Whats your Work-Bench/lab look like? Post some pictures of your Lab.

[German_EE]

<sigh> I feel old now.

The green surface is called a draughting table (a.k.a. drafting table) and it's what they used before computers came along. A big sheet of paper is fixed to the flat surface using clips and then the moveable arm provides a perfect right angle when drawing diagrams on the paper using a nice sharp pencil. Want a 30 degree, 45 degree or 60 degree angle? either you can use a fixed triangle or rotate the two arms until you get the angle you need. Battleships and ocean liners were drawn this way and so were smaller items from the original Mini to other design classics.

Here's the tools in action:

http://www.lathes.co.uk/dsgfactory001/img5.jpg

http://www.westwoodworks.net/HowItWas/TheDrawingOffice/images/1961DrawingOfficec.jpg

[SeanB]

Keep the drafting table. even if all you do is put a pad of folio paper on it and a pencil, to make notes on. The chair is right for use as a draughtmans chair, and you will find it useful to sketch out many things there, or even to use as a sketch pad. Even if all you use it for is as a place to put a newspaper it will serve, plus as it is a large level surface and is matt it makes a great way to photograph anything you care to put on it. That you have to have a ladder to get the right angle is a small inconvenience for being able to use it.

[rrinker]

 Shame, I don't think they teach that in school any more. When I was in 7th grade, it was a requirement, boys and girls, to do a complete rotation through drafting, print shop, wood shop, metal shop, cooking, and sewing (yes, I may actually be able to sew something without attaching my finger to the fabric). I loved mechanical drawing, it was drawing I could actually do - my freehand drawing looks like a 5 year old's. After that it was all option but in 8terh and 9th grades bot I took shop, you didn't get to pick just one, it was a rotation again, 25% each on mechanical drawing, print shop, wood shop, and metal shop. Once I hit high school in 10th grade you could pick just one shop and as that was pretty much the last year I had available class time I took wood shop, despite being one of those geeky nerd kids who liked electronics and computers, I also like to build things. Still use the nightstand I built 35 years ago. My Mom used it up until she passed last year and it was one of the things I claimed and now it's alongside my bed. Had I the space and money for even more hobbies (not to mention time) I would have a well-equipped wood shop. My woodworking these days is more crude - 2x4 frame for my electronics bench I posted a few pages back, framework for my model railroad. No nice finished furniture any more, and I don't really have the tools for it.

[TerraHertz]

I wonder how many guys like us can say they have a fireplace beside their bench but it can warm the place very well on a very cold day in Canada after about an hour.

I can! And I use it too. It was hard to find a space to fit in my fairly small electronics lab, and I have to keep sheet metal heat shields between it and nearby stuff, but it works extremely well in winter. Zero cost heating, since my property has enough trees that I'm not short of firewood.  Old hardwood fences and stuff provide variety.

That's a nice workshop BSD. I too think you should keep the drafting table. I have one in my study, and an even better one that I'll inherit eventually. Definitely keeping them. As Sean says, they make a useful surface, plus on the rare occasions when you may need to do a real drawing, there's no alternative. Unless you have a pen plotter about the same size anyway, and can remember how to use whatever CAD program you used 20 years ago (if it even runs on a current OS.)
Heck, for historical reasons I even keep a small drafting board and wooden T-squares. How many here remember those?

I like the chalk board above the stairs. Hmm, how many times have I had a good idea while on the stairs, and forgot to jot it down? And why is that when you have a novel idea, then forget it, there seems to be some kind of interlock that almost always prevents it from popping up again?

[CM800]

Loving the reflow oven!

[ZeTeX]

Shame, I don't think they teach that in school any more. When I was in 7th grade, it was a requirement, boys and girls, to do a complete rotation through drafting, print shop, wood shop, metal shop, cooking, and sewing (yes, I may actually be able to sew something without attaching my finger to the fabric). I loved mechanical drawing, it was drawing I could actually do - my freehand drawing looks like a 5 year old's. After that it was all option but in 8terh and 9th grades bot I took shop, you didn't get to pick just one, it was a rotation again, 25% each on mechanical drawing, print shop, wood shop, and metal shop. Once I hit high school in 10th grade you could pick just one shop and as that was pretty much the last year I had available class time I took wood shop, despite being one of those geeky nerd kids who liked electronics and computers, I also like to build things. Still use the nightstand I built 35 years ago. My Mom used it up until she passed last year and it was one of the things I claimed and now it's alongside my bed. Had I the space and money for even more hobbies (not to mention time) I would have a well-equipped wood shop. My woodworking these days is more crude - 2x4 frame for my electronics bench I posted a few pages back, framework for my model railroad. No nice finished furniture any more, and I don't really have the tools for it.

A year ago (9th grade) at a new school we where using crappy cheap ass drafting machine in a "Technical sketch" class. Fortunately I had to choose between learning 1 "major" (not sure if major is the correct word), and I choose "electricity and control systems" so no more drafting machine.
So they teach you to use those for 1 grade basically.. useless things today, because there is autocad.

[basinstreetdesign]

I took draughting in grade 11 at Ottawa Tech.  My "major" was electronics and then they really taught us how tube radios and TVs worked.

But just because Autocad exists does not invalidate the science involved with technical drawing at all.  Most of the value in technical drawing, especially mechanical drawing is in how to construct a projected view or a section view of the object, how to organize a drawing or annotate it properly with dimensions, tolerances, etc.  Could Autocad automatically draw a spring?  As far as electronic schematics go I've seen some practically unreadable ones done with high-priced computer packages that would probably have been thrown, flaming, into the G-bin at any company worth their salt even a couple of decades ago.  Looking at some stuff that comes out of some electronic product companies, its easy to tell from the style of the schematic what its culture may be when its obvious that the drawing was made for the single purpose of generating a netlist for the PCB layout guy, then "throwing the problem over the wall to him" rather than producing a good piece of documentation which will serve many interests in the manufacturing organization.  These days it seems that most young engineers just dont understand the point to good drawing style because nobody is teaching them.  (/rant)

The draughting machine in the picture was an old Nestler from the '60s and was perfectly balanced up/down, left/right and had only a couple of ounces force on the surface.  Just a little push would send it gliding across the board.

I must admit something.  I sold it to a collector in Tucson, AZ.  I asked $300 and I got $300.  Only I was thinking CAD$300 and he sent USF$300.  I never corrected him but we  were both happy with the deal.  I still feel a little guilty.  Did I do wrong?

[george graves]

Man I miss the wood burning stove in my old place.  It's so relaxing to fall asleep to the roar of the fire, the snap, and crackle.  $300USD of wood would last me an entire winter of heat. I would find that the stove would make the house a bit too dry, so I bought a cast iron kettle that would humidify the air.

The only thing better might be sleeping on a sail boat, and falling asleep to the sound of water slapping against the haul.

[jonovid]

The bench is a bit of a mess.

[george graves]

Cute kitty!  My only advice is to make sure you have a lid on any tub of paste solder flux.  It attracts cat hair like a magnet!

[Falkra]

Reminds me some videos of 12voltsvids, cats, and... a big mess. But, hey, if you know where things are... 

[Cubdriver]

Yeah, I have a couple of them that like the bench and the rack of instruments, too.  Dangling test leads are great fun to swat at and chew on as well.   

-Pat

[VK5RC]

If chewing is an issue, I have used a bitter compound that I used to stop my dog licking his wound, tastes terrible but I don't think is too nasty to either furry beast or plastics.
Rob

[MarvinTheMartian]

Heck, for historical reasons I even keep a small drafting board and wooden T-squares. How many here remember those?

I used one in my school days - Tech Drawing as it was known back then. This was well before any computer that wasn't the size of a whole floor.  . 

Kept it for yeeeeeeears  and finally decided I wasn't going to use it again and threw it out a few years ago.

It hasn't been a loss though as I haven't since thought 'I could have used that' a week after throwing it out (as usually happens when you clean out some stuff from the workshop  ).

I like the chalk board above the stairs. Hmm, how many times have I had a good idea while on the stairs, and forgot to jot it down? And why is that when you have a novel idea, then forget it, there seems to be some kind of interlock that almost always prevents it from popping up again?

A real bugger isn't it! The worst thing is you knew you had a good idea (or you know you put something in a safe place) but you can't remember what/where it is!!! 

[MarkF]

Does the kitty do all your soldering? 
Looks like she takes a lot of breaks....

[nanofrog]

Typical cat... sleeping on the job.   

[Cubdriver]

The Brat (I mean 'lab cat') at work:

https://pmanning.smugmug.com/Other/Miscellaneous/i-7qj9NM9/A

-Pat

[Falkra]

Last cat joke, but since you mentionned the probes and the cats, they must be CAT III and CAT IV.

[ProBang2]

At least I am enlightened right now what "CAT-Rating" really means...

[Falkra]

Like this :

[WackyGerman]

DVI output of an oscilloscope is really nice to have 

[_Wim_]

DVI output of an oscilloscope is really nice to have 

Thanks looks indeed very nice!

[TiN]

snip..

I bet once in a while, when you get mad, you toss circuits that don't want to work right into the hellfire. 

Here pig's lab in today's condition...

[Falkra]

Are there Q-tips in the multimeter banana jacks ?

[TiN]

Correct. It's secret metrology precision hack to keep wires not falling out of the jacks