How My Home Shop All Began.......

My home shop started back in 1996. It wasn't planned or even something I had ever dreamed of.....it just sorta happened one day. I've basically been a machinist my whole life but it didn't start out that way. After high school I did a few odd jobs, you know, worked with a landscaping crew, that sucked! Got a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, which eventually got me promoted to the prep area making salads and desserts. Yahoo, the big bucks were coming in now! I believe I was making $3.75/hr! Liked doing the salads. For one thing it was cleaner than dishwashing, and let's not forget all the HOT waitresses requiring my services! Ok, ok, they were mostly old grandma's and married women with kids, but there were a few young hotties there as well. Anyways....eventually worked my way into the backroom doing food prep and onto the fry-o-laters, and finally the ovens. Was a cook for about a year, best time of my young life, but after partying hardy with everyone for all that time I was still as broke as when I started so I decided to try manufacturing! Yes.....run a machine.....work long hours......get paid minimum wage.....sounded GREAT! Found a job working third shift in a plastics plant running an injection molding machine......you know.....open the door, take out the part, shut the door, push the button, trim off the flashing, repeat....repeat....repeat....repeat.....You've got to be F$%&ing kidding me!.....This sucks even more than being a cook! Changed to a different plastic molding company which made mostly medical supplies......WOW.....place was insanely clean, and you could run the machine while sitting down??......When can I start??!! Worked there for a couple months, and then the "Floorboy" quit his job......so climbing the corporate ladder I took over that position which entailed filling the machine hopper with the plastic pellets and ensuring the machine operators had an ample supply of boxes made up to fill with parts....and run the machine while the operator was on break or lunch......Oh yes.....the easy life was mine for the taking! Some time went by and being a "Floorboy" was awesome, but as fate would have it one of the guys in the toolroom quit and I was offered a job in the toolroom....thus my career as a machininst had begun. Ah....well sorta...my primary function in the toolroom was to disassemble the molds after they completed their runs and clean them...Oh JOY!.....after cleaning and checking for any damage, scratches, yada...yada...greasing and reassembling, I got to drive the forktruck (man I felt like the king) and put them back into the storage rack. Well one day things were very slow and I pretty much had nothing to do, so one of the mold makers took me under his wing and started teaching me how to do some basic stuff on the lathe and the milling machine. Really liked it....A LOT....so I started working with Slim (the mold maker) almost everyday learning how to make stuff....ejector pins, mold clamps, stripper rings....it was great! One day while reading the classified ads during lunch I saw an ad for Cincinnatti Milacron, Heald Division looking for machine operators....."No Experience Necessary"..... that was me! Went down filled out an application and waited.....a week......another week, ......a month.....then....a phone call...Hell Yes, I'll be there Monday morning! Showed up Monday morning lugging my Kennedy Tool Box.....filled with my 0-1" B&S Mic. my 6" scale and an imported 0-6" dial vernier and I was ready to be a machinist. Way Cool....! Went through a six month training program, and learned how to run everything.....engine lathe, knee mill, surface grinder, rotary grinder, and cylindrical grinder. There were about ten of us in the class and after the six months was over we all ended up in different departments in the shop based on our skills in the class. I ended up in the Screw Machine Dept. running W&S turret lathes......LOVED IT!! Worked second shift.....nice shift premium, a bunch of rowdy young guys......let's not forget the incentive pay if you felt like busting your ass working......and who didn't? It was awesome! Anyways years and years went by working there until the late eighties when some serious layoffs decimated the place.....I mean it seemed like a hundred people a week were getting let go......every Friday afternoon it started......the phone ringing all over the shop in every department and you'd see one of your buddies walking somberly down the aisle with his foreman beside him heading to the office.....we all knew it was the end of the line for that guy. This went on it seemed forever. When I started working there back in 1980 there were around 1500 guys working there and when I finally left in 1988 it was down to around 300. I was pretty safe with my job. I had been working in the Jig Bore Dept. for about 5 years and we were considered top notch guys, not only as machinists, but also with regard to pay scale so we could always go out and work anywhere in the shop, but none of the guys out in the shop could come in and do our jobs or run our machines. Thank god for that because some departments had literally one guy left in each....no second shift either. Well, I felt I had better get the hell outta Dodge before I was told to go......much rather do things on my terms rather than theirs, so I quit and got another job for about a year doing the same work.....running a Sip vertical boring mill. The owner of that company passed away and the rumors were rampant they were going to close the place, so off I went again.....this time I ended up at Husky Injection Molding Systems, running a Devlieg horizontal boring mill working nights. Awesome company.....awesome job.....hospital like atmosphere in there for a machine shop......anyways.....did my time on nights, finally got to the day shift running a Sip vertical boring mill and life was so so sweet!! Was making a ton of money, of course working insane overtime hours, time and half on saturday, 12 hour shift, double time on sunday, 12 hour shift. Life was GOOD!! No social life, but damn, laughing all the way to the bank! And the profit sharing was ridiculous!! Believe it or not though it got old quick, real quick! After about 6 years of doing all that I wanted to get off a machine, it was to say the least monotonous! Day after day, the same old thing, put the plate on the machine, bore the holes, take it off, repeat. I wanted to get into programming. Went to night school and took a 15 week course in Autocad.....company paid for it....so why not. Anyways completed the course and after a few weeks got a job working second shift in the programming department. Now it wasn't Autocad, but it was Unigraphics and WOW.....incredibly easy to learn after learning the basics in Autocad. Programmed for six months on nights and got moved to the day shift were I was multi tasking as a process planner and scheduler when the plate line project manager quit. After a few weeks, I got promoted and moved into his office. Now I was HAPPY.....my own office.....great salary...LIFE WAS GOOD once again. About a year and half now has gone by and I'm still smiling ear to ear every damn day....until that fateful Monday afternoon. The phone rings.....it's the presidents secretary informing me there will be a meeting at 1:00pm in the conference room. Cool....just another day, just another meeting.....WRONG....As I enter the conference room I see it's pretty crowded in there.....and I remember thinking to myself....why are all the guys in here from the shop, in fact it's everyone from the plate line. Sure enough in walks the president with his secretary in tow who starts handing out these big personalized manilla envelopes to each of us, all the while Al (the pres) explains that the plate line is moving back to Canada and we are all terminated as of today......have a nice day.....have a nice life....hasta la vista baby! We all ended up with a months severance plus all our vacation time so I now had seven weeks to find another job......but MAN was I depressed.....big time! I felt as though I had the world by the b.....well you know what I mean......and now here I was having to start all over again from the bottom. I sat around the house moping for about a month.....and not too mention angry.....I hated the thought of having to start all over again. I had been through this three times now with three different companies. Never again. My wife (back then) and I talked it over. I took out all my profit sharing and we paid off all our bills except the mortgage. I then started shopping for a machine. After talking with a few other guys who had gone this route they advised me that I should get a knee mill, a lathe, and a surface grinder to start with. That way I could take on virtually any job I could get my hands on. So that's what I did. I started with $10,000.00 cash and bought a Lagun FT2 knee mill,



a Clausing 12" x 36" Toolroom lathe



and a Brown & Sharpe 6" x 18" surface grinder all from Boston Machinery.



It was quite an adventure getting everything into the basement.

I have a 5 Hp rotary phase converter I use to power everything.



Well.....I have a bunch of pictures to add to this, but it's getting late now. I will post more later showing the rest of the manual machines portion of my shop. Then I'll get to the addition we put on (have start to finish pictures) and all the pictures of the Cnc equipment we filled the addition with after it was completed. I think I've rambled on long enough here for one evening, so enjoy, and I'll be back soon.

Best Regards,
Russ

Have some more pics to add from the manual machines part of my shop.

Here is the electrical panel for all the machines.




My air compressor is tucked in there also. Someday I need to move it outside and box it all in with some insulation....that thing is NOISY! I've had it though for 12 years and just this year I had to replace the head on it.




The last of the workbenches. Once we put the addition on and started filling it with Cnc equipment, all the benches in the basement part of the shop went out into the addition leaving us to use carts and wagons as work benches in here now. Someday I will have to get all our tool boxes over to the other side, but for now I guess the exercise is good for us!



Will be adding more pics later on.

Best Regards,
Russ

Poor Mans Cnc Lathe......

After a few years of just working with the three machines I started with, a friend of mine told me he was getting rid of his Warner & Swasey #3 Turret Lathe and asked if I would be interested. I went over and took a look at it and $1,500.00 later had it put into my basement. What a GREAT machine! I've always referred to it as a "poor mans cnc lathe" because once it is set up and running you can knock out parts pretty quickly on those babies. It came with all kinds of tooling, turning tools, and drill chucks, turning boxes, and boring heads, 4 jaw chuck, 2 jaw chuck, and collets from .187" Hex all the way up to 1.875" round. I thought it was a steal for the money, and let me tell you that machine has made a bunch of money for me over the years, and is still used every week to this day even with 3 cnc lathes in the garage.

My Warner & Swasey #3 Turret Lathe.



Unfortunetly for many years I used a semi-synthetic coolant which literally ate away a lot of the paint on both the lathe and my milling machine. I switched over to Hangsterfers a couple years ago when I started getting into the Cnc equipment and love the stuff, but as for my lathe and mill, the damage was done. But hey they aren't there to look at, they are there to make money, and that they do!

W&S #3 Turret Lathe



View from the door coming into the shop from outside.
Lagun FT-2 Knee Mill & W&S #3 Turret Lathe



View from the door of my office going into the shop.
Lagun and W&S


Will be back later to post more. We added a 24' x 46' addition onto the house to expand the shop and I have pictures from start to finish.

Later,
Russ

Loved the story, and especially like seeing the photos of equipment that is obviously being _used_ too much every day to worry about what it looks like. It does not look like a million$$, what it looks like is "$$$ being made here, don't slow me down!"

Anyway, moving on, on your career ladder, if you ever get tired of machining you could probably write humorous stories.

smt

Russ's story

Russ I have been waiting for a long time for the next "Machinist's bedside reader". Glad I'm not holding my breath. Now I'm waiting for your next installment. Don't know if I can handle waiting for two "next installments". But to echo Steve's message I found your writing easy to read, captivating, and very informative, I didn't want it to stop. Have you considered writing? Great stuff. Bob

stephen thomas said:

Loved the story, and especially like seeing the photos of equipment that is obviously being _used_ too much every day to worry about what it looks like. It does not look like a million$$, what it looks like is "$$$ being made here, don't slow me down!"

Anyway, moving on, on your career ladder, if you ever get tired of machining you could probably write humorous stories.

smt

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Bob Itnyre said:

Russ I have been waiting for a long time for the next "Machinist's bedside reader". Glad I'm not holding my breath. Now I'm waiting for your next installment. Don't know if I can handle waiting for two "next installments". But to echo Steve's message I found your writing easy to read, captivating, and very informative, I didn't want it to stop. Have you considered writing? Great stuff. Bob

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Thanks for the great compliments guys! With the work week ahead, I may not be able to focus on getting the next "installment" (as Bob coined it) posted until next weekend, but if things go smoothly I may be able to escape my family duties one evening and pound out a few paragraphs to keep you nourished and hopefully wanting for more.

Best Regards,
Russ

Have Machines....Will Work For Food!

The first few years in business were pretty tough. Without the luxury of having a regular job to fall back on, the pressure to succeed was at times overwhelming. I'm sure anyone who has undertaken this task of running their own business without a safety net knows the exact feeling. Glorious highs one moment.....sometimes for days at a time, only to be followed by impending feelings of doom and possible failure. Let's dwell on the doom and failure for awhile shall we? The first year was shall we say.....hmmm....what's the word I'm looking for.....ahhh yes,.....poverty stricken! Yup...no doubt about it, washing dishes once again would have been more profitable! But hey look at me....have these nice clean machines.....walls and floor freshly painted. And gosh dang, look at all them tools all lined up neat and organized. Looking good! Unfortunetly though despite considering myself to be a pretty good machinist, I seriously under estimated my ability as a salesman. I had nightmares about it even......there I was standing in the middle of the room surrounded by others in the support group of the "Piss Poor Salesmans Anonymous" meeting, and it was my turn to introduce myself.......standing up now I nervously state....."Hi, I'm Russ Crosby and I'm a piss poor salesman." Everyone gets up and pats me on the back telling me it'll be ok......but then I wake up, and I'm not ok.....I still suck at being a salesman....what do I do? So I decided failure was becoming a very viable option, and the more I thought about it the more it beckoned me! Time to find a job. Sunday paper, cup of coffee.......classifieds...."Machinist Wanted".....hey....that's me! Geez....look another one, and another and hmmm...."Machine Operator".....take down that number too. Now,.....you know on TV when the really stupid guy gets a great idea, a little light bulb shows up over his head in a little thought bubble.....IT HAPPENED...to me....son of a bitch.....that's my angle! I'll go to these companies who are looking to hire a machinist, but when I get there I'll tell them that I'm not looking for a job, BUT.....I can do some of the work for them that they need done right away. And you know what?......it worked! First place I went to I came back to the shop with some prints to quote.....prints to quote?......how the hell do you do that? Ok, short learning curve here (if I only knew then, what I know now)......let's see I want to make about $100,000 my first year, so that means these twenty five 1/2-13 hex nuts you want me to make will be about $4,000.00 each.....man this is easy! Hey....I can dream can't I? Well....let's just say my first customer happened to be truly one of the most fantastic people you could hope to meet in my situation, and he helped me out a lot. Gave me advice on practically everything, and anything I needed to know and we are still very good friends to this day 12 years later. All because of a classified ad he had in the paper looking for a machinist. I also know he had a sorta sweet spot in his heart for me too, because he too had started out in his garage, and was now a very successful business owner with about 60 guys in his employ. My hats off to Pete....he had a lot to do with my success in getting this whole business headed in the right direction. But let's not get too hyped up with enthusiam.....there's still plenty of doom and gloom to be had, but the real kicker happened one night.....actually I should correct myself......early one morning.....around 2:00am to be exact. I had been in business now almost a year to the day. It wasn't bad......but it wasn't good either. My first year I only made $17,000.....OUCH....hate to remind myself of that.....especially when the job I had before getting let go was paying me over $55,000.00. So it's 2:00am in the morning and there I was busting my bal.....(well again...you know what I mean).....on my milling machine to get a job done for a customer I promised delivery to the next day, which was actually that day, and my wife shows up standing in the doorway in her bathrobe (thank god for that....I mean.....I can be honest here, she was no prize) and she's crying....."I can't take this anymore! It's either me or the business!!" Ok....what would you guys do? I looked her right in her sad little puffy eyes and explained to her that I wasn't about to give this all up after only a year, and if that was the way she felt, I wasn't going to hold her back. Well, you know what she did? You'll have to wait until the next time I have some time to sit and write and I'll tell you all about it.

Below are pictures of our security system. Hazel



Hazel on patrol, keeping solicitors out of my office!



Best Regards,
Russ

The Expansion Begins.......

Well, If you had read the previous posts above I'm sure you would have most certainly guessed that my wife took the kids and moved out a couple months later. The lawyers worked out a deal and I got to keep the house along with the business so at the very least I did not have to relocate and start over again. Things went rather smoothly for several years, and business was good and growing. I had a few part time employees over the years but kept it mostly a one man show. It made for long days and usually 6 to 7 day work weeks, but all in all it was worth it. I love my job and though at times it was completely and utterly overwhelming, to this day I am none the worse for wear and still have no regrets. I did end up remarrying a couple years later, to a very wonderful understanding woman who to this day nine years later is behind me in this venture every step of the way, from being a terrific mother, and wife, to multitasking at work, running machines, doing paperwork, shipping parts, making deliveries.....she is without a doubt the best employee anyone one could ask for.......and she's standing right over my shoulder as I write this.......no, seriously she's the best and I love her to death! In any event, business a couple years ago got to the point where we were subcontracting out nearly a third of what we making in house so we sat down one night over dinner and discussed expanding the business. I talked with a few friends who experienced similar circumstances yet each went a different route and decided upon putting an addition onto our house to make more room for the shop with our ultimate goal of adding some cnc equipment when completed. The addition took us nearly a year to complete......I know....you're probably thinking what the heck, a year!?!.....to put on an addition?! Well, it was a little more than just your one room add on to the side of the house venture.......we basically added on another house! We got some plans from my neighbor who just added on a 3 car garage to his house, and he was nice enough to give me his plans. We made several alterations to the plans to better suit our needs and started taking bids. We broke ground in October of 2003 all the excavation was done and we were just waiting for the foundation guys to come in and get the forms put in.....and we waited, and we waited.....and we waited some more.........did I mention this was the year of the big housing boom in the northeast?!.....and we waited, and we waited......did I also mention this was the year that we really didn't get much snow, but it rained ALOT......and still we waited. By this time we had to keep a sump pump running 24/7 to keep the foundation hole from filling with water.......and we were losing the battle.....and I was losing my patience with the DAMN foundation guys......but we waited. Three months later here's where we stood with progress on the addition, October 2003, excavation completed......November, and December 2003.....waiting.....while watching the foundation fill with water.

December 25, 2003.......it's official, everything will have to wait until spring.....the damn foundation has filled with four feet of water and is frozen!


So I guess we'll just have to sit and relax until Spring!



My youngest boy and I sitting in the hot tub on Christmas day.....waiting for the spring thaw!




Will be back soon with more pics of the expansion.

Best Regards,
Russ

Here Comes The Sun......The Foundation Is Done!

Well things have finally started moving in a positive direction now that Spring has finally come. Once the frost was out of the ground and we got the cellar hole pumped out, my excavation guy had to come back and redo the entire trench for the footing for the foundation. With all the rain we had during the winter and the frost in the walls of the trench the ensueing thaw made all the walls collapse back into the trench and we had about two feet of mud in the bottom making it impossible for the footing to be poured. So I ventured out into the back yard with my trusty treasure map and dug up a few coffee cans stuffed with money (well, that's what my exwife thinks anyways) and got my digger back to fix it all up. That's when another interesting predicament arose......you know the old saying......"April Showers Bring May Flowers"?.......Ya?....well here's a new one for ya......April showers make the F#*ing water table higher and bubble up from the ground into my dam trench!!.....sooooo.....treasure map time! That's right....break out the ole crowbar and pry open the wallet again. Two truckloads of stone later and some more digging and the trench was ready for the footings to be poured. We had to keep a sump pump running 24/7 to keep it from filling up again, that and a heavy dose of praying for no rain!....but finally around the beginning of May the foundation guys whom I lovingly refer to as the A$$hole Bros....(well you would too if you had put up with the crap I did from them and had to wait four months for the dam cement to be poured).....showed up and we got the footings and finally the walls poured.

Here's what it looked like before the addition. We had to do quite a bit of excavating out front (pics later) because my house is slightly below street level and I wanted the garage to be under the main level of the house as it went out to the left....well, hard to explain, but you'll see what I mean in the pics below.




In the picture below you can see along the side of the house where the existing ground level used to be. We had to dig out quite a bit of earth to get down low enough to get the garage under the main house level.



A view from the backyard. I had so much soil removed from the front that I had my entire back yard leveled off and brought up about two feet from where it used to be. Before it was a slow slope from the house out to the woods, now it's nice and flat and best of all, not always soggy!



Here's a picture of part of the back yard after being raised up a couple of feet and leveled off. Now all I need is some grass, a lawn chair, and a six pack, so I can watch my son mow the lawn! LOL



Will have some more pics later on, enjoy!

Later,
Russ

Very entertaining Russ!

j king said:

Very entertaining Russ!

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Thanks jking! Glad you are enjoying it! It's a lot of fun to look back now and remember all the BS we had to go through to get that done and now that it's completed actually find a humorous side to it....believe me....it wasn't funny back then!!

Later,
Russ

I always love the "how we got here" stories. We need more stories like these. Now I am eagerly waiting for the next installment.

Steve@Reliance said:

I always love the "how we got here" stories. We need more stories like these. Now I am eagerly waiting for the next installment.

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I am in complete agreement. Not only are these sorts of stories entertaining but they also allow others to appreciate all the hard work and determination needed to stick it out and make it work.

Steve@Reliance said:

I always love the "how we got here" stories. We need more stories like these. Now I am eagerly waiting for the next installment.

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katiebo said:

I am in complete agreement. Not only are these sorts of stories entertaining but they also allow others to appreciate all the hard work and determination needed to stick it out and make it work.

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Hi Steve, will have the next installment real soon.

katiebo......."determination needed to stick it out and make it work".....ain't that the truth!!!

Later,
Russ

I too think these stories are the best thing since sliced bread. Thanks for the peek into your life Wrustle, it's a great story !

Keep em coming. Us small shop owners can relate to your trials and tribulations.

Happy Days Are Here Again!!.....And I've Got Wood!

They say good things come to those who wait........well lemme tell ya....my time was due! The lumber yard delivered right on time...I could hardly contain myself. For once since last October, someone has shown up on time and did what they said they would do. I was happier than an 18 year old guy at the nudie bar for his first time with a fist full of dollar bills!! Yes sir....after staring at that glorious pile of pine for what seemed hours, I was ready to start pounding nails, except for the simple fact I couldn't even build a birdhouse...but DAMN, I was feeling manly in a construction sorta way. Now this whole addition was several years ago so I'm not exactly sure of what day this and that took place, but all I know is the lumber showed up one day, and the builders were here a couple days later. Yes Sir....all was right with the world now. Now these guys weren't your Mercedes Benz type builders either...you know the guys who pull up at the site in their fancy cars and then the big box truck pulls up a few minutes later and a few guys pour out open the back up and it's just loaded with eveything they need......then the Mercedes dude strolls over opens the prints on some plywood and tells everyone what to do........thank God these guys weren't that....no way....these guys were old Chevy and Ford truck driving guys, with names like JACK, and DENNIS, and Pat.....ya know....construction guy names (ok, ok, Pat?..a construction guy name???....ya that's a bit of a stretch....but awesome guy though).....and right away I knew it was gonna be good. Jack was the main man, and he was the builder I had the contract with. The other two guys were helping him out on the side from their full time jobs. On some days he would have a crew of guys helping him out. All of them full time firemen who did construction on the side. Let me tell you, there was never a dull moment....EVER! Well, Jack and I had gone over the plans a few times before because as I said earlier I had changed around several things from the original plans to better suit my needs for my garage being a shop. For one, I took out the entry door in the front of the building to allow for more spacing between the 3 garage bays. I had also added on a ten foot breezeway between the house and the garage. We took the entry door from the front and put it on the side of the building, and moved the entry door in the back of the building from the corner more towards the middle. Oh....one more thing, which I am now so glad I did....we changed out all the skimpy little windows and put in big oversize windows, one in every bay and one at the side of the building to let in lots of light. Not only that, no matter where you work in the garage, you have a great view of the outside so you can wish you were outside instead of busting your a$$ in front of a machine all damn day when it's absolutely plain to see it's GORGEOUS OUTSIDE!!!.....wait a minute, WAIT A MINUTE!.....what the hell was I thinking.....I've doomed myself to constant jealousy.....and worse yet....totally distracting production halting daydreaming.....ewwww....I hate that!! Anyways......honestly?......the big windows are AWESOME! So meanwhile, back at the ranch......Jack and Dennis and Pat strap on the old building guy tool belts and have at it......oh, and me too, minus the tool belt....damn I wanted one though, but I did have my trusty Sears and Roebuck Hammer from back in the 70's.....that's gotta count for something....all right....I understand....I was the nerd builder! But what a learning experience working with these guys!! Now I can make pretty much anything out of metal, but I'll be damned if can build a square box outta wood!! That's ok, though.....I was real good at luggin lumber around, saw cutting 2 x 4's and raising wall sections, and man did we bust ass those first few days.

Things are looking up....the lumber is here ON TIME! Raise the roof!! (Oh...that's bad......sorry.)




Hey....check out my wood from the front! (Ohhh....that's real bad....sorry again!)


The walls are going up!



A view from the back.

Oh, by the way......notice above at the bottom of the picture the makings of a driveway......another great last minute change of plans. Stay tuned!

Hope you enjoy. I will be back again soon with more progress.

Best Regards,
Russ

I did end up remarrying a couple years later, to a very wonderful understanding woman who to this day nine years later is behind me in this venture every step of the way, from being a terrific mother, and wife, to multitasking at work, running machines, doing paperwork, shipping parts, making deliveries.....she is without a doubt the best employee anyone one could ask for.......

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WAIT....WAIT....WAIT.......

Your HOUSE is full of MACHINE TOOLS and most likely smells like a factory.
Chips must somehow get all over and thru the house.

So......please a bit of explanation just HOW and WHERE you went about finding a woman that was OK with that! ???
I can 'SORTA' understand g-r-o-w-i-n-g into such a situation, or starting a husband/wife business from scratch together, but it's a pretty LUCKY trick to have a female walk into that scene and be OK with it.
You are lucky fer sure.......those types are few and FAR between. Better buy lottery tickets on a regular basis to test that luck.



I mean, I usually get 'your -car- smells like oil and metal, and I'm not riding in it"....... Let alone the house is the shop!


dk

dkmc said:

WAIT....WAIT....WAIT.......

Your HOUSE is full of MACHINE TOOLS and most likely smells like a factory.
Chips must somehow get all over and thru the house.


So......please a bit of explanation just HOW and WHERE you went about finding a woman that was OK with that! ???
I can 'SORTA' understand g-r-o-w-i-n-g into such a situation, or starting a husband/wife business from scratch together, but it's a pretty LUCKY trick to have a female walk into that scene and be OK with it.
You are lucky fer sure.......those types are few and FAR between. Better buy lottery tickets on a regular basis to test that luck.

dk

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To tell you the truth, no one has ever said anything about the house smelling funny, and even though I am here in it everyday, the shop does not even smell funny. I know, I know....if you're in it everyday you don't even notice the difference, but, when we were thinking about about moving to the southeast we had a few different real estate agents in to give us an appraisal and also offer suggestions for what we should do to the house to make it more buyer friendly.....you know touch up paint here and there.....plant flowers there....get rid of the rusty old beat up cars out front with weeds growing up through them......(just kidding about that part).......but in any event when the real estate agents saw the shop in the basement, not one of them.....not a single one stated it was a detriment to selling the house and two even stated had I not shown them the shop they would never have even known it was there, even standing in the room in the basement right next to the where the shop is (It is a finished bedroom where my oldest boy resides....at least during the week anyways.....on the weekends, it's the girlfriends place) so I am very confident the house really does not smell like a factory. With regards to the chips......I was brought up old school.....SHOES OFF AT THE DOOR, or Mom's gonna whack you up side the head with what ever she's got in her hand at the time.........believe me, as kids that was the golden rule, cause damn she would smack you one if you forgot!! Same thing here in my house except for the smacking thing, (instead the violator loses TV for the week......a fate worse than death!!) and everyone abides by the rules, even company. My wife truly is a wonder.......sure she's my wife and you expect me to say that, but fact is she grew up old school also, but she did it in Europe. My wife is from Denmark, and family values, customs, traditions, and work ethic are totally different from here in the states. We work together as team in virtually everything we do, and our house is practically spotless all the time......not because we are obsessed with cleanliness, but because we taught our kids to clean up after themselves and take care of the things they have. They all have chores that need to get done every weekend, and all three of my kids from my 20 year old down to my 15 year old never complain or have to be told to do it, they just get it done, and believe me they have very busy lives, but always know that work comes first. Awesome kids! Whether my shop was outside the house or inside the house, things with regard to family life would still be the same with one major exception. For the last 12 years, I would have missed out on so many things in my kids lives that being able to work at home has allowed me to be a part of, and for that alone I would gladly put up with a factory smelling house with chips on the floor.......but it just isn't the case.

Best Regards,
Russ

Russ,

Your story has been very interesting. Looks like you are in high gear now with the shop construction. Keep up the good work.

dkmc- How Russ found such a wonderful woman to be his wife is not important. Does she have a sister? Now that's what needs to be asked!

Tom