Home Sweet Shop - Woodcraft Magazine

america’s top shops
Home Sweet Shop
 sarah brady
Devoted woodworking hobbyist Bobby Hartness
wasn’t thinking about livestock when he renovated a charming
horse barn on his Greenville, S.C., homestead. His focus was instead on creating
a woodworker's dream come true. With its comprehensive maintenance system and
souped-up machinery, his shop might tempt any woodworker to take up residence—
and for good reason, as you’ll soon see.
A
driveway winds past the
Hartness home and gardens,
ending beside a pond at a large, tidy
red-and-white barn. Formerly shelter
for horses, this building embarked
on a second life in 2001 when businessman Bobby Hartness built on
a modern woodworking shop. Now
the only horses found here power
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woodworking machines.
In semi-retirement, Bobby has
become an extraordinarily prolific
builder of fine furniture, and his
shop reflects his whistle-clean, nononsense approach to woodworking.
Power tools are clustered to ease
workflow, and wide corridors make
it easy to move large boards and
sheet goods between work stations.
Toward the center of the 40 x 50'
room, four steel support columns
contain electrical outlets and air
drops and serve as “home base” for
major power tools.
For example, a 37" belt sander,
horizontal/vertical edge sander and
22" planer are grouped around one
america’s top shops
column, while 14" and 24" bandsaws
reside at another (along with one of
the shop’s three router tables). Wall
space is used to store clamps and
jigs, while turning and carving tools
fit neatly in attractive hand-made
cabinets with cabriole legs.
Order rules the roost, but
appearances are not neglected. Bobby
built four major banks of floor-toceiling cabinetry (30' wide altogether)
of stunning bald cypress, harvested
from Hilton Head Island in 1961. He
purchased truckloads of 20"-wide,
2"-thick boards of the virgin wood
in a liquidation sale to build the
cabinets, which include most of the
160 handmade drawers throughout
the shop. As a result, everything has a
place, from abrasives and hardware to
finishes, templates and spare batteries.
During construction, Bobby made
sure to have the concrete floor ltrue
and even for building furniture. “It’s
perfectly flat, with no variances in
elevation,” he says. The floor is also
spotless, a surprising state for a shop as
frequently used as this one. Neatness
is a virtue for Bobby, who insists on
staying organized and dust-free with
a centralized dust-collection system
servicing all major tools. He uses
flexible pipe and industrial connectors
of 20-gauge galvanized steel, and the
setup is controlled by an automated
Ecogate system. This system uses
motorized blast gates, that switch on
suction only to those tools in use and
shutting off the airways to others.
“A 3-hp collector will only serve one
machine at a time effectively,” Bobby
THE WORKSHOP
at a glance
Size: 40 x 50' shop plus living
quarters (kitchen, bedroom, display
areas for finished projects and
antiques) and lumber storage.
Ceiling height: 9'4"
Construction: Wood frame, 2 x
4" studs, 16" on center. Wooden
interior paneling. Poured concrete
floor with expansion joints. Four
steel support columns clad with
drywall.
Heating & cooling: Enclosed HVAC
room contains 7-ton air conditioning
and 160,000-btu forced-air gas
heating units. Large filtration panels
assist with ambient air cleaning.
Lighting: 30 4' high-intensity
fluorescent panels and
incandescent spotlights over work
stations
Electrical: 200-amp single-phase
service panel and 220-amp threephase converter
Dust collection: Penn State 3-hp
cyclone dust collector; 5-micron
and .05-micron filter bags
Air compressor: 7½-hp Curtis
photos: Doug Jordan
“If I can draw it, I can build it.”
Bobby spends plenty of time at this
3 x 4' drafting table before
undertaking any project. He has
designed dozens of pieces: tool
chests, all types of tables, desks,
chests, highboys, chairs, antique-style
pieces, and shop jigs and fixtures. As
an integral part of his workshop, he
built floor-to-ceiling, 8'-wide banks
of cabinet/drawer storage space on
three of the four workshop walls, plus
the 5½'-wide bank shown above.
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Location is everything: Bobby’s shop sits on acreage that the Hartness
family held onto while Greenville’s residential area grew up around it. For many
years, Bobby’s sister raised and trained horses here; the original barn is at left,
the built-on workshop, at right. Inside and out, the shop seamlessly blends into
the original structure, which now contains spacious living quarters, a lumber
storage room, and covered parking for cars, lawn equipment and a golf cart.
The 12' garage door opens into a clear staging area about 12' deep.
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america’s top shops
says. For noise abatement his collector
and a pair of filter bags are closed off
in a corner closet (see photo on page
48). The a/c and heating system also
pitches in with ambient air cleaning;
Bobby installed large filter panels in
the HVAC (heating, ventilation and air
conditioning) closet which trap fine
airborne particles.
An area in the north corner is devoted
to finishing, with a sure way to clear the
air. A variable-speed fan is installed in
a cabinet/window, and Bobby opens a
window on the northwest wall to create
a corridor of moving air. Spray finish
paraphernalia is stored on a wall rack
nearby. Though he’s modest about his
finishing capabilities, “the worst spray
job is better than the best brushed-on
finish,” Bobby says.
Bobby’s vertical milling machine is
a tool not found in most woodworking
shops. He uses it to precisely mill
intricate joinery, keyholes, and channels
for inlay. A digital X-Y-coordinate
A workstation that works: Outfeed tables added to Bobby’s Rockwell
Unisaw extend its surface to 7' in each direction, and an Incra fence
system frames the setup. At first, Bobby thought the four steel support
columns in his workshop would be liabilities, but instead he found
them useful as “home bases” for larger machinery such as this saw.
The columns contain electrical and air drops, which help reduce cord
clutter, and also host small shelves and a telephone. The green box on
the column here is a control panel for Bobby’s Ecogate dust-collection
system, which detects when power tools are in use (by their vibration)
and shuts off suction to unused areas. The result is much greater vacuum
force where needed.
Man with the plans: Even in the midst of all these large machines,
“the tool I use most is my pencil sharpener,” Bobby says. This view
from the north corner of the workshop shows his 4 x 8' assembly table
(with drawers beneath, not shown).
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readout makes it possible from him to
control the length and direction of cut.
While his technical expertise is
impressive for a hobbyist and his
furniture is beautiful, Bobby never
makes a chore of woodworking and
maintains a youthful fascination with
the beauty of wood and the endless
possibilities of design. He has an
unhurried and appreciative approach.
“Sometimes I’ll just sit and watch a
piece of rough lumber come out of the
planer. I love to see what the surface
will look like. It’s one of the most
exciting things about woodworking.”
He typically gets absorbed in only one
project at a time, sometimes working
long hours late into the night. With
everything imaginable under one roof,
Bobby’s shop isn’t a home away from
home—for him, it is home!
FLOOR PLAN
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The Floor Plan
NW
As a new addition, Bobby’s
shop was a blank slate with
few rules or limitations. Large,
stationary power tools such as his
36" antique bandsaw and his Delta
Unisaw leave plenty of room for
the operator. His 4 x 8' work table
(on the northeast wall, next to the
12' garage door) is comfortably
accessible from all sides, with
racks of clamps close at hand
for project assembly. Much of
the northwest wall is dedicated
to his Makita LS1212 miter saw
with 8' support tables, topped by
wall storage racks for scraps and
cutoffs. Turning dominates an
area of the southwest wall with
a Powermatic 4224 lathe and a
freestanding storage cabinet for
turning tools, beside two pairs of
French doors. One corner houses
8' of storage cabinets and a
mortising machine, with pegs for
router templates on the nearby
wall.
A central dust-collection
system and electrical outlets on
four center support columns offer
a convenient way to cut back on
nuisance extension cords. Most
power tools not yet mentioned are
clustered around these columns,
with the exception of the vertical
milling machine near the HVAC
closet.
Also at this location is Bobby’s
3 x 4' drafting table. Here, he
draws meticulous plans for the
projects he builds. The “drawing
nook” faces a corner HVAC room
and is surrounded by shopmade
cypress storage cabinets. A full
8 x 8' bath (!) fits neatly between
this area and the dust collection/
storage room. This shows how
completely Bobby has integrated
his living quarters into his shop.
Not shown on these plans, the
adjacent renovated barn includes a
kitchen, living room, office/display
room (see page 49) and bedroom
(with billiards table). Lumber
storage is given its own climatecontrolled 16 x 40' room on the far
southeast side of the building.
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sliding
miter saw
mortising
machine
mobile storage
cabinet
spindle sander
disc/belt
sander/buffer sander fan
table saw
4 x 8'
work table
router table
drill press
grinders
jointer
lathe
scroll
saw
French doors to
yard and pond
SW
router
table
24"
bandsaw
vertical
milling
machine
router
table
garage door to
driveway
13" planer
22" planer
14"
bandsaw
shop
carts
edge
sander
belt
sander
wet/dry
sharpener
36"
bandsaw
drafting table
HVAC
closet
to living
quarters
full bathroom
cyclone dust
collector
filtration
cabinet
SE
“My only regret is not making the shop 40 x 60' instead of 40 x 50'. Because
of the economy of adding more space, it just makes sense. This shop is
spacious, but it’s a little cramped for the swing of a piece of plywood.”
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR SHOP:
Got a top woodworking shop filled with ideas for
smarter woodworking? You could be featured in
Woodcraft Magazine and earn a $100 Woodcraft
gift certificate. Send a short writeup, photos and/or
sketches and rough floor plan, if possible) to:
Jim Harrold, Editor-in-Chief
Woodcraft Magazine
4420 Emerson Avenue Suite A
P.O. Box 7020
Parkersburg, WV 26102-7020
[email protected]
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NE
america’s top shops
Smart Ideas for the Taking
1
Unique router fixture: This shopmade router fixture positions the router
horizontally or vertically by moving it between two bases. Wooden stops lined with
foam fill the void in the empty base, keeping sawdust contained and improving
the suction of a vacuum hose. In the vertical position, it becomes an overhead
router with a changeable pin—which acts as a bearing against a template—on the
bottom of the box. The horizontal position makes mortising long boards easy. The
assembly includes adjustment stops on top of the table and a threaded rod in back
for vertical positioning.
6"
2
Diverse dowel
storage: This tall
corner rack holds
dozens of dowels,
threaded rods, and
other such items in
plain view. Holes of
various diameters are
cut through the upper
shelves and recessed
in the bottom shelf to
match PVC pipe and
other stored items.
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¾" shelves dadoed in place
1½" diameter
3" diameter
33¼"
32"
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3
Guidance from above: This simple router jig positions
a support pin directly above the bit. The jig makes it possible
to create profiles on parts—such as gooseneck molding for
grandfather clocks—with a bearingless bit. The illustration below
shows how to make it.
1½" wood screws
Size to match
your table
/ " bolt
38
¾"
¼" bolt
½" steel pin
4
“I swear by my...Incra LS Positioner. I can literally work to tolerances of a thousandth of
an inch, and it is so easy. Why more people don’t use these, I just don’t understand.”
Rolling storage: A four-door mobile cabinet adapted from
a magazine plan opens to reveal rows of router bits and smaller
hand tools. The upper router bit shelves are angled forward
for easier viewing of bits in the back rows. Closed, the whole
assembly appears neat and rolls easily into a corner; overall size is
22 x 36 x 72".
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america’s top shops
Born-again
bandsaw: Bobby
rebuilt this 36"
1905 Crescent and
added a 32 x 38"
Mylar table, plus
a Plexiglas panel
covering the saw’s
open pulleys. It
weighs a ton,
and runs without
vibration.
Dust collection's private digs: In this 8 x 14' room (above
right), a 3-hp cyclone dust collector sucks down the bulk of
dust particles which travel here through a system of flexible
hose from dust-producing workstations. The air is then pulled
through 5-micron and .05-micron filter bags, which are sealed
off in a shop-made airtight cabinet with two tall doors hung on
long piano hinges and sealed with strips of rubber (overall dimensions: 29½ x 46 x 74"). Bobby works at his router station
25' from the virtually soundproof “dust room,” which scrubs air at a rate of 1,400 cfm. Visible over his shoulder on the
southwest wall is steel shelving with hooks for setup blocks, wrenches, and other router table necessities.
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america’s top shops
Bobby Hartness - designer & woodworker
“It isn’t important how good a woodworker you are. It’s how much you enjoy it that counts.”
E
arly on, Bobby used his skills as a machinist
and engineer to help build the family business, Hartness International, based in Greenville,
S.C. His father started the company as a Pepsi
bottling franchise and became a major innovator in packaging, assembly lines, and conveyor
equipment. In spite of his background, he finds
woodworking more difficult. “You have to deal
with warpage and imperfections, which are key to
the beauty in the wood. No two pieces are alike—
they have different grain, different
texture, different density—all these
variables. That makes it interesting
and fun.”
Bobby is now semi-retired and
spends long hours—whenever
he wants—absorbed in furniture
projects. He’s a leading member
of the Greenville Woodworkers
Guild, one of the most active in
the country, and is often tapped
by fellow members for design
and technical assistance. He hosts
woodworking events on behalf of the guild at his
home and shop, where many admire his extensive
antique tool collection.
Wood-centric surroundings: The
second floor of Bobby’s living quarters
(above) used to be a hayloft, but now
it’s a showplace for his finished projects
and antique woodworking equipment.
Downstairs (left), more antiques and
finished projects furnish the TV room.
Slant-front desk: Bobby
enjoys the challenge of
reconstructing period
details. He designed and
crafted this desk. (The
chair is by Brian Boggs.)
Multi-drawer cabinets:
Dovetailed drawer sides are
exposed in the modernly styled
cabinet at top, while a more classic
look belongs to Bobby’s signature piece at right.
He’s made several of these, some as gifts and some
to store hand tools in his shop. Another houses his
collection of handmade knives by local craftsmen.
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