Good afternoon. Does anybody recognise this scenario? (Please tell me it not just me!!)
It's time to have a really good tidy up. There's bits and pieces everywhere you look and it's starting to get you down. You build yourself up to it over the course of three or four months (!!) and then decide that the day has finally come to tackle the mayhem. Some things are easy, you know where the drills go, the scraper blades, the washers, screws and bolts, the knives, the spare blades, even the small pieces of left over bracing material have their own corner in the cupboard just in case you decide to make 50 ukes at some time in the distant future. And then it happens, you come across the angle adjustable ferule loosener, the double sided anticlockwise reamer, the upside down bridge widener....where do they go. And then you make the fatal mistake of starting a 'mixed box' that you will sort through later. Yup everything in its place and for many things the place is a big box of everything. You finish the day very satisfied with your efforts, your bench has never looked tidier and you can see the colour of the floor for the first time ....ever? It's all gone really great until, thee months down the line you need to loosen a ferrule thats sitting at a funny angle and then you think 'Ah, I've got just the tool for that! Now where have I seen that recently?' You check all of your labelled cubby holes but no luck. And then you remember, 'didn't I see that when I had my last tidy up?' You then slowly turn your head the corner of shame, the corner of the workshop where all of your mixed box collection is stacked, some having been left undisturbed since the day you pushed them there in order to make everywhere else look just that little bit clearer. 'Bugger!' Now was it in the top one? Mmmmm, I looked in there for my antibacterial grommet sprocket only last month and I don't remember seeing it then. But was the top box the most recent one? Didn't I have to get several of them down not that long ago and so they may have been put back in a different order. Thinks - 'Screwfix sell angle adjustable ferule looseners and I don't think they are more than a fiver'. Click and collect here I come! And that, my friends, is why, when finally I die and all my worldly goods are distributed amongst my nearest and dearest there will be an angle adjustable ferule loosener for each and every one of them!!
The solution? More little boxes! And lots of them!
Yup - I was tidying our dumping ground today - used to be a tiny bedroom - I had a series of stackable boxes each with a label - cable, power supply, magazine, envelopes, etc.....
The last one is labelled misc......
I carry the sorted crap down to the garage and the box labelled misc joins the three other misc boxes from the last three bits of tidying....
Good bit is that there is now extra space in the garage to move my drum sander, planer/thicknesser and band saw into so that I don’t have to move one to use the other....
Now need a second shop vac.....
Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!
More little boxes is sort of the solution - having things in a place so that you can find them.
Having organised a little workshop and then having collected up tools that were in several places in the house and garage and sorted them means that any task gets done in a third of the time because you can find the tools and materials. Also you don’t end up buying tools or materials to replace ones that are hiding - they often stop hiding about two minutes before the postman delivers the replacement......
Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!
Yeah, yeah, all these theories!!!
I am really hoping to come across the large bag of pearl fret board inlays that I haven't seen since October!
Anyway, this is what they look like when they are finished. Easily configurable to have four big drawers, two big drawers or all small drawers. Considering that the boxes are made of 2mm MDF and just click together without glue, they are remarkably rigid and robust.
Yes I think we all must have a corner of shame. I had a whole
workshop of shame until recently, and it’s still not anywhere near being acceptable as a guitar building environment.
We were selling the house and we decluttered it for viewers coming to look at the place. Yeah, all the clutter ended up in my garage/workshop. For a few reasons we took it off the market until we make the move up to Scotland in a couple of years. So now we are in lockdown I wanted to make some guitars, well, I opened the garage door...... *ugger!
Its taken me ages to sort the bulk of it out but at least I can see the floor and my temporary workbench made out of a pallet and other bits of scraps. I also found a lot of things I forgot I had, they all need an organised place to live.
Make guitars, not war 🌍✌️🎸
I have got stuck in though and made some real progress, still got a lot to do though.
Make guitars, not war 🌍✌️🎸
Holy shit John! I can't tell you how much better your 'before' pictures have made me feel!! lol
@darrenking ???? It wouldn’t have been that bad if we hadn’t decluttered the house but we did and that is what I was faced with. I felt like crying and screaming for help ? I’m getting there though now.
Make guitars, not war 🌍✌️🎸
@frocesterbill Wow! Well done to you too, you’ve definitely had a big job on. I know how you feel.
Make guitars, not war 🌍✌️🎸
Feels very good - now we have a third bedroom again and enough space in the garage for my drum sander, planer thicknesser and band saw to free up space in the ‘workshop’....
Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!
This is the biggest issue I have. Specially with my garage. I've accumulated some tools and 2 working tables one of which I made myself (planned it for the routing table plus part of it to be the circular table saw but it didn't go furhter than "just a table whith wheels). The problem is that I didn't buy till now any shelves or boxes to organise things... and now everything stays on the tables. when I have to work I just move everything from place to place and then back and I lose tools from my eyesight... then have too look for them long time. This has been a big problem for me and it slows me down and it demotivates me sometimes to the point of going in the garage stare at the mess for 30 min then getting back up and sit in front of the TV... Last week I found some boxes that were kind of what I need to start organising and i can already feel the difference when shit has it's place...
I am still far away from tidy space really looking forward for some more info on this topic
Any tips on organising the power tools, the woodworking tables, the dust collecting system, the small tools etc... tips and tricks would be great help for me.
Don't grow up! It's a trap!
I bought loads of magnetic strips to store loads of hand tools, cup hooks for things with hanging holes and in pairs for hammers and long biggish screws for metal clamps. I managed to put up some long shelves and as I am quite tall I have set some of these high up out of the way.
That said it still only takes an hour some days to make a real mess of a tidy workshop!
Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!
@darrenking .... where did you find those handy-looking little boxes??
Online guitar making courses – guitarmaking.co.uk
You're all so lucky to have so much cluttered space. I'm working in a 8' x 6' hut that also stores my sailing gear, outboard motors, lawn mower and an increasing collection of bits of wood. So I'm mostly working outside when I'm doing anything that ceates dust. Tools are gradually taking over my workbench.
@tv1010101
Hi TV1010101010011001, the first pic in the thread shows them coming off my laser clutter. They are actually remarkably strong given their 2mm MDF construction. Could be another website/eBay offering, I don’t know, I’ve never actually costed them. Bloody useful though!
@robin I’d give up sailing and cutting your grass ASAP if I were you! eBay is a great way to get rid of unwanted ‘ex-hobby’ items for when you need to make space for the things that really matter!!? ?