For several years this was my workshop - one bench and a couple old shelves up the back wall. No lights. No power and like I said before - when I wanted to route I had to join several extension leads to take the router out there from the house. No jointers or thicknessers or linishers or anything fancy, everything was done by hand. This is how my earlier guitars were built. I didn't even have a paint setup at that time, oil finishes or handpainted only for my ealier ones. I built my first guitar around 1991, I didnt even have a router. All "routing" was done with hammer and chisel. All cuts with a handsaw, you get the picture. The tools I used could be carried in a lunch box.
There was a fair bit of discussion in my "planer sled" thread about "hand tools are best" etc etc and I know "talking down to me" is not the right way to put it, but basically the majority had a "hand tools or get out" kind of attitude. Well, I started off with hand tools, I've been there, done that, I know what they are for and how to use them. I've upgraded to a power tool setup for a reason, yet still find myself doing a lot of the jobs by hand even though I have power tools to do so.
The comment about my workshop being the "biggest" on the forum and hense why no-ones replying to my post, I feel I have to reply to this.
Sure it's a big workshop, but I didn't just decide that one day I wanted a big workshop. This was a building I have a mortgage for, that I borrowed money to buy land and build this large building (15m X 9m) for a business I used to own. This business was going well until I trusted in someone (one of my staff) and basically this guy took all my clients and started his own business, at the same time I had local council come after me for building violations (about 5 years after it'd been built and approved by them) telling me I had to stip it back and rebuild on an industrial slab - even though I met ALL their demands when the permits etc went through and met their inspections, including their inspections of the slab etc. This all came about because I was reported by my competition in a bombardment of various complaints they had agaist me as all their clients were coming to me rather than stay with them so they were trying to put me out of business. It ws all very political at the time.
So long story short - I was working another job 40hrs a week nightshift to pay my house mortgage and the new mortgage to try get my business off the ground which I was running through the day - business turned to shit - I had to shut up shop, sell every asset the business had for next to nothing - I now live in a old shitty house thats on the same block as my workshop, the workshop is fancier than the house. I'm working as an on call casual shiftwork at their beck and call (I havent had work for over a week as I'm on call only and its factory work so it's supply and demand) - so I'm working trying to pay all this space off with it no longer supplying an income, so I figured bugger it - I'm paying for it, I may as well turn this empty shed thats costing me money into a guitar workshop and get some use out of it as that is what my passion is.
Most of the machinery has come from selling various cars I had and sold - the bigger machines came when I sold a Corvette I owned, after paying off massive credit card debts etc, the difference all went on woodworking machines like my panel saw and thicknesser. I've downsized my life, sold off a massive guitar collection I had to pay bills/debts, sold off amps, recording gear, everything thats not bolted down to get on top of all the debt. So the big workshop comes at a cost. It's not flamboyance, its not greed, its not excessive - its a constant reminder that I took a massive risk at one point in my life and it blew up in my face - now I'm left trying to make an omlette out of the eggs.
I'm not writing this for pity or an attempt at a sob story - just saying that I'm the same as everyone else.
My previous workshop (was a bit less crouded back when I used this bench! You can even see a few neck blanks in between layers of treted pine posts):
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