People and Blogs: Andy

Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

I'm Andy and I make and repair things in a shed at the bottom of the garden. The kinds of projects range from practical DIY, and furniture through sculpture to electromechanical contraptions.

What's the story behind your blog?

The blog started out as a journal/notebook for the projects I was doing in the first Workshopshed. And it expanded to include topics which were related to making, materials and engineering. Then as I started meeting interesting people who were also makers, I started chatting to them about their making experiences.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

As I am working on a project, I am constantly taking photos and making notes. Those get rolled up periodically and published as blog posts. I'll add in extra detail of things that I have researched along the way. And then as I put the words down in the post I'll keep re-reading and fine tuning.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

As I also have a full time job, my ideal creative environment is one that is ready to go without needing hours to setup. So whether I am modifying a small bracket for a DIY project or working on a bigger project, I can just pop down the workshop and do that.

The physical space does influence what I make. When I had a smaller workshop, I worked on tiny projects such as my flea chariot, topsy turvy clock or dragon detecting knight. When I was in the big double garage in Scotland then I could build things like some massive welded gates and a 100x Scale RGB LED. So constraints can be a good thing.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

The original blog was on Blogger but it was ported to a self hosted WordPress site many years back. There is a heavily customised theme and some add-ons that I've written myself. You can read more about my WordPress setup.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I do like the idea of static site generators that take mark down files or similar and publish them as a site. So I'd be tempted by that route. Would be good to cut down on the on going maintenance needed for WordPress.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

Between hosting and domain names the bill is around £200 per year. Changes to the site don't cost as I do those myself and I have outsourced a few photos. I have sponsored guest posts and a few adverts which are usually sufficient to cover these costs but the objective of the blog is to share projects, not to be a source of income itself. I've recently taken off some of the affiliate links which have had consistently low returns.

I'm ok with people monetizing, although the recent trend for surveillance monetizing is horrendous, "We will share your data with our 798 partners" etc. The risks of monetizing are keeping objective and honest so you don't damage your reputation. And not accepting low quality, low value content. I suppose the question is: do you want to be a helpful or an expert in your field, or do you just want to be an influencer?

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

Many of the blogs I followed when starting out are now gone but one maker who still posts is ConcreteDog. He writes about similar things to myself.

Phil's workbench is about trains and model making. That's not my speciality so there's often something to learn.

And I keep track of Readers Sheds via the shed blog.

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

I'm currently building the fourth iteration of Workshopshed, so if you want to know about the challenges of building a large shed, please follow along on the Workshopshed blog.