Building a Real Workshop

For the first few years, the shop was wherever I could make space for it. Tools were rolled out when needed, cords ran across the floor, and every new project meant a little bit of rearranging just to get started.

In 2024, that changed.

Instead of working around the limitations of a temporary setup, I invested in turning the space into a true workshop. Not bigger for the sake of being bigger, but better organized, more capable, and built for the kind of work I wanted to be known for.

A proper planer came in first. Being able to mill rough lumber flat and true opened the door to more control over materials instead of relying on pre-finished boards. Next was a bandsaw, which made curved cuts, resawing, and thicker stock work far more precise and repeatable.

The biggest leap, though, was adding a Vortex 4th axis to the CNC.

That single upgrade expanded what was possible from flat carvings to fully dimensional rotary work. Columns, cylindrical carvings, wrapped engravings, and more advanced 3D geometry were suddenly on the table. It wasn’t just a new tool; it was a new category of projects.

At the same time, the shop layout itself was refined. Dedicated stations replaced the constant shuffle of tools. Dust collection and airflow were improved to keep the space cleaner and safer during long carving sessions. Workflow started to feel intentional: rough mill here, cut there, carve here, finish over there.

The goal wasn’t to turn the shop into a factory.

It was to remove friction so more time could be spent on craftsmanship instead of setup and cleanup. Efficiency went up, but every piece was still touched, tuned, and finished by hand.

With the upgraded space and tools, larger and more complex commissions became realistic. Thicker materials, multi-step assemblies, and more ambitious designs no longer felt like a stretch.

2024 was the year the garage stopped being a makeshift workspace and became a real, purpose-built workshop—ready to take on whatever custom idea walked through the door next.