together as I experiment
with what I want. The assembly table is an MDF torsion box affair
with a dead flat top and a leveling system. The workbench, although
it has served me well for several years is lacking and needs to be
replaced. A project that has already been started but was put on
hold due to space constraints.
JUST A TEASER...This is the "field" of my new workbench,
without skirts or vices as you can see this project stops almost all
other work because of the space it takes up.
7 6C 5C 4C 3
roy
roy@ShavingsandSawdust.com
|
