Jim O'Dell
08-17-2004, 7:27 PM
Hi guys and gals.
The house that the LOML and I recently purchased has an unattached shop (stealth gloat!). Rough dimensions are 19' 2" wide with a 10' wide garage door installed, and 23' 2" deep. The nice thing is it has a separate power line from the pole to it's own breaker box, but the box will have to be upgraded. The back portion has a 3' 4" corridor the full width walled off. There is even a covered porch attached that is 11' 10" X 16". One of these days I will enclose the porch. If I get to keep it, it will be my assembly/finishing room. If my wife gets it, it will be a quarantine room for sick dogs that we rescue from time to time. Maybe that can be built to serve both purposes.
Knowing that I will probably out grow this shop, if what I read on these pages comes true for me as it has many of you, I want to build it it the most effecient manner possible. I will make my big tools (ie table saw, drill press, router table, and the future band saw) on mobile bases. But I want to run an idea past you for responses. For my bench top power tools (ie router/shaping station, CSMS, planer, sanding station, oscillating spindle sander, and combination belt/disc sander) I want to make one long wall of cabinets, with a, thinking out loud here, 6" thick torsion box top the full 23+ feet. In the very center of the wall, have a 3" wide section that is lower, and each of the benchtop power tools mounted on "boxes" that fit into this cavity so that the top is flush with the cabinet tops and therefore offering a full length on both sides for routing/shaping long pieces of wood, mitering long pieces of wood, well, you get the idea. There would be a built in fence at the back that would match up to the CSMS, and the router station would have a sliding adjustable top so that the bit can be adjusted to the fence, instead of the normal other way around. The top of this cabinet would also be at the same height as the table saw and mobile router table to use as an auxillary infeed/outfeed table as needed. My thought is to also have a couple moble racks that these different bench top stations would store in, that way the heavy ones (planer, CSMS, etc) would be at an easier height to be able to put into place to use.
Now the big questions....Is this too ambitious? Do you think that this would work, or is it something that sounds good, but in reality won't hold water? I am still thinking about an alignment system for the different modules and how they would fit into the cabinet. I would plan for both above and below cabinet DC hoses so that all would be covered, Heck most of the table top tools I don't even own, YET.
Thanks for reading this far. Let me know what you think of these ideas. If it is crazy, I need to stop spending so much time planning and go on about something that will work! Jim.
The house that the LOML and I recently purchased has an unattached shop (stealth gloat!). Rough dimensions are 19' 2" wide with a 10' wide garage door installed, and 23' 2" deep. The nice thing is it has a separate power line from the pole to it's own breaker box, but the box will have to be upgraded. The back portion has a 3' 4" corridor the full width walled off. There is even a covered porch attached that is 11' 10" X 16". One of these days I will enclose the porch. If I get to keep it, it will be my assembly/finishing room. If my wife gets it, it will be a quarantine room for sick dogs that we rescue from time to time. Maybe that can be built to serve both purposes.
Knowing that I will probably out grow this shop, if what I read on these pages comes true for me as it has many of you, I want to build it it the most effecient manner possible. I will make my big tools (ie table saw, drill press, router table, and the future band saw) on mobile bases. But I want to run an idea past you for responses. For my bench top power tools (ie router/shaping station, CSMS, planer, sanding station, oscillating spindle sander, and combination belt/disc sander) I want to make one long wall of cabinets, with a, thinking out loud here, 6" thick torsion box top the full 23+ feet. In the very center of the wall, have a 3" wide section that is lower, and each of the benchtop power tools mounted on "boxes" that fit into this cavity so that the top is flush with the cabinet tops and therefore offering a full length on both sides for routing/shaping long pieces of wood, mitering long pieces of wood, well, you get the idea. There would be a built in fence at the back that would match up to the CSMS, and the router station would have a sliding adjustable top so that the bit can be adjusted to the fence, instead of the normal other way around. The top of this cabinet would also be at the same height as the table saw and mobile router table to use as an auxillary infeed/outfeed table as needed. My thought is to also have a couple moble racks that these different bench top stations would store in, that way the heavy ones (planer, CSMS, etc) would be at an easier height to be able to put into place to use.
Now the big questions....Is this too ambitious? Do you think that this would work, or is it something that sounds good, but in reality won't hold water? I am still thinking about an alignment system for the different modules and how they would fit into the cabinet. I would plan for both above and below cabinet DC hoses so that all would be covered, Heck most of the table top tools I don't even own, YET.
Thanks for reading this far. Let me know what you think of these ideas. If it is crazy, I need to stop spending so much time planning and go on about something that will work! Jim.