Carts Before Horses

I don’t shill for companies. Especially if my retirement portfolio does not contain their stock, and I don’t get a boost from AmaZoo when you buy a product I’ve listed in the blog. And a look at a relatively recent view of my shop would make a tool manufacturer shudder – no endorsement offers for that place. Most of the power tools are years old, hell that drill press has to be from the 1960s, and the rest of the stuff looks like it’s been “used”! Too bad. I could handle an endorsement that might add to the shop’s budget.
I’d love to rip out the remaining greenhouse racks I repurposed when the greenhouse began transitioning to a workshop. Think of new benches and storage at the proper height, first-rate vises, and clamping rather than a make-do system. Sweet!
But a shop like mine best suits a limited budget, low output operation. I’m not talking about a hobby shop created for and by someone with disposable cash who can go to one of the prominent purveyors of woodworking equipment and drop a few thou in a visit. Many people cobble together their shop small piece by small piece – a bench and vices, a small bandsaw and a job site style table saw, and a collection of hand tools.
But you say, Lou, you’ve been in business for a long time. Accurate, but I had four kids, and my wife and I understood that the home and family took precedence over the shop. So, about ten years ago, when I bought an actual shop bench, it was a cheap one that I upgraded. You have to be cagey about purchases – and the glorious bench costing four K may not even work for what you do.

History has something to do with this pattern. My father was famous for improvising workshops in whatever location he was working in. My first shops were in lofts and garages, and I had zero funds for things other than my basic carving tools. Later, in the early 1990s, when I began again as a maritime trade carver, I worked out of boatshops. Boatbuilding shops are spare operations, hung about with patterns, tool racks, etc. A lot is purpose-built, not off a showroom floor.
Not a woodworker? OK, some of my friends paint it in spare rooms, in their kitchens, or unoccupied corners of their homes.
Back when I occupied a Charlestown loft for a work space, it was very spare. The other crafters and artists in the building had similar Spartan spaces. None of us were in denial for more elegant quarters. It was all about the space and the light. The building offered ample space cheaply, and the light from the large windows was incredible.

Your craft is more about what you produce than what your shop looks like. Spend too much time in the catalogs or showrooms, and you will put the cart before the horse. You may need less, rather than more, to be creative.