I think a Toughbook for the woodshop would be perfect. They're totally sealed with no cooling fans and sealed covers over all their ports. The keyboard would need to vacuumed every once in a while and the screen wiped down, but that's about it. They're extremely hard to kill.

Agreed, I was just taking a small form factor pc and making it toughbook like (no drive/optical/fan) and adding a LCD (which I was still trying to figure out dust issues for)

But if you have one ready, great.


I have a 6 foot section of Countertop (Cheap laminate) that I am bringing down to make a sharpening station, and we could use it at desk height to share with the PC. Or just chop off a section too, which is what I was going to do for the sharpening station.

I've already set aside a spot for the toughbook, when it arrives. There is a clear space on top of the new 8-foot cabinet/counter in front of the window to the classroom.

Hey Booka, at the risk of being off topic for this thread, I am also in the early planning stages of a sharpening station. So far I've talked to Jude, jrsphoto John, and Range-Rover Steve to get some early feedback. I'm eager to hear your thoughts on what might be included. Do you want to chat in person, create a new thread, or take it into email or messaging? If you are thinking water stones, just about anywhere in the shop might be good, although I'm not sure where we'd put a six-foot countertop right now. If you are thinking oil stones, we might need to think about having it near the periphery of the metals area, instead of the wood shop. Oily bits of metal can wreak havok on nice hardwoods.

As was suggested, I created a thread for the sharpening station here.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1529

Booka