Show Off Your Shop

[oakridgeboy]

Mark-you are one lucky man.Not only do you have a huge space for the toys,but your wife built it for you.I would kill for a shop that size!!!
Yes Sir-you definitely SUCK!!! ;D

[wdkits1]

Here are a couple of pics of the shop that I built a few years ago.
1100 sq. ft timberframe.




View of the inside.



Follow this link if you would like to see how I built --Mike's One Man Shop.
midlothianwoodworks.wordpress.com/mikes-one-man-shop/

[Ruffnek]

That's a very cool workshop, Mike and I suspect highly conducive to creativity. It's really an idyllic setting.

You must be a man of many talents because there's quite a difference in timber frame construction and the intricacy of intarsia.

[Leo Voisine]

Mike -- you WIN

Your shop is FAR nicer than my home.

WOW - absolutely gorgeous.

[Mark T]

Wow mike! Nice pad. I got ya with square ft, but you take the prize for ambiance. It just looks inviting.

My sister lives in Midlothian. I wouldn't mind looking at your shop sometime while I'm down there... if you want to show it off ;D

[imahic]

OK, hope this works...this is a first time. Contention for most cluttered shop.

edit: well that didn't work. guess I will read TJ's tutorial again to see what I did wrong.

edit: take 2...let's see now. only one shows up..hmmm...let me go track down Jason again

[imahic]

Well, Jason got part of them fixed. I'll see which ones didn't make it and try again I guess. The table behind my scms is a downdraft table I built and the cardboard hood over one end is an experiment to see if it would work. It does a pretty good job of capturing probably 90% of the dust from the saw. I didn't get a picture of the HF dust collector cause it's just outside this room along with my air compressor and wood rack. The Duke is watching over my bandsaw that I bought a few months back from CL.


this pic is of my homemade assembly table...built on 2 sawhorses so it can be taken down and put out of the way when not needed. My router table is up on top of it cause I was modifying it some. I want to build another one but in the mean time this does the job.

[Beamer]

Got 'em all fixed, mike!

VERY nice place! I love it

[Ruffnek]

Good looking shop, Mike. I love the poster of JW overlooking the bandsaw. It also appears you have been doing some resawing, judging from the size of that blade and the tall fence.

Those boxes to the left of the assembly table look like beehive boxes.

Thanks for showing.

[brent]

Best. Birthday present. Ever. I would get lost in there.

[imahic]

Thanks Cody. The Duke keeps an eye on things for me. I haven't done any resawing yet but have done some ripping. The blade came with the saw when I bought it a few months ago. It is a 1 1/4 inch Timberwolf blade. The guy also had 3 other blades the same size and one smaller on about 3/8 or so. I got the 18 in Grizzly with four 1 1/4 blades and the smaller one for 375.00. I was tickled with that find. You are correct about the hive boxes also. I need to get them painted so they will be ready to put some bees in this year. My brother and I are trying to get started with bees again.

Mike

[Mark T]

I noticed your supers first thing. I kept bees for many years too. I wish you guys good luck with it. After suffering a massive loss from the mysterious disappearing bees, I have not attempted it again. I hope you fare much better.

[imahic]

Thanks, Mark. We are only getting into it for our personal use but we did enjoy messing with them. When we were kids we had a glass hive in our living room. We would spend hours and hours watching them. Especially during spring when lots of blooms were present. We have tried to capture a couple of swarms but they didn't stay in for some reason. We were fairly certain that we got the queen in all instances but have since decided that it may be the preformed foundations that we had in the hive. The foundation is black and is made from plastic or something. After I talked to another beekeeper they said they hadn't had too much luck with those either. So we are going to just use the ones made from wood and the preformed sheets of beeswax. We know they work....lol. The only thing I worry about is the Africanized bees getting in. We have had them this far north. I guess we will just have to see what happens. Bees are such a critical part of nature's process and the mite problem and other problems have made a huge dent in the beekeeping industry. Lots of people are scared of them and feel they should be destroyed but if they only knew to just leave them alone it would help.

[Mark T]

I always used formed wax foundations as well. Can't go wrong there.

I had a local guy start up my hives at his place. When they were established, I moved them the twenty miles to my sites, and they did well. I have not tried to start a hive from a swarm.

No idea where you will keep them, but from the things I read, Africanized bees are fabulous honey producers, if not somewhat cranky critters. I wouldn't want them in my back yard, but I might live with them in a more remote location. Nah...

I envy you Mike. I do miss my little girls.

[Leo Voisine]

Nice workshop.

When I worked at Winchester, we had a life sized bronze statue of the duke in the lobby in New Haven Ct.

He is one HUGE Duke.

[oakridgeboy]

Mike: Funny that bees came up.Here's a pic of a solar wax melter I built for a client last year.He provided the glass,tray and a rough guideline to build it.Quite involved.1/2" ply with 1/2" rigid insulation sandwiched inbetween,angled to catch the sun,etc.
Interesting project and he says it reaches some fantastic degree inside-which is good!
Mike

[fredbelknap]

Feb 17, 2010 12:25:06 GMT -6 Mark T said:

I always used formed wax foundations as well. Can't go wrong there.

I had a local guy start up my hives at his place. When they were established, I moved them the twenty miles to my sites, and they did well. I have not tried to start a hive from a swarm.

No idea where you will keep them, but from the things I read, Africanized bees are fabulous honey producers, if not somewhat cranky critters. I wouldn't want them in my back yard, but I might live with them in a more remote location. Nah...

I envy you Mike. I do miss my little girls.

I have watched ,from a distance, my dad hive swarms of honeybees. If he was using a newly built gum he would use a clump of peach leaves and rub it real hard over the inside. He had pretty good luck with bees.

[rdabpenman]

Took these a while back just after I cleaned my shop.

Les

[imahic]

Your shop is way too clean Les....lol. Very cool shop. I would love to see some closeups of the two handsaws up on that shelf if you have some. That looks pretty interesting. Are they intarsia?

[imahic]

Mike/wdkits1, I must have missed your link to building your shop the first time. WOW! I have workshop envy. I have to agree with what someone else said. You win for coolest shop. I would love to have a shop with wooden floors. Thanks for the link to your shop build.