The Seasonal Shop Expansion

As you can tell from my desk building project, the main disadvantage of having a small shop is that I am really limited in the amount of space that I have available for working on those really big items,.


Another disadvantage is that I also tend to get the occasional "constructive comments" from other members of my household about the trail of sawdust that I (or the Shop Supervisor) drags through the house, or the odd smell of drying varnish invades the living quarters (even though that smell to me is better than any expensive perfume).

Remember him?

So when the warm weather finally hits, I can't wait to make the move to have more of my operations happen in the great outdoors.

My outdoor shop is nothing really fancy, and I certainly wouldn't want to do any fine finish work outside (take it from me - removing bugs after nicely varnishing a table top is a real pain in the tuckus), but it is really nice to be able to get some fresh air and not really have to worry about sweeping up the shop floor at the end of the day.

The main goal of the outdoor shop is to just work on cutting up the wooden parts that I need for a project - chiefly anything that needs cutting with a table or a miter saw.

This allows me to also work on larger pieces of wood like full sheets of plywood or long lengths of boards without having to figure out how to wrangle such a large item in the confirms of my regular shop.

Once I have the parts I need cur down to size, I just simply bring the pieces back to the regular shop for assembly, leaving the lion's share of the mess outside.

Of course, the downside is that in order to avoid a lot of running back and forth from the outdoor shop to the indoor shop,  I do need to do a fair bit of planning of my activities so that I can make sure that I make all the cuts that I need to do in one trip.

Taking advantage of the good weather and longer days, I seem to find my overall project output seems to double when I'm working in the outside shop.

However all too soon, the days start getting cooler, and the leaves start to change color and fall, indicating that it is time to close down operations for another season.

The saws go back to the indoor shop in preparation for a long winter of puttering with smaller projects, waiting for the time when once again, the sun can shine on the saw blades.