Back to work - on the workshop

After a break for summer visitors (and to let my back recover) I've been getting my workshop fitted out. A lot of it is still temporary. I hope to build a proper woodworking bench when I can persuade our next-door neighbour to cut me some thick oak planks. And I also hope to replace the metalworking area with a bench on proper supports rather than concrete blocks stacked rather haphazardly. With a vice, too.

Here's what the workshop looks like now:



I have also been able to use it to make something - a bracket for the chimney. I made a form by filling a plastic drain-pipe with concrete, then bending the bracket to size (150mm diameter) around it. Here's the finished bracket:



And this longer shot shows where the bracket is in relation to the stove. Before installing the bracket the flexible pipe (which you can't see, in the chimney above the ceiling) prevented the stainless steel pipe from the stove from sitting straight (too many joints). It had a permanent flex in it near the top. The bracket seems to hold it all quite rigidly now.



I have yet to transfer the remaining contents of the old workshop - this one:



and thanks Alan, it's a lovely painting - over to the new one. And in fact there's at least one more shelf to go in, to complete the Heath Robinson effect. I tell myself it is because all the shelves are fastened to the ceiling rather than standing on the floor, but no doubt I could have done better. Still, virtually everything is re-cycled. Palets were very useful, and left-over roof timbers.