The Shop Notebook

[landrover bodger]

the nearest i get to notes in the garage is scraps of paper or cardboard with a list of parts i need to order. i have never been one for keeping a journal of any kind except for work as in hours worked to check money is correct and where i go in case a problem arises months later. reading this thread has given me the idea when my defender 90 rebuild is finished i am going to try to keep one for the car. where it goes fuel used any problems or repairs sort of thing. looking back i wish i had kept a journal of my life so far with pictures.

 

[gahrajmahal]

One organizational tip I do use when I am getting paid for doing something (I only work by time and materials) is that I arrive at the job, take a photo with my phone of the project site showing the beginning of the work. Then, when I leave for the day, take another photo showing the daily progress. If I didn’t get much physically done, say I had to go multiple times to the plumbing store, I might write those tasks on a piece of cardboard etc. it might say 2x go to plumbing store and have that in the photo. At the end of the week my arrival and departure photos go to the client. Then they have start time, finish time for each day plus visual confirmation of progress made. Later, I can download all photos into a “job folder” on my computer along with photos I take of any and all purchase receipts I take at the store when I’m purchasing something for the job. That way I have a copy and I can give the original receipt to the homeowner or car owner, whatever.

 

[pcmeiners]

One of the lunatics but in my saving grace I have detailed notes in MSWord of most important info. The "unimportant" info not documented in Word is what bites occasionally.... the notes I scratch out on loose paper and proceed to lose exceedingly fast.

 

[Ryan]

Have you been down the fountain pen rabbit hole yet? I got one as a gift and found out I enjoyed using it far more than I thought I would, which was both good and bad. Good because its enjoyable, bad because there are so many awesome inks and pens! Of course using fountain pens then led me in search of better paper.

Moleskine paper suffers from bleed through, so you get ghosting. Not a big deal if you skip pages and only use fronts, but if you want to use both sides of a page then you either have to use a pencil or hope you can live with the ghosting. Tomoe River is incredible to use, but also expensive. This can make you feel bad just scrawling quick notes that will be thrown away because of the quality, it just feels a bit wrong to use it like that.

After Moleskine I moved on to Nanami Seven Seas, which uses Tomoe River paper, the down side being you have to order it from Japan. Also gave Rhodia a try, along with Leuchtturm1917 notebooks. I would put Rhodia in second place, followed by Leuchtturm1917.

Now, if you don't want a bound notebook all hope is not lost! You can get Tomoe River in A4 as well as A5 loose sheets. But there is another option out there that I think is great if you are into filling your own binders. HP Premium 32 is phenomenal paper, its not hard to track down in most office supply stores, and an entire ream is only around $28. While you are there they can chop it in half for you, as well as pop some holes in there, so you can easily load up your binder.

Stationery is my guilty pleasure, and if it wasn't such a horrible idea I would open my own store so I could have an excuse to indulge every day!

I have three fountain pens:

1. A Montblanc that I inherited.

2. A Pocket pen that I made while taking a machinist class. It's all aluminum and a 1 to 1 copy of a Kaweco.

3. A Lamy Safari.

I have fought like hell to avoid falling into the fountain pen abyss. I can see it from the outside—a deep, inky pit of obsession where rational men are swallowed whole, emerging only to justify obscene purchases with talk of nib flex and ink flow.

I already bleed enough money into German-made watches, another cruel addiction where steel and precision conspire to empty your wallet. And I know how this game works—the law of diminishing returns kicks in fast. Does a $1,000 pen scribble ten times better than a $30 one? Just like a Seiko keeps time as well as a Sinn, but the latter comes with a dangerous whisper: You know you want it, you know you need it.

No. Not me. Not this time. I refuse to be another wide-eyed junkie chasing the high of a perfect pen stroke. But God help me… I feel the pull.

 

[Jim_No_Garage]

I don't have a shop Journal but we do keep a household travel journal. We started in 2021 in a Luechturm1917 B5 softcover "Dot" Journal (7" x 10"). When that was full we upgraded to a Luechturm1917 B5 hardcover "lined" journal.

Mrs No_Garage is a crafter and made me a custom journal that I try keep daily notes in. It's a failure since the last entry was made December 11, 2024. I need to get back at the daily journaling, it's soothing and it allows you to reevaluate your day with some clarity.

For work I use generic journals to keep track of anything I'm doing so I can refer back to it. I have NEVER had to go back more than 30 days to research something. I pick the journals up at Garage Sales for $1.00 each.

Pens! For many years I carried 3 cheap Levenger fountain pens loaded with different color inks, and would take multi-color notes to amuse myself during meetings. People saw the activity and gave me a lot more credit than it deserved. I also have some vintage Esterbrook fountain pens that need bladders - I haven't started down that rabbit hole yet but was thinking about them last night.

My daily pens are cheap Pentel 0.5 mm gel pens. My daily pencils are Pentel 0.7 mm P207's.

Cheers

Jim

 

[gtae07]

I'm allergic to paperwork. I hate keeping logs. My "shop notebook" is a set of google doc "to do lists" of remaining tasks on my airplane, notes on airplane parts and crucial dimensions, pictures for "here's what I did so I remember it later", and miscellaneous car notes (replacement parts etc).

I know folks who track their airplane builds with hours worked, rivet counts, blogs, etc. and keep receipts of everything. I don't want to know. My pictures etc are enough to prove I built it and I'm good with that.

 

[b-boy]

Interesting as always. Reinforces the fact i need a more permanent notebook - instead of index cards and cardboard for sketches. Helps memorialize the years projects and failures.

PS - @Ryan - some beer guy almost stole your logo.

Loosely related side story on that beer can.

I work for a Great Lakes shipping company. There was an incident with this beer and one of our boats. There's even a T-shirt.

 

[cannuck]

30 years ago when I still based all business out of my back yard shop one of those small legal ring bound notebooks was my constant companion. I had to go to town once a day for supplies and it just didn't make sense to end up with an employee or a job being stopped because I forgot to buy something. Most of my work shifted to client shop as the equipment was far too large to fit into my little shop, so record keeping shifted to daily log entries used for billing. Shop has had a whiteboard to serve most short term needs but now that I want to get back to everything centered around back shop I have officially dedicated a drawer in one cabinet for notebooks, pens, etc. Sketches come in on loose leaf from shop to drawing board now in basement to turn into permanent records. I am trying to transition some of that work to Solidworks.

 

[Boilerhouse]

Yes, I keep a notebook for projects which require some sort of design. Nothing fancy - I do prefer lined paper to keep drawings and dimensions a bit organized.

Occasionally, I have had to refer back to my projects. Two days ago, the self installed chute deflector on the Kubota's snow blower stopped working. Where the heck did I install that fuse. Note book says it's under the seat. And it was, and it was blown.

I find two things are very helpful, one -date your project, and, two-title your project. Otherwise I look at the tangled jumble of lines and calc's and wonder what the he-- this thing was all about.

Most projects get tons of photos, maybe a video, and perhaps a Word document if they are more complicated. That is part of the digital library, but I guess that's a whole other topic.

 

[FJ 432]

Plotter has some nice stuff. The drawback for me on their products is that they don't offer a hole punch that matches their hole configuration/ layout. This leads to being forever linked to their refills. Well that and their unique sizes.

It is for that reason I stay with Levenger's solution.

 

[Ryan]

Plotter has some nice stuff. The drawback for me on their products is that they don't offer a hole punch that matches their hole configuration/ layout. This leads to being forever linked to their refills. Well that and their unique sizes.

It is for that reason I stay with Levenger's solution.

Interesting... I've always wanted to make a hole punch. Now I want one of these damned things even more.

Not gonna do it. Not gonna do it. Not gonna do it.

 

[Fixr]

Interesting... I've always wanted to make a hole punch. Now I want one of these damned things even more.

Not gonna do it. Not gonna do it. Not gonna do it.

Yeah. Right. Sure...

 

[PoorUB]

I don't keep a shop notebook, but with some projects I will keep notes of specific items and hide it in that item when finished.
I have a cabinet I built, a list hinges and knobs a couple other things, with part numbers and where I bought them, all stuffed into and envelope, taped to the bottom of one of the drawers.

Drill press with a VFD and some switches, list of the switches, where I got them, and a list of parameters for the VFD. All hidden away in the electrical box the VFD is mounted in.

 

[bmwrd0]

I too keep a shop notebook, or shop journal as I call it. Have done so for nearly 3 decades now and consists of various projects with spec's, notes, diagrams, etc.

However, just at the start of this year I started a more detailed version and try to write in it daily before closing up the shop for the evening. Some nights it's a lengthy recap of what I did in the shop including random thoughts, other nights is a short sentence or two.


I use these college ruled journals.

I used one of those for years, but at this point I am using whatever I find organically that both fits the bill and I like the look of:


I found that at an estate sale, and while the first couple pages are filled with someone else's thoughts, I appreciate the much better handwriting. I like the hard bound as it makes it more serious in my mind and so I don't tend to fill it with shopping lists, but more permanent things like arbor plans or road trip itineraries.

 

[Ryan]

I used one of those for years, but at this point I am using whatever I find organically that both fits the bill and I like the look of:


I found that at an estate sale, and while the first couple pages are filled with someone else's thoughts, I appreciate the much better handwriting. I like the hard bound as it makes it more serious in my mind and so I don't tend to fill it with shopping lists, but more permanent things like arbor plans or road trip itineraries.

Now this is cool.

 

[Sumboodie]

the nearest i get to notes in the garage is scraps of paper or cardboard with a list of parts i need to order. i have never been one for keeping a journal of any kind except for work as in hours worked to check money is correct and where i go in case a problem arises months later. reading this thread has given me the idea when my defender 90 rebuild is finished i am going to try to keep one for the car. where it goes fuel used any problems or repairs sort of thing. looking back i wish i had kept a journal of my life so far with pictures.

Would you go back and read it?

Maybe something searchable but could you imagine the work involved in logging everything.

Hey Olestra, what did I have for supper on 26 Jan 1987?

 

[Sumboodie]

Interesting... I've always wanted to make a hole punch. Now I want one of these damned things even more.

Not gonna do it. Not gonna do it. Not gonna do it.

I have many, they go from .17 caliber up to .50.

 

[Sumboodie]

I have three fountain pens:

1. A Montblanc that I inherited.

2. A Pocket pen that I made while taking a machinist class. It's all aluminum and a 1 to 1 copy of a Kaweco.

3. A Lamy Safari.

I have fought like hell to avoid falling into the fountain pen abyss. I can see it from the outside—a deep, inky pit of obsession where rational men are swallowed whole, emerging only to justify obscene purchases with talk of nib flex and ink flow.

I already bleed enough money into German-made watches, another cruel addiction where steel and precision conspire to empty your wallet. And I know how this game works—the law of diminishing returns kicks in fast. Does a $1,000 pen scribble ten times better than a $30 one? Just like a Seiko keeps time as well as a Sinn, but the latter comes with a dangerous whisper: You know you want it, you know you need it.

No. Not me. Not this time. I refuse to be another wide-eyed junkie chasing the high of a perfect pen stroke. But God help me… I feel the pull.

$30 for a pen?

The best ones I have were about $0.50 each.
Some marketing outfit contacted me and I had ordered 100 or 200 with my business info.

I literally had a few customers call asking if they bought more firewood if it came with another pen!

They write nice, good weight and decent quality. Works nice on carbon copy BOLs too.
I used one at for work over 2 years before it ran out of ink.

 

[PhantomEB]

I have had one around me for the last Decade or more.

Primary for monthly financial write up, things to do, things to buy, things to think about….

from there I hit Notes on my phone or iPad, shared between the two so bonus, especially for things to do on the big projects or the house, which gets printed off to have a copy next to my man cave seat as well to hang in the garage.

 

[Ryan]

$30 for a pen?

The best ones I have were about $0.50 each.
Some marketing outfit contacted me and I had ordered 100 or 200 with my business info.

I literally had a few customers call asking if they bought more firewood if it came with another pen!

They write nice, good weight and decent quality. Works nice on carbon copy BOLs too.
I used one at for work over 2 years before it ran out of ink.

It’s a fountain pen—precision-built in Germany, engineered with Teutonic discipline and the kind of craftsmanship that scoffs at the idea of disposable Chinese plastic. A different beast entirely. But let’s be honest—it’s not about logic. It’s about obsession, ritual, the kind of irrational devotion that makes a man spend good money on something that writes no better than a Bic but feels like it holds the weight of history in its nib.

 

[Ryan]

Alright, cards on the table—I can’t lie to you guys, and I won’t bother trying. I pulled the trigger on a personal-sized notebook from Mee-Plus for work. Yeah, it was pricey, but I practically live in notebooks, and it’s my damn birthday. So screw it.

And while I was at it, I might’ve let the fine folks at Mee-Plus know about this little discussion, and lo and behold, they’re sending me an A5 version for the shop.

I’ll put it through its paces and report back with the full, unfiltered truth. Stay tuned.

 

[American Locomotive]

Rite in the Rain is my daily driver for work. Never considered setting one aside for the shop...until now! I have a new side-quest for the day!

I also use Rite in the Rain notebooks, mainly because they fit in my shirt pocket and hold up well. However, I find myself growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that none of my favorite pens write well on them. About the only things that seem work well are basic Bic ballpoints and pencils. Anything with a very fine tip, or water based ink (which makes sense) is useless. Although I do like digging out my Blackwing pencils to jot some notes down on them.

No. Not me. Not this time. I refuse to be another wide-eyed junkie chasing the high of a perfect pen stroke. But God help me… I feel the pull.

I'm still trying to find the perfect pen in general. I love Pilot V5s, but I also experimented with "premium" ball points (Ohto Horizon) and fountain pens (Ohto Dude). I like using the Dude, but it's not appropriate for all uses. I LOVE the look and feel of the Horizon. It's got the most satisfying click out of any pen I've ever used, but the refills are a bit loose in the tip, which drives me nuts. Strangely enough, that seems to be a common complaint with almost every retractable pen or pencil I've researched. Even the pretty spendy German Rotring pens have complaints about being a bit wobbly.

I am curious about these leather-bound notebook/binder systems, but I also don't want to be locked into a vendor-specific paper. Is there a standard system out there?

 

[hobie18]

Happy birthday

 

[M.Brane]

I probably should do something like this, but I don't, and probably won't going forward. I have a few notepads around when I feel like I need a sketch. I do take pictures of things before/as I disassemble when in doubt. Helped a lot on the 6.0 rebuild. So many seals, and fasteners!

+1 on another day above the tarmac.

 

[slim_grim]

I also use Rite in the Rain notebooks, mainly because they fit in my shirt pocket and hold up well. However, I find myself growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that none of my favorite pens write well on them...

...I'm still trying to find the perfect pen in general.

I've been carrying a Parker Jotter with a space pen refill for years. The plastic barrel is much less slippery than the stainless, so I prefer that. Paired with the Rite in the Rain pad, it's a nice combo for when I'm out on a test track or something and need to make some notes. Ryan has me thinking about another notebook for the shop, but that pen isn't going anywhere.

 

[hobie18]

Everytime I am in the garage I make mental notes. Notes, for if someone asked me where this is. Where that is. Where some obscure part could be. Where an important but rarely used tool could be. Like third shelf front corner. I should be writing how to use this broken down physical being. But nooooooo.

 

[gahrajmahal]

I usually like to think of the parents of the “birthday person” on a birthday, so here’s to your folks who brought us such a cool person to invent the best of the best message boards!

Oh, and happy birthday!

 

[inphx]

It's the "cobblers shoes" for me. One of my full time day jobs involves IT for training systems and that includes MRO technician tasks .. so my home shop is a combo of google docs, miro, personal cloud and recently iterating on a home brew .NET Maui app (with AI and speech to text) to consolidate and streamline note taking, camera shots , to do's etc. Miro is my virtual whiteboard for different projects. Being online helps a lot to order correct parts or consumables.

 

[zmotorsports]

I used one of those for years, but at this point I am using whatever I find organically that both fits the bill and I like the look of:


I found that at an estate sale, and while the first couple pages are filled with someone else's thoughts, I appreciate the much better handwriting. I like the hard bound as it makes it more serious in my mind and so I don't tend to fill it with shopping lists, but more permanent things like arbor plans or road trip itineraries.

That is pretty darn cool.

 

[zmotorsports]

While working in the shop last night I thought I'd snap some pictures of several of mine.

I keep one for a shop journal. Things like daily work, plus sometimes I write down moods I'm in or any specific details pertaining to a certain job. Then I have separate ones for various vehicles, such as our 2003 Monaco Dynasty to the right.


The general shop journal is used for logging hours on certain jobs to keep track of for billing of hours.


The coach one has the first few pages of specific part #'s for quick reference, followed by dates and mileage for various repairs, modifications or adjustments.


Here is one from several years ago while doing a set of gears for a client. I keep various spec's as well as setup variations and/or alterations.


This one went back even a few years further of a sketch of a swingarm modification I made to a Suzuki LT500 swingarm.


Updating coach notes using my shop made pen. I too am kind of a pen and pencil snob. I love the feeling of a good quality pen or pencil. Funny, I find myself using standard yellow #2 pencils in my shop quite a bit lately. Even hung up my old Boston manual pencil sharpener from work that I used 30+ years ago and now have it to use in my shop.

 

[bmwrd0]

Oh, and speaking of pens, my wife got my this "bolt action" pen for Xmas a couple years ago. Hand machined apparently, it is nice and heavy in the hand, takes standard ink cartridges, and writes much nicer than me.

 

[LeonardY]

I use computation notebooks.

When i was in ID school, my patent teacher was adamant that we use them. The reason is it is for legal purposes. The pages are numbered. You can't remove a page without it being noticed.

It has just become habit now. I do have a pocket notebook too.

 

[SilverJimmy]

When I first became a Snap-On Dealer 36 years ago I quickly discovered that I needed to be able to write notes and jot down what my customers needed me to do or get for them. I started out using what readily came to hand… my hand! At the end of the day it looked like a drunken tattoo artist caught me asleep and played a permanent joke!
Then one of my managers showed me his DayTimer 2 Page A Day wallet notebook. I have every month going back to 1990, with notes and scribbles from what I was doing, what I needed to do, and especially what my customers had told me what they were going to do!


Since I retired 6 years ago I don’t use it as much as I did while working, in fact I just noticed I’m 6 days into February and I haven’t changed to this month yet, but I can’t leave the house without my “Brain” cuz I feel almost as naked as I do without my pocketknife! But I do still have really important stuff in it…

Here’s the list of “must haves” for my new shop being built. So it still is a valuable tool I use. As a side note, the leather wallet is very well made, I think I’m only on #4 after all these years of daily use.

 

[Ryan]

When I first became a Snap-On Dealer 36 years ago I quickly discovered that I needed to be able to write notes and jot down what my customers needed me to do or get for them. I started out using what readily came to hand… my hand! At the end of the day it looked like a drunken tattoo artist caught me asleep and played a permanent joke!
Then one of my managers showed me his DayTimer 2 Page A Day wallet notebook. I have every month going back to 1990, with notes and scribbles from what I was doing, what I needed to do, and especially what my customers had told me what they were going to do!


Since I retired 6 years ago I don’t use it as much as I did while working, in fact I just noticed I’m 6 days into February and I haven’t changed to this month yet, but I can’t leave the house without my “Brain” cuz I feel almost as naked as I do without my pocketknife! But I do still have really important stuff in it…

Here’s the list of “must haves” for my new shop being built. So it still is a valuable tool I use. As a side note, the leather wallet is very well made, I think I’m only on #4 after all these years of daily use.

This is ******* awesome... and will be even cooler in like 20 years...

 

[Ryan]

While working in the shop last night I thought I'd snap some pictures of several of mine.

I keep one for a shop journal. Things like daily work, plus sometimes I write down moods I'm in or any specific details pertaining to a certain job. Then I have separate ones for various vehicles, such as our 2003 Monaco Dynasty to the right.


The general shop journal is used for logging hours on certain jobs to keep track of for billing of hours.


The coach one has the first few pages of specific part #'s for quick reference, followed by dates and mileage for various repairs, modifications or adjustments.


Here is one from several years ago while doing a set of gears for a client. I keep various spec's as well as setup variations and/or alterations.


This one went back even a few years further of a sketch of a swingarm modification I made to a Suzuki LT500 swingarm.


Updating coach notes using my shop made pen. I too am kind of a pen and pencil snob. I love the feeling of a good quality pen or pencil. Funny, I find myself using standard yellow #2 pencils in my shop quite a bit lately. Even hung up my old Boston manual pencil sharpener from work that I used 30+ years ago and now have it to use in my shop.

Your handwriting is envious man.

 

[Dixie_Flatline]

I also use Rite in the Rain notebooks, mainly because they fit in my shirt pocket and hold up well. However, I find myself growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that none of my favorite pens write well on them. About the only things that seem work well are basic Bic ballpoints and pencils. Anything with a very fine tip, or water based ink (which makes sense) is useless. Although I do like digging out my Blackwing pencils to jot some notes down on them.

I'm still trying to find the perfect pen in general. I love Pilot V5s, but I also experimented with "premium" ball points (Ohto Horizon) and fountain pens (Ohto Dude). I like using the Dude, but it's not appropriate for all uses. I LOVE the look and feel of the Horizon. It's got the most satisfying click out of any pen I've ever used, but the refills are a bit loose in the tip, which drives me nuts. Strangely enough, that seems to be a common complaint with almost every retractable pen or pencil I've researched. Even the pretty spendy German Rotring pens have complaints about being a bit wobbly.

I am curious about these leather-bound notebook/binder systems, but I also don't want to be locked into a vendor-specific paper. Is there a standard system out there?

Parker Jotter is far and away my favorite ball point pen. They also happen to be one of my oldest pens since I've carried the same one for decades. There are also a variety of refills if you prefer gel or if you get an adapter you can use the Fisher Space Pen refills. I have to admit being a bit of a Parker fanatic as well, got a variety on hand.

You can also get leather covers for standard sized notebooks if you are wanting a different look or more protection. There are also some that fit Field Notes. I've got some examples, I'll have to take pictures in a bit.

 

[Dixie_Flatline]

Nice to see I am not the only one that cannot leave the house without their analog brain! This is mine.




This is the leather cover for my Seven Seas notebook, loaded up with amazing Tomoe River paper! One of the things I most enjoy about the Seven Seas is that it truly does lay flat, and you aren't fighting pages to stay open. Not sure why I keep trying to use the page flags because they always end up ruined. The pen loop is just something I found on Amazon, nothing special, just practical.



Unfortunately this also highlights my issues, my personal organization problems. This is me sharing my lunacy with you. When I am working on a project notes go on index cards or maybe even scrap paper, might even start out as an entry in my "brain". Then my scribbles get transferred into a proper notebook, and I do try and index them. I doubt anyone will ever see this stuff, but it does make me feel better!

 

[Ryan]

Okay... Let's go full nerd.

This is my travel setup. It's a Dan Matsuda pouch gifted to me by one of you fair people. Inside is a titanium driver with bits stored in the handle, a TSA approved multi-tool from Leatherman, a black inked Jotter, a blue inked jotter, a red inked jotter, and a meechical pencil Jotter. The notecards store away in the side pocket.

 

[zanyad]

Happy birthday, Ryan!

 

[Ryan]

Happy birthday, Ryan!

Not for another couple of days, but thanks man.