Do you clean your workshop at the end of the day?

Gore-fests were rare apart from major trauma victims and lumps the size of footballs. The idea is to keep the vital fluids with the patient. Cleaning was for sterility but if one had had all the compressed air tooling, endscopes and large surgical kits out then staff had a mound of tidying. Floor and wall tiles to the ceilings with epoxy grout made life easier.

Worrying over this very subject, I asked a retired engineer friend how often he cleaned up his lathe and workshop etc. He replied "When it needs it." Try as I might I could not get him to expand on this answer.

Mick

A busy guy at an engineering works told me "that a clean shop is a sign of a sick mind"

Not the best time to ask as I am in the middle if a major reorganisation. Got three lathes and a milling machine that I can't use - in fact I can barely see one of the lathes!

Work is winding down for the summer so in a couple of weeks all should be well.

Nick

I try to do about a weeks work - say 40 hours (which could be over several days or even a couple of weeks), then put all the tools away and sweep up etc.

I tend to clean up just before starting work.

By the time I've got to the end of a session, I'm either ecstatic (rare) because things have gone well or miserable because things have gone as usual. In the first case, why depress myself with the mundanity of a brush and shovel. In the second case, I can't bear to deal with the corpse of my disasters...

With my current project I've been making a LOT of swarf. To the point where i really have to clean up a few times in a session as the cast iron mountain gets to the point where it's hard to see the work...

Whilst, posts on this forum often produce 'differing views', it's rare to see something so polarised. You're either a messy pup (me) or on the OCD Spectrum. And not much in between!

Iain

My home shop is not a mess of swarf but I dont seem to have enough storage space to put everything away. I try, liberally do. But it still seems cluttered. But everything is where I can find it, usually.

On the other foot, the workshop at Wentworth is constantly under a foot of sawdust and wood shavings, bloomin wood rats! You cant shame them into sweeping up, elf and safety have apparently passed them by and if you want to keep any money safe put it on the Hoover, they will never find it. Not as clean as we metal worms.

Regards Mick

I clean and put away on the days I'm too tired after work and can't be bothered to try and make bits.

Comes and goes for me!

Sometimes i'm really good, other times, I just shut the door!

Jim

It is Friday night at the end of a hard week. There are three doors and a bottle of red wine between where I am sat in the living room and the workshop/garage.

What's the chance??

If you are like me, low!

JIm

I like to keep my workshop moderately tidy. I have a good bit of bench space and like to keep it clear so that anything I strip down doesn't get lost or scattered.

Swarf is easy to keep control of, I put on gloves and shovel handfuls into a waiting rubble bag then use a Numatic hoover to clean up the small bits Works for the lathe and the mill alike.. I sweep then hoover the floor (with the same numatic), takes half a minute. I don't keep the place pristine but I do hate losing stuff just because it's fallen into a mess. Plus the wife really gets annoyed if I walk swarf into the house.

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Tidyness has nothing to do with being anal or snobbery about makes of equipment in the workshop, it comes down to the simple fact that in industry, especially the aerospace industry tidiness is drummed in to you, benches must be clean and tidy, only the job you are working on is on the bench, there is absolutely no clutter, machines are cleaned at the end of every day, time is allowed for it, this is all due to the quality management system 5s or 6 sigma etc. Having worked in aerospace as a toolmaker for many years old habits die hard.

The lathe gets cleaned down, (swarf brushed into the chip tray ) at the end of each session. When the swarf builds up in the tray, it is removed, and hammered into empty baked bean/broad bean/peach tins and the lid hammered on before being put into the recycling bin.

The Mill Drill tends to be kept cleaner, since it has such a small chip tray, and the bench around it gets swept up more frequently.

Swarf that falls on the floor tends to go through the holes inn the plastic matting. About once a year this is removed and the floor cleaned up before the mats are replaced, ready for the next annual "Mucking of Geordie's byre".

I dislike cleaning up, but it is a necessary evil! Nice feeling of satisfaction when viewing the clean machine, tho'

Howard

I tend to clean my lathe after every job but must admit not so my bench drill and when it comes to my work bench I only tend to clean it if I need more room or have 'lost' something

H

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I leave cleaning up until the next day before work starts I find that on colder days the vac and me cleaning makes it warmer to work for that session.

My grandson threw his box of lego over the lounge floor. My daughter asked why he did it. He said that he wanted a messy room like grandad's workshop.

Draw your own conclusions.

If I did as the OP suggests, I might be cleaning up far longer than using the machines! I’m a hobbyist, not a full-time operative. It may take weeks before I have done one equivalent full day of machining.

That means the workshop could be as tidy at the end of any particular day as at the start - even without any further attention, so regular cleaning and tidying each and every day does not necessarily have any correlation with whether one runs a tidy or untidy workshop.

I think it is more important that the machine(s) is/are clean, not so much the whole workshop. Putting away tools, which will need to be got out again at the next (short) session, seems a waste of useful time to me.