Tony in Ohio – Shop Tour
This week’s shop is from Tony in Bowling Green, OH. Here’s his story:
I have a 20’ x 24’ basement shop with 9’ ceilings. When I built my house a couple years ago, I planned for this space being a shop so I ran 2 power circuits under the floor to the table saw location. My house has a 6-zone forced air heating system and the shop is on it’s own zone. It’s a nice feature and very efficient. I have a 1HP Jet dust collector with an add-on second stage. I do have blast gates. I have a wye with two gates at the horizontal run at the ceiling for the TS and RAS, and one on the run to the lathe and one that runs to the floor sweep/ vac port. The suction is great as long as one gate is open at a time. That first stage collector drum is great. It actually has a cyclone effect inside. I also have that Jet air filtration hanging from the ceiling. With both running, I probably get about 95% of the dust. Also, it’s clean because I am really anal about keeping it that way. Believe me, It has looked pretty rough in there but it only lasts a couple days max before I have to clean it. I have access to it from the rest of the basement and also through a Bilco door that leads to the end of our driveway. 
It’s great, I just back my truck right up to the door to unload materials. I made the 8’ door into the shop so I could get 4×8 sheets down the stairs with ease. The shop is still growing. The views you see are from each of the four corners of the shop. All the cabinets in the shop either came from the Merilatt factory outlet( 5 bucks for a 30” base cabinet!) or the local University auction( 1 dollar for a 6’ base cabinet!). The brown cabinets under the RAS are from the auction. They came out of a chemistry lab. I have a usual compliment of tools. Thats my restored Craftsman RAS. The RBI scroll saw I got for free from someone who didn’t know what it was worth (I wasn’t even aware about it at the time). I’m most proud of my autographed picture of Norm, see if you can find it. The floor is coated with a water-based epoxy and the walls are poured concrete with a light coat of primer to lighten it up. I also ran the power for the entire shop through a few switches mounted up high on the wall. That way I can shut off the power to everything and my two young children can’t reach them to turn them on. Also check out my Wood Whisperer style assembly table. It is 4′ x 8′ and is at the same height as my table saw and acts as an infeed table.
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Nice shop Tony! It really pays to plan ahead.
Very nice shop! I am a big fan of the basement shop and I especially like the GD sticker.
Hey Tony nice shop! How happy are you with that craftsman table saw? I’ve come very close to buying that saw a few times but I always put it off to get something else. I’m currently getting by with a Hitachi contractor saw that believe it or not is pretty accurate in terms of blade to miter slot and the fence but its just not very flat and the capacity is low, (about 20″ on rips).
Your saw seems like a good value for the price. Would you buy it again if you could do over?
Craig:
I love my Craftsman Table saw. It is very accurate and I got it at a great price. I have a review on it over at Lumberjocks.
Nice shop! One thing to think about…as your kids get older and taller, convert those master power switches to a key-operated switch.
i found norm.
nice looking shop.
great idea for the power switches to the outlets.
also Bob – the key-operated switches are a nice additional safety feature.
definitely something worth investing in – both for safety, and for usability.
Hi Tony,
I love your shop. I’m still in the process of building a shop in my basement and acquiring the tools I need. I would like to ask you how you handled getting the heavy tools into your shop through the Bilko door and down the stairs. I ask because I have a similar situation, but my door opens to my back yard.
Pete
Pete:
Most of the larger tools, (table saw, lathe, drill press) came down in pieces. I bought them new so I just assembled them in the shop. I’ve also used a 2-wheel dolly and a friend or two. I carried the band saw down myself but I wouldn’t recommend it. I installed non-slip grip tape to the Bilco stairs because the concrete steps were very slick when they got a little wet.
Thanks to everyone for the comments.
-Tony
Nice looking shop. Mine is 18×23 and I wish I had a couple of extra feet like you do.
Seems like you could build all night and not have to worrie about the neigbors. “Honey are you ever coming to bed?” I bet you get that questions a lot!
Nice shop. You must have had a lot of help pouring those floors!
Very nice shop – some place where you can spend some time and really enjoy it.
Great shop. But I have to ask: The Merillat Factory Outlet?! Where can I find that?
Love that Craftsman saw. I’ve used one for 3 years and never had a problem with it . I bought the extended 50″ fence rail to get wider rips. It might be the the way pictures look but do you have issues with ripping 4×8 sheets? Just looking how close your band saw and RAS is to your work area.