Cleaning the shop... again!

It was a stiflingly hot day and the air was stagnant and still when I decided to clean the shop. I thought to myself, "if I'm in hell I might as well make the best of it", and so I opened the big steel shop door and instantly became frozen with fear and confusion at the mere thought of the magnitude of the task I had committed myself to completing. I wondered if Michelangelo had felt the same as he stared at the bare ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Was Gustave Eiffel just as intimidated by the immense breadth of the project he bestowed upon himself as he began construction of the Eiffel tower?


I made the manly decision to regard all the great and astonishingly disciplined men of the past who accomplished incredible feats of any nature as frightened little girls who depended on the sweat of others to attain such lofty heights. With their image now temporarily tarnished, in my mind, I began the chore of cleaning up and organizing my little cave.

Half a day and about 3 litres of water later I could begin to see the tops of the workbenches, again. What a glorious sight it was, too. I found a tool I thought I had accidentally thrown in the trash, and I managed to find a part that will work beautifully in my next wooden computer project! The floor was dust-free now, and the piles of scrap wood were now at least somewhat organized. Through the oppressive heat and lack of any sort of breeze what-so-ever I made some mental notes of what to include when I build my new shop in a year or two... and the notes somehow stuck with me until the end of the day when I sat down and actually typed them out in OneNote.


Finally, by the second day, I had my handsaws; chisels; and a hammers back in their rightful place on the sliding wall. The little things are the biggest problem in a small shop. So many tiny tools; screws; nails; hooks; tool parts; jigs; etc, etc, etc... Finding a place for everything is quite a chore, but one that will cut tons of time from each and every project down the road, not to mention save what little sanity I have left.

The shop is now nearing completion and should be 'finished' within a day or two, but the real glory is when I can back to work doing what I love doing - making messes!

Pictured above is my 'small project' workbench and atop the bench are various items needed to complete various projects. The red emergency lights will be placed back on my firetruck once I find a way to mount them. The truck originally came with a hard-top, but because it has no air-conditioning I opted to remove the hard-top and install a soft-top, which left nowhere to reinstall the lights. I'm pretty sure I'll end up making two pole mounts and mounting them on the front of the bed - a whole different blog post!

Hopefully by the middle of next week we'll have new photos up of new projects, and perhaps some photos of various corners of the shop ; )