Tim’s Work Shop – Shop Tour
This week’s Shop is submitted by Tim. It may be small but looks fully functional to me don’t ya think?
“This is my work shop. As you can see its tiny. but it works. All of your basic stuff is in there and its a work in progress. Hopefully it will work itself into a bigger space.”
Frank’s Work Shed – Shop Tour
My woodworking shop was the first major project after my retirement in early 2003 and I am relying upon it to serve as the home base for most my projects for at least the next twenty five years. I designed and built the shed almost entirely by myself, and it was very satisfying project. I only hope that some of my future projects will be as rewarding.
The shed fits well into my city suburban lot, leaving room for a good sized vegetable/herb garden, decks, patios, flowers, shrubs, and even some grass. The building blends into the neighborhood, and I liked the roof and colour scheme so much that, two years ago, I re-shingled and re-painted the house to match the shingles and paint on the shed. One constraint was that the wall close to our neighbour’s house had to be low and could have no windows. The restriction was turned into a feature by having a large roof overhand protecting storage racks on the 40 foot wall (33 foot workshed and 7 foot adjacent garden storage shed).
The interior space of the shed is 431 square feet which sounds like a lot to non-woodworking folks, but when you have to fit a lot of benches, machines, supplies, and tools into that space, it fills up quickly. The main way to combat this, is to make almost everything in the shed mobile. The building’s outline makes the best possible use of the limited space and, furthermore it fits our odd-shaped lot well. The shape of the shed is what I call a “squat T” having a squarish middle section with wings protruding to either side at the top. The middle area is approximately 16 feet by 16 feet with a cathedral ceiling that peeks at 10 feet. This section, coupled with the double doors at the front, provides sufficient space for the manipulation and processing of sheet goods and lumber.
The relaxation alcove at the north end contains, a wood stove, some easy chairs, a chalk board, floor to ceiling bookcase, and a drop-down drawing/drafting table. It feels quite different than the rest of the shed and is a great place to relax. My grandchildren and I particularly like reading stories here in front of a roaring fire –and it’s even better when, as was the case yesterday evening, we had just come in form an hour of tobogganing. The remaining wing contains benches, parts storage bins/drawers, and hand tool storage.
The shed was designed so that two people can work together on projects. Mobility and distinct work areas are the keys to this. I want my shed to be a place where friends and relatives feel welcome and I very much enjoy working with others. As a child, I was always welcome in the worksheds of my Dad, my Granddad, two of my Uncles, and one of my Aunts. Together, they instilled a love of woodworking in me that I, in turn, passed on to my two daughters, and now am starting to pass on to my grandchildren. From some of the photos of the shed interior, you can see that little children have already been contributing art to the walls. Several joint projects with friends, children, and grandchildren are in the planning stage and three are currently underway.
I have had a workshed or access to someone else’s workshed forever. The first one I could call my own was a distributed shed occupying the closet, storage locker, and balcony in the apartment we rented after Margaret and I were married in 1966. Since then, we have moved many times and lived in three different countries. Each of our homes has always had some sort of shed. All these sheds had good aspects and bad, but the worst thing was always inadequate tools and lack of good organization. The later meant that, even when I had the right tool or part, I often could not find it. Finally, I have the shed of my dreams, with all the tools that I need (well there is always something new that I want but that is not the same as “need”) and, even better than that, everything has a home and I know where everything is! So, with a good layout, good tools, good organization, and good friends and relatives to share it, my woodworking shed is perfect for me. May I continue to have the good health to enjoy the shed for many years to come!
**Frank put a lot of work into his shop tour, and what was posted here was just an abbreviated version. If you want to see the full tour, download this handy PDF and check out even more pics and details: Frank’s Full Shop Tour PDF
Ken’s Workshop – Shop Tour
This week’s we are featuring Ken’s Workshop. Let’s check it out as he gives us the grand tour.
I thought I would send you some shots of my home shop. I have been a hobbyist woodworker for the past 10 or so years. Not only is my shop a wood shop but it is where I fix all the household stuff. Lamps that stop working, bikes, etc. Come on into my shop. It is down two flights of stairs in the basement, it’s the door on the right, photo #1. It is 12′X12′ square with a 7′ ceiling. I have an ongoing battle with the house furnace that takes up about a 3′ square patch of the room. Needless to say I think it would be classified as a “small shop”. I have built a king size bed as well as two large rolling storage cabinets for a school in the shop but most of my work is much smaller. CD/DVD cases, boxes, coffee and side tables, etc.
Photo #2 & 3 are shots looking through the door into the shop. All of my tools are either bench top or able to move around the shop so I can accommodate larger pieces of wood. This includes my Delta contractor saw which I can spin around to face the door and out feed wood through the door using roller stands as out feed support if needed. I have a bench top craftsman drill press that sits on its own shop built rolling stand.
In photo #4 there is my King Canada 6″ jointer, Ryobi bench top belt/disk sander and tucked under my bench is the router table. The cabinet in the corner is an old kitchen corner cabinet that has a lazy susan inside that holds all my finishing products as well as sand paper and household paint. The two wall cabinets (again from our old kitchen) hold miscellaneous parts for machines as well as books and magazines.
Photos 5 & 6 are shots of my bench. It is about the simplest bench that could be made. Using 2X4s and a maple veneered chip board top. When the top gets too beat up, I flip it over and then replace it all together when that side gets destroyed. Hanging on the wall are some of my hand tools. Some “C” and spring clamps as well as a light hanging from a bar above the bench. On the bench are two recently finished CD cases and a lift lid box that are Christmas presents for family. In photo #6 is my Steal City hollow chisel mortiser. It sits on another old kitchen base cabinet. This cabinet holds stuff that I can’t find another place for. Beside that is my Dewalt thickness planer. I have passed lots of board feet through this machine. The chip collection for the planer is a garbage pail inside the shop-built cabinet that the planer sits on.
Photo #7 & 8 are looking from the bench back to the door and the table saw. The wall cabinet holds mostly household stuff, light bulbs etc. My other hobby is mountain biking and the top red tool chest holds all my bike related tools parts. The bottom rolling cabinet holds hand power tools as well as the majority of my hand and marking tools. Hanging on the wall above the table saw is my Ryobi scroll saw. As I don’t have a band saw, the scroll saw doubles as my band saw with major limitations. I hate to throw out any wood except for the smallest pieces. I have my off cuts scattered around the shop and all my larger pieces of lumber stored either in an outdoor shed or in a small storage space under the stairs.
The last photo shows where I store my bar clamps. All my quick grip clamps hang off the cold air return on the furnace. The shop has gone through several makeovers in the last ten years and one of the projects for the New Year is another shop make over. All the old kitchen cabinets are going to go and I am going to build floor to ceiling cabinets to house all the stuff. I am also planning on building a new bench, most likely a torsion box style but I am still working on the plans for that. As you can see it is a small space but one of the things I really like about it is I am only a few steps away form anything in there. Thanks for taking a tour of my shop!
A New York Community Workshop – Shop Tour
This week’s shop is submitted by Todd. Let’s check his place out and see what he has to say:
“I have a somewhat unusual workshop. I work at a place called 3rd Ward, which is a resource for creative people of many kinds, in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. There’s a woodshop, but there’s also a metal shop, a computer lab, lots of desk spaces for graphic designers and the like, two recording studios, a gallery, and three photo studios (not darkrooms). The woodshop has a very elementary safety primer (which I teach), a furniture design class, a refinishing class, a basic introduction to joinery (which I also teach), and several more classes are developing. The idea is to collect creative people together and build a community so they might collaborate and learn from each other. It’s a good idea, and in practice it has its pros and cons. Here’s a link: http://www.3rdward.com”
“Some of you might be interested in our tools. We’ve got an old 14″ Rockwell Delta table saw that’s a great workhorse with no major issues, and it’s primarily the rip saw. We’ve also got a 14″ Martin sliding saw with 8′ of travel. We have two bandsaws, a 14″ Powermatic, and a big old monster made by IDunnoWho. Two drill presses, a big old one with a head that swings on an arm with two joints (like a shoulder and an elbow, so it has a very deep reach, about 22″ I think), and a small benchtop Ryobi that works just fine for most things. 12″ Dewalt compound chop saw. Combination disk sander/belt sander by Shop Fox that is total crap. Powermatic 8″ jointer, and Enco 15″ thickness planer. 5 workbenches, used for everything from glue-ups to writing documents. You know, workbenches. They’re just 4×4 posts with 1 1/2″ slabs of oak on top, and some bracing. They’re not dead flat, but they’re usually fine. There are also some portable power tools people can use, but I have found it easier and more reliable to have my own. I have a small storage space in an adjacent room, where I keep my rolling cart, some vertical sheet goods, some vertical hardwood, and a bunch of other stuff.”
“There are pros and cons, as I said. The biggest pro is that there are plenty of other people around to ask questions of. Several of the other regular shop users are guys with years of professional experience. The shop manager has worked in cabinet shops for 25 years, and he knows all there is to know about cabinetmaking, also a lot about many other areas of woodworking. He’s also not bad with metalworking and electrical and plumbing and etc. I work alone, and I have no employees, but it’s not hard to find someone to help me lift something. I can turn around and say, “Hey Eric, does this look stupid?” or “Do you have any 2″ cabinet screws, San?” or “How come my finish is dripping, Naresh?”
“The next big advantage is that the rent (actually “membership fee”) is reasonable and I don’t have to buy my own machinery. As a young guy (34) starting a business I’m not 100% confident about, it’s nice not to have a large capital investment in overhead. I don’t get scared if I have 3 weeks without paying work. It gives me a chance to do other things that will help me to learn what my own designs actually look like.”
“The third advantage is that once in a while I get work from other people there. Someone will call the front desk and ask if there’s a woodworker in the house who can make something. Or someone will need help with an installation. Or the situation where a guy did a bunch of design work on a project, which took longer than he thought, and then it was time for him to move away. He passed the fabrication to me.”
“In the con department: Chief among these is abuse of the machinery and the facility. It’s often because students or amateurs using the shop (sometimes for only a day or two) don’t know any better. For example, they rip a 12′ piece of 6/4 oak with the crosscut blade, overheating it and warping it. Often people do dangerous things, like crosscutting a long board with the rip fence. Kickbacks are way too common. No one’s hurt themselves yet, in two years, but I think it’s only a matter of time. Some of the regular shop users, professionals and semi-professionals, can be tough on the place too, like when they leave a dusty layer of overspray all over in the spray room. There’s even the factor of non-shop users who borrow things and don’t return them. We used to have dozens of small clamps. Now there are two. The rest, I suspect, are in the tool kits of photographers who have used the photo studios.”
“Another con is that, with people working together, come office politics. You know about this if you’ve ever had a job of any kind. People bicker when they spend time together, and petty issues blow up. Last, we’re out of space. Under financial pressure, the place has had to find space for more users and sell more memberships. It’s more crowded than it was, and it’s getting worse. There are more classes now too. That means teaching opportunities for guys like me, but it also puts a drain on the space.”
“My whole time there, two years, I’ve constantly considered moving out and setting up my own space somewhere. I always settle down to the idea that the pros outweigh the cons, and it’s better right now not to take a risk and burden myself with overhead. Next week I might change my mind, but right now I’m staying where I am.”
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