Shop Photos from Taiwan

[Perry]

Here are a few photos of my shop. I keep most of my machines covered with large black garbage bags to keep them clean. The one photo of the part of Taichung where my shop is located was taken from one of the windows.





Taken at a time when there wasn't much traffic. This area is kind of depressing.


Finishing a new build.


This is the guitar on the workbench being set up.

[Dennisthe Menace]

Perry,
Nice Workmanship on the Guitars, I'm diggin' the Workshop Layout! Very Kewl!!

[Perry]

Thank you. One of the interesting (and kind of frustrating) things about doing woodworking in Taiwan is that machines can be difficult to find and buy. Although Taiwan manufactures many of the wookworking machines sold in the States and Europe, some of these factories only export and do not sell domestically.

By the way, the first picture shows a grinder on a wooden desk. This is a desk from my college where I teach. They were getting rid of many of these old desks, and I was able to get two of them. The legs have been shortened, however. The other desk currently has my benchtop jointer on it. I purchased this jointer in the States, dismantled and cleaned it, and shipped it to Taiwan in three boxes. This was at the time when you could ship overseas by surface mail using USPS. It may sound expensive, but I think I got a better jointer than what I could have bought here for around the same amount.

The large fan in the first picture is my "air conditioner," and the vaccum cleaner doubles as my dust collection system. An adequate dust collection system should be my next machine purchase.

[dellison]

Man that is really cool and looks like a great setup. So I assume that it is a room off your house? That would be great to have it that close.

You know the really amazing thing I was thinking about when looking at your photos, and specifically the out-the-window shot, is something as simple as this forum (and the internet in general) can bring people from all over the world together with the opportunity to really share. You seem to travel more, but once I got back from Spain and back to the United States I really haven't left my area/home since then. I have visited a few other states, but pretty much the US is the US.

[UPDATE] - Okay I found your welcome post, but I still stick by my comment above! It's still pretty cool how diverse online communities can be!


Thanks for sharing, that was really neat!

Duane...

[KRamone27]

Nice guitars and shop. I wish my workshop was that big

[GattonFan]

Very nice space, Perry! Do you do any spray painting - I know I do mine outside, and it's highly contingent upon the weather here.

Dennis

[Perry]

Thank you your comments. My workshop is in a building halfway between where I work and live. It's about 2 km between the two extremes, so my workshop is about 1 km from both. Fortunately, they're more or less in a straight line.

No one lives in the building now where I have my shop. It has six floors with an "illegal" seventh floor--illegal because it was an add-on. At first, I had my shop on the seventh floor, but several years ago a new landlord asked me to move down to the sixth. I didn't have as many machines at that time, so the move was not difficult. It took me about a month, however, to repaint what was to become my workshop. It previously had green, orange, and blue walls, and the ceiling was painted a light purple. The building does not have a working elevator, which means that any machine I buy has to be carried up the stairs, which turn in a kind of irregular circle.

The building is in an area of Taichung which has the most popular night market in the city. There are more people at night in this area than there are during the day--and at high traffic times during the day there are a lot of people.

I haven't done any spraying. I don't have the equipment at this time. It would be great if I could do that, though. Right now I'm limited to oil finishes. Recently, I bought new finishing products, and I am interested to know how those will work out.