George's Shop Tour

It's been about six months since I got out here into my new shop building in Hammond, Wisconsin. And a lot of you have been asking about what changes have come along to the shop since we shot that first video clip a while back. So, I wanna walk you through what we've done, what kinda changes I've made. So we're gonna start here. This is a two car garage attached to the main building.

So you can tell we're not too far from the main road, the trucks are going by. This garage is unheated and uninsulated. So, warm in the summer, real cold in the winter time. What I'll use this for is material storage. So I've got a plywood, a sheet goods rack over here, I've got solid wood rack behind me.

In this building I've got a panel saw and a miter saw. So I can start processing my material here, then by loading the material onto a cart, I can move it from here into the shop. So, it works out great because, I've got a service door here. This service door goes into a small room between the garage and the shop. Now, this room is heated, so in the wintertime, I can bring material in, store it in here for a couple of days before I'm ready to work with it, so it has a chance to acclimate to my shop environment.

Remember, that's very important that you do. So, from here, process material or store material, and then I can find my way into the shop. Material comes through this door and at this kinda, triangle of work, what I've got is table saw, jointer, miter saw. That lets me continue to refine the pieces as they come in. I've got a storage rack back here for sheet goods offcuts.

Got another storage rack in that other room where I put solid wood offcuts. Now, one of the things that's come in since you were here last, I do have a dedicated lathe set up over here. And I gotta say, I love that. I really like turning. I love that I can walk up to the machine anytime and work on it.

I left a lot of space around it because turning makes such a mess. So having space available around it sure makes it easier to clean up. Bathroom's back there, break room over here. Now, let's have a look at the other end of the shop, because that's where the most changes have happened. When you were here last, I don't think you could see a floor tile on this side.

Now, I've got things mostly put away, I've still got a lot of stuff to sort through. But here's what happens over here, of course, when we do a video, it's like a cooking show. We have to have multiples of each project ready, so that the crew doesn't have to wait, because boy, do they yell at me if they gotta wait. So, when I'm getting ready for a video, I bring that stuff over here, I label the pieces. From here, they'll get brought onto the set, and be in place so that we can do our shooting.

So on this side of the building, we're storing props for videos, unfinished props from videos, some additional tooling when the video at work isn't going on I use this side, primarily for sanding and assembly. Working on a dedicated sanding station that I'll set up with this machine right here, and on this end of the building where I've got my clamp rack I'll have a gluing station. So once I get back to offering classes in this building, this side is gonna become the work bench side, that side the power tool side. If you look around a little bit, you can see I've got a ways to go before I'm ready for that, because there's still more stuff for me to sort through and put away. But that catches you up on what I've been doing here for the last six months to get things going, keep the videos going, and keep the shop setup going.

So there's a workflow, there's an efficiency here, and we can keep bringing you great video. So, hope you enjoyed the tour. Next time you come back, this side's gonna look even better, I promise.