Hasta La Ideas

Adam Savage, of Tested and Mythbusters fame, is friends with NYC-based artist Tom Sachs. Both are obsessed with optimizing their shop practices. Last year Savage spent a few weeks working in Sachs’ shop, revealing:

“One of the things I love about Tom, is he works as hard as I do on refining that maker process so it is as intuitive as it possibly can be. Each of his workstations, whether it’s a belt sander or a bandsaw or a drill press, is heavily outfitted like a fighter pilot’s [cockpit], so that everything you could ever need while operating that machine is within arm’s reach.”

An object Savage spotted in Tom’s shop, and instantly saw the value of, was this cast aluminum foot switch that Sachs uses on several of his stationary power tools:

Here’s Savage’s enthusiastic explanation for why it’s become one of his favorite shop add-ons: