Come! Take a Tour with Me!

Hi Everyone!

I've got something special for you all today!

Given how slow its been the last few months, I realized I needed to write SOMETHING other then "Eh, I made a few things. That's it." and fretting about finances.

So gather 'round, all yea who may be interested, and join me on a quick jaunt through the merry world of my creative spaces!

Our journey begins about 20min drive from my house, in a seedy, run down strip of town where all manner of unsavory types like to roam (also commonly referred to as an 'industrial area'), you stumble across a small, humble construction company.

Here, I was introduced to the nice owner, who was gracious enough to let me have a small corner of the welding building for myself (big white building in the back).

Recently, I reorganized my corner and put in some new shelves. Before this, all I had was a table to set things on, and some lockers, which meant almost everything was stored on the floor and shoved under the tables to keep them out of the way. Didn't leave me much room for adding more things. Since I had a bit of extra money, I went out and picked up some heavy duty shelving, so now my misc junk actually has some place to go! Even if it does make my corner look rather cluttered!

Tada! And here is where all the magic is made!

Most of the building is used by the construction welders, so I'm pretty much confined to this little corner. Everything has to be kept stored in this area when I'm not there, so they can get their forklift in and out, so things like my anvil, shaping log, large sculptures, etc... are moved about on dollies when I need to use them, but otherwise are tucked away in corners.

For ease of explanations, I've written labels across the major items around my shop. You can see my current project there on the right side of the picture! It'll be an impressive dragon by the time I'm done.

Now that you've gotten the overview of my work space, lets take a closer look!

This here is my work table! Built it myself, back when I first started getting equipment and putting a shop together. Since I'm 5'10" tall, this table is a bit taller then your standard tables, so that I could work at it without hunching over. And it's around 6ft long x 3ft wide, so I have a pretty decently sized space for setting large sculptures on.

For those of you who're tall, and wish they had a work stool that wasn't built for short people, I bought mine from Lowes. It was the tallest one I could find, and has proven to be quite comfortable.

I keep a lot of stuff around my work tables. Thing I use often and want to keep in easy reach.
Under my table I have 3 buckets for holding scrap. You can see the 'large scrap' bucket right now. I have 2 other buckets on the other side of my char that hold 'medium scrap' and 'small scrap'. Since I've recently begun crafting rock animals, I have to have something to hold rocks! So I have my rock bucket there, and next to it I have a bucket of horseshoes.

Now, for those of you who might be wondering why I have a shopping car under my work table... it kinda just showed up there one day. I came into work, and there was this little car left in front of my station. I'm guessing one of the construction welders hauled it over and left it there. It now serves as additional storage space, and a carry-cart for when I have to haul in a lot of small things from my truck.

As you can see, I was in the process of building armadillos when I took these pictures.

At the far right corner of my table is where I keep all my hand tools, hammers, clamps, etc... The organizer stores all my small, commonly used decorations. Washers. Nuts and bolts. Marbles. Nails and screws. Bells and rings. Short pieces of round bar. Wire. Safety goggles. Etc...
I use to store beads in there as well. But I rarely use beads on my work, and many of them were getting scuffed and damaged from being in close proximity to welding/grinding, so I removed all that.

This is the storage space located on the right side of my table.

With these new shelves, I was finally able to put all my commonly used supplies within easy reach.

There you can see my lovely little welder! The big air compressor is actually not the one I use. That one powers all the other equipment in the shop that the construction guys use. My compressor is on the other side of the wall.

More scrap buckets. This one holds unused patterns, long pieces of round bar, misc bits of angle bar, flat bar, etc... The bucket on the shelf there is full of silverware. Some day, it shall be reincarnated into a large silverware dragon. But for now, it rests on the bottom shelf, safely tucked out of the way.

The big green drawers were something I picked up from my previous shop, and I store all my various small odds and ends in them. These ones hold all my surplus washers/nuts/bolts/marbles/beads/glass/brass tid-bits/keys/misc small pattern parts/ornamental cast iron/etc... just about everything I might need for crafting sculptures.

Above the drawers I store my 'scrap molds'. You know all those scrap animals I make? Well... I've got to have SOMETHING to shape the scrap around to ensure it has the proper form. So I have a few ice scoops, bowls, and a platter lid that I use for this purpose. I also store my bike chain and misc springs and decorative bits on these shelves as well.

Here is the shelving along my back wall.

This holds all my large items and tools. On the top shelf I store all my patterns and paper. I also keep all my non-metal decorative items up there too, such as faux fur, gloves, leather, wood, etc... things I don't really want within easy spark-reach.

The green drawers hold all my hand tools. Replacement welder/plasma parts and wire. Measuring tools. Envelopes, pens/pencils, batteries, masks, etc... Di-grinder accessories and grinding/flap wheels for my angle grinder.

I keep my welding hood and cleaning supplies on these shelves. Large pieces of scrap sheet metal. Large pots, pans, woks, etc... The big tool chest on the floor three holds saw blades, old tools, barrings, gears, large springs, etc... And next to that I have my ox-acetylene torch kit.

The big pipe there on the left side is actually a tool! That is my spring stretcher! Since most springs are tightly sound, and thus not very practical for turning into things like Springenese, my grandpa designed this cool little tool that would allow me to hook a spring up with a wench and crank it along the pipe, stretching it out.

This is my cutting station. Again, this is a table I built back when I first started getting this business going.

Fun Fact:  They do not sell just cutting tables. You can buy an automated plasma cutter, which is built into a big tables, and those start out at a measly $10,000. But I neither had that kind of money, nor did I have the space, so I built my own.

Since I don't have a lot of space in my little corner to store big/long things, the space between the table and the shelves is the designated 'rod space'. This is where I keep all my rebar, round bar, flat bar, pipe, angle iron, etc... I use to store all of my pots and pans under the plasma table, which made this area super cluttered. But with the shelves I was finally able to move them somewhere else. Now the only thing under the table is my quench bucket, which I fill up with water when I need it (though I think its gotten a hole in the bottom, so I may have to replace it soon).

The big lockers here were once part of a big bank of lockers that were being used by the construction people to store a few odds and ends. But they didn't really need them, rarely used them, and so they gave me a few of them to use. In here I store things that I don't want coming in contact with sparks. Paints and patinas. Electric hand tools. The wench for my spring stretcher. I also store a lot of misc tools, pots and pans, kettles, ceramic pots, etc...

This is also where I keep my table grinder and chop saw. Both can be moved about as needed.

And there you have it! That is my shop. The place where I create all the fun creatures you see.

But... that I not the only place where work is done!

While my shop is well suited for constructing sculptures, its ill-suited to decorating. The place is dirty, and cluttered. The lighting is poor. No place for performing fine ornamentation. That is why I have a small work space at home.

Not too long ago, my work space was the floor, and whatever I dragged down to work on. Then one day my dad came into my room and saw me sitting on the floor, banging rivets closed with a hammer and a piece of broken cutting board, and he said "Hey! Why don't we make you a table!"

And so... a table was made...

The big black tool chest you see on the floor is my portable art show supplier. It holds everything I might need for a show: lights, tape, biz cards, wiring and rope, canopy wall panels, hooks and hangers, bungee cords, bags, etc...

The organizer keeps track of all my small things: beads/glass eyes/marbles/popsicle sticks/biz cards/super glue/small jewelry tools/colorful wire/sanding pads/nail polish pens/etc...

On the left is a tool box, essentially. In here I store hand tools, epoxy, wax bars, cloth, tape, anything large.

On the right I have my hammer and board for riveting. Pencil sharpener. And tucked away on the floor is my drawing board and large sketch books, for drawing patterns.

Once a sculpture is completed and its time to take pictures, I bring it over to my little photo areas.

Super fancy, right?

I don't have a good space anywhere in the house that I can set up just for taking pictures. So this works alright... but the lighting is pretty horrific, and I'm not sure how to get rid of all the fold and crease lines in the shower curtain there.

For the most part though, this works fairly well. A small fold-out table forms the base, and then the curtain is pinned up on the wall. I added the lamp to try and get some better lighting. Along the right side of the wall there's a few black shelves that I can use to store completed sculptures.

And that completes the tour of my studio spaces! I hope you all enjoyed seeing where it is I do my work.