Real Small Shop advice

[John Stankus]

I will be moving to San Antonio to take a university Teaching position. After looking at some houses down there, I realized that I may have to downsize my shop (at the least the space it will fit in). Right now I have one bay in a three car garage, potentially in S.A. I will have a 6x12 space off a two car garage. And suggestions on where to get Ideas of how to fit it all in? I was looking in the bookstore at Taunton's/FW Small Woodworking shops, but they showed a 26 x 60 ft (or thereabouts) building as one of their "small shops" are there any books on "real" small shops?

Regards

John
stankus@ix.netcom.com

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

6*12 space? Take up hand carving or park the cars in the driveway and take over the garage.

When I was much younger I has an alleyway shop just large enough for one bench and one TS and me in between. Everything else was hand tools or hand held powertools.
I don't think I'd do that again.

What do you teach?

[John Branam]

John I have that book it does have some real small shops in it. I found it helpful.

[glenn bradley]

This book has some good ideas in it, some not so good:

http://www.woodsmithstore.com/8010286.html

This is a cool look at what can be done in a one-car space. I know your looking at less but this is a COOL 360 degree tour:

http://www.woodmagazine.com/wood/sto...urs.xml&page=7

[Burt Waddell]

I had one shop that was only 8 x 12 so I can understand what you are going thru. I moved into that from a nice big basement shop.

If I had to do that again today, I'd take an awfully hard look at the EZ Smart stuff. The basic table is only 2' x 4' but it is the work center for the entire system. There is a new routing center on the way that will work with the smart table. It will be nice (I'm doing final testing before turning it over to Dino for production). With the EZ Smart setup, you could literally build an entitre kitchen in your 6' x 12' shop.

When you have a few minutes, go to www.eurekazone.com and take a look at the photo gallery and Dino's gallery which is located inside the regular photo gallery. It will give you an idea of some of the capabilities of the system.

Burt

[Art Mulder]

Please excuse my ignorance, but in a warm climate like Texas (that is to say, no snow) just how prevalent is the use of garages?

My brother used to live on Vancouver island, in BC, and there is virtually no snow in that mild climate. He only had a one-car garage, but that was fine, because the truck always stayed on the driveway, and he had the whole garage for his shop.

So, I would have thought the same thing about texas: leave the cars on the driveway, and hey, presto, a 2 car garage shop.

what am I missing?

...art (who has never, ever, been to Texas.)

[John Huber]

John,

I have lived in Austin, TX, just 90 miles north of San Antonio, for 20 years. Nearly everybody parks their cars in the driveway and uses the garage for other stuff, like bikes, mowers, etc. Check your neighborhood and see what everyone else does.

If you are up to changing some tools, consider the Bosch 4000-10 with the folding stand. In one storage mode, it tilts up like a two-wheel cart (the one that movers use). That's how I store mine in my apartment, where my "shop" is a patio about 8' x 12'.

Welcome to Texas!

[Christian Aufreiter]

Hi John,

welcome to the Creek.
Please give us a few more details on your current and future shop.
Which tools do you own and would you like to keep? I’m not asking for a detailed inventory description that lists every single nail. Just basic information, especially about larger stuff.
You mention that you will have a 6x12 space off a two car garage. Does this mean that you actually have to work at 6 x 12? Or can you “expand” your shop during projects?

Christian

[Corey Hallagan]

John my shop is very small, basically the front portion of a one car garage. About 12" wide and 8 foot deep. You can see how I layed out my shop on my webpage. Use as much of the wall space as you can, put as much on wheels as you can. Make your workbenchs up off the foor along the walls and store machinery and tools underneath. Put your cabinets on the walls where you can. Hope this helps.
Corey

[Art Davis]

John,

First, please tell me what is wrong? I thought EVERYTHING was big in Texas?

I am interested in what you teach? I just retired (about two years ago) from a teaching position at San Jose State University in Electrical Engineering. Just wondered how your teaching fits in with woodworking---if at all.

My solution was in the retirement process: I now have a renovated 16x40 rv garage that I wired for ac, added lights and heating to, insulated, and added workbenches and pegboards to. I guess the moral of the story is to just retire and cut out the intervening years!

On a more serious note, thought, I did ww for a number of years in my garage and found that mobile bases really helped.

Good luck!

[Greg Koch]

Check out Glen's flip stand...cool even is a "not so small" shop!

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showpost...86&postcount=1

[John Bailey]

Check out Bob Nole's threads about his shop. It's small, but not as small as yours. He's got the best set up small shop I've seen. Of course, that's only my humble opinion.

John

[Jim O'Dell]

I'm another voice for making everything mobile. When you have a project, park the cars in the drive and do your work. On a long weekend, put enough up to get the LOYL's car inside at night, then get it back out the next morning. If the door to the storage room (that's what a 6 X 12 space attached to the garage is called in Texas . That or a utility room ) is big enough, you can store some of the tools in there during the week. Build a work bench in front of your wife's car, and store tools in front of yours during the week. You could even have a dust collection system piped in and just roll the tool under it and hook up at the ceiling or wall. I'd suggest cutting out semi scale drawings of tool footprint on card stock, and have the garage and storage closet laid out on graph paper, then play around with it. Cheap and easy to do. Jim.

edit. One other thought...make sure all your benches or other structures have the ability to store other tools under them. For instance, a planer (portable type on a stand) could be designed to fit under the extension wing of your table saw for a smaller foot print when storing the tools.

[Frank Pellow]

First of all John, let me welcome you to Saw Mill Creek.

There was a very good article iby Bill Endress in the 2003/2004 Tools and Shops issue of Fine Woodworking (issue 167). His shop is "on wheels" in a two car garage where both cars sometimes have to be in the garage. If I were in your position, I would probably design my shop very much like Bill's.

[Kirk (KC) Constable]

If you haven't already bought something, allow me to suggest you look a bit outside of San Antonio. Both east and west on (east on I-10) and wesr on (Hwy 90) there is a point a few miles (3?) out of town where all of a sudden it's 'country'....and then 10 miles up the road is a 'suburb' that still has the small town 'charm'...but they're growing enough to have ammentites.

KC