Workplace lust...

[davef]

I’m only an infrequent observer on this forum so I’m probably violating some protocol but I wanted to lob a question out there for some comic relief.

In looking through many of the pictures on here, I find myself looking not at the problem at hand or the boat, but at the work space. I find myself drooling with envy over clean, well lit, dry and obviously heated workspaces that, quite honestly, sometimes look nicer than my living room. Of course I have three young daughters so that might not be saying much.

IMHO, the ability or willingness to pursue your labor of love in a horrific working spot is a true test of commitment and resolve. I’ll spare you the details of my lament, but suffice it to say that I think I may have just about the worst possible spot to work on my boat. But then again… So come on and share your horror stories… Who out there has the crummiest working spot? The nicest? The most cramped?

[JeffH]

Oh, come on! You can't solicit horror stories and not share your own! 'Fess up now... :D :D

For what it's worth... 30' X 55' shop, R19 insulation, radiant heat and a woodstove. Ahhhhhhh......

Jeff

[davef]

You bastard... (the lucky type)

ok... here goes.

a) I started the boat right after our company moved. The owners of the previous building were unable to lease it so I convinced them to let me use it for $25 per month and an agreement that I'd make sure nobody vandilized it. It was clean, bright, warm, dry and very very very nice.

b) I got the call one horrible Friday afternoon. They leased the building and I had one weekend to get out. The boat of course was still partially framed and on a strongback. I put out the begging letter at work and found a coworker with an unused garage. Kind of tight and dark but not too bad. I leased a trailer and called in every favor I had and moved the board.

c) Exactly one month later, our company laid off my co-worker. Obviously this was pretty darn uncomfortable so I went searching. No luck this time. So I decided to move into my own garage.

d) I have one of those 75 year old houses with a one car garage. It is 21 ft long and 9 ft wide. How anyone was ever going to get a car in I have no idea. My boat is 20 feet long and 7.5 feet wide. The garage is also 7'7" tall (without the lightbulbs in) and I actually managed to flip the boat inside the garage. I build a cradle on wheels so I can push the boat from one side to another, leaving me about 18" to work on it. There is no heat (I live in Wisconsin where we're currently having a heat wave in the teens this week). I purhased a 120,000 BTU heater from Ebay that varies the heat digitally between 45 and 110 degrees F. There is no electricity so I ran service to run lights. The service is on a 20 amp circuit that blows (see the part about the 75 year old house) any time I plug in more than two tools. The garage leaks. It is infested with rats. The floor leans horribly to one side.

In short, it is small, cramped, cold, damp, and I'm happier when I'm in there working on my boat than just about any place else on earth.

[Dave Fleming]

Well this is not too dark or crowded but, alas, tis no more, sigh.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid152/pbd603bc417100404261cc336b2440327/f5abf9a5.jpg

[ 01-01-2005, 02:24 PM: Message edited by: Dave Fleming ]

[JeffH]

Good lord, Dave.... What did you do in that shop? Brain surgery? :D :D

Jeff

[Dave Fleming]

Good lord, Dave.... What did you do in that shop? Brain surgery? Nah, three young sons earned their beans and bacon.

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

O&O West dat's-a-nice shop. I personally think WFK's new shop is the envy of everyone here.

davef, wanna know what's more depressing than looking at all the beautiful shop's and projects on here is having a beautiful shop and no time or $$ to work on anything :(

I have more than enough beautiful heated space. I have a 3,500 sqr ft heated and A/C boat barn. Along with a 2 car garage which would be good enough to work on any project, there is also a 300 sqr ft shed to store things, like I need a another place to store things.

Anyway, soon a true blue water schooner will come out of here and I will sail away and always come back here.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid53/pcd7c0b520c996f1ea0b00b14c7bdcc19/fc93286e.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid53/p47e07735fbd5c3641a2cae8efb9410dc/fc93286b.jpg

Tools ohh yea I need more tools smile.gif

[ 02-27-2003, 09:06 PM: Message edited by: Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson ) ]

[Rocky]

Drooling! Hey, J** (****), whatever happened to that tenant from organic hell?

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Originally posted by Rocky:
Drooling! Hey, J** (****), whatever happened to that tenant from organic hell?She's Looking and I'm looking know anyone ?
It's a nice place.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid53/p689d23d6004e5d6a8f9dad97d09c04a0/fc930f23.jpg

[Coastie]

Gather round, here's a nightmare of the most austere working conditions. I have an illegal work space in which I have a skiff on the molds. A shop inplies one has walls; I work under a leaky tin roof carport of a duplex in family housing at a Southern Army post. The real kicker is that it is against Army housing regulations to "perform major car/boat or any other major projects in government housing".
All it does is rain here and despite my efforts to protect my tools with covers, I must still wipe them down daily and keep a healthy coat of wax on the steel. I have an outdoor outlet and an extension cord that blows the CB about 1 in 6 starts of my TS.
My wife tells me "you're going to get caught or turned in, I can't live like this". I do feel like those WWII allied POW's who built the glider in the attic of the Nazi prison castle. What makes it worse is that I am the senior officer on my street and as such I am responsible for enforcing the housing regulations. It's my job to tell people they can't build stuff in their dooryard ( a Maine term for front yard). So far my neighbors have been pretty cool about it, sort of dropping the sand out of their pockets so the guards won't suspect a tunnel.
It is stressful working here; two years to go on this tour, maybe less if I go to the desert which troubles me because in addition to the lack of wood over there how would I get the boat back?
So when you go into your heated shops this weekend, remember how lucky you are and be glad you are not a soldier or sailor (coastie that is).

[LarryJacobson]

Dave,

I can sympathize with you. At least I was able to have the designer alter the length of our boat to allow it to fit in our 25' long garage. So, the 24' project gets a little tight fore and aft.

I can only speak for myself but although I like to work in a clean and organized space, that's very hard to maintain in a tight space.

When I've shared photos with the forum of my progress, I tend to tidy things up a bit. So I wonder how many of the pristine work spaces we've seen are all that typical (at least I try to convince myself of this to make me feel better about my garag...workshop).

Larry in CT

[cs]

Who am I to complain. I at least got a place to work, but she is tight. Right now I got my canoe stretched across (corner to corner) and all my workbenches and tools pushed off to the side. Any time you have to use a tool you have to re-arrange and open the door. But she is home sweet home.

http://a5.cpimg.com/image/9F/15/14952095-89ab-028001E0-.jpg

Chad

[dalan1]

Aw man, you guys all suck. I'm gonna have to stop coming here or I'm gonna drop dead with unmitigated envy.

Seriously now though, them're some durn pretty shops, there.

My "shop" is half my basement, a dark, cold, dusty, cramped cat lair (our cats think the pile of sawdust under my tablesaw is kitty litter), the walk-out door of which dictates the maximum size boat I can build. I haven't had the heart to evict either of our cars from the garage yet, although that might happen when my project (which is still only on paper) reaches a certain point, probably final finishing.

[Donn]

That's my "shop," right behind that blue tarp. It's 31 degrees out there right now, so nothing is getting done on the boats. :(

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid41/p90b88e9f2b440c5766a517dcfdc9c2ae/fcf6d1a1.jpg

[ 02-28-2003, 09:58 AM: Message edited by: Donn ]

[John Blazy]

I vote that Billy Bones and Dave Fleming be banned from this thread. A view of the Caribbean? Thats simply unfair. But then again, my shop is tax deductible cuz my business is there too, affording me plenty of space for my boat (hoisted into the cieling on pulleys when not in use).

I've paid my dues though from shops past. Been there twice on the owners leasing the space and having to move quickly, though not as tear-jerking as davef's story. Been in the rat infested ones too - worse when you poison them and they die in the walls stinking up the shop so bad you simply can't go in.

I actually have a "head" in my new shop now - what luxury, and two sinks! Keep yer chin up davef, someday you'll get the dream shop. You wouldn't appreciate it if you didn't have this experience.

[Bruce Hooke]

Well, my workshop is certainly better than some and not nearly as good as others. For the most part I'm just happy to have an indoor heated workshop, especially after reading some of the other stories! It is in my basement, with all the usual pluses and minuses that this entails. The space is 10' wide, 30' long, and about 7' high. The boat shown in the picture is about the largest craft that it's possible to build in this space because the door out is just off the left side of the picture and once through that door you have to bend past a furnance and then head up a narrow staircase. And, yes, I did take the boat out via this route once already...there was no hope of getting the shear lined off right inside the shop. At this point there is not a lot of floor area left unused in the workshop but there's enough to get around...

http://members.cox.net/bghooke/Images/Low-Angle-View-Spring-2002.jpg

[WFK]

Thanks Joe for the nice words about my new shop. It really is a dream I've wanted since I went to work for a boatbuilder here on the island when I was in my early 20's (the builder of Brian M's "Spray") My first shop was 12X20 shed out back from a place I rented,....Totally infested with bats,...A paint brush in one hand, and a tennis racket within arms reach of the other, I thought I was in heaven. Then built my house with an attached shop shown in the lower picture, and this spring I'll move into my new shop shown below, 48'X44"
I'd like to say one thing. Shops are a very special place, a place where we can forget our problems of the day,.... where we can go and create anything we want. Regardless of size, or the fact that they're rat infested, no heat,...what ever the circumstances.....they're our's to go to, to build wonderful things. I think we'll all have fond memorys of the different place's we've worked out of, I know I will!
Bill http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid53/p5651cd61fae0f8be484871064e3709b1/fc9211a0.jpg http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid13/pa13b95cca37dcbb7c5a8682a4a0639e6/fdda009b.jpg

[garland reese]

I got to visit this Texas Boatbuilder's shop last year. I want one of these!!......or Joe's, or WFK's......shop envy, boat envy, where does it all end???? :rolleyes: :confused: ;) :D

http://home.flash.net/~ralbers/barn_in1.jpg

[garland reese]

I got to visit this Texas Boatbuilder's shop last year. I want one of these!!......or Joe's, or WFK's......shop envy, boat envy, where does it all end???? :confused: ;) :D

http://home.flash.net/~ralbers/barn_in1.jpg

[Don Danenberg]

"Self employed Builder/Woodworker";
Hey, you forgot the 'BOAT' designation there.

Of the last many "shops" I've gone into the hole setting up, I've found that the extremes justify the means.

Its in the doing, not the getting there, that makes it fun! DonD

[Bill Perkins]

I've not previously aspired to own a boatshop with a balcony , but now that I've seen it I want it !

[PugetSound]

Coastie,
Seems to me that your problem is partly your wifes fault since she is obviously being so uncooperative as to allow you to build your boat in the one place which the army will allow: your living room!! There was this guy who lived over in Seattle in a two bedroom apartment (on the third floor). He built Phil Bolger's folding schooner design (about a 20 to 24 foot hull if I remember) in the livingroom/dining room. He launched it by totally removing the entire window (frame and all) and winching it out the window. Ultimately, he was dissatisfied with the boat (more appropriately with the design shortcuts he took to complete it). He wound up running it up on a Lake Washington beach and having himself a wiennie roast with the boat providing the heat.

As for the worst boatbuilding shop..... a couple of years ago, I helped a friend build a boat in his backyard because there was no room in his garage. It was the rainiest day of one of the rainiest years on record when we framed her out -under a tarp. But then this is the Northwest, if you cannot get used to the rain then why live up here in the first place?

[bobkaschak]

I love my shop, well lit, heated, and chock full of tools. Here are some pics of the one side opposite of where the boat is.
Bob K.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid42/p34bd5995913d6e8a060fec042f993f17/fcf2b2f1.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid42/pb01b676e6450e86ea3bb44ea2ceea0cc/fcf2b265.jpg

[Donn]

That's lovely, Bob...but the dust collection system for the dartboard appears to be malfunctioning. :D