Official Luthiers Forum!

Okay, maybe you can find yourself and your shop and vote in the poll. I have a local college journalism student coming in the morning to do a story, and the shop is a mess.

My neatnick wife said aren't you going to clean the shop?

I went down, looked around, made some cool curls of adirondack and glued some braces. Nah, if I sweep I gotta put on that dust mask. Dickey38395.0376851852

I try to keep things organized so I can find them without thinking, and I try to clean the shop at the end of a day. I'm taking friday's off now to start catching up for healdsburg and burn some vacation time (so much to do before august) and clients are starting to come over now so Michelle helps with keeping the shop clean. I pick up the tools and put them in their place and she sweeps and empty's the trash.

I have 3 musicians coming over tomorrow, so we'll be cleaning the shop in the morning and moving things so nothing can get dropped on a work in progress. I use the dust collector religously which helps alot and I epoxied the floor when we first moved in which means we can mop and not raise the humidity very much..

Cheers

-Paul-

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

If I can find a spot on the workbench, I'm building. When I can't find a place to do something then I'll clean up a bit. Did somebody say they wanted to be an apprentice?

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I've only got 220 sq ft of shop. That includes all of my wood storage too. So one little thing out of place makes it look cluttered. At the end of the day everything gets put away where it belongs. At the beginning of the day the vacuum gets run and I've got a fresh start. When guitars are on the bench I can be very anal about putting things away but I find when I'm building something like a jig all goes to pot. For example, yesterday I wanted to improve my cradle for holding the body while cutting a binding channel. My old method took about 10 minutes to switch from top to back and get everything re-leveled. Now it's at most a 30 second operation. My point: when I'm working on something like that that I supconciously don't care what it looks like, I don't keep an oderly shop. Tools everywhere, small pieces of hardware everwhere, plywood dust EVERYWHERE. I actually had a client drop in yesterday when I was working on it. "Wow, I've never seen your shop like this" he said. I couldn't really even offer him a place to sit as the stool was covered in wood chips. Took about an hour an a half to get it back to order but all is good now.
So, to you neat freaks like myself, do you have this happen in your shop when you aren't working on guitars?

I have visted two workshops and they were both perfectly clean. I think both makers cleaned up before my appointment. One builder, however, I think was into being clean full time, since he had several brooms and vacuum cleaners in various sizes/shapes. I mentioned how clean the shop was; he replied that the shop had to be clean nearly all the time for several reasons, including the amount of lamination work, both sides and Nomex double-tops-- absolutely no dust!

With all that cutting and vast amounts of sanding, I can see why an apprentice would be nice. Otherwise, it seems a builder would be spending a good percentage of the day cleaning instead of building. I've read that some Spanish builders (Reyes) employ a small boy/girl to clean/maintain the workshop. When they become older and begin to show interest in building, he gets rid of them and finds another young cleaner! Now, how's that for being secretive?

OLE!

SonicAgamemnon38395.3574537037

I've got 400 sf of space and 400 cubic yards full of stuff to get in there...you do the math.

Hey...where's the floor?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I have 287 sq. ft. of space and use it all. Turns into a mess in no time if I don't clean every day (I don't). At least everthing belongs somewhere so clean up is not so bad, it's that fine dust, even with collectors and filters that is so time consuming to clean up! One of my computers is in my shop and I do 95% of my parts ordering and forum browsing on it and that has got to go! luckily I have room to expand at least to an "office area" and maybe a wood storage area.

Well organized, frequently in need of a good cleanup. I tend to work in phases. I clean after a phase is done. If I am a lot making dust i.e. routing, sawing and such I try to get as much of that kind of work done before cleaning. Besides I just love to walk in saw dust up to my knees. It is kind of like being at the beach