I keep seeing mountmakers raving about this tool - what is it? How and what do you use it for?

You guys are rockstars! Thank you so much for the info - I will definitely look into those products and see if maybe a different setup would work better. I also had no idea you could braze steel and stainless steel... is the process for that different? Thanks again guys!

To go off of Ian's comment, I find it very interesting... I'm at a federal museum in Quantico and I am not making NEARLY that much and likely never will. I am a GS-07, step 1, which is about halfway through the GS scale for federal employees. Not including locality pay, it's about $35,000 for me per year. The locality pay is what shoots my pay up to around $48,000, since we're so close to DC and in a very expensive area. My position is Exhibit Specialist and Preparator. My co-worker has her Masters in art history and did multiple internships with high class DC museums, and she started at a GS-05 for an exhibit specialist (which is only about $30,000 base rate!). For someone (at least from what I know from working here) to make even just $70,000 (with locality pay) would take years of going up that step ladder. From what I've gathered, you won't make much unless you're in a high ranking position or you've been in the federal government for years. At my old place, I started at only $16 an hour, and by the time I left (2 years later) I had been bumped up to $20, but knew for a fact that my male counterparts were making at LEAST 20% more than me. The 2 contracted mount makers we hired while I was there had pretty different pays too; one gave us a discount and charged us $50/hr (DC native), and the other charged only $30/hr (Louisiana native). Not only does it likely depend on your location, but it may also depend on your gender, your age, your background, and the local politics. I think as a general, mount makers are incredibly underpaid. This is a really interesting thread though, thank you for bringing it to our attention!

Here's the current setup - the brazing area is separate from the mountmaking corner. I'm mostly curious; if you had this space, how would you customize it? I understand that this is kind of a broad, open ended question. I'm young and would consider myself to be at an intermediate level, and I'm really just looking for others' opinions, advice, or guidance.

I work at the National Museum of the Marine Corps - they have a new facility where they do all of the restorations, curatorial, mountmaking, etc. I don't currently have a picture of the area (I'm new to the position). It is very well organized and they have a lot of machinery and tools that are for general, shared use within the facility. As for budget, the NMMC is a federal museum so there's quarterly funding; I've been told that whatever I need, I can likely get provided the wait time of the federal process. I will be the only person designated in that area, but it isn't a separate room, it's a shared, open space (kind of tucked into the corner but still open to the rest of the facility). My skill set is probably intermediate - I've been doing this for around 3 years but still have a lot to learn. I will be going to the facility tomorrow and I'll try to take some pictures for reference. I'm mostly curious about how other shops are laid out, what cool or handy machinery/tools that would be useful to have, ways to organize certain things, etc. I'll post some pictures tomorrow afternoon!

Is it acryloid or paraloid b-72? I have yet to use it but I've read a lot about it.

Luis! This is kind of crazy, but I took over your position at Explus! Everyone here says that you're an amazing craftsman and really know your work. I started here in November 2018. Small world!