Stephen Robin Furniture/Woodstock, NY
Take one of the side roads outside of the upstate New York town of Woodstock, go into the woods and encounter the homework shop of Stephen Robin. Though well into his 70’s, Robin and his crew turn out custom pieces of furniture and cabinetry that are sold within and beyond this part of the country.
Robin gets a lot of production out the two-story shop attached to his home, especially in the 40 x 40 ft workspace that is on the second floor. “Sometimes,” says Robin, “we need a finishing room. Sometimes we need a place for a secondary shop. Sometimes that room becomes a small workshop. Sometimes part of that room is an empty storage space when we want to store product while we’re doing machining.”
They were able to do all of those jobs in the shop because they can effectively separate these areas using Goff’s curtain walls.
Finishing in this cramped space was an issue for Robin. “We are a heavily water-based finish shop, so we don’t have any pollution or compliance worries, but over spray was a problem,” he said.
The finishing area is about 18 x 12 ft. On top of that, Robin likes to do it all, and that meant having to accommodate the workspace required for a C.R. Onsrud CNC machine that they use to cut pieces for their own products and to do job shop work for other woodworkers in the area.
So he decided to bring in Goff’s curtain walls to section off these areas as needed to have the flexibility that helps to get more out of this tight space. The curtain walls have the durability the shop requires to be constantly opened and closed as work is shifted around the shop.
They have clear 20 mil middle sections that act as windows so that workers in Robin’s shop can see into an area before entering. The middle sections have double lock-stitched seams to attach them to opaque top/bottom curtains made of rugged 14 oz vinyl, giving Robin years of protection. The curtain panels are fire retardant for everyone’s safety, meeting NFPA-701 Test for Fire Resistance as well as the California State Fire Marshall Standard.
“We pushed our carts through the Curtain Walls with no tears or rips, and the chain weight at the bottom of the curtain sections helps contain dust and the overspray within the work area,” Robin said.
Robin has the curtain walls attached to curved tracks that form an 18 ft long, 8 ft high wall, running to the shop’s solid wall to surround the CNC machine. The curtain walls have toothed brass grommets placed one-foot on center along the top for attachment to rollers on the 16 gauge galvanized steel track system. They easily glide along the tracks to access an area of the shop.
The other reason why they can do the transformation of the space whenever they want to is Robin has all of the contents of the shop – his equipment and his material – on wheels. “My philosophy is,” notes Robin “each job is different and when the work day calls for performing a function be it woodworking, machining, finishing or finding storage space, we can do it within this small area.”
“If we push all of our tools, material and product together and close it off we have the room to neatly store a lot of stuff, even though we have this big 19 x 14 ft CNC machine.” Part of Robin’s mission in making his furniture is that he sees a moral obligation to use local wood, which he obtains from the New York City watershed. From the watershed he has a selection of oak, ash, sycamore and hickory that they turn into fine furniture and cabinetry.
Robin credits the Goff’s curtain wall system with allowing his company to functionally add 400 ft of usable space. He points out the curtain walls are a fraction of the cost of building new walls.
All of the functions within his small shop can be accomplished without adding to the footprint of the building, plus he likes not having to pull a permit to section of the space or worry about the taxes on additional space.
“The curtain walls answer the question of how can I add productive space for a pittance,” Robin said. “It is the best investment we ever made and it has paid for itself 50 times over.”
