Workshop: Craig Cochrane

Woodworking Workshop
Workshop: Craig Cochrane

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The workbench -- easily cleared when more space is needed.  Wine cellar is to the right,  shop doors and detached garage project downhill to the left.
The workbench — easily cleared when more space is needed. Wine cellar is to the right, shop doors, and detached garage project downhill to the left.

Photography by Gregory Hayes

Craig Cochrane is a general building contractor in Forestville, Calif. and MAKE Assistant Editor Laura Cochrane’s dad.

The creation of and subsequent changes to this workshop began in 1977. After four years as a commissioned line officer in the U.S. Navy, my wife and I purchased our Forestville home. The future shop was a 6 ½’x 14’ enclosed dirt floor garden tool storage space. Within a year or so I added a reinforced 5-inch concrete floor and pair of doors (4-foot wide). Electric receptacles along the back wall, recessed overhead lights and a 1 ½”x2’x8’ fir work top on a pair of used floor cabinets made  this small room a true workshop. Next I installed wall insulation and a north-facing recycled 6-light over 6-light single hung window from a 1920s San Francisco house. At that time I was vineyard manager at Hop Kiln Winery and I needed somewhere to store some 1980 and 1982 daughters’ birth year wine so I dug into the hillside behind the shop to create a 6’x8’ stone wine cellar.

By 1983 there was a bench grinder and two vices mounted on the workbench, and a variety of storage shelves. I kept the table saw near the doors, usually wheeling it outside for use. In this shop I have made many mechanical and furniture repairs, carpentry projects including a Celtic design hand carved redwood trestle table, and a dozen stained glass windows.

The 35-year evolution of this shop has made it as much storehouse and personal museum as workplace. The table saw was long ago replaced by a four drawer file cabinet. Nineteen-fifties S-gauge American Flyer trains are reminders of a bygone Christmas. Antique tools and ancient volcanic rocks on display speak of even more distant times.

– Craig Cochrane, general building contractor

Wall opposite the workbench -- air hoses, extension cords, tow chains, shop manuals, batteries, hardhat and many more useful items carefully hidden in the clutter.
Wall opposite the workbench — air hoses, extension cords, tow chains, shop manuals, batteries, hardhat and many more useful items carefully hidden in the clutter.
19th century American slick -- a truely beautiful giant chisel with a slightly curved flat side used in timber framing work.
19th century American slick — a truly beautiful giant chisel with a slightly curved flat side used in timber framing work.
The wine cellar with redwood bottle rack I designed  -- magnums and sparkling on the bottom, 750's on top.
The wine cellar with redwood bottle rack I designed — magnums and sparkling on the bottom, 750s on top.
Hop Kiln Winery 1978 Russian River Valley Zinfandel -- the 1980 Sonoma County Harvest Fair Sweepstakes award winner.
Hop Kiln Winery 1978 Russian River Valley Zinfandel — the 1980 Sonoma County Harvest Fair Sweepstakes award winner.
Old cut nails from a Wheeler Island duck club remodel project, Northwestern Pacific rail spikes, NWP Greenbrae tunnel timber nail and a 2' narrow gauge rail spike.
Old cut nails from a Wheeler Island duck club remodel project, Northwestern Pacific rail spikes, NWP Greenbrae tunnel timber nail and a 2′ narrow gauge rail spike.
The north gable end of my current detached garage project showing the recycled redwood loading doors and copper ridge vent.
The north gable end of my current detached garage project showing the recycled redwood loading doors and copper ridge vent.
Redwood cone design Douglasfir newel post, baluster and copper handrail of the garage stairs.
Redwood cone design Douglasfir newel post, baluster and copper handrail of the garage stairs.
Rampant lion stained glass window made in the workshop in the 1980's for my family's Marin County house — now in the garage stairwell.
Rampant lion stained glass window made in the workshop in the 1980s for my family’s Marin County house — now in the garage stairwell.

8 thoughts on “Workshop: Craig Cochrane

  1. Trav says:

    My first thought was the newel post was a brain…

    1. Laura Cochrane says:

      Yeah, redwood cones are very small — about 1″ long. So scaled up in size, the form does look kind of brain-like. : )

  2. Max says:

    Awesome piece! Craig is a true craftsman and artist.

  3. Jeff Faust says:

    No workshop without American Flyer can be called truly complete.

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