shop layout adbvice needed

[Troy]

I have a 2 car garage that my loving wife has donated to my 'business'. I will be making wooden pens/pencils and other gadgets. I have a diagram that will help show my shop and some of the tools. One thing that I forgot to put in there is my table saw and router. There are of course many miscellaneous tools/parts, and I have a storage bin system consisting of over 32 gray bins that need to find wall space for. They will be used for the lathe work. ( kits, blanks, accessories, etc. ) I also forgot to include my aircompressor. I plan on getting at least 1 more lathe and then some sort of homebrew gadget for highspeed turning of turned blanks for the friction polish application step. This way the lathes are never tied up doing finishing work. Lights are indicated by the lightbulbs, and the people standing are tools/stations where you can't use that device in a wheelchair which I'm in alot as I can only stand about 10 minutes at a time, and sometimes not that long. Ones with a wheelchair indicate that area has been specifically designed as a 'low chair' area. Nothing is set in concrete yet except the floor :( Both garage doors are automatic opening type except the broken one.. it needs new cables & springs. you can view my diagram at

appreciate any help in advance.

Troy

[A.M. Wood]

You're kidding right?

[Troy]

uh no? I'm trying to figure out a good flow so I'm not crisscrossing all over the place and so that each tool has a home.

Troy

[B A R R Y]

Suggestions:

1.) Put the CMS next to the lumber rack. Lumber comes off, and the remainder goes right back into stock. The sander can go either near the bench, if you mostly use it during dry fit, or somewhere else if you usually use it as part of a discrete finishing process. 2.) Your table saw can go right in the center of the room. With the blade lowered and the saw top covered with a sheet of melamine or rosin paper, it can double as bench space. 3.) Put the grinder next to the lathe. Lots of your grinding will be turning tools, and you'll want it near the lathe for quick touch-ups. 4.) The band saw can go where the drill press is. 5.) Put the drill press near the CMS and use the drill press' adjustable table to support long boards while you cut them. 6.) Air compressors can go anywhere near suitable a/c power. Extend the hose, or add a section of copper pipe as an extension, and get a $20 mini-regulator for fine tuning pressure at the tool. 7.) A router table can go almost anywhere in a shop this size, just make sure you leave ample room on each side for the longest parts you plan to make.

[Steve W]

I pretty much agree.

Assuming you mean 16' for the long wall in the back, it looks to me like the TS can only go in one or possibly two spots. As it need the most space, it is easiest to start by placing that. It will need a good 8-10' in front and behind it, and 4-8' to the left of it. You could get by with less if you are sure you will never need it for sheet stock or other 8' pieces. If you rarely need to cut wood like that and don't want to clear that much room for the saw, put it on wheels and plan an area you can move it to make the space. The driveway will work if needed. If you are in a wheelchair it would probably be better to try to set the shop up with mostly stationary tools, so planning will be very important.

Next, the CMS will need a lot of infeed and outfeed space and should be as close to the wood supply as possible. Other tools should be much easier to place once you settle on good positions for these two tools. If possible group tools with common activities and try to arrange them in a logical flow from rough wood dimensioning to the final finish work area.

To do this well, you really need to make a scale drawing on graph paper and move cutouts of tools and their infeed-outfeed areas around. Don't forget many can overlap. Here are two shop planning sites with a number of tool icons for you:

W

[barry]

I'm trying to build a website at the moment based on workshops and tools... could you let me know how you got on?

[e-mail] or visit my website, muckleshed.com

Troy wrote:

[barry]

I'm trying to build a website at the moment based on workshops and tools... could you let me know how you got on?

[e-mail] or visit my website, muckleshed.com

Troy wrote:

[B A R R Y]

One more thing...

While you want to be perfect as possible, don't let it paralyze you. You can always move stuff later!

[Troy]

you just nailed it barry. I am a perfectionist and its got me stopped cold! I haven't turned ANYTHING in almost 2 weeks.... Not good... XMAS is almost here. Time to get busy and move things and then worry about it more later... even if its only one thing/day.

Troy

[LRR]

Troy,

Make sure you isolate your air compressor from wood dust and shavings. I lost a blade off the diaphram from dust on mine (fixed it, but cost $75!). If you have good dust collection and filetering, then no problem. But, another advantage to relocating the compressor is noise. I've got mine in the garage, but my shop is in the basenment. I plumbed lines from garage to shop. You can use 1/2" Schedule 40 PVC pipe for air, it is rated at 300-400PSI. Nice thing about PVC is that you can add T's and elbows and run air to all your stations, or at least to convenient points thoughout the shop. Put in a drain valve at the low point to bleed off water. You could put it in a small shed outside the garage (essentially like an attached doghouse) if the dust and noise becomes a concern.

Good luck,

Lee

[LRod]

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

DAGS PVC and compressed air.

PVC under pressure from air or gas can shatter when struck. There is an OSHA paper on it available on the 'net.

[B A R R Y]

Spend the cash for steel, or better yet, copper. Google PVC and compressed air. Failure ain't pretty!

The exact same thing can be accomplished with metal pipe. The metal pipe won't become a fragmentation grenade when it UV degrades and fails.

The _easiest_ way to do this is simply with more air hose. Where you want a drop, you simply cut the hose, insert a tee, and tighten it all up with hose clamps. My buddy's bicycle shop is "plumbed" this way, with 8-10 drops, and it's very simple to run the hose or reconfigure.

[Steve W]

Why is copper better than steel/iron? I am planning an air system and only recently found out about copper as an option.

-Steve W

[Jim Behning]

I think copper is better because copper is so expensive. A positive for copper would be no rust in the lines. On the other hand 2 shops I worked in had metal lines and I never saw any rust.

[B A R R Y]

1.) It doesn't rust.

2.) For many of us, cutting and sweating is easier than cutting and threading.

3.) Flexible stock is available for those weird zigs and zags.

[B A R R Y]

Home shop vs. pro shop.

Pro-shops are much more likely to have oil injection in the air supply, an air dryer or at least a good moisture separator, and either an auto-drain or diligent draining of the system. Even if they don't have an actual oil injection device, they will probably use some sort of large compressor that'll leak oil into the system. A lot more air will travel through the pro pipes than the home system on a weekly basis.

[C & E]

I had a dust collector sitting in a box for a year because of overthinking the ducting issue - too much reading and investigating internet sites. Decided to finally go with *something* and it turned out pretty good. You can do the same. Give yourself some flexibility in your construction so that things can be moved without destroying half the shop or wasting materials - a bit different situation with pressurized air than low pressure dust collection but you get my drift. I only had to make a couple of mods but in the process of seeing what worked I was getting something else done!