wintertime workshop clothes (and heat) on a budget

[bloke]

I go to the thrift store and I grab some thicker 2XL sweatshirts. I prefer that they not have writing on them - even though I'm only in my shop, but beggars can't be choosers.

The thicker ones last longer and 2XL fits nice and loose. I'm personally not much of a fan of smocks, just fwiw.

Inevitably, holes get burned in the fronts of the sweatshirts and also get worn in them from jamming tubing up against myself while working on the other ends of things. Maybe these aren't the best work techniques, but I prefer to hold things and work on them rather than set things down and work on them, though some things - of course - have to be set down to be worked on.

Since the sweatshirts are 2XL and loose fitting, once I get too many holes in them I can turn them around and wear them backwards, so there aren't any holes in the front anymore. After both the front and the back are full of holes, I cut them apart and use the side areas (with no holes) to cover my earth magnets. Eventually, it's time to go pick up another two or three $1 to $3 2XL thrift store sweatshirts.

So many of my habits - which tend to resemble these - are why I tend to chuckle at rich people and multi-million dollars paid talking heads who wag their fingers at me from the television set, telling me that I need to save the Earth and be more conservationist...
... it's only 19° right now and I've got horns to fix, but I'm going to go out and cut down some more storm blown over trees out in the woods from last year's 100+ mph windstorm, so Mrs bloke can continue to feed the wood stove. Please don't report me for spewing carbon into the atmosphere, even though otherwise all of those limb and branches would rot and spew carbon into the atmosphere anyway... and frankly spewing that carbon into the atmosphere personally costs me quite a bit less than spewing burned natural gas carbon into the atmosphere... as well as keeping the woods cleaner - which discourages forest fires and actually makes it easier for the wildlife (some of which becomes our food) to forage. One other thing... I'm not going to kill myself splitting huge ends of limbs nor (certainly not) trunks, I'm also not going to send money to Asia to buy a gasoline wood splitter, and I'm also not going to burn the gasoline required to run one, so all of that huge stuff goes into washes and ravines to reverse erosion.

[bloke]

Update:
I'll probably cut enough firewood, just now, for 3 or 4 days in a very easily accessed area just over the property line. There is a new house built up in those woods, and we're on good terms with those people. I'm sure they would be delighted to see me cutting up this deadfall and making it disappear, even though they never come over this far. I had to stop after cutting that much fuel, because this particular chainsaw doesn't have a heated handle. I went as long as I could go without my right hand ending up frostbitten, and yes I was wearing thick gloves, but they are those heavily plastic armored safety gloves, and not necessarily built for it insulation.
I came in and treated that hand with cold water, then cool water, then lukewarm water, and all the pain is gone, so I think I went right to the brink. It's time to write up quotes for four distressed old King fiberglass sousaphones that are going to be brought from the dead and marched with by a very large middle school band. They have a total of about ten of these, and a person for each one of them. The high school band has dwindled over the last few years with past mediocre band directors. The new band director is yet another go-getter, and even if half of these 10 middle school players stay in band, he's going to suddenly have pretty good numbers - at least in the tubas and probably in everything. You should see the size of this band facility. It's been added on to twice and isn't elegant - as it was built and added on to back in the days of sanity, regarding expenditures for public buildings, but it is huge and it's in good condition. I would have to believe that at one time there were probably 500 young scholars or more in the middle and high school combined programs.

[Mary Ann]

You could wear a welding apron and not get holes in the sweatshirts.

I buy those too, the super XL ones but use them to put over the seat backs in my vehicles. Here where we sweat so much in the summer it keeps the seats nicer. Not that you don't sweat there, but I like my seats to not get grody.

[arpthark]

Like most folks in New England, we have oil heat, which is really just diesel fuel that is dyed red ("#2 fuel oil"). It's about $3/gal, and a full 225 gallon tank lasts us about 10-12 weeks (thermostat programmed to 67 degrees while we are home, 60 degrees when we are not, and 65 degrees while we are asleep). I will probably have to fill up one more time before the winter is through.

My workshop/barn is a detached building, dating from ca. 1885, and it's been fit with a wood stove which keeps everything pretty toasty when it's going. But it doesn't go all the time, so anything with water in it and my lamp oil and things like that freeze. I also have a space heater that goes under my workbench and heats my legs directly while I am working.

Wood... a tree just fell down recently in a wind storm, so that will keep me going for a while, and I have a big backlog of firewood stacked behind our chicken coop. When I think to use it, it's usually already wet or snowy, so for the interim I buy these little $5 bundles of seasoned wood from the hardware store.

Of course, I'm just a weekend tuba wrangler, and if I were out there every day as my job, I'd probably find a better system.

[bloke]

yeah...aprons are fine for many repair peeps, but I just don't care for them...(a bit restrictive...sorta warm in the summer...etc.)

...and - when polishing - buffing wheels like to snatch aprons.

When it's a multi-horse motor and something like the upper 2XXX rpms, that could present a bit of a hazard.

"...but bloke, if you just..."

yeah, but I just use $2 thrift store sweatshirts for a few months, cut them up, toss the parts with holes, and then begin wearing another one.

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@Blake
It's obviously typically not as cold here as New England (though we are back into a cycle with a few annual sub-zero temps, and - last night - 10 degrees), but my shop is REALLY well insulated, and the coldest it's ever been in there (in my memory, at least) is just under 40. The ceiling is slightly low (c 7-1/2 feet) and - even though it's fairly spacious (probably over 20 by nearly 20), a modest 110V electric wall heater is pretty effective.
Mrs. bloke's room (as her ceiling is high, and - though insulated - is the same as the roof of the building) has the same heater, but tends to get a bit cooler. Plastic woodwinds shrink in the cold, and - after particularly cold nights - they have to warm up (as posts creep a bit too close together and grab mechanisms) before she can resume work on them. yeah...It's actually the posts, and not-so-much the key oil getting thicker with the cold.