What a long, strange…. and often horrifying… trip it has been. I write this today having just completed the setup of the last workshop lathe that we need for pipemaking, making this our semi-official “Workshop Finished” day. There are still things lacking (workstation lighting being the main one, as I can’t see what I’m doing on several machines and have to carry a flashlight with me!), and I am certain that we will rearrange and modify the setup once we have used it for a while, but for now, we have access to a fully functioning workshop again. I’d like to take the opportunity to once again thank all the great people who have helped us out with this project – We arrived here with nothing, thanks to our final screw-over by the Herbignac mairie, and our ability to start working again is entirely down to a lot of help, donations, and generosity on the part of pipe friends all across the USA and Canada. To mark the occasion, here is a new “Workshop assembly” comic strip showing the last steps of getting the metal lathe working, and then a two page tour of the new workshop. Hope you enjoy!
(Oh, and for the curious – Don’t look for new pipes on the site tomorrow. With this done, I have five days of email to catch up, a lot of business archiving to do, a starting inventory to finish, a pair of special pipes to make, a house to decorate for the holidays, and a NC driver’s license to obtain before I start making pipes for the site…. and THEN that will take a while in itself, since I want to have something nice in stock in every category before we put the new site online with all new stuff. I don’t know how long all this will take, but rest assured we’ll be working as hard as we can right through December to get things going again.)
2 Comments
Mark · December 15, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I'm glad to see things coming together!
It has been a long, hard year for both of you, which I believe, will make the coming year all the sweeter.
Anonymous · December 14, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Wonderfull news, Trever. At least now, the real work begins 🙂
Have a nice day.
Yannic