Below are some pictures of my Carving Studio / Woodworking Shop. A place where I spend a good deal of time teaching, carving, fabricating and pondering life's mysteries.

Click on any of the images for a larger version.....Then click your browsers "Back" button to return to this page.

Lower Level - Woodworking Shop

View walking in from the lower level entry door looking SW.  Large open work area used for woodworking projects and large fish carving commissions.  I installed halogen and incandescent track lighting on both levels which gives me gives me a multitude of pinpoint lighting options for whatever projects I am involved in.  Since I spend a great deal of time in my shop I built in many creature comforts, air conditioning, heat, R-25 insulation, soundproofing, bathroom w/hot and cold water, microwave, refrigerator, drinking fountain, telephone, cable TV both levels, Stereo, computer network w/internet access, home/shop intercom, security cameras, infrared and motion alarm system, backup generator, halon fire suppression, 3 independent air filtration systems, eye wash station and a direct vent spray booth.     

Looking west from the center of my shop.  Formica cabinets and countertops provide ample storage and work space.  Covered with a bedspread is the case for my Arowana carving I won the Ward World Fish Carving Championships with in 2000.  Centered on the shop ceiling is the lower level air filtration system, 4000 CFM Electrostatic Filtration scrubs all the air in my shop and studio five times per hour.  More on this system below.

Looking toward the south wall of the shop.

Looking east from the center of the shop you see the bathroom and stairwell to my upper level carving studio.

My SuperShop™ Multi-Use lathe, Bandsaw and Arc/Gas Welding Station with overhead accessory console.

My homemade 4000 CFM Electrostatic Air Filtration System.  Air is pulled through the three washable electrostatic air filters into the blower housing and routed through a air plenum between joists discharging the filtered air upstairs into my studio through yet another filter.  I designed and built this system to achieve two goals, first the obvious...clean the air on my shop quickly, second to circulate the warm air that rises into my studio back to the lower level.  By discharging air at a high rate upstairs into my studio the vacuum left behind as the air leaves the lower level pulls clean warm air down my stairwell, through my shop and back through the filters again.  This helps keep the entire shop warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  It also keeps my upper level studio pressurized with clean air, so any airborne dust or paint fumes are quickly swept away as new clean air enters the shop at 4000 cubic feet per minute!  No matter how much airborne dust I generate in the shop the air is clean in less than a minute! And best of all the blower motor used is silent.  When the filters become dirty I just have to simply remove them, and wash them out with a garden hose.  The whole cleaning process takes less than 10 minutes and only needs to be done once a month.

Looking from the center of the shop towards the stairwell upstairs. 

Stairwell heading up into the carving studio.  Notice at the top of the stairs another air filtration system.  This one I purchased from a Hospital that was closing.  It was the air filtration system used to clean the air in surgery rooms.  Air is pulled through two pre-filters and discharged into a medical grade HEPA / Charcoal filter at a rate of 1000 CFM.  This filter was placed at the top of the stairs in a cove to catch any air pollutants as the air is pulled from the studio down the stairwell and into the first floor shop. 

Upper Level - Carving Studio / Classroom

Simons hangs out with me all day no matter what I am working on, or where I am going.  We raised him from a baby (4 weeks old) and he has spent so much time with me carving, fishing, or whatever the family is doing he is right at home in the shop or on the water.  Simon is now 7 years old and has seen more carving and fishing time than many.  If anybody would have told me 7 years ago how close of a companion a bird can become I would have told them they were crazy, now I know otherwise. 

Looking west from the entry of the studio.  The freestanding 18'x7' U shaped workbench provides space for 10 carvers and myself to work all day in comfort.  The workbench is another of my silent air filtration innovations, a closed system with a 6100 CFM silent blower pulling air through the bench top inlets.  Each work area has a 4"x12" air inlet pulling air from the work area and discharging it into a filter box at the far end of the bench.  By the time the dust filled air reaches the filter box 90% of the dust has fallen out leaving little for the final filters to deal with.  The entire bench is a dust collector.  With two service panels at either end of the bench I can easily clean the settled dust from within the bench as it builds up.  Any noticeable accumulation will take years! 

Glass paneled figured maple cabinets line both walls housing mold making and casting materials, paints, equipment, supplies, reference castings, tools and other carving / painting related items.  Along the ceiling is a mixture of Florescent, Halogen, and Incandescent lighting to aid in carving and painting operations.  Natural daylight fluorescents light the studio while independent incandescent and halogen track lighting provide directional accent lighting to help during the carving phase by creating shadows. 

Each work area has a padded bar stool, raised  foot ledge for your powercarver speed control, dust collection inlet, rubber tool mat, electrical outlet, ceiling mounted powercarver chain, adjustable overhead lighting and a converter to change the table top dust collector into a lap style dust collector.  Each carver has 40" of bench top work area to use.  And each station is outfitted with power carving and wood burning equipment for use during class.  No need to bring any equipment to class, it's all right here ready to go.
 

Looking from the far corner of my studio towards the stairs.  My carving equipment is mounted on the ceiling in a sliding track that allows me to walk up and down the center of the work bench demonstrating. 

Looking from my carving seat in the middle of the workbench.  Simons perch where he spends a good part of the day sharing my food and working on his own carvings (shredding scrap pieces of wood).  In the upper right is my TV, below that is an X-Ray reader that I use to draw patterns, on the far right is my awards cabinet and reference book collection.  Centered over the stair banister is my reference aquarium which houses live models of fish being carved in class, below that my refrigerator, coffee maker and clay warmer.  Left of the aquarium on the back wall is the air conditioner and vacuum former.  Far left is my painting bench and wall mounted spray booth.

Looking from other far corner towards stairwell.  Notice the chains hanging down from the ceiling mounted pipe system, these are used to clip your Mastercarver or Foredom to.  The chain and snap clip allow for height adjustment. Each station is outfitted with power carving systems.  I have everything here you will ever need to carve during class.

Bench blower case and filter box.  Resting on it are my opaque projector and overhead projector used for enlarging and drawing patterns from pictures or slides.  The pull down movie screen is mounted over the west wall above the window.

Air discharge from lower level provides a steady diffused stream of double filtered air into my studio.  The ceiling mounted air filtration system downstairs filters the air before it enters the blower chamber and the filtered air is then blown upstairs via ductwork into the wall mounted filter shown.  This keeps a constant supply of clean fresh air into my studio so lingering paint or resin fumes are quickly diluted and removed.

The same tracking used in hospital curtains runs the length of my studio ceiling where I hang carvings in progress.  Perfect for painting several fish at once.  Roller bearing hooks provide a fast and easy way to position and hang my work.  I simply clamp a hemostat clamp to a fin edge and hang it up.  High ceilings keep you from walking into overhead fish.

Here's one of my shop built tools.....a homemade vacuum former.  Built from shop scraps and a few hardware items for about $65. 

Using inexpensive sheets of PETG plastic, like that used for two liter pop bottles I can make form fitting paint stencils for my carvings and castings in seconds. 

This is just one of the many things you will learn in my fish carving classes!  In class I also show you many other "unique" uses for this awesome little machine.  And some other tricked out tools I have developed for carving that I have stored away from the cameras view.

55 Gallon Reference Aquarium.....a live fish can answer more anatomy and painting questions than a ten foot stack of reference pictures.  My Family Room in the house has a 200 aquarium containing a 20" silver arowana and a few other fish from time to time. 

Reference books, finished carvings and awards I have collected over the years.

Heated and vented resin curing station keeps my carvings dust free while the resin water splashes cure off.

CO2 airbrush bottle and a Charcoal HEPA air filtration system.

Well that's all for now.

   ~Ed

New - Carving Class Testimonials