Josh’s Standalone Shop

I have gleaned so much from all of the shop tours over the years, I figured I might as well share my shop. :)

We are a two person shop that builds custom furniture out of reclaimed wood for individuals, retailers and restaurants. We work primarily with reclaimed Douglas fir from old buildings in Southern California and reclaimed hardwoods like oak, hickory and walnut from barns in the Midwest.

My shop started as a 20′ X 20′ garage that had a laundry room built inside of it and was only big enough for one car. After ripping out the laundry room, I added a layer of framing/insulation/OSB to the existing white walls for sound protection and to give me the raw look I wanted for the shop. Then we ran 60 W of power and added a sub panel for all of my 220 tools.

While the shop is small for a full time furniture maker, it serves our purposes well (and we couldn’t possibly afford a shop or retail space here in Southern California). A few notes on function in case you’re interested:

– Having the mobile table saw, jointer and planer in the middle of the shop works great because we can open the double garage doors and run longer boards through.

– My main shop table has a custom fabricated steel base with a hardwood/plywood top. When we are knocking out mortise and tenon joints and assembling frames, the flat top works great. When we are doing glue ups, we take the top off and use the metal frame.

– For dust collection, I have a few different set ups. The big Grizzly dust collector has one permanent line to the table saw. The other line coming from it alternates between the planer and jointer. I also have a small Grizzly dust collector next to the table saw that is attached to the magnetic Veritas dust chute which collects table saw dust right on the saw. The Festool Kapex miter saw is permanently connected to a Rigid dust vac, which works brilliantly. All of my sanders are connected to the Festool CT26 dust collector. And finally, I have a Grizzly overhead dust collector as well that I turn on from time to time at the end of a work day.

– My shop is usually this clean by the end of every work day. Fifteen minutes at the end of a day can go a long ways! :) And because I meet with clients at the shop on a regular basis, I like to keep the space presentable.

– The tools you see now have been slowly accumulated since our business inception in 2010. Over the past four years of running a full time shop, I have spent hours and hours researching tools and using different tools in different price ranges. I am really happy with the tools I have acquired, both in function and price range. In case you want the tool lowdown:

– FESTOOL: Kapex Miter Saw, RQ 150 Sander, 1400 Router, T75 Track Saw, Carvex Jig Saw, Domino XL and the CT26.

– SAWSTOP: I have the SawStop Professional, 3HP, 36″ table.

– GRIZZLY: 8″ Parallelogram Jointer with spiral cutterhead. 15″ Planer with spiral cutterhead. One floor dust collector, one on the wall and one on the ceiling. I couldn’t be happier with my Grizzly products. Really affordable and some of the best customer service I’ve run into.

Alright, I think that is about it. Thanks for letting me share and thanks for sharing all of yours shops with me!