19 March 2010 - 7:21Projects! Projects! Projects!

No shortage of them around here.

There are big projects, and little projects. Ones that get done, and others that get ignored. All of the pictures that you are about to see are slightly horrific. Please bear in mind that I have been going flat out all day every day this week, and haven’t had time to deal with the encroaching clutter.

One of my big pushes this year is to tweak the work areas. Make them more efficient. Stop the sort of crap you are about to see from happening.

I have built hundreds of wheels here. For the last two seasons I have lived with it. There are a few things I’m going to change about it. Despite the cluttered look, it is actually a very efficient workplace. I have a system that I use, and everything is right there. You can’t see them in the picture, but I have a shelf of spokes above the tires that you do see. I have lots and lots of spokes, and they are close at hand. I can turn out a perfect wheelset from start to finish in about 2 hours without interruptions. It’s super messed up right now because I built 3 sets of wheels today on top of everything else. I clean in the morning…

The “catch all”. I knew when I originally set the shop up that this area would be a monster. This area sits next to my wheelbuilding station, and as you can see, it gets very messy. This is by far the worst i have let it get, but it gets very messy very frequently. I chalk it up to 60% bad use of space, 35% messy habbits and 5% not having enough time to deal with it. Thankfully, both of these areas are out of direct eye of the customer, but the shop is no better right now. It is cohesively representing some sort of post apocalyptic scrap pile. I have some ideas about this zone too.

The front of the house has given me a lot to think about too. I keep that area much cleaner, but it still could benefit from some attention. I have figured out in my head what it should look like, and the steps have been taken to make it so.

Nat built me a new jewelry case. He has built all of the “furniture” in the front of the house. The crappy stuff that I built is out in the shop, and I have plans for that too, but for right now, I’m dealing with the display and lighting of the shiny new bikes and parts. It’s gonna take me a couple of weeks to finish it, and maybe a couple more to fill it up with the stuff I want to put in it.

Stop by the shop to see the progress, or wait and see how I deal with all of this right here.