Help - Need a shop!

Rick Baum

Rick Baum

Joined
Mar 14, 2000
Messages
509
Does anyone have a shop that I can borrow for a while? Just a year or two. I'm going through all kinds of depression and thinking of just plain giving up on knife making due to my inability to create. I feel like my abilities and interest are atrophying (is that a real word?) Most of you don't know my story and probably don't care... I used to visit the forums a lot more frequently a couple of years ago. It was about that time that my wife got a job in Tucson, AZ so we moved down there to pursue her carreer. We had a nice carport and resonable weather so knife making continued once I got setup. Her job didn't work out and employment opportunities that would feed my family weren't working out for me so I looked out of state and landed a job with Chris Reeve Knives in Boise. So, we moved up there. My knife making skill went into the 4th dimension working for/with Chris, but, after several months at CRK things didn't work out so we moved back to Utah. When we moved back I made the mistake of renting a place that didn't have any shop space. Now it's almost a year since I made anything and I'm seriously contemplating giving up and moving on to something else like stamp collecting or just watching TV to pass the time (Ed just got the chills at that thought).

So, if anyone has a spare shop, please send it to 375 W 900 N, Lehi Utah. It can't be any bigger than 15 X 25 or need anything more than 110 power. Please make sure that it is well equiped and if it's not too much trouble... it would be nice if it had AC as it's been fairly warm here lately. BTW... I promise to return it in better condition than what it arrives. :p
 
Rick, I feel your pain. Keep looking, you'll find a way to get back into it. In the mean time, you might consider engraving since it will only take a few tools if you don't go all the way and takes just a desk top. In any case, hang in there.
 
hi Rick..you can always use this time to brush up on your leatherworking skills.hells bells,a suitcase will hold enough equip.to put out some great stuff!wish you well
 
Trust me, I feel your pain. I have the tools, but no room at the moment. So until my metal working shop is built I've been focusing on another project. Something that can be done in the house, without spending alot. Might be a good idea for you as well. Ironically Mickley already suggested engraving, which is the route I took. I have no guarentees that I'll be able to learn it, but since the biggest issue involved is practice, time is the one thing I have. I bought Meeks book, been talking with a few engravers, ordered 1/8" square tooling, bought a couple cheap handles, found a used ball vise, and got some Chinese White watercolor, as well as a Crocker graver sharpener, altogether spent about $100. If anything it'll help keep me sane, but perhaps in the end an added feature to my knives ;)

Good luck, and stay strong -MJ
 
Your shop is in the mail......... Be aware it has been "freeze-dried" and will expand when it rains. :D

Seriously.........Find you a niche and master it.........Sheaths, Engraving, Stabilized Wood, anything that doesn't take up a lot of room.

You can't get away from the knife industry...... Its obvious, you are addicted......... "Crack" ain't nothing compared to being "hooked" on this stuff.......

Follow your heart..........You will never be happy doing anything else.

Be patient..........The day will come that everything will seem to come together and "click".

Life is "TOO SHORT" to be stressed........Live it one-day-at-a-time, and one day all the puzzle pieces will match.

You hang in there...........

Robert
 
Make yourself a rollaway table that is 24"x40", and high enough so you can work on it comfortably from your easy chair. Attach a pan-a-vise to one side, and a good magnifyer-light on the back. Then you can concentrate on making minis... the best minis you have ever seen. There is definitely a market for them, and you won't ever need anything more than a high-quality hand drill, jeweler's saws, and some really good files... all of which can fit very well in one of those fancy aluminum tool suitcases. :D

Look at it this way. If your neighbor's dogs saunters on over and craps on your lawn every day you would get pretty upset, right? On the other hand, a lot of people pay a lot of cash for composted manure... Catch my meaning, bro? ;)
 
Hey Rick,I can definately feel your pain.Been going through a bunch of crap around here for the last 2 years.The last year have been spent in more deppression than anything.Having to help out the parents wasnt easy when I was loosing out on the shop.I have finally got the tools I wanted for the 5 years I was full time and all of a sudden there was no shop time.Put a bad strain on Donna and myself as I was a bear to live with.A couple of months ago Donna told me to leave the yard and get back in the shop,Man that was great only we didnt have any starting back up capital built up.Needless to say I am setting here with orders to fill but no money for supplies untill the orders are completed.Seems I can't win.But we are slowly getting things back in shape,luckily I had some knives at the finishing stages around the shop and enough supplies to fill a couple of orders.Now to get the bills caught back up and get back on my feet.Luckily school starts here on Wed.so I will not be Mr. Mom and house referee for awhile and so maybe the shop time will come back like normal,and I can get things back to running.

Have you thought about finding a old metal shed like you can get at Lowes.I know they arent very big but a light and couple of extension cords and a small bench could get you back to making a knife.Take it from experience,watching TV for very long doesnt work,you start watching everything you can that has knives in it.And it makes you feel worse.I would suggest maybe visiting a couple of makers that are the closest to you and just talk knives and keep your spirits up.They may even let you grind out a blade and get it to the point that you can finish it at home some how.We have some storage rental places around that have power and you can make a small shop out of it for the time being.If nothing else you might ask the wife real nice if you could use the kitchen table,I used ours for a long time.If you want to make forlders have the blanks precut and use a file to set in the bevels and send them off fore heat treat,A jewlers saw will cut out the parts and if nothing else a multispeed dremel tool in a drill press stand for your drilling.Promise the wife you will vaccum up after yourself :D A small vice on a piece of plywood will make a small portable work station on the table or even on top of the washer and dryer when they are not in use.
New a guy once that said he had folder parts pre cut and heat treated,then used a wet grinder (small) and set it up in his dorm room closet and made enough knives to sell at gun shows to put himself throuh college.I had a shop in the attic of a house I rented once..That was wild.

Make you a deal,lets both just give ourselves a good kick in the pants and quit worrying about things so much and just start making knives the best we can with what we can :) Give me a shout if you need someone to talk to when you get to down or when ever,it helps when you can talk to someone.

Cheer up all will work out as it should,
Bruce
 
Sorry for the late reply to everyone. I really appreciate everyone's kind thoughts and replies. I've been looking for something else to do like engraving, leather work, jewelry making (I have a wife that likes shiny stuff) ;) . It does take the edge off, but ultimately I need to create knives. must be some genetic thing that keeps pulling me along. Come to think of it... that could be a cool thread all by itself. Where does your interest/drive to make knives come from?

The good news is... I just saved hundreds on my car insurance. :D

Just kidding... The real good news is that I just received the freeze dried shop that Roosko sent. The bad news is that since I'm in Utah and we just had the driest July in 42 years I decided not to wait for rain to reconstitute the shop. So I put the cube in the center of the back yard and turned on the sprinklers. I have a couple of suggestions for anyone trying to reconstitute a freeze-dried shop... (these are very important)

1. - Monitor the amount of water applied to the freeze-dried object. I had the sprinkler on it for several hours and not much had happend so I decided to leave the water on overnight. Big mistake! The shop is now the consistency of over-cooked spaghetti and is almost double the size that I had requested. (the neighbors are pissed about their fence and tomato crop. More on that later). I figure with a couple of weeks of dry weather things ought to shrink down to where they should be. We'll see how it goes. The good news is that the 50 lb. Little giant is now a 100 lb.er. :) I'm keeping a fine mist on it to maintain it's size. I wish that solution would work in other venues as well, if you know what I mean :D

2. - When placing a freeze dried shop in the back yard for reconstitution make damn sure which end is which. Somehow the front door markings got rubbed off in transit and I had to guess which end to face north. The grinding room, air compressor and power hammer ended up right next to my other neighbor's baby room. Now I only have a couple of 2 hour windows when the baby or one of the other 7 kids isn't taking a nap (remember, I am in Utah and we have BIG families with lots of kids out here) Now I gotta figure out how to rotate the shop 180 degrees, any suggestions?

Seriously... Thanks for all the kind words and good suggestions.

Rick
 
It's easy to rotate large objects. All you gotta have is some binoculars and some large tweezers.
1. Stand at a good distance from your shop and look at it with the binoculars from the wrong end. This will greatly reduce the size of the shop for step 2.
2. While looking, use the tweezers to gently but firmly grasp the shop and lift.
3. Rotate and place the shop in the desired location.
4. Discontinue use of the binoculars. That should make your shop go back to normal size.

easy as pie!
 
Now I consider myself fairly resourceful, but damn, that's friggi'n genious! Thanks for the tip clw3!

Rick
 
I feel your pain.
I invested about $1000 into my shop last winter (to put that into perspective, I'm a full time college student and work 2 jobs), and put a lot of time and work into getting it set up. At this point, I think its the best set up I'll ever have until I can move it out of my parents garage into a dedicated building.
Now I don't have time to do anything out there :grumpy: Between the two jobs, I've had one day off this month. And by the time I get home from work, I just don't have the patience to do much, even if I get a spare minute.

Kind of ironic that I built a hotwork/welding table on casters to be moved around the shop, with a firebrick top, 2 mounted bench grinders, and a 6" vise. And I spent the morning at work using the hood of a garden tractor for a work bench trying to weld up a key/wrench for water mains :rolleyes: :mad: :rolleyes:
Well....at least most of them are pretty decent tools. They might still be usable in thirty years when I retire :foot:
 
Just set up some belt-sanders and grinders in your kitchen. Use your sink as a quench tank. Insulate your fridge and run propane burners to it for a forge. Also use the TV to set your anvil on. Just be carful when you attach your vise to the kitchen counter..... wouldn't want to scuff anything up.

Hope it works out for you. Good luck. :thumbup:
 
Hey Rick: As you know you aren't too far from Wyo, there is plenty of room here and a one armed knifemaker who can't do anything for a couple of months. You ought to come up with a long weekend somewhere along the way, get your feet more wet and see how it flies.
 
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