The Workshop...March 2102

Keeping a Blog going is a strange and surreal experience. Me, and thousands like me, sit in our little rooms at our little keyboards merrily pecking away at the keys...we hit 'publish' and wooooooooosh...off it goes into the ether.
If you use an Apple Mac, as I do now, you'll know the sound when you send an email.

I digress, as I'm apt to do, but bear with me. Last Friday, the MD of Axminster Power Tools, Ian Styles (shown here nattering to yours truly) hosted a fantastic day for UKWorkshop members at the head office, pics of which can be seen here and during the course of our natterings he enquired 'whether I still did the Blog?'

I 'haa'd' and I 'hummed' but eventually got out of the black hole I'd dug for myself by mentioning the thing that was at the back of my mind...'who actually reads it?' To my surprise, when I checked the stats, around 40,000 people, have dipped into this drivel so I guess, now that I'm retired, I'd better continue with it...

Much has happened in the 'shop over the last 12 months and in particular, the whole of the interior has been stripped, refurbished and upgraded. The main culprit was the floor...anyone unfortunate enough to spend a prolonged amount of time will have noticed the distinct 'wibbli-wobbliness' in there due mainly to an extreme attack of parsimoniousness...















...and as you can see from the pic, there's not a lot of support under the joists, the net effect being to induce a slightly queasy feeling of sea-sickness after a short while.

To cut a very long story sideways, that's all been fixed. The floor has been considerably beefed up with some of my early retirement money from the MOD as well as spending a trifling amount on some new gear.

In early November all the gear was delivered from Axminster and Yandles...

with some assistance from a few of the 'lads' (suitably recompensed with coffee and fresh cream sticky buns) so that by the end of the day it was all safely under cover in the 'shop.















If you look very carefully at the saw take-off table, there are one or two little lime green and black trinkets that I decided to invest in.

But I ramble, as usual and as is said in circles far more eminent than miserable offering, a 'picture speaks a thousand words', so herewith the new 'shop...




















The hand tool bench, substantially unchanged, but note the lights over the top of the bench which makes it far easier to take pics.














The new Charwood W650 table saw, complete with router table in the RHS extension table, carbon fibre riving knife, new and vastly improved crown guard and many other modifications too numerous to mention (but they are documented in the next issue of F&C)














Jet 260 p/t and extender bin, all powered by the Camvac 386




















The wood store, complete with several large, prime boards of English Walnut (the big ones, standing up in the corner)














The new lathe and Jet heavy duty disc sander, with the Camvac 386 tucked underneath




















The Startrite 352E bandsaw, complete with a 20mm M42 blade, together with the new racking for the cramps




















...and finally the new Jet pillar drill and metalwork bench. Much of the other stuff in the workshop has remained unchanged, but it does mean now that I'll be able to tackle a larger range of more complex projects.

That's the theory anyway, practice will probably be very different...

Comments awaited with some trepidation.