Time Spent Ratio: Hobby Shop / Forums

[davidh]

lets try this one.

what ratio do you think you spend playing in your hobby shop compared to the time you spend on this and other machining forums ?

i know for me its at least 10 parts forum to 1 part making chips.

for me, its because of the need for socialization more than down time.

names become familar, and sometimes you can put your own faces on whom you are becoming familar with. . .

both are a great form of entertainment. . . .and relaxation.

comments ?

[garagemark]

I probably rate 15-20 to 1. I only use the internet here at work, and only then on occasion when I have some down time. I have purposely had the internet shut off at home. I found that both my wife and I spent too much time on the darn thing. Now my home (which is my shop time) time is pure home time with no interruptions or distractions. Sure it’s a little inconvenient from time to time, but we survived almost fifty odd years without it.

So, I get more shop time than you do. Nah nah!

[rockrat]

I have found that I must put a time limit on my internet usage. I could sit in here for most of the day if I wanted. Then I feel as though I have waisted time on the net vs in the shop.

So, I try to keep it under 1 hour in the morning (thats email, hsm, ebay, craigslist) and then off I go. So 1:8 (or9) hours ratio.

I also miss talking to gents at the past shops I have worked at. It was always nice to bounce ideas off of them. And there would always be a story to go with the conversation.

Oh, happy opening day, baseball that is.

cheers~
rock

[Frank Ford]

This place has been mighty important to me as a source of instruction for my machining hobby. Although I do much of my machining as support for my real occupation of being a guitar mechanic, I still consider it my hobby because I do it at home, not on work time.

I figure I spend something like 1000 hours a year in my home shop. I do spend a fair bit of time at the computer, processing photos & writing for my Web sites, and learning what I can here. So, I don't see a strong dividing line between reading HSM and actually working in the shop.

Social contact here - well yes, to a point. But after 40 years as a local retailer I get lots of social contact during my regular work week. People drop in from around the corner or around the world, some for the first time, some every week, others after a long absence.

Dear old Dad made good dough and was comfortably able to quit work at 55. After that he spent more time bending his elbow at the neighborhood bar than I do now on the Internet. He died at 65 - my age now - in a kind of lifeless retirement. I will NOT go that way! When it comes, I hope Death meets me standing at my bench. . .

[7018]

I spend to much time on here , But I've got a good excuse for now. I got a hew knee on the 25th so I'm still healing..

Hope to get back to the shop soon....

[deltaenterprizes]

More time on the web than in the shop because the shop is not climate controlled.

[Bmyers]

more time here than in the shop, especially during the evenings in the winter.
I suppose 5 hours here to 1 hours shop time

[dp]

I can spend time here while I'm working which I can't do with my machine shop. I'm currently doing a software build and while that is going on (nothing quite so boring as watching C code compile except maybe watching fractals evolve) I can read stuff here. So the ratio of bbs time to shop time is very non-representative. Actual shop time depends on shop temperature and the condition of my back. I can't stand over machines for very long. I feel good to get a couple hours a week in.

[Evan]

The only computer in any of my shop spaces is the controller for the mill. It is online but I never use it to access this forum or any other, or the internet at all. I won't put a computer for that purpose in my shop. My main machine is in the living room beside my chair and my wife has hers beside her chair. She watches TV on it with headphones so it doesn't bother me as I cannot stand TV any more. If I want to spend time on this forum then I have to shut down the shop and come up stairs to do so. I spend plenty of time here but a lot of it is in the middle of the night when there is nothing else I can do but used the computer as I don't sleep much. Some days like today and the last few I have been feeling too crappy to do much else so I am working on and with software most of the day. Crappy is a relative term, in this case it just means it hurts to move much so I don't.

It's impossible to calculate any sort of ratio since when I am on the computer I am usually doing many things at once. I switch between tasks every minute or two depending on what has finished or whatever. I am constantly doing searches for information regarding things I am interested in and I have been spending a lot of time getting my new web site up. It still needs a lot of work.

[John Stevenson]

When it comes, I hope Death meets me standing at my bench. . .

I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandad and not screaming like the rest of the passengers in his car.

.

[Fasttrack]

John - I got a good laugh out of that one. Thanks.

The ratio depends on circumstances. For instance, I spend alot of time on the forum when I'm away at school and my studies aren't keeping me super busy since I don't have access to my own shop. When I'm at home, I spend all my free time in the garage. When I'm on my BIL's farm, I spend all my free time (which is generally very little) working on my lathe. Sometimes I'll go a month without even checking the forum because I'm so busy, other times I check it 10 times a day!

[Doc Nickel]

I spend anywhere from one to four hours a day online. Sometimes more when I've got a book to finish (playing with the scans and image files) or I'm working up a new T-shirt or I'm pasting together a new magazine article.

During that time, however, a fair portion of it is handling E-mail. Most of my work comes in online, so there's always new inquiries to answer, current projects to update on, and messages from vendors, other shops and so on to keep track of.

I spend a minimum of eight hours a day in the shop, 12 is more common, 16-18 is not unheard of. A few of those occur every month, sometimes a weeks' worth.

So shop/internet? Anywhere from 2:1 to 16:1, with 6:1 probably about average.

Doc.

[japcas]

I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandad and not screaming like the rest of the passengers in his car..

Good thing I wasn't drinking anything while I read that because there would have been a mess to clean up.

I take it by spells. Sometimes I spend lots of time in the shop and other times I spend a lot of time on the computer. Usually when I'm on the computer I'm researching something I'm interested in doing, building, or trying. Lately I've been studying up on doing a cnc conversion to my small lathe. As long as I'm doing something constructive or educational on the computer then I don't count it as lost time.

[topct]

I live in my shop. My shop is where I live. There is a computer in the house that I live in. There are machines in the house that I live in.

I consider the computer a machine and I consider the machines as computers.

Since I am 100% curious. That's also my ratio, 100 to 0.

[EdC]

I'd say 5:1 internet to shop...I generally only get shop time on the weekends and the occasional day off from work.