Shop Talk

New Bench Room
Shop Talk.
I live and work out of my home here on Cape Breton Island.I own and operate a one man boat shop where I build traditional style Wooden Boats. Lately however business has slowed to a grinding halt. This however doesn't strike fear into me for I use the down time between builds to work on custom Wood Working projects. You can check out the boat building side of things at www.theboatbuilder.ca.
My shop is located in a small garage that was here when we purchased our home. It's about 20' by 20'. I've since added a bench room on the rear of the building that's an additional 12' by 16'. This extra room enabled me to have a machine room in the old garage section and a new bench room in the new. It also helped to have a bit more wood storage space as I can never seem to have enough of that! The room has two large South facing windows and one Eastern. This is a real life saver for me. It enables me to enjoy not only a great view of the area around my shop but makes for all of the natural sunlight I need to work. My wood storage is on the North wall, floor to ceiling. I've installed some heavy brackets to the wall studs on 16" centres. This area allows me to keep on hand about 1200 board feet of lumber, getting used to the smell of my Bench Room and becoming 'climatized' to it's current residence. I really think this is a crucial step to Fine Wood Working.