Woodworker's Journal 2004-Winter, страница 10

Take your answers to these questions a step further by drawing a birds eye sketch of your current shop that shows the location of all machinery, shelving and storage areas and workbench. Now use arrows to mark the path materials take from the raw stage through to that last brush stroke on the finishing table. Is there a logical traffic pattern, or do you crisscross the shop numerous times to complete a single task? Is your lumber rack close to the miter saw, table saw and jointer and planer—the machines you use to process it down from its heaviest and longest form into more manageable pieces? Are your clamps and fasteners located close to the workbench where you can get at

In the busy shop of contributing editor Mike McGlynn, sheet goods get knocked down to size using a commercial panel saw and the table saw soon after entering the shop. Smaller panels are easier for him to manage alone, which saves effort and leads to more efficient work.

Finishing guru Michael Dresdner maintains a separate clean area of his shop for applying finish. Not only does he get dust-free results this way, but it also allows him to keep finishing supplies, applicators and other cleaning solvents all within easy reach of the bench.

them easily during assembly? How many times do you have to move machinery from one place to another to set up the next steps when making parts?

Ideally, Landis says a workshop should function similarly to an efficient kitchen, where stages of food preparation happen in a "work triangle"—the imaginary footprint between sink, stove and refrigerator. Work triangles don't literally have to be three points, but you should be able to move easily to various areas in your shop for completing a single task. Review your sketch and consider how you process a board from the moment you take it off the rack through the crosscutting and ripping phase. Look for ways to minimize backtracking, carrying and unnecessary lifting. If you spend most of your time at the bench, are the tools and materials you use most often within easy reach? How about sanding and finishing? There are work triangles here, too. Plan your shop triangles around these kinds of repetitive tasks with the goal of making your time and effort really count.

Getting Organized

It's ten o-clock on a Saturday morning. Do you know where your block plane is? How about that chamfering bit you used last summer for the routing you need to do

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* Workshop Projects