How do you keep the shop clean?

[Brian Kincaid]

Silly question, but I'm dumbfounded. I have a 2car garage shop and I cannot keep it clean. I see pictures of other people's shops and they are spotless. Maybe I have some bad habits or am going about it the wrong way.

How do you do it?

Brian

[David DeCristoforo]

"I see pictures of other people's shops and they are spotless...

It's a trick. Those guys don't actually do any woodworking....ergo, nothing to clean up.....

[Nancy Laird]

No, we clean up before we take the pictures! :p But if you look close in the corners, you'll see sawdust.:eek:

Nancy

[Richard M. Wolfe]

If I were going to post a picture of my shop, I would clean it for the picture. Put on your best appearance. Most people's shops (provided they do much of anything) probably look like mine. Well, maybe they wouldn't be that catastrophic. :o

Probably the best thing to do is when you finish working make the last thing be a cleanup. No matter how late or how tired you are take the time to put things away and clean. No excuses - no procrastinating. Make it a habit.

That said.....

Do as I say, not as I do. :D

[Chuck E Cobb]

Well I have been doing woodworking in different size shops for over 35 years ( yea, I know I'm old, they all call me Dad in the shop I work now) and I have never been able to keep any shop clean. I'm just happy to keep them so a man can walk without falling down.

No if someone tells you their shop is clean, they ain't working enough.

Chuck

ps, the new kid they just hired ain't gonna make it if he keep calling me gramps:)

[Bruce Page]

It's a trick. Those guys don't actually [I]do any woodworking....ergo, nothing to clean up.....

I do work AND I clean up.
I use three tools, a broom, a dust pan, and an air hose...oh yeah, a little effort too.

[Bartee Lamar]

As I go thru different stages of a project I tend to clean up.

I like it when the floor is sweep and all the tools are put up. I keep finding ways to organize and create effective storage. This is my latest.

66744 66745

These are some storage boxes I got at HD. I had some wire shelving left over from bedroom closet remodel. So with a little effort I was able to make some space in a spot where there was not any.

[Jim O'Dell]

You haven't been to my shop in the last few weeks, have you??? :eek: :D I actually need to clean up some. I've been working on the multi station benches, and all scraps have been tossed over my shoulder toward the big door. I did sweep the saw dust over that direction the other day, does that count?? :D Jim.

[glenn bradley]

I clean up as I go along. Whenever I pause to think something through I do something like return the clamps to the rack or clear off an area that has become piled on. As for those carpeted, epoxied, looks like you could eat off the floor shops . . . . They just roll up the doors and hit 'em with the leaf-blower right before the pics are taken.

[Jude Kingery]

Brian, I go about it much in the same way as several have answered, it's my habit to put everything back in its' place and vacuum at the end of every turning session, I do it without thinking, automatically. It's pretty much self-serving simply because when I go out in the shop again, I like to be able to find tools and have room to move around and work. Just like I always make the bed in the morning, not that anybody but my husband and I see it really, but I just like getting into a made bed at night. Just personal preferences I guess.

Now far as a really way clean shop, I only do that about every three months (straighten wood bins, organize shelves, check grease, oil, clean lathes, chucks, ways). Id say there's no hard and fast rule, if it doesn't bother you that it's not clean, I wouldn't worry about it. If you'd like it cleaner, then maybe this routine would work for you. Best to you! Jude

[scott spencer]

Those of us with dingy dirty shops don't show pics... :o :rolleyes: :D

I do clean up periodically b/c it's just darn tough to work ou there when everything's cluttered. Before I had a DC, I'd pay the kids a buck to sweep....it lasted once with each kid...good thing I had several! :D

[Bob Feeser]

Clean shops start with clean air. If you have a good vacuum system hooked up to the tools, you have licked 90% of the problem. Good systems that really draw a lot of air aren't cheap. Just check Onieda Air Systems. Nothing captures all of the dust though. One of the most ingenious systems I have seen is by a friend who built an outside room, or should I say walls out of plywood, and fed it by using a leaf blower, through a hole in the wall. Tons of air, near zip cost. :eek: He has it hooked up to a 6" piping system in the shop. The blower was outside of the shop. Albeit he used to buy the cheapest leaf blowers he could buy, and had to replace them regularly. I guess they aren't made for continual use, because this was a professional shop, and not only would it run all day, sometimes he accidentally left it on all night too.
Next thing is to have an airborne dust collector on the ceiling, or two if you have a larger shop. I use the JDS models on each end. Even better yet during the warm months is a good fan in the window, constantly changing the air in the shop. Then have a 20' foot 2 1/2" hose, you can hook up to the vacuum system, to scrub the floor, with the wide mouth extension on the end.
Then have compressed air in the shop, so you can use a blower nozzle to get the final dust moved. If you have a fan in the window, blowing it out is easy. During the winter I don't use a blower of jet air, if I don't have the window open with the fan in it. Not a sophisticated fan, but rather a personal use about a 20 incher, that will fit in the window. I know, I know you are dealing with a non explosion proof fan, collecting dust. Good point, but I blow the fan motor out once in a while, and it is not an industrial 9 to 5 daily use environment. I didn't mention the shop broom and pan, because I thought that was obvious.
Talking about dust keeping the shop clean, lets take a minute to talk about the most important tool in the shop, and that is you. How do you keep your internal shop clean? (Lungs)
Dust collectors, even with a 1 micron bag, don't usually get more than 80% of the 1 micron particles, and get way less of particles less than 1 micron, and the smaller particles are the ones that do the damage. Additionally, the ceiling mounted dust collectors, although they grab the big particles, and do it rather quickly, they are actually fine particle dust spreaders. When I turn mine on, you can immediately smell wood. That means that those guys are sending out a constant supply of fine particles. So what is the answer. One is an expensive cyclone unit, with the unit outside with piping into the shop. You capture the most amount of particles right at the source that way, and what they don't capture, they exhaust outside, instead of back into the shop. BUT the ultimate realization is that you need a respirator draped in front of you, like a bib at all times, ready to quickly pick it up to cover your face. At the least a good charcoal filtered respirator, for example 3m makes a good one, available at Home Depot. If you are dealing with chemical finishes, especially with hardeners, a chemical cartridge mask is better. Forget about those little paper masks, wearing one of them is almost like not wearing anything at all, they leak so bad around the edges. A good repirator has a rubber or plastic fitting opening, with strap adjusters to make a leak proof fit. If you have a beard, either shave it, or get a fresh air hood system, more about that in a minute.
So in practicality, I like to use the fan in the window when weather permits, leave the ceiling dust collectors off, and let the window fan move the air out of the shop. Whenever I do a dust related procedure, I lift the draped mask over my face, and wait long enough for the air to clear, before taking it back off again. Remember that the dust collection vacuum system if in the shop is spewing fine particles too, even with a 1 micron filter bag, so if you turn that on, wear the mask also.
I know their are many who will be saying, I can't be dealing with all of that, but in reality, it is not dealing with anything at all. Simply having a 3M respirator, with the chin strap attached, allows you to keep the mask draped and out of the way. If it gets dusty, it only takes about 2 seconds to lift the top strap up, to cover your face.
I also have a fresh air system, with a diaphram pump, and a complete hood, with large clear visor, and that pumps air in continously. So it is pressurized so to speak, so the bottom of the hood purposely leaks out the exhausting air, keeping the air fresh. That is a nuisance to carry around for normal shop tasks. BUT if you are doing a repeat procedure, standing at a station for quite some time, it is the only way to fly. You plug in the iPod for tunes, and pop the hood over your head, and you are experiencing a completely fresh air environment. I bought the pump from a guy who found one at a flea market, and I paid him 50 bucks for the pump, and i found a super deal on eBay for the hood, 25 and 50 foot speciality breathing hose, and 2 cases of hood inserts for 80 bucks. Otherwise, I know the pump by itself new is over 600, so that is an expensive way to go. When I had the shop, I bought one for the spray booth, and the whole setup was 800. The guys rarely used it. It wasn't macho.
I think this post is getting so long, a lot of people won't bother reading it. I plan on posting a complete thread on keeping your lungs clean. I had shop for 20 years, with dust and refinishing areas, and as far as I can see my lungs are clean. (last time I looked anyhow. :) )

[Doug Shepard]

Silly question, but I'm dumbfounded. I have a 2car garage shop and I cannot keep it clean. I see pictures of other people's shops and they are spotless. Maybe I have some bad habits or am going about it the wrong way.

How do you do it?

Brian

If it will help you sleep better tonight my GaShop currently looks like pictures of the Hiroshima aftermath. The TS is stacked to the hilt with other tools, wood, yada, yada. There's bits and pieces of PVC and fittings all over the place til I get my DC ductwork done. PVC dust all over the disc sander and anything near it. Scraps of pipe hanger strap, rubber splicing tape, foil duct tape backer, and dropped screws all over the place. Dust from the garage rafters where I'm running the ducts has gotten disturbed and dropped onto everything. A Honda Goldwing, a upside-down lawn mower in the midst of repair. Spilled some cat litter on the floor yesterday while swapping out old litter and haven't managed to sweep it up yet. Somewhere hiding underneath a bench or one of my machines is a dead bird I caught one of the cats running into the garage with last weekend.

I aint posting no pictures til it's cleaned up.

[Chuck Lenz]

My wife bought a NEW, BLACK Jeep, Liberty in 2003, she doesn't like it dusty. Well thats one reason things get cleaned up at the end of the day in the garage / shop. The other reason is I've allways liked to keep a clean shop, dust is a fire hazard I think, plus a clean organized shop is less prone to accidents and I can find what I need because I know where it's at most of the time. If things start becomeing ineffeciant and messy I'll pickup the things that I'm not useing anymore and put them away, then continue with the project I'm working on. Stumbleing over stuff is not my idea of fun.

[Keith Outten]

Brian,

My shop is worse than just cluttered, mostly due to overcrowding. Since I moved my ShopBot into my shop there just isn't any usable space anymore and cleanup is a huge chore. I used to keep my shop spotless by cleaning up at the end of the day...its tough to do these days especially with a real busy schedule.

My best tip for you is to get a 30 foot length of 4" dust collection hose and put a 4 foot length of 4" PVC on the end of it. Cut the PVC pipe end at an angle that feels comfortable and hook the hose into your DC system. You will have the best floor vac in your neighborhood and you shop vac will rarely be used. I installed a handle from an old weed eater on my 4" pipe to make it easier to swing it around....everything on the floor ends up in my chip box real quick.

.

[Jim Becker]

I clean up at the end of the day...sometimes I miss due to time constraints, but it's a good habit to get into. And just as I do when I'm cooking, I clean and put away tools I'm done with while I'm working, rather than leaving things for later. Yea, it's a sickness...but a good sickness, at least!

[Steve Rowe]

My wife bought a NEW, BLACK Jeep, Liberty in 2003, she doesn't like it dusty. Well thats one reason things get cleaned up at the end of the day in the garage / shop.
Now why would anyone allow a vehicle in their shop?:p

[Steven Wilson]

Sweep up and sharpen tools at the end of the day. It also helps to use a semi-gloss white paint on your walls (easy to clean those too).

[Todd Jensen]

I like Steve's answer.:D Besides my Grizzly 700, no vehicles allowed. About the cleanliness - its something I've struggled with for a while. I think one big thing that helped me was to stop trying to create the perfect shop in one day, and just started to chip away and as another poster stated, come up with new ways to organize, etc. Get over the perfection thing, take the extra 10 minutes to find a place for everything, and try to stay more on top of it - I try very hard to put stuff away now immediately after I use it. If you do these things, your shop will eventually evolve into a cleaner, better organized work space. Good luck!

Oh yeah, forgot to say it - purge!! Going through and getting rid of the 3 lawnmowers that I was going to fix one day, etc. and having a nice fire in the fire pit with all the mystery scraps that never amounted to anything - helped tremendously.

[Per Swenson]

Clean up?

And put all the stuff back?

Like where it's suppose to go and every thing?

Sweep? You're kidding, right?

This here is last years version...

I now have version 17.0

You know the one...with a drivers license.

You need to get one too.

Per

[Jim McCarty]

Brian,

My shop is worse than just cluttered, mostly due to overcrowding. Since I moved my ShopBot into my shop there just isn't any usable space anymore and cleanup is a huge chore. I used to keep my shop spotless by cleaning up at the end of the day...its tough to do these days especially with a real busy schedule.

My best tip for you is to get a 30 foot length of 4" dust collection hose and put a 4 foot length of 4" PVC on the end of it. Cut the PVC pipe end at an angle that feels comfortable and hook the hose into your DC system. You will have the best floor vac in your neighborhood and you shop vac will rarely be used. I installed a handle from an old weed eater on my 4" pipe to make it easier to swing it around....everything on the floor ends up in my chip box real quick.

.
Keith has the right idea. I also have a ceiling mounted home built air cleaner with a BIG furnace blower and I use the gas powered leaf blower to clear the corners. I usually have to repeat the operation due to some suspended dust but it's usually spotless then.

[Bill Wyko]

I'm just finishing my new shop but I've got too many tools and not enough room for everything, so what I'm doing is making a specific place for everything and if there's no place for it, I don't need it. I've decided I'm going to take all the tools I have multiples of (about 10 - 3/8" end wrenches and stuff like that) and go to the swap meet and sell all that stuff. Then I will have a little cheeze to get new stuff that I will be able to make room for.

[guy knight]

a blower keeps mine dust free of course its better to do it at night so the neighbors cant see the dust cloud headed there way

[Ted Calver]

I sweep up the big stuff, then hook up the electric leaf blower, open the garage door and let her rip!

[Don Selke]

I am with Ted on this one, have two leaf blowers, one is dedicated to the shop. Vacuum all the heavy stuff then turn on the blower and let her rip. The stuff is organic.;) ;)

[Al Willits]

Well.....I used to have a garage that you could eat off most anything in it, that's when I was building race motors for bikes, then....I discovered woodworking and the word clean left my life...

I clean, start a new project and because I've only been at this for about a year, I need a tool..off I go, new tool, it needs a place to go, now I have two projects going, place for tool to go needs a bit of lumber, off I go, more lumber, needs more space needed for lumber, make that three projects now, enter beasty, "say...while your doing that can you make a trelis or two?" make that 4....
New brad nailer to make trelis needs a spot to put it...at 5 now and losing ground rapidily.

UPS shows up and the clamp set I bought off of amazon (thanks for telling me guys...) needs a rack, 6 now.... see where this is heading..?

Not bad for one day, by the next day I'm up around 12-14 projects and cleaning encompases sweeping what little floor space I can see and turning the exhaust blower on, donning face mask and attacking the rest with a air hose....then sweeping the floor again....gotta remember to do that last.

So I gave up, and clean when I can, little in the morning, little in the evening, little at super time....reminds me of a song..:)

Al...who's discovered cleaning is best done in a chair with a cold beverage while Robin Trower wails away..

[Don Bullock]

I clean up at the end of the day...sometimes I miss due to time constraints, but it's a good habit to get into. And just as I do when I'm cooking, I clean and put away tools I'm done with while I'm working, rather than leaving things for later. Yea, it's a sickness...but a good sickness, at least!

In the past the word "slob" when it came to a clean and tidy shop would have fit me very well. Actually I think I was even worse. That's one of several reasons I stopped working with wood. I wasted a lot of time just looking for my tools. Sometimes I couldn't even find them.

Several summers the LOML helped me clean out all the "mess" in the garage. At that time there was no space at all for any sort of shop space. The only big machine that I had was a table saw turned backwards and pushed against the back wall. It took several weeks and we filled many trash cans during that time.

Since I've gotten back into woodworking I've caught the same disease that Jim describes. Now, I make sure that every tool has a place and is put back before I leave at the end of the day. The tools are brushed off and the floor is always swept. It's made a tremendous difference in my work and how I feel about what I'm doing. I'm getting a lot more pleasure from working this way.

[Brad Townsend]

My wife is totally amazed at how clean and organized my shop is, as my office is a pigsty.:D I guess it's all in where your priorities are.

[Chuck Lenz]

Well Steve, I park my truck in there too. Trust me, if I had enough space on my property, and I could afford to build a dedicated shop, I'd be out there now building it. It would make woodworking so much easier and I'd probably get alot more done if I could just walk out to a shop allready setup and leave it that way at the end of the day, cleaned up though ofcourse, http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/icons/icon12.gif. As it goes now I don't do much out there unless I have atleast a half a days work to do. It just takes too much time to move vehicles out, setup, do the work, put stuff back, clean, and then move vehicles back in. The other reason I park our vehicles in there is I like a warm bed in the winter.

[Dennis Peacock]

I clean up my shop once every 2 years......if it needs it or not. :rolleyes: :D

On a more serious note, it takes about 2 days just to clean my shop and have it looking nice again. But most of the time, I have way too many projects going to even worry about cleaning it up. I do try to cleanup some after every project.....but....I do leave the lathe "curlies" on the floor as it makes a nice "pad" to stand on. ;)

[Boyd Gathwright]

.... I cleanup after each project is completed. If I don't, I start to lose track of where the tools and unused products are and where they came from.


;)

[Mike Cutler]

Brian.

Slightly organized chaos describes my shop.

Clean as you go and try to keep it down to a manageable disaster area. Put your tools away at the end of the day, and try to at least keep the clutter on the horizontal surfaces to a minimum. try to organize the storage area for tools near where they will be used to facilitate quick "re"-storage.

My shop is "L" shaped. Each leg is 9'x19'. While I have plenty of length, I have very little width, so everything is setup in a linear arrangement. Which can make cleaning a major chore. I use the hose setup that Keith referred too.
My "bench area" is seperate from the "machine area", which seems to keep at least the sawdust and cutoff debris in check. Of course now that I've "rediscovered" handtools, the bench area is rivaling the machine area for mess factor.

My shop will never look like some of the pictures of shops I've seen. That's okay though. It's my space and as long as I can find what I need. I'm good.

[Mike Seals]

I try and clean up some as I go, but it never works. So I do light clean ups during the week nights so by the week end I'm ready for a mess. My wife knows when I have another project coming because I do a full clean up before getting started.

I had a group of friends out in the shop, a 60x30 brick garage. We were playing darts and listening to some music. One of my friends, out of work again, said he could clean up the shop if I wanted him too. So we worked out a cost and he went at it the next week. Took him three days and I paid him well. Worth every penny, but it's been a few months since then and you could never tell. I should have taken some picture then.

[John Schreiber]

I like the Shaker philosophy of having each tool out only when it is being used.



And, if I had the discipline to follow that philosophy, I'd be a happier man. Unfortunately, I get little bits of time in the shop here and there with big projects going on at the same time as little ones and home maintenance projects too.

My shop tends to be a mess, but I don't like it.

[Bob Feeser]

If I let the cleanup go into a second day, when in the middle of a project, I find that one, I start to lose track of where my tools are and because I have a vinly tile floor in the shop, it can get slippery with a lot of dust or wood shavings. So I try to clean at the end of the day. Also if I am doing refinishing work, I clean thoroughly before that as well.
It feels great walking into a clean shop. Knowing where everything goes really speeds up the project. Also I tend to get into something they refer to as 'Flow" when things are in their place. You get so immersed that you lose track of time. When things are a mess, and I have to spend a half hour wandering around looking for a small tool I need, my mind breaks out of flow, and wanders into frustration. So cleaning is time well spent.

[Joe Chritz]

clean? Could you define that? I'm afraid I don't understand the term.

Joe

[Ellen Benkin]

I also work in a garage and have developed a sort of system. I clean up most of the mess every day and when I actually finish a project (sometimes months later), I roll out all the machines-on-wheels and do a major clean up with broom and vacuum. That means the shop gets a good cleaning about twice a year.

[Bruce Page]

From reading the posts from those of you that like working in mounds of wood chips it almost sounds like there’s a macho/manly thing going on, that unless you are working in squalor you are not really woodworking. :confused:
To each his own, but I can’t help but wonder how many creatures from eight legged to no legs are living in those chips. Not to mention the general fire & safety aspect of it.
Having to dig through it for a dropped pencil or tool?

Thanks but no thanks….:rolleyes:

[Jim Heffner]

Brian, I clean up the shop after I'm thru working, put away the tools
scraps, and so on. I have an old leaf blower that I use to blow all the saw
dust out the big door when I'm done and it helps to clear out the clutter.

It is a lot faster than just using the air hose and it has two speeds as well! The leaf blower is good for moving a high volume of air very
quickly and speeds my clean up time considerably. I figure it this way
if the dust collector doesn't clean it out the leafblower will. Jim Heffner

[Bill Wyko]

I don't have it wired for electricity yet so I'm running on extension cords but here's the start of my organization.:rolleyes:

[Doug Shepard]

... but I can’t help but wonder how many creatures from eight legged to no legs are living in those chips....

Still working on my DC install to rectify that problem. Up til now I just thought it was messy. Didn't realize I was passing up a free lunch hiding in that mess.:D

[Bill Huber]

I think that shop size makes a big difference. I used to have a 25 x 25 shop and it was always a mess, now I have a 12 x 16 and I just do not have room to let it get into a mess.

I keep the shop vac going just about all the time and I have a 3000 cfm exhaust fan that I run any time I have in the shop.

I do now and then open the doors and use an air hose to get any dust off the hanging tools and the like.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Silly question, but I'm dumbfounded. I have a 2car garage shop and I cannot keep it clean.

And this is bad how??



I see pictures of other people's shops and they are spotless.
Think "Prince of Darkness" and go enjoy your mess.

Actually I rather suspect that ht those pics of clean shops are after a WHOLE LOT of cleaning up.