How much time do you spend woodworking versus shop tuning?

[Matt Armstrong]

For me, the ratio is pretty pathetic at this point. I cut myself some slack because I have decided I am still in "shop design" stages and am just getting around to the ducting for dust collection, but my only fear is that rather than it being a means to an end, the end is the means... meaning all I'm going to end up doing is permantly upgrading tools until the point where I have a great shop and a hole in my bank account... 10 years later...

But, the utilitarian side of me pops out and says "so what? what if that's all that came of this was an obsession to buy more tools and to have a shop? isn't it providing you with recreation?" So, in that sense, I guess it doesn't matter, really.

[Doug Mason]

For me, it took about two years to set up shop, learn sharpening, tuning tools, building a dust collector, blah....blah. I too became frustrated that I wasn't building furniture--my friends/family never thought I would build anything except a large pile of pointless sawdust--alot of silent chuckles. Roughly 95 percent of my time during those first years was spent setting up shop and learning the basics. I was very serious. In thinking back, it was really a self-imposed apprenticeship. But it was necessary--particularly as I am a heavy handtool user.

But late last year I reached a threshold--whereafter I have spent 90 percent of my time on projects and do very little shop-type work. I suspect everyone reaches this threshold at some point--regardless of weather you want to build "box-type" furniture w/power tools or "artsy"furniture w/a handtool focus.

You'll know it when you get there--but from my observations most people give up before they get there.

[Josh Reet]

Does it matter?

Why are you doing this "woodworking" in the first place? Is it to check items off a list of "built that" or is it to have fun and enjoy yourself?

If you enjoy fiddling around the shop and designing the perfect workspace, then let yourself enjoy it. The woodworking will happen in the future sometime. Or, it won't.

But it doesn't really matter as long as you have enjoyed yourself. I'm not much for hippie sayings. But it's hard to argue against the wisdom of "The journey IS the destination".

[jerry nazard]

Does it matter?

Why are you doing this "woodworking" in the first place? Is it to check items off a list of "built that" or is it to have fun and enjoy yourself?

If you enjoy fiddling around the shop and designing the perfect workspace, then let yourself enjoy it. The woodworking will happen in the future sometime. Or, it won't.

But it doesn't really matter as long as you have enjoyed yourself. I'm not much for hippie sayings. But it's hard to argue against the wisdom of "The journey IS the destination".

Good post!!!

[John Lucas]

For the past eight years I let new product reviews for website woodshopdemos.com run my schedule. Fun but not woodworking. Have now changed that...a few reviews if I want to do them and build furniture. That is what I am doing just now -- mission style bed side tables are the focus. I am actually cutting wood -- that is fun.
Here is photo from plans people:

[glenn bradley]

The first couple of years of shop setup I made a lot of stuff but, it was all for the shop; workbench, storage cabinets, router table, tool stands. This is a hobby and all of the effort is enjoyable. I'm sure the timeline varies for folks based on money, time, enthusiasm, etc.

My shop has now reached that self-limiting stage; any new tool I want to bring in requires giving up a tool that I already have to make space for the interloper. Fortunately (although we always dream), I seem to have about everything I need to do what I want to do for now.

I wanted to add to this. I recently added a cyclone, the installation of which required moving my tablesaw/router table unit. As long as I was at it I just went full stop on making furniture and did a full maintenance, setup and alignment on my saw/RT. Aother time I had been mortising square holes for pegs in a drawer unit, I stopped to tune my chisels and planes that had been well used during previous projects. My point is that there are times where I do nothing but make and/or finish stuff. There are also appropriate times to dedicate your time and effort to your shop, tools, jigs, storage, sharpening, alignment, etc.

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

I'm probably 60/40 (working/"tuning"), and half of the 40 is probably just me puttering around doing almost nothing. I am still in the 'shop building' stage though, and most of the real 'work' is for specific projects from the 'honey do' list.

I'm reminded of a friend of mine that had an old Camaro that he built into a race car. He used to truck it to the track every few weeks to race it, but he spend unreal amounts of time and $$ in between races (either to make it better, or to fix what broke in the last race). I'm guessing his ratio of working-to-racing was 95/5. But if it's a hobby, everyone looks at it differently. (Granted - if it's an income-producer, then you need more 'productive' time and less cleaning/tuning).

[Monte Milanuk]

Haven't got near as much of either done as I would like to or should - but while I do like the woodworking aspect of it, and building something at least as good or better than I could afford to buy otherwise... I have to confess, I'm more fascinated by the home-brewed ingenuity I see in a lot of people's shop projects. Usually the first section I flip to in any magazine is the reader-submitted 'Shop Tips' - built more from there than any where else

[Jason Beam]

I'm just starting to see the light at the end of my shop tunnel. We bought our house in november of '07. Did a lot of house-type stuff until about march of '08. That was when I got started on making the garage into a shop. I did it all - took everything down to the bare studs, insulated, rewired, drywall, etc etc ...

This was accomplished mostly on weekends and evenings since I'm still a productive member of the workfarce [sic]. It all went pretty quick at first - demo, framing, laying a floor, wiring, DC plumbing, drywall - all that went up in just a couple months. Once the drywall was up, the taping and mudding started. I got the first layer down just fine but when the sanding time came, I hit a wall. It took me 2 months to give up on sanding all that mud (i put it on too thick, i did it wrong - first major drywall job). I finally caved and sprayed some texture and started priming. This was about July of '08.

Once the paint was, it was cabinet time. I put in 14' of cabinets along a wall and set about putting the tools where they belong. I started building some drawers so I could get all the crap out of boxes and into some form of organization. By this time, it was September and I had kind of an open house with the local club. Days before, I was just stuffing things into drawers without organizing 'em really.

It was at this point I hit a head and absolutely had to get started building furniture or I was going to go out of my mind. At the old house, I'd just finished a year-long shop revamp before we found our current one - so it'd been a good solid 2 years since I'd built any furniture. I was getting a little stir crazy. So I started on a coffee table - which led me to building a vacuum press which led me to resawing veneers. I actually got the top glued up, legs cut and a bottom panel veneered by about April this year.

Then we bought motor scooters ... they were parked in the shop and that made it impossible. So I started building a shed ... 2 months go by and I'm building stuff for the shed to get it organized.

Now I have my shop back ... I've spent the last couple months taking care of that cramming into every available space problem from last year - getting stuff organized. I've finally reached my limit on disarray... now everything's getting a place so that it can be put up out of the way and so I can find it when I need it. I'm sick of digging through 18 junk drawers trying to find what I need.

So ... not much progress on that coffee table ... but the shop's getting better and better organized everytime I go out there now. I'll tell ya ... it was much easier to build a shop from zero than it was to pack up everything I owned and move it to another building. Gradual acquisition makes it really easy to find a home for things ... when you have this pile of stuff to go through it's a lot tougher. But ... it's coming along. It's actually close enough to get back to furniture, but I haven't reached that limit just yet - I will, but I'm getting organized while I have the gumption to do so

[Michael Schapansky]

It's a chicken or egg conundrum. To build anything you have to have the tools, not just some of them. You need all of them. So I bought a tablesaw. Very nice. I want to build cabinets to put stuff in. My worst problem is I have nowhere to put anything. So I have mostly built my first cabinet. My pocket screw jig is in transit so I can attach the faceframe, and build up a door. Looking forward to it. In the mean time, the everlasting rear deck refurbishing is still going on soaking up time. I keep buying tools for that. The backyard fence is falling over from dry rot and the goats are helping out by rubbing on it to scratch themselves. So. As soon as the deck project is done I'll rush headlong into rebuilding the fence in an entirely different style. Much more time out the window. In little bits here and there the shop gets attention when there's time. The DC cyclone that I got for such a good deal through the MS cashback program is installed and has power to it and there is no ducting to connect to anything. All horizontal surfaces are covered with whatever projects are going on. Like cleaning the carb for the riding mower and sharpening the blades. Repairing a couple of gates and there's always fencing that needs attention...

[Peter Aeschliman]

I feel like I wrote the OP's post!

My shop is remote (30 minutes from my home) so I spend maybe 1 day per week out there. I'm in a constant cycle of working on the shop itself. It's been a few years since I took up woodworking and since then I have changed locations of walls, redid some siding, insulated and drywalled, changed some of the wiring, etc.

What I've done to keep myself sane and to learn what I really want and need out of my shop in terms of layout and tools is that I have sprinkled some woodworking projects in the mix. So I'll work on the flooring in the shop, then build a coffee table, then do the drywall, and build a kitchen table.. so on and so forth.

The sad thing is that those projects have led me to change things in my shop... I learn about what works and what doesn't, but the more woodworking projects I do, the more I change in my shop!

I enjoy the problem solving aspect of it, but really, I see my shop is a tool. So I'm really looking forward to the day when my DC ducting is all set up, I have my tools where I want them, and I can start focusing on improving my woodworking skills!

But like everyone else, I think that time will come. I just have to be patient and enjoy the process.

[Darius Ferlas]

For me it used to be 50/50 but now, after a lot of time on SMC I spent more time on tuning my shop than on woodworking.

Before, I thought I only need a table saw and sand paper.

It is your fault people!!!!

[Rod Sheridan]

For me it used to be 50/50 but now, after a lot of time on SMC I spent more time on tuning my shop than on woodworking.

Before, I thought I only need a table saw and sand paper.

It is your fault people!!!!

Glad we could be of assistance!

Regards, Rod.

[Dave Lehnert]

Does surfing Sawmill Creek include "shop tuning" If so, I'm at about 99/1%

[Chris Tsutsui]

Does shop cleaning count as shop tuning?