Well folks, there's bad news, and there's good news.
The Bad: a few weeks ago, I lost the use of the rented building that housed my shop. All of my tools are now crammed -- and I do mean crammed -- into a 10'x15' mini-warehouse about a mile down the road from my house.
The Good: I'm going to build a new, dedicated shop building on my own property. This is what I'd planned to do, eventually, all along; the schedule has merely been accelerated a few years.
The first item of business is, of course, to get the new shop designed. I've been working on a floor plan and some tool layouts, and have come up with several that work reasonably well. None are perfect, but I know that every possible layout will have at least a few compromises. The trick is to minimize how many of those there are, and to make certain any mistakes that might be made are small ones.
Which brings me to the purpose of this thread. When arranging a shop, many of the Do's and Don'ts are obvious. Things like making sure there's enough infeed/outfeed clearance for the big power tools. Not putting the clamp rack on the opposite side of the building from the assembly table. Locating the slow-speed grinder convenient to the lathe. Making sure there are enough electrical outlets. And of course the most obvious of all, "Make sure it's big enough!"
But it's the not-so-obvious stuff that I'm interested in: the little things that can make being in the shop a lot more pleasant -- or a lot more aggravating. Toward that end, I'd like to ask the members of BT3Central this rather broad, two-part question:
What specific thing(s) do you really like about the way you have your shop designed or arranged? What feature or arrangement do you have, whether by design or by accident, that has worked out well and is something you'd carry over to a new or different shop?
Conversely, what limitation or arrangement do you have that annoys you to no end every time you use it? If you were asked to complete the sentence, "If I ever build I'll new shop, I'll be sure to change--" what would you say?
There's a lot of collected wisdom here and a lot of shops, so I'm looking forward to reading what everyone has to say. Thanks!
The Bad: a few weeks ago, I lost the use of the rented building that housed my shop. All of my tools are now crammed -- and I do mean crammed -- into a 10'x15' mini-warehouse about a mile down the road from my house.
The Good: I'm going to build a new, dedicated shop building on my own property. This is what I'd planned to do, eventually, all along; the schedule has merely been accelerated a few years.
The first item of business is, of course, to get the new shop designed. I've been working on a floor plan and some tool layouts, and have come up with several that work reasonably well. None are perfect, but I know that every possible layout will have at least a few compromises. The trick is to minimize how many of those there are, and to make certain any mistakes that might be made are small ones.
Which brings me to the purpose of this thread. When arranging a shop, many of the Do's and Don'ts are obvious. Things like making sure there's enough infeed/outfeed clearance for the big power tools. Not putting the clamp rack on the opposite side of the building from the assembly table. Locating the slow-speed grinder convenient to the lathe. Making sure there are enough electrical outlets. And of course the most obvious of all, "Make sure it's big enough!"
But it's the not-so-obvious stuff that I'm interested in: the little things that can make being in the shop a lot more pleasant -- or a lot more aggravating. Toward that end, I'd like to ask the members of BT3Central this rather broad, two-part question:
What specific thing(s) do you really like about the way you have your shop designed or arranged? What feature or arrangement do you have, whether by design or by accident, that has worked out well and is something you'd carry over to a new or different shop?
Conversely, what limitation or arrangement do you have that annoys you to no end every time you use it? If you were asked to complete the sentence, "If I ever build I'll new shop, I'll be sure to change--" what would you say?
There's a lot of collected wisdom here and a lot of shops, so I'm looking forward to reading what everyone has to say. Thanks!
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