What Adam Savage Loved (and Hated) About M5

How does Adam Savage balance his workspace with creature comforts? Did Jamie's shop infrastructure practices influence Adam's own, and was there anything he loved or hated about M5? Does Adam plan to rework his loft? In this live stream excerpt Adam answers these questions from Tested members @philredbeard, @josieMayday and @DFriendly. Join this channel to support Tested and get access to perks, like asking Adam a question:

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[tested]

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[Paxchi]

Adam: *stares longingly at chair*

Wife: "You know, they have price tags on these things, and if you give them that amount of money they'll let you take it home."

Adam: *lightbulb*

Honestly, they sound like an adorable couple, and that she's got just the right amount of humor and grounding to get Adam to focus.

[tjthehobopainter]

"He has got a very different approach to his flowstate than I have to mine. What is his? I haven't the slightest idea." Beautiful 😂

[SocksAndPuppets]

From watching Mythbusters, the "wall of boxes" is the most visibly iconic thing about M5 - it gives me a yearning, despite having nothing that needs that kind of solution.

I guess the home version of this is my IKEA Kallax, which is stuffed with art supplies, organized by cube.

[jonathancassels]

If you work on a farm, you gather up all the tools you need at the start of a project and take them with you. It's more important that tools are in one place to be gathered because your "work station" is often improvised and it's impossible to have tools everywhere.

[aaronrisner]

Best video on youtube would be adam going to jamies work shop and jamie going to adams work shop with the goal of each making something the other persons shop. Then reviewing each others shop

Edit- could be a charity thing

[joermnyc]

My great memory of watching Mythbusters and M5 is the “Clean up or die” sign. 😂

[Bad_Wolf_Media]

I think it's subtle, but Adam's comments here about the differences between his shop mentality and Hyneman's is a beautiful demonstration of his professionalism and respect for Jamie. He didn't say "Jamie's way is insane" or "my way just makes more sense" or any other form of "I'm right, he's wrong." He ask didn't try to impose his views on Jamie's shops.

Everyone likes to "watercooler chat" about how much they "didn't like" each other. They're two different people, and while I haven't heard Hyneman's views on the same topic, I'm willing to bet they would sound a lot like this.

[jdzreez]

I can't believe that it was 8 years ago today that we last saw M5 on TV, and it's been 21 years since we first saw M5 on TV, time flies by fast.

[wttwtg]

I tend to lean towards Jamie's philosophy on shop organization. While nowhere near as large as either shop, the walk to get tools often cools my impetuous nature and gets me closer to the "measure twice, cut once" mentality then if everything is already at hand. Plus, I tend to plan everything and put what I think I need for the project first (cooking and baking habits) and if I forgot something or find I need something I didn't think of, that walk time is invaluable to completing the project in an a more thoughtful way and hopefully getting it done right the first time.

[thorin]

I like Adam is clearly playing around with camera angles and shooting locations in his expanded shop space. I like seeing the space from new perspectives and the occasional glimpse of new projects in the background.

[johnbenson]

I used to work at R. Mort co., a screen printing place owned by an old graphic artist. He had stations in every room of necessary tools. Each tool had a color vinyl wrapped around the handle. Each station was a separate color and each board had the tool outlines drawn on it so if any tools were missing it was obvious. I'm getting to the point of organizing my workspace and I'm going to borrow that bit.

[DustinDawind]

When you talked about tape storage that reminded me of how my grandfather stored sandpaper. He build himself a sandpaper dispenser. It was a wooden box with a lid that he had sectioned off and it had a dowel through the center that he would load rolls of sandpaper onto. Each section was labelled with the grit of sandpaper that would be in that section. And he attached a hacksaw blade to the edge of the box. So any time he needed sandpaper he would just walk over to this box on the shelf and tear a strip off one of the rolls.

[dbtech]

A comfortable chair and proper table height is very important!

[joemedley]

He ain’t lying about the medical stool. I got one based on his recommendation several years ago. Aside from the obvious benefits of a place to perch, the chair really shines when I need to get my eyeballs at bench level for more that a few seconds.

[Stephen_Huckle]

with you saying about Jamie's work flow having his tools in a spot to where he needs to walk could be his thinking time and returns to the job with fresh eyes

[BeautifulViewPodcast]

A “good friend” re-upholstered the chair - lol! Love Adam’s humility.

[HickLif]

I love that you are talking about organization in terms of flow state and not efficiency, which the way you do it adds efficiencey, but staying in that flow is so crucial. I can get knocked out of it and sometimes that's it, I'm done for the day because I just end up wasting time doing random things

[MrDummyisDumb]

I'm way more of a Jamie. Hammers are always in X space. If they're in both X and Y spaces somehow they'll either end up naturally only in one space or no spaces and rather than knowing where it should be you'll have to break out of rhythm to go track them down when where you thought one would be is no longer there. Idk why but the anger of something not being where you expected when you need it is second to none

[lunamcmeen]

Honestly, as someone with ADHD, Adams philosophy of minimal steps to flow state is very similar to mine! I've always likened it to friction in a machine. My brain is running full tilt at a problem but keeps getting its wheels stuck in the sand. each problem that needs to be solved before i can start makes it more likely my engine will burn out completely and i wont get going. i hope that was, clear. excellent video as always!