You find yourself in the virtual space that belongs to a real farm in New Hampshire… hay fields, orchards, vegetable and flower gardens, bee hives, maple syrup trees, wild woods and berry brambles, deer, hares… and a watchmaking shop.
The barn loft atelier contains my two main work benches, hand tools, light power tools, optics, as well as most of the supplies. Its off the grid, meaning that it relies on solar panels for 24v DC electricity, and wood for heating. I love the large windows built into the roof that provide wonderful lighting… and also heat on sunny days.
The farm’s main shop is an unheated, dirty shop where some heavy duty, 240 volt machinery can be found. It is a communal space, not dedicated to watchmaking, where I often use the antique Atlas metal lathe, table saw and drill press for some of the more demanding jobs. This is also the space with an air compressor capable of energizing the sandblasting airbrush.
The third workspace of horological import at GPF, is found in the warm room. If you are imagining a sauna, you would be way off the mark… The warm room is the only heated space in the tool barn, and it is kept barely above freezing in the winter so that the farm’s pressurized water tank does not freeze… I take advantage of this room (where I can usually work un-mittened) to do all the machine work that necessitates the umph of 110 volts. Plating, anodizing, ultrasonic cleaning and annealing happen here…
Included, should be the kitchen table (after everyone else in the household goes to bed), where much of the thinking, dreaming and drawing happens… or the living room where this website was built and is being maintained…