Hey, guys, Adam Savage here at Tested and I am  

in Fonco down in LA with Fon Davis and we are standing in front of  

our late great friend Grant Imahara's shop  and we are going to take a tour through it

there's going to be some nerding out, there's  going to be some geekery and we're going to  

try and keep it together while we go through this. Shall we take a tour? Let's go on in. All right

And when did when did Grant first move in here? Oh boy. About seven or eight years ago we both  

moved down to Los Angeles and he needed  a space and I had space here at the studio.  

Of course we've been friends for a long time  and collaborated on a lot of things and this  

felt like the cleanest way to continue that  tradition. I think the thing that people might not  

realize is that I look at this space and I know  what it is as a maker to move into your first  

shop. Not that this is his first shop  but this is absolutely the shop of his dreams.

Yes. And so that's what we're looking at here is  not just like Grant was a maker and so he had a  

shop. This was, oh yeah yeah this is the kind  of thing you sit in you know cad software and lay  

out every piece of furniture and tool meticulously  yeah to try to create the perfect system for all  

the creations that you can which is necessary  because it's only like five or six hundred  

square feet it's not huge yeah um but we've got  a cnc mill we've got 3d printers everywhere laser  

cutters we've got cad we've got exhaust we've got  paint milling machines lays i mean everything you  

need is in here yeah for fabric i think you know  he definitely seemed to have a really good time  

building it from scratch right like he  put the light switches in he put the  

oh really he painted it like every every single  detail uh is planned you know i just i know that  

able to like stand in the space that you have  designed and built is surpassingly powerful yeah  

yeah because it's the foundation for  every creative project you're gonna do  

yeah which is where the excitement is really i  also sit here and i realize the fundamental way  

in which grant was a radically different maker  than i in terms of precision and cleanliness  

yeah we all have our own little style for sure  it's kind of fun too to see the influences you  

know because there was a point when um they were  getting ready to launch on white rabbit project  

and they hadn't locked into all the locations  and so grant came in here and he really uh gave  

the whole space uh an even deeper organization  but also a little showmanship oh nice uh to um  

kind of try to get the the white rabbit folks  to shoot here yeah they ended up going for a  

much larger space but um that's why the room has  like leds behind the shelves he was going for that  

kind of tony stark's laboratory aesthetic and  it's also why he has six monitors at his desk  

which yeah talk to me about it this is amazing  well he he would he would be the first to admit  

this was completely ridiculous and just for  the show but then once he had the six monitors  

he was like this is brilliant really because  he used yeah he would actively use all six of  

the displays and he got really used to it  oh now i'm starting to wonder i know huh

i love that he started out with this for  showmanship and then realized it had utility  

yeah um what's going on with all these well  these these are the remotes there's lighting  

here in the room oh so each of the things can  turn on and off nice he was really thinking  

of it from a film production standpoint oh  absolutely of like adjusting the lighting  

for different kinds of shooting yep and then of  course we have the mythbusters style containers  

yeah uh and he did spend some time uh deciding  how these would be labeled oh really um yeah  

i'm pretty sure he didn't have uh antimatter so  these were all printed uh you know large enough  

to see on camera yeah i just made the space fun  flex capacitors actually speed controls yeah

oh my gosh yeah i'm curious if you have a  prevailing image in your head of him in this space  

yeah yeah certainly um

it was usually either at the computer at this  work table yeah this was the primary work yes  

yeah we all have one yeah right you could tell  too i mean and this isn't far off from the way  

it always looked there was you know the millennium  falcon was here um you know his r2 is usually  

here yeah and then whatever project was at the  forefront would be at this end of the table here  

so you can kind of i think just bounce  back and forth yeah between the spaces  

um i i haven't seen this mill in a long time but  i believe this was uh this was the mill that was  

at m seven when they wrapped m seven in my oh  i don't know i don't know i remember um it was  

it was difficult to get in the building as they  always are this is his uh bridgeport yeah this was  

a prize for sure because a lot of the studios  as you know we worked at had bridgeport mills  

and we all loved working on them so to get one of  these uh of his own that was a really big deal i  

remember talking to him about it yeah i remember  being like you're getting that bridge part oh yeah  

he's like yeah i'm taking it oh man yeah rented  a forklift had to take the doors off all kinds  

of stuff so he really plotted this whole space out  from scratch before moving stuff oh yeah and you  

can tell everything is like so yeah perfectly uh  fit i would imagine that he could get into a real  

flow state in here yeah yeah you know what that  is i totally do you reach over you got the bolts  

the nuts that you need how much juice did the  turmeric did the uh the cnc the cnc mill they're  

they're great for certain tasks and then for a  lot of things they're just very complicated right  

so this didn't actually run that much you like to  do a lot of stuff by hand yeah me too yeah me too

oh i heard a slave vacuum farmer yeah he would  usually it was funny actually he usually go use  

my vacuformer the little red one yeah but he  did have his own vacuformer what a nice lady  

really i think he really valued independence  he never wanted to uh go into our shop which  

is right on the other side of this wall that's  really sweet you use anything because he was like  

you know very aware that we're we're busy with  things right right right and just want to tie up  

time yeah but i think also just the joy of having  everything at your fingertips 100 yeah when you've  

got a toolbox you want to use your toolbox this is  always the thing i admired about his shop the most  

and we ended up doing this too well this is based  on what we used to do with ilm but every single  

size thread you can imagine all organized so no  matter what project you're working on you could  

just come over and grab the amazing screw that you  need amazing that's the those are the prizes for  

the fabricators you know yeah i know when you put  something like this together it's expensive at the  

beginning but you'll have it forever mm-hmm man i  get so much like we said we set ours up i actually  

came in here and took photographs oh really we  just copied it it's like he did all the footwork  

of designing exactly how the organization should  work well and then there's a question of how meant  

because there's an endless number of these you  get you have to limit your amount you have to  

decide what length yeah what is yeah it's all a  thing so yeah it's always great to have someone  

who's done it before you so you can actually  benefit from yes the a b testing they've done yes  

it really this is a really complete yeah it's  a complete model shop yep yep so all the power  

tools in this corner and then his welder and the  welding table all custom yeah i dig the welding  

table and that is really nice and again everything  everything you would need right there yeah boom  

boom yeah somebody described to me that like this  style of shop is like a fighter pilot's cockpit  

yes everything is like right where you want it. Everything is ... Yeah. That's a good analogy.

Tell me what's happening with the space.  You know, it's basically sat here in  

limbo for a year much the way a parent's bedroom  would stay. Yeah, I would imagine ... Yeah, you know, it's  

of course an emotional thing to deal with so  the easiest thing to do so far was nothing.  

I feel you. And just you know it's difficult to accept to be totally  

frank about it and so you know we've just kept  it here but moving forward we're going to  

donate a bunch of the tools to some of  the robotics teams that he worked with. Right.

So some of the tools go that route, some  of the tools we'll actually be purchasing here  

and we're gonna set up the space in dedication to Grant so we'll be continuing to do  

all our electronics, 3D printing, robotics, special effects work in this room.  

I just ... I don't have the heart to rent it out  again so it'll always be in my mind Grant's shop  

so it just seems appropriate. I completely agree. Yeah, um normally I'd have a better finish  

for a video but I really .. thanks for  taking me on a tour through here, man.  

Yeah it's good to spend time here with  you. You too, buddy. Adam Savage signing off.

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