I’ve set up several workshops from scratch, and I’ve studied a lot of modern shops and how they are put together.
If you get to frame your own walls, I recommend a couple easy modifications that can make life easier. First, when framing, add blocking throughout so you can hang heavy cabinets with ease. For the wall between the shop and the office shown above, I’ve added two layers of blocking at 71” from the floor so I can hang a nail cabinet and a second supplies cabinet on the back wall of the shop.
Also good to consider: You don’t have to use drywall/wallboard. In my current shop in Fort Mitchell, I sheathed the studs with 1/2” OSB instead of drywall. It cost a bit more, but it was worth it. Thanks to the OSB I can pretty much put a screw anywhere for light-duty hooks and pegs.
I didn’t bother to tape the seams. I just hung it and painted it.
The secondary benefit to the OSB (and not taping it) is that shop maintenance is easy. Whenever I want to add electrical circuits or change their voltage I remove the screws for the OSB panels and do any electrical and plumbing work behind. Then I rehang the OSB. You can’t easily do that with drywall.
OSB is also much stronger than drywall. I used drywall on one wall of my shop and it has gotten beat up and penetrated (accidentally, I swear) a bunch.
Today the storefront was officially christened as a workshop. John and I moved the first workbench and tool chest there so I can build the transom windows. That was a major step for my psyche.
Last night I freaked out a little in my pants. Like a knot in a becket it was.
My sphincter’s implosion upon its poor self came about when I looked up from the stud wall we were building in the new storefront and I realized 100 people would not fit in that room.
We’re getting ready for the March 12 opening, and when I set up an RSVP system I capped the number at a ridiculous number of attendees – 100. That’s the maximum the fire marshal will allow on the premises. But I thought we’d get 40 or 50 at most.
But no. We have 100 people showing up. As of now we have the front room complete, the back room, the bathrooms and the courtyard. I think it’s still too tight.
So I fetched the sledgehammer and we opened up the bricked-over door to the stables in the courtyard. That gives us a 23’ x 20’ room to which I will lure people with pizza and alcohol.
Also today (sphincter disengaged), the window installers put in the new windows in the shop along Ninth Street. The light in the shop just became even more wonderful.
Charles H. Hayward was one of the greats. As editor of The Woodworker magazine he was the standard-bearer for handwork in the 20th century. We have spent eight years scanning and editing his work to present two volumes of “The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years.” We think you will enjoy these books even more if you learn a little about Hayward’s life. Part I of this series is here.
Many of the old houses in Shoreditch were in an appalling state of disrepair, for although built originally as humble dwelling houses in long terraces, their use as workshops had resulted in shocking deterioration. Woodwork was innocent of paint, locks were frequently broken and replaced by padlocks and staples, an inner doors were invariably missing altogether. Stair treads were reduced to paper thickness, and no one saw the necessity for handrails – indeed they would have been in the way when timber or furniture had to be taken up or down. I have since wondered how they ever escaped being burnt down, for quite frequently, when a man had a veneering job to do he would light a shaving blaze to heat his cauls almost beneath the staircase.
In the shops around the district you could buy anything needed in furniture making. Veneers were available in consecutive leaves both knife – and saw – cut, in mahogany, walnut, oak, and many of the decorative hardwoods. There were also bundles of off-cuts, and sheets of marquetry in both 18th century patterns and (then) modern designs; ready-made turnings and legs of all kinds were commonplace. There were dozens of stores where metal fittings of all kinds were available; and there were polish houses where every kind of french polish and stains could be obtained; scotch glue (usually in cakes to be broken up); and of course there were tool shops where Norris planes were almost commonplace, and believe it or not, you could still buy a wooden hand-brace with brass strengthening pieces let flush into the wood.
My own very early workshop life in the pre 1914 days was in a workshop near Victoria. We reckoned ourselves as “West End” and were inclined to speak in a superior way when talking about Shoreditch, though in fact some very fine cabinet work was turned out in some of its workshops. Nearly all of our work was antique either reproduction or “fake”, and I use that latter term in a general sense, since it is often difficult to decide when a thing is an outright form of forgery or has been altered in some way, possibly to save it from further deterioration. We did a mixed class of work. The more skilled craftsmen were engaged on first class cabinets – shaped front sideboards, pieces with elaborate barred doors, and in addition was a whole range of good quality but relatively simple items.
Memory is a curious thing. Even when it is retentive it can play curious tricks, not only with past events but in the way we come to regard bygone happenings. Sometimes something which at the time was distressful or painful can in retrospect be wrapped around with a sort of protective padding which softens the picture it conjures up. Not that all the past was really one-sided, but that it is only natural to recall the better aspects of things and forget that almost everything has its less perfect side.
Perhaps the chief difference between the attitude of life then and that of today was that things then seemed to be in a settled state forever. We thought and acted as though the next few decades would see us in the same workshop, and quite likely at the same bench. There might be a few minor events such as a man changing his job, or possibly being sacked (redundancy was unknown in those days), but such things were trivialities and did not affect our general way of life.
Not that we didn’t argue about things in general, often in a heated way. Politics and religion, I recall, were the chief subjects, and opinions, frequently backed with maledictory or profane references, were hurled across the workshop from one end to the other. But such observations were frequently so much hot air, and were accepted as a sort of buffer against the tedium of things in general.
So life went on in sort of a jog-trot way to the accompaniment of the inevitable workshop noises of hammering, sawing, and planing with the occasional whine of the machine planer in the shop below, until the bell was rung for breakfast or tea break when a sort of uncanny silence descended on the workshop, argument and chatter being suspended by a sort of unspoken agreement in the immediate business of making and drinking tea and eating sandwiches. These intervals in general workshop life were largely a necessity in those days for we worked quite long hours. In summer time the working day started at 7am, with a break of half an hour for breakfast at 8 o’clock, then on till 1pm when the shop closed for an hour. The day finished at 6pm. It was varied in winter by a start at 8 am, finishing at 7 pm but with the breakfast break replaced by a tea interval.
Some of the men came from quite a distance such as Surbiton, and must have left at 5:30 to catch the 6 o’clock train. Even so there was a walk of about a quarter of an hour at the end of the journey. I still recall the scene outside the workshop door in the early morning. I myself arrived on a bike, but nearly all the men either walked or came by tram, and stood about in doorways or leaned against railings, awaiting the arrival of the foreman to unlock the door. Five minutes later the door was locked again and any unlucky late arrival had to kick his heels in the knowledge that an hour’s pay would be deducted from his pay packet at the end of the week. Indeed I have heard some choice, imperfectly smothered epithets uttered by an unhappy latecomer as he arrived panting only to find the door locked.
After working with dozens of woodworking authors and editors, I can tell you why most mistakes occur in woodworking books, magazines and blogs. They are caused by interruptions.
If you are writing down numbers, dimensioning a drawing or explaining a complex task, you are doomed if someone walks in and asks you a question. You will transpose something, skip something or copy and paste something completely wrong. I personally guarantee it.
So when I write, edit or design, I like to work in complete solitary. I have a room for writing and a second small and isolated room for editing and designing.
As I was drawing out the floorplan for the new Lost Art Press storefront (opening March 12), I couldn’t place my desk anywhere that would give me the dark burrow I need to work. As luck would have it, however, the overwhelming archaeological evidence is that the two front rooms of our storefront were separated by a wall (perhaps two walls). After sketching in a wall that would make the bench room a nice rectangle I saw it: My spider hole.
It’s an alcove about 7’ x 11’ under the stairs. No windows to the outside. Just the overwhelming claustrophobia that makes for good editing and designing. Today carpenter Mike Sadoff and I framed up most of this new wall and I ran some new electric to the spider hole to fuel my computer and a printer. There won’t be a phone there. Or email. Or SMS.
After a crisis involving the endsheets in “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” we are back on track with the production process and the book is expected to be released on time in late February or early March.
Just a reminder that if you want a pdf of the book included in your purchase, you need to order by Feb. 15. After that day, the pdf will cost extra.
We have started receiving orders for the book from our retailers. Here is who has signed on so far:
As more retailers sign on, we will let you know here on the blog.
A couple notes: We don’t know when our retailers will begin selling the book. Some offer it for pre-publication order. Some wait until they have the books in their warehouse. If you have questions such as this, it’s best to ask the retailer because we don’t know.
Also, many international customers have asked about getting the pdf with their purchase. We have created a mechanism that allows the retailers to do this. We now offer “dropcards” – a nicely printed card with a unique code that allows you to download the book securely. Several of the retailers are interested in the technology. But once again, it is up to them to decide to carry these dropcards or not.
One last thing: As of this morning, we have sold out about 75 percent of the first press run. If you are one of those freaks (I mean, book collectors), you have been warned.