The Beginning

In the beginning there was a little boy who liked the idea of making stuff.

At no time was he allowed to mess around in the woodshop garage spaces such as they were unattended and no-one ever had time for that. My mothers family were hoarder pack rats, so there was no space for a woodshop garage of great majesty.

Mostly he was the sensitive one in among the loud and obnoxious folks around him. He looked up to his Grandpa who was a jack of all trades, Amateur Farmer, Machinist, Woodworker, Mr Fix-It. The little boy got bigger but the G’pa did not get older and was gone.

The little boy became a bigger boy and then, I suppose, a man, but nobody really took him under their wing. He had to come by this stuff on his own. He saw his cohorts around him with Dads and even Moms who fixed things and made things and he was envious, but he vowed that he would figure this all out.

That he would become the kind of guy that would write amazing power tool reviews like this.

The Variety Show

The young man was involved in things like Music and Scouting but never quite found anyone to adopt him. Even now he has a tough time coming to terms with the idea of himself being a loner. He was, but mostly not by choice. He went places and did things. In Scouting he learned that he could whittle and make things from logs and leather goods.

In the last 10 minutes of the what would be the 24 hours of his youth and primary education, he was one of the leads in a school play, he completed his Eagle Scout award paperwork. The worst guidance counselor known to man set him off an adventure into higher education in Sociology because they thought he should be a teacher of young people since they themselves hated that job, and no-one wanted to replace them or their cohorts because of how badly the society values the profession.

Some people wondered who this guy was, and others thought, well, he is just as much of a goofball as we thought. He loves science fiction, fantasy, and weird cinema. He watches too many cartoons. He can’t seem to follow simple instructions but if you give him a checklist and some sort of real guidance and reason for a task it will be done quickly and painlessly as if you paid him to do it. (ADHD much?)

Arriving at college Eric realizes he can take some of the most boring classes taught by the most unhappy people on earth, or go forth and take some fun and enervating classes from folks who are delighted to have him there. Some of this was martial arts. Some of this was just plain “Art.” Some of it was Logic and Philosophy.

He worked at Boy Scout Summer Camps between the alternating sublime fun and drudgery. This little muskrat did not smoke or chew tobacco so it was not to be that he would be found in the Maintenance Shed which was closer to a plumbing and electrical shop that a woodshop garage. Generally he was becoming an artist and then an animator/storyteller.

At the High Sierra Boy Scout Camp he learned that he could be with adults and organize things and teach skills, but only cared when folks actually wanted to know them. It is an interesting moment when you learn you can be cool, but only among other nerds, because nerds are their own kingdom, and everyone outside it value things that are…different.

I began hanging out with some nerds who made things out of wood for hitting each other(nerds), but one group in particular went to hardwood stores like MacBeath in Berkeley California, looking for things to use when hitting each other. This is how I began by woodshop journey.

I found a thin block cut from a larger piece of Lignum Vitae… and using rasp files and sand paper in the quiet of a back patio instead of a woodshop garage I turned it into a training knife that closely resembled a paper knife from a 1980’s commercial that was used to spread ready made cake icing. I had bought materials, and then had imagined the thing as a different shape and then made it happen.

In the 1990’s our little muskrat became a nightclub bouncer/doorman because he thought it would make him cool. IT DID MAKE HIM COOL!!!! by accident. It also made it harder to breathe out of two nostrils at the same time. He finished his higher education Journey with a Bachelors degree and a deviated septum, and an interesting Harry Potter scar before there was a Harry Potter.

The Messy

I bled from the face more times in martial arts training with friends than I ever did getting hit in the face in the DNA Lounge by a wanted Drug Dealer on Wednesday HipHop Night. I got out from under the family wing after college and began to make things in the living room of my studio/one bedroom apartment.

It is amazing how ugly you can make something and yet it can be completely useful…. and then the moment it is of use to someone else, you can see how many ways you should have done it differently and better. It would have helped to have a woodshop garage space.

Greater things I have been ashamed of than these.

• I have used a wooden TV tray as a drilling backstop.
• I once used a cheap apartment industrial carpet as a rotary knife cutting station.
• I have used a shag carpet as a filing and carving shop floor.

The Commitment to woodshop garage spaces

My 1st adult human person garage became a Dojo for beating up friends and acquaintances.

My 2nd Garage was a mess because the porn person/stripper left her door open and my tools and some of my toys were stolen that weren’t destroyed by water damage.

My 3rd Garage was my first married man garage. It had elements of a woodshop garage, but it was mainly a place to do things in Resin and then in other medium to put on the platen of a Vaccuum Forming Machine.

The 4th garage was in a rental house of a strange Swiss man. It was too small to be useful as a woodshop garage. So I have a patio space that I covered in saw dst and woodchips instead.

The 5th Garage is where we are now. I can saw with certainty it is the closest thing to a woodshop garage. Inside it there are

• 4 routers
• 3 circular saws
• miter saw
• 2 table saws
• sanders
• chisels
• angle grinders
• wrenches
• Safety gear.
• Chain Saws, gas and electric and the teflon pants to go with them.
• the list goes on.

The next woodshop garage will be easier to set up because almost everything is currently casterized.

The Journey Continues

Each large casterized cabinet has multiple functions. The best and must fun function is that each has at least a two foot wide 6 foot tall mirrored acrylic surface so my lovely wife can use the space as a decent dance practice space.

This will be the pattern going forward. Even if it is primarily a place to store XMas and Halloween Decorations and a wood and repair shop, it will be available for many different purposes. That is what a good woodshop garage space needs to be for us.