How many hours have you spent in the shop? Why?

[HarveyWildes]

Shop is where the Festools are .  In my case it is a particular room, but it could be mobile shop or a setup at a customer site.

I was trying to do a rough sum of the number of hours I've spent in the shop over the years.  Woodworking is my avocation - I'd go broke if I had to make a living at it.  I'm guessing that I've got somewhere around 9000-12000 hours in the shop in the last 25 years or so.  Someone who is in the shop full time ought to get that in around 4-5 years (or less, depending on work habits).

Thus the first question - how many hours have you spent in the shop?

Now the second question - why?  What floats your boat in the shop?

For professionals, the immediate answer might be the money, but if that's your answer, then please take it one step further and ask why that profession rather than another?

I'm reasonably good at my job as a software architect, but at the end of the day, not many people understand or care about what I do there, aside from my immediate co-workers.  Woodworking keeps me in touch with the ability to craft tangible, useful, and beautiful things.  At the end of a project, I have something that I can enjoy or pass on to someone else to enjoy.  The creative challenge is to design for the material, and to bring out the inherent beauty in the wood.  Finally, it is somewhat soothing to be able to go into my shop and just focus on a different kind of problem for a few hours.

 

[Rob-GB]

I had a workshop in my house years ago and was often found working in there at 3am and not just for work. It did not get much better when I had a workshop 8 miles away..I'd still be found there at silly o'clock.
I do this for a living but I do it because I really enjoy making things in wood and the challenges some projects throw at me (like the newel cap in my avatar) I learnt to code to get Autocad to do things for me and learnt to use microsoft excel to get all the dimensions required for boxed sash windows including the weights, things that I probably would never have thought to take interest in but for woodworking.
As to how many hours... not a clue  [scratch chin]
Rob.

 

[WarnerConstCo.]

Close to 70 a week.

 

[McNally Family]

For me, time spent in the shop increases on a weekly basis.  My acquisition of new tools certainly plays a role, but also the fact I consider shop time a form of rehabilitation from brain surgery in 2009.  In the years following my surgery, everything I owned sat in the basement collecting both dust and rust, until it hit me one day that I was depriving my Son of the experiences I enjoyed with my Dad; learning how to use tools and build something.

While after surgery my reading comprehension increased dramatically (I hadn't realized how diminished it had become), my ability to conceptualize actually decreased, and requires constant reinforcement.  Thankfully, my memory problems, caused more by the surgery and not the congenital benign tumor they removed, are limited to short term memory, as I remember the third grade like it was yesterday.  Lessons learned as a child working with my Dad in his shop are still available for me to pass on to my Son.

Reading FOG on a daily basis is more helpful than you can imagine.  It allows me to absorb and process information at whatever pace I need, while drawing on the years of experience fellow members have accumulated. 

So, for me, I like to get as many hours in the shop as I can!

 

 

[ear3]

I had a similar experience -- I had done some basic carpentry, but found myself with a lot of extra time around 2004 while recovering from an illness, and turned to carpentry as a way to keep myself occupied and not go out of my mind while I was building my strength back up. I still cringe thinking about the stupid crap i did early on not knowing any better, like sanding for extended periods of time at 3am with the garage door closed using a cheap Dewalt palm sander (no dc) not wearing a dust mask.

I have no idea how much time I've logged since then, but it's considerable. During the school year it's generally relegated to evenings and weekends, but during the summer or vacations, especially if I'm on money project, it can be 50-60 hrs a week.

For me, time spent in the shop increases on a weekly basis.  My acquisition of new tools certainly plays a role, but also the fact I consider shop time a form of rehabilitation from brain surgery in 2009.  In the years following my surgery, everything I owned sat in the basement collecting both dust and rust, until it hit me one day that I was depriving my Son of the experiences I enjoyed with my Dad; learning how to use tools and build something.

While after surgery my reading comprehension increased dramatically (I hadn't realized how diminished it had become), my ability to conceptualize actually decreased, and requires constant reinforcement.  Thankfully, my memory problems, caused more by the surgery and not the congenital benign tumor they removed, are limited to short term memory, as I remember the third grade like it was yesterday.  Lessons learned as a child working with my Dad in his shop are still available for me to pass on to my Son.

Reading FOG on a daily basis is more helpful than you can imagine.  It allows me to absorb and process information at whatever pace I need, while drawing on the years of experience fellow members have accumulated. 

So, for me, I like to get as many hours in the shop as I can!

 

[sancho57]

I spend as much time in the shop as I can. Even if I dont have a real peoject going on. Im always fiddling with my tools trying new things.

Why?

I guess because i cant sing or dance