Workshop opinions please (long)

stuff >>> space

Mike Lietzow

>Greetings all,

I share Moses' dilemma that my stuff exceeds my space. An early project will (hopefully) be to make a hanging tool cabinet or two so that I can clear up some floor space and get the high usage tools close at hand to speed up my work.

Thanks everybody for the suggestions and pictures of your shops. I'm looking forward to incorporating some of those ideas into my own space.

Cheers,

Mike

Re: Workshop opinions please (long)

Charles

>Your bench is your shop. Put some shelving underneath the bench and hang a big, deep drawer under one side.

Put it square in the middle of the workspace, maximizing the area all around, especially on the left end of the bench which is the end the plane will run to if you are right handed.

Re: Period workshop layout

Charles

>No doubt the bench was under the window primarily for the light. The availability of electric lighting greatly increases the possible shop layouts for today's woodworker.

Re: And mine, but no pic

John, NY

>Ton is English... 2240lbs.

Tonne is French... 1000kg or 2210lbs.

Or so I understand.

BB? Alf?

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>Thanks. I thought I'd seen some older British literature where they spelt it "tonne." But maybe they were making a fine distinction by referring to the French measurement. Either way, a bench at that weight would be quite handy.

Tonne is neither English nor French,

Kevin F, New Zealand

>but metric. It is 1000 kg. In terms of official standards it is a unit in the SI system of units, the internationally (except in the US :) ) accepted system of measurements.

Cheers

Kevin

tonnes, tons, and other follies

GolfSteve in Calgary

>Around here a ton is 2000 lbs (ie. a short ton), a ton can also be 2200 lbs (ie. a long ton). Then there's the UK long ton which is 2240 lbs, which for some reason the Germans like to use. A tonne is 1000 kg. Each term is pronounced identically except by the occasional American who pronounces tonne "tone".

The problem with all of this is that I work with Canadians, Australians, Germans, Americans, and Japanese. Some Canadians work in the US system of units. Some of the others try to use US units when communicating with the Americans; usually screwing up the conversion in the attempt.

When I get a letter saying that the plant capacity is 250 t I have no idea which unit is being referred to. "250 tons" is clear (almost always short tones), "250 tonnes" is clear but anything else is uncertain.

Don't even get me going on gallons (US gallons vs. Canadian gallons) or barrels (blue barrels, barrels of oil, drums, hogsheads). What's a 42 gallon drum - US gallons or Canadian gallons?

How about units of "grains per normal cubic meter". Try and look that one up when you're stuck in the back woods of Kentucky. (1 grain = 1/7000ths of a pound).

Or that time that the Aussie was measuring in micrometers (a millionth of a meter), and the American though that he was using microns (a thousands of an inch). Big difference when you're measuring the run out on a 2500 tonne :) rotating machine. The German just sat back and laughed (which actually isn't a very German thing to do).

Then there's the beer - glasses, pints, schooners, throwbacks, never know what you're going to get....Gimme a beer, mate - yeah, the big one; it's for the German.

Re: And mine, but no pic

Steve Kubien

>Actually, tonne is used by anyone with a metric flair. Yup, a metric tonne is 1000kgs. It could very well come from the French. I wouldn't know.

Steve Kubien - who is proud to to be 177cm tall and too many kilos in MASS (hey there's a difference in weight and mass)

Ajax, Ontario