Mitchell’s “Down Under” Woodshop

Shop Tour - Submitted by Mitchell Sargeant from Sydney-New South Wales
Added on September 1, 2013

Hi, I’m Mitchell, I’m 16 and I live in Sydney, Australia. I built the shop myself with a little help from my family last year. Finally, I’m beginning to do some proper woodworking instead of laborious/boring construction! I started woodworking when I was 14 and built a small bench and large tool cabinet outside under the house. For a while, it worked out alright because I mainly used hand tools. However, when I started acquiring machinery, I didn’t feel safe with them left outside. From here, I built the workshop which is 3.4m (11 feet) by 3m (10 feet) to house my growing collection of tools. I built a second bench which features an end vice which I use a tail vice with dog holes and a homemade twin screw vice.

When I started out in woodworking, I grew an interest toward antique hand tools due to their quality and often low price. I now have a large collection of my grandad’s carpentry tools, as well as many garage sale finds and tools from ‘The Traditional Tools Group’ of which I am a member. I bought a 10” table saw thanks to a member on woodworkforums.com for very affordable price which is by far, my favourite machine. I thought some of you may want to know that I store my recently built crosscut sled under the otherwise wasted space of the extension wing. From the same gentleman, I received a small dust extractor which I use with the table saw and bandsaw.

I bought a small drill press, bandsaw and scroll saw from a garage sale which have worked out well. A few of my grandad’s friends have donated their old lathe and an 8” grinder which serve me well. I bought a compound mitre saw from Aldi for constructing the stud work. It’s actually a decent saw considering its low price. Finally, I built a fairly large lumber rack which stores longer lengths of timber above and sheet materials below. My parents claimed the far wall for storage space as can be seen in the first photo.

Although I’m fairly tight for space, I think I’ve been able to pack a lot in and love how each tool has its individual place. My last year of school coming up in the next 3 months or so and I’m planning on building a slightly less complicated version of David Roentgen’s games table for my major timber project.
Hope you enjoy, Cheers!

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