woodshop floor plans to look at for ideas

[Bill Dufour]

I am in the planning stage of a roughly 24x24 woodshop. Any source of shop layout floor plans to look at and get some ideas? I see a few online with no dust collection. Also any for metal working.
I know Grizzly has a online free tool. But I just want to look and get ideas for now and think how that affects door and window placement roof line etc.
I know people have posted such plans over the years but I do not know how to see only those that have blueprints and only from reputatile sites. No endless pintrest postings. I do not need endless pictures or videos. I prefer a simple line drawing overhead view,.
I might buy a book of suggested plans but the local used book store is appointment only for the duration. Buying online would probably get me a book of shops to use a sabre saw and a hammer on a cobblers bench when the car is pulled out.
Bill D

[Jim Becker]

Workshop design is such a personal thing, Bill. Your personal workflow preferences and tools weight hot and heavy, although it's also a good opportunity to question if a better way or a better tool is going to make the new workshop more enjoyable and productive for you. Door and window placement is partially architectural and style related relative to the property and, say, the home already on it. Exposures also count. But again the workshop build is a good place to consider what's best for function, too. If I built a new shop, for example, the majority of windows would be up high on the wall so they provide the desired natural light and ventilation if that's a factor but don't interfere with the aforementioned workflow.

A lot of folks, IMHO, also don't leave enough "flexible space" to allow for different kinds of projects and functions. There are too many built-in things and too much of "every tool needs to have it's own personal place". A lot of the books out there reinforce that. One thing I've learned over the 20 years I've had my present shop as it's evolved is that space needs to be more accomodating since it's not unlimited. For example, the best thing I did for my own shop in the last two years is to totally eliminate the big old miter station and fixed work surface it entailed.

So yea, get some ideas from books and design tools and photos from other shops here at SMC, but sit down with a piece of grid paper and paper cutouts of major "tools" that include reasonable spacing requirements and figure out workflow for what you like to do. And keep in mind that while you can do woodworking and metalworking in the same space, the latter brings fire and sharp contaminants challenges into play. Personally, I'd want a separate space for metalworking.

[Lisa Starr]

That is the size of my shop. The key to making it work is mobility. Though some of my tools are parked where I use them 99% of the time, the ability to move them when necessary is key. I have TS with 60" rails & router table built into wing and separate mobile outfeed cabinet. Miter saw on mobile cabinet and flip-up wing. 16/32 Drum Sander on casters. 12" Atlas Band Saw that is stationary, but I can move without help if need be. OLD Rockwell Drill Press with oversize table. Also stationary, but again, I can move it alone, if need be. Small, old lathe on custom built stand on casters. Soon to arrive Hammer A3-31 J/P, which will have the mobility kit. Of course, a variety of cabinets, shelving, DC and material storage also. I can post photos later if it would be helpful.

[Ronald Blue]

My shop is still a work in process and my getting sick hasn't helped. However even though mine is larger making as many things mobile as possible only lends flexibility down the road. I liken it a little bit to expecting a junior in high school to decide this is what I want to do the rest of my life and that's very difficult. By making as much as possible mobile you can adjust to either a special project that you need to tackle or if you decide that you really aren't happy with the arrangement and want to adjust it after you get a feel for what you like and don't like. Just my 2 cents but I don't think you'd ever regret having the tools on mobile bases.

[Gary Ragatz]

Bill,

If you subscribe or otherwise have access to Wood magazine, they seem to do a profile of a reader's shop in each issue, in the "Sounding Board" section of the magazine. I think they're all, or almost all, hobbyist's shops and cover a wide variety of sizes and shapes. They include a floorplan as well as some photos and discussion of the layout/workflow.

[Robert D Evans]

A lot of my bigger tools are mobile. Drum sander, router table, table saw, planer, dust collector. It's nice to keep a large open space so I can pull out a larger tool and have all that space to work in. I'm not in production work so I have time to move another tool into position. I wish I had enough room in my shop to spread out and every tool have it's own working space, but I have to work with what I've got.

[jamil mehdi]

When I was laying out my shop, I drew a 1/2" = 1'-0" floorplan with all the doors and windows and other factors included, then cut out to-scale templates of all the tools I own (or expected to own) and moved them around on the paper. Little pieces of paper are way easier to move around than actual tools.

Jim is right when he says workshop design is a personal thing. How you use your space isn't necessarily how I would use the same space. With that said, I set up my shop so the next tool I'm going to use is the tool that's closest to where I just was... Jointer, to planer, to chop saw, to table saw, to router tables, to assembly table, to sanding station, to finishing area... all in a big counter clockwise orientation. That's what works for me because my process never really changes.

[Tom Dixon]

Every shop layout I've seen is structured around the individual's machine choices and work habits. One last thing that truly influences machine placement is dust collection. Mobile vs fixed machines impacts how you sign and build your shop layout and DC layout. At 24'x36' my shop is is 12 feet longer than your 24'x24' shop and I spent a lot of time coming up with a layout the worked for me wil considering my equipment and desire for an efficient dust collection system. Not shown in the drawing below is a missing Grizzly G9956 Air Filter Hanging from the ceiling just to the left of the attic stairs. Otherwise this is an accurate drawing of my shop for machine and DC layout. I don't know if this will help you but the Sketchup file for my shop is available to download, ( http://www.teetomterrific.com/downlo...hop_Master.skp ). It's a huge and detailed layered file of the entire shop if you're interested. Lots of parts and machines can be copied for use in your own drawing.

Workshop-top.jpg

[Jim Becker]

Sometimes, folks overlook the opportunity to improve their workflow and work habits when presented with a new shop. Part of always taking into consideration of workflow and work habits is honestly assessing them and deciding if changes should be incorporated into the new design.

All of the changes I've made to my existing shop over the years revolved around that and should I be blessed with a "clean slate" at some point, I have no doubt that I can come up with a few more tweaks that make things work even better.

[glenn bradley]

I google 'woodshop layout' and clicked on the 'images' tab and found tons. I poured over these for quite a while and eventually started to form my own layout. I then built it into SketchUp and found all the things I missed once I put the 2D diagram into 3D space. It's a journey.

[John K Jordan]

Bill, I spent decades with cad and 3D programs to visualize plans and create models for work but didn't use any of that when I designed my shop.

Any way you go, I think the key is planing, planing, and more planing. I started planning while clearing the land and didn't finalize things until tweaking while laying out the internal walls. Once I decided the basic shape and size of the building for my own shop, I found nothing better then the old-school method of making a building layout on a large piece of paper then sliding around paper cutouts scaled to represent the various machines, work surfaces, etc. I even made circular cutouts to move through the layout to represent the minimum and desired space I wanted for walking, carrying things, carts, etc. I went through MANY iterations and sketched each useful one to scale in a notebook to ponder over and thing of down sides. The same notebook had other drawings for electrical wiring, ethernet, HVAC, air lines, and dust collection. The notebook was quite thick before I started building the shop.

This is a photo of a section of one of my planning sessions in progress. I find this MUCH quicker and better than using digital methods.

layout_paper_2.jpg

FWIW, what I ended up with was a building 24x62 arranged inside for multi purposes, woodworking, woodturning (my primary focus), wood storage, office, welding, electronics, machining, farm maintenance, and animal care. I ended up with fewer windows than my first intentions since wall space is so valuable. I positioned doors to allow long infeed/outfeed on the tablesaw if needed on rare occasions. I tell people I built it with my bare hands but I lie, I used tools.

I find the result very functional, even after I made small changes and added additional function.

shop_floorplan.jpg

shop_llamas_IMG_20150422_08_re.jpg

The first step, of course, is your personal vision of what you want your shop to be, what you want to do with it. Some things are easy to adjust later, some are difficult (like dust collection drops).

JKJ

I am in the planning stage of a roughly 24x24 woodshop. Any source of shop layout floor plans to look at and get some ideas? I see a few online with no dust collection. Also any for metal working.
I know Grizzly has a online free tool. But I just want to look and get ideas for now and think how that affects door and window placement roof line etc.
I know people have posted such plans over the years but I do not know how to see only those that have blueprints and only from reputatile sites. No endless pintrest postings. I do not need endless pictures or videos. I prefer a simple line drawing overhead view,.
I might buy a book of suggested plans but the local used book store is appointment only for the duration. Buying online would probably get me a book of shops to use a sabre saw and a hammer on a cobblers bench when the car is pulled out.
Bill D