Working my way back

The sling is gone, and I’ve got most of my range of motion back. I can’t lift or move much with my left arm yet, but I have managed (with some help from my sons) to get the shop ready.

This rearrangement was something I thought about in the couple of weeks before my surgery. It’s driven by what Adam Savage refers to as “order of retrievability” — that is, the tools you use most should be the easiest to get to, and as the need/frequency of use goes down the storage location can be less convenient.

It all started with the clamps. I had been storing my clamps in the far left corner of the shop, as shown here:

To get to them, I had to reach over or around the flipsie, a storage shelf thing, and my scrap woodpile. It was awkward, to say the least. And I had the idea that if I turned the table saw and assembly table 90 degrees, then I would be closer to the clamps and that would make getting them down and putting them away an easier thing. Sensible, right?

And then it kind of snowballed from there. I cut out little representations of every tool, cabinet, and table in the shop (to scale), drew the garage at the same scale, and noted the unmovable features (walls, door, freezer, etc.) on that plan. Then I played with all of my tools, arranging and rearranging them like tiles in an odd sort of Shop Mah-Jongg. It was one way that I passed the time just after surgery. And this is what I came up with.

• The saw and assembly table turned 90 degrees, which opened up everything else. Because my garage is a little bit wider (20′ 9″) than it is long (19′ 6″), this actually gave me more infeed/outfeed space, which was a surprise bonus.
• I moved the router table to keep it close to the SawStop’s router table, as I store all my bits in that original table. But then I realized that if I moved the bandsaw next to that and the dust collector to the corner, I would keep all the tools that use that 4″ dust hose close together and easy to move the connection between.
• The work table moved down to go opposite the assembly table, which lets me have over 8 feet of outfeed space that’s supported most of the way at the same height (as long as I don’t junk up the work table).
• The flipsie and drill press only moved a little; they don’t have much dust collection anyway.
• The jointer and planer are now on the opposite end of the shop from the dust collector, but running a 4″ hose under the assembly table and out the other side with some flex means they are still easy to connect. The jointer basically stayed put, just participating in the rotation of the center mass. I bought another quick-disconnect so I could move the dust hose from jointer to planer easily, and I now plane at the end of that structure, using the entire assembly table or saw table as outfeed. If the weather is bad enough to keep me from opening the garage door I can angle the planer to keep everything inside.
• The clamp storage ended up moving anyway, which wasn’t originally the idea, but it’s now right there behind me when I’m doing assembly work. It’s also more closely consolidated, with my most-used clamps immediately to hand, the less-used ones behind the drill press and planer cart, and the seldom-used back in the corner where the dust collector can just roll out or push aside to get access when needed.
• Most of my hand tools are now right behind me as well, which I can already tell is much easier and more productive than when I had to constantly go fetch things.

There was one cost: my original “knock-down” (which was really too heavy to knock down) table at the back had to go, because the width made that aisle too narrow. But that table had just become a place where scrap wood piled up; I have enough of those spaces already, thank you. Right now the table sits in the far corner, disassembled, but I will likely get rid of most of it. The HDPE top would make enough miter slot runners to last me a lifetime.

I still have improvements to do. The bandsaw mobile base that it came with is a horror, and the front wheel is already loose. When I have the strength in both arms I will replace it with a storage base and raise it up a little bit so the router table can double as bandsaw outfeed. I need to make a real scrapwood bin, and discipline myself to limit the scraps that I keep to what will fit in that bin. And I need a cabinet to hang on the wall where the wood storage rack that doesn’t actually store wood is sitting, acting as open shelving. The cabinet will keep my finishing supplies from acquiring a permanent coat of sawdust.

But none of that is immediate. I’ll need more strength in my arm, so until then I will be focusing on using the wood I already have (and it’s a lot!) to make things for around the house. My sanity depends on it.

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