Jeff, I had a garage that was 16 x 24 and 9' ceiling with doors at both ends and that seemed to work very well. I would look at all the things that was wrong with your old shop and go from there.
Rick
Lovely shops everyone. Jeff, my shop is around 14' x 9', 8' ceiling. In my opinion, the more space the better. Maybe later on you'll want to add a bandsaw or thickness planer to the fray for quicker jobs, who knows?
I don't have a "Neander shop", not in the sense intended here. I have a shop that uses both hand and power where it works best. Power for roughing out; hands for joinery and detail.
I'd like to make the bench the centre of the shop, but I only have a double garage, and it shares space with my car (rag top, and it stays out of the West Australian sun in summer and the rain in winter). My wife's and son's cars live outside (heh).
So the bench goes up against the far wall, along with cabinets above it for hand and power tools. On the wall hang marking tools and guages ...
To the right of the bench is my sharpening station, just a hop and skip away. This is an old picture (before CBN wheels on the grinder) ...
To the left of the bench there is another fold-out bench, guarded by a ferocious bench dog. Beyond her are more cabinets ...
In the far corner ...
More recent pics of the small bench look like this ...
For contrast, this is where the work starts ...
I'll leave the cabinet doors closed
Regards from Perth
Derek
I really like your tool cabinets in your shop Derek. I would've had just the one shop, in the garage, but we get water from spring snow runoff as the Garage was built in the 60's, apparently before people realised the importance of proper grading. I'm stressed out enough about constantly paste waxing my table saw as it is, don't need to add to that with my unplugged tools!
One question about your bench - do you find the position against the wall inconvenient for traversing across the grain when planing? Or is your bench a bit deep?
Hasin, my cabinets are simply pine edged in jarrah, or MDF panels framed in jarrah. I save any decent wood for furniture. Everything is crammed in, and I have tried to keep as much space free by using the wall as much as possible.
The bench is not placed against the wall. It stands out about 12" from it. At the rear of the bench, against the wall itself - not attached to the bench - are tool trays ...
These pics were taken shortly after I built the bench.
It is a little fuller than that these days ...
Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek, looks sharp!
Thanks gents, after a good long day I finished another section of this shop. Been working to hide away some of the cruddy areas to better display my efforts to prospective clients.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Nice work fellas!
"Anything seems possible when you don't know what you're doing."
Derek, it's neat seeing the veritas shooter on the #52 shooting board. I like your plane display cabinets too.
IMG_0331.jpgThe handtool section of my shop is around 22' x 15' but keep in mind, it has wheelchair access all around the bench. I could get by with a much smaller area if I ditched the wheelchair ;-)
Plus the bench is 10' long so it skews the view a bit...
Constantly changing the area, adding/subtracting things, so the photos may look a bit different depending bench 1.jpgImage 7.jpgsorta finished.jpgIMG_0419.jpgIMG_0787.jpg
Andy,
I really like that shop. Dig the flooring (and everything else).
Jeff
I would call this a space not a shop. I have another space in the garage with a large Knapp job box for tools. For the most part I work on the pictured bench.
Jim