Show Your Workbench

[Skruffyhound]

And expanding all the time

[madstringbean]

After being kicked off the dining room table, I now use the living room floor.  There have been times when I have soldered while lying on my stomach.  Not exactly the safest way to go.

As you can probably guess from the picture, I am into circuitbending.  This is a photo I took mainly to show off my roundup of mini and toy keyboards.  When it comes to building, I am more into synths and general analog electronic music, but I do play guitar as well!  Don't worry, I'm not just a synth-nerd sent here to spy on you!

[frequencycentral]

Don't worry, I'm not just a synth-nerd sent here to spy on you!

Ah that would be me. 

[punkin]

Pretty hi-tech set up you've got there 

[nbabmf]

My bench got messier and messier, until one day I was searching 5 minutes for something as common as 1M resistors!


So I tidied up!  I'm still working out a system for that cabinet of drawers.  Right now, I have a 1, 10, 100, 1k, 10k, 100k, 1M type scheme going.  I have a second cabinet, down out of the frame, ready to go for when I need more space.

[punkin]

 


I thank you for doing that...I was immediately stressed out when I saw your first picture    . Nice work station 

[danielzink]

Dan

[moose23]

Dan

Would love that set up.

[cloudscapes]

love the dentist tray!  

[danielzink]

love the dentist tray!  

 

It's actually a CRT "holder" - I typically have my laptop on it running some tunez when I'm working - as you can see - it also make a handy place to set stuff on to get it off the bench.......

Dan

[G. Hoffman]

It's a bit embarrassing at the moment.  I usually work a lot cleaner than this, but the MIDI looper/switcher is a bit beyond my skill level (it's good to push yourself), and when ever I'm in over my head I have a hard time working clean.  If I actually knew what I was doing, it would be much neater!

Gabriel

[T1bbles]

I'd love to post a pic of mine, but my workbench is the small space on my desk between my keyboard and me, it's about 20cm deep and 70cm wide, wouldn't make much of an image really lol.

[G. Hoffman]

This is a little closer to how I usually keep it.  Not spotless, but pretty decent.







This is the thing that was making it such a mess.  It's not quite done, in that I'm going to get a thin bit of aluminum to use as a face plate to cover all the extra holes that were already there.  The Chassis is Weber's 4 footswitch box.  I would prefer to have a blank chassis to start with, but the price on this for a steel chassis is pretty hard to beat!





The Tool Rack - this is a modification of the tool racks we have on all our benches at the guitar shop - I'm just so used to having everything laid out in front of me like this, I go nuts if I can't have it.






Gabriel

[sean k]

Wow , I need a big clean up. Never have learnt to tidy as I go.

I'm going to do the big cleanup and decided to photo it all before I sorted it all out... to show just how untidy I can get...yet still function!
http://artyone.blogtown.co.nz/2010/01/26/workshop-spaces-untidy/

[birt]

you've got an impressive amount of space to keep untidy. i dream of such a future :p

[G. Hoffman]

you've got an impressive amount of space to keep untidy. i dream of such a future :p

Someone somewhere must have come up with the corollary to Boyle's Law - That messes expand to fill the available space - haven't they?



Gabriel

[sean k]

The thing is that if there is a law then it needs to incorporate a feedback of some sort.

Each time I take longer to completely render any space unusable and it takes less time to tidy it up. Because each time it's tidied the stuff I need more of is made more easily accessible and so the layering of available things to use is better utilised.

I started out on the back step when I was 8 and my tools where in the bottom drawer in the kitchen. My Dad kept and supplied tools but never really used them so from an early age I was the toolman. Eventually I got the bench in the garage, Dad built it but I made it work, when I was about 14 and it goes on. I think that making use of an area allows one to expand into new areas. They start out as storage, turn into roughing areas and then things get cleaner and cleaner but that sequence of type of use areas still exists.

I first recognised this when I got a warehouse in the 90's, 1500 sq ft, and eventually turned it into a house with a small workshop, over a space of three years. At first I had the whole place open and worked wherever which turned into a mess. gradually I defined areas and through definiton was able to make the area I needed to work in smaller and more efficient.

I kinda see the same thing happening here except the space is open at first and I build to store. Wood, masonary and steel comes first and needs shelter before it is built into shelter. When it becomes shelter finer materials are stored in it for use. when those finer materials are used the spaces become more closed off, from dirt floors to base course to concrete to tiled. Evebtually my workshops will be living spaces and new workshops will evolve. Its all really alike a discovery of self made manifest and expansion out into the world as confidence grows.

Actually I remember the time of rented houses with friends and even then I used to build lean to's and resurrect old sheds that were falling down. If you don't ask and do it well what would have been a no often turns into a quite possibly.

[birt]

nice. not wanting to hack the topic but what technique do you use when welding your metal work?

[sean k]

old fashioned oxy acetylene... which is why I braze alot. I also use the thinnest wall tubing, at 1.2mm wall thickness, and bend everything by hand using my body...often my knees... though I occasionally use a former for bending the rod but only to make circles.

[Top Top]

I'd love to post a pic of mine, but my workbench is the small space on my desk between my keyboard and me, it's about 20cm deep and 70cm wide, wouldn't make much of an image really lol.

Mine used to be the same. I used to shove the keyboard to the back and build in front of it.

My total space is exactly 1/2 of a 15' x 12' room -- for recording/playing music, keeping my instruments, building electronics and amps, cutting wood or metal, silkscreening, etc. However, recently I rearranged some stuff, put up a storage unit, put up some shelves, and cleaned out a closet, and now I have TWO additional benches to work on, my silk screening press is positioned in a more usable but less in the way place, and all of the tools and parts I need are more accessible.

Sometimes I find myself putting my stuff on the floor in preparation to work on something, just out of habit, and then remember my two benches

It is amazing when you just organize things well and re-think the space that you have what you can do with that space.

I used to be not so interested in being organized and cleaning up after myself, but I am starting to realize that it is a big help to my ability to think clearly and be creative if I just have the things on hand in a place where I can find them, and don't need to push a bunch of junk into a pile before getting started working on something.