Shop layout ideas, long

Hi guys and gals.
The house that the LOML and I recently purchased has an unattached shop (stealth gloat!). Rough dimensions are 19' 2" wide with a 10' wide garage door installed, and 23' 2" deep. The nice thing is it has a separate power line from the pole to it's own breaker box, but the box will have to be upgraded. The back portion has a 3' 4" corridor the full width walled off. There is even a covered porch attached that is 11' 10" X 16". One of these days I will enclose the porch. If I get to keep it, it will be my assembly/finishing room. If my wife gets it, it will be a quarantine room for sick dogs that we rescue from time to time. Maybe that can be built to serve both purposes.
Knowing that I will probably out grow this shop, if what I read on these pages comes true for me as it has many of you, I want to build it it the most effecient manner possible. I will make my big tools (ie table saw, drill press, router table, and the future band saw) on mobile bases. But I want to run an idea past you for responses. For my bench top power tools (ie router/shaping station, CSMS, planer, sanding station, oscillating spindle sander, and combination belt/disc sander) I want to make one long wall of cabinets, with a, thinking out loud here, 6" thick torsion box top the full 23+ feet. In the very center of the wall, have a 3" wide section that is lower, and each of the benchtop power tools mounted on "boxes" that fit into this cavity so that the top is flush with the cabinet tops and therefore offering a full length on both sides for routing/shaping long pieces of wood, mitering long pieces of wood, well, you get the idea. There would be a built in fence at the back that would match up to the CSMS, and the router station would have a sliding adjustable top so that the bit can be adjusted to the fence, instead of the normal other way around. The top of this cabinet would also be at the same height as the table saw and mobile router table to use as an auxillary infeed/outfeed table as needed. My thought is to also have a couple moble racks that these different bench top stations would store in, that way the heavy ones (planer, CSMS, etc) would be at an easier height to be able to put into place to use.
Now the big questions....Is this too ambitious? Do you think that this would work, or is it something that sounds good, but in reality won't hold water? I am still thinking about an alignment system for the different modules and how they would fit into the cabinet. I would plan for both above and below cabinet DC hoses so that all would be covered, Heck most of the table top tools I don't even own, YET.
Thanks for reading this far. Let me know what you think of these ideas. If it is crazy, I need to stop spending so much time planning and go on about something that will work! Jim.

Jim ---
The big long bench is elegant. However, it might have a little difficulty with all those tools. The issue is that they have different depths (from front to back). For instance, my CSMS needs at least 30", while a typical sanding station needs 12" or so. That is, if you make the entire length of the bench deep enough for the deepest tool, there will be waste space behind all the others. Would it make sense to break the long bench up into deep space and shallow space?

One more thought... You mention putting a planer on top of this bench. Oh, my aching back! Lifting one of these supposedly portable planers is a bear. Back when I had a "portable" planer, it sat on a furniture dolly and got shoved around the shop, never getting more than 3" off the floor.

Jamie

Jamie,
One thing I left out of my description of the long wall design is to put a box window in right at that middle section, about 30 " wide. This would allow the deeper ones to stick out the back so to speak, and allow good natural light right at the specific work spot. Your are right, a CSMS needs the deeper space.
The sanding station I'm thinking about, separate from the spindle and belt/disc sanders, would be the top made out of peg board. I'm thinking 2' deep. by 2' 6" or even 3' would be fine for this. Jim

edit:Oops, left out one thing. Only one bench tool on the bench at a time!

Jim -

I like the idea of a long bench. I would give priority to the CMS (or RAS if you get one) in the prime (center) position. The router needs to have some room behind the bit so access is available for larger panels. Possibly put this in one of the deeper areas of the bench that you mentioned.

Don't think the sanding would be any easier mounted in the bench, so would have those on mobile bases.

And . . . DEFINITELY would NOT put the planer on the bench. That would be a back breaker feeding the thing. Understand your idea for longer support, but would consider a mobile base with swing up tables.

Different thoughts. How tall are you? I am 6'3" and the standard cabinet height of 36" is just too low for prolonged activity w/o back aches. So consider tailoring the height of the long bench to suit you. In the long run after you have run out a bunch of drawer sides on the dovetail jig or a bunch of mortises on the benchtop mortiser, your back will thank you.

Have fun with your new "gloat".

Regards,
Ted

My shop is about 24' x 36', overall dimensions in the bay we occupy. with it partitioned off with two smaller spaces on one end. The main shop space is roughly 24' square. my partner and I have separate benches, each is suited to his own work style and projects. We share the tablesaw and outfeed/assy table in the center of the shop.
My workbench was built in two halves, each with a torsion box as the lower shelf. It is about 12' overall length, which is a long bench to my mind, I can't imagine 23' of bench. The torsion box part of your plan makes a lot of sense to me however. Awhile back there was a plan in American woodworker , I believe it was, called the Ultimate Tool Stand. It was only 8' long, designed to be portable and have storage for a planer, SCMS, Router and I think there was a sanding table insert as well, all of which dropped into a central well similar to what you're planning. I didn't need the mobility, and with the elbow room I decided not to build the whole system, but the torsion boxes are excellent for stability and rigidity in my bench. I'm 6'3 and 350 lbs, and I can stand on top of my benches and they're rock solid.
Ted mentioned bench height. I made my bench so that it was 40" tall. I stood , held my hands out horizontal bending my arm at the elbow. Measured down from that and subtracted one inch. I will admit though that I spend a lot of time sitting on a lab stool at it, but it is comfy for me to stand and work at as well. I probably could have just stopped at one half of the bench, the other half tends to get piles of stuff on it most of the time, but It does the job.

http://www.woodworking.org/imagepost.../benchpic.jpeg

in mid construction.

Sorry

I have to say in a narrow shop you would probably find long permanent bench a liability. Maybe you could make 1 section say about 8' long that has kick down wheels & 2-4 sections on either end or all on one end end that have kick down wheels. This way you have some choice. The shorter benches will be handy to roll out & use for bench top tools as well as rolling project parts from machine to machine & other things. :)

I think that the idea of a long bench is a good one, but I suggest that you build it in at least three sections. This will make it much eaier to fit the benches into a new shop should you get one.

In my old basement shop, I had a wall about 20 feet long and I built three benches each 2 metres long (78.75 inches) to fit into the space. Now that I am building a new shop, I am planning to use at least two of the benches there. I could not have done so, had I built a single bench.

p.s. I also took one of the benches with me to Seattle and used it in the garage of the house that we rented for about 6 years. By the way, the bench also moved back with us.

Ned brought up something you may be overlooking, unless you are as compulsively neat as some of the WW mags. would have us think we are. Most of my horizontal surfaces seem to have an affinity for stuff, tools, finishing items, scraps before they go to the cut-off pile, etc. Even Norm has been caught on the web cam leaving stuff on his TS. One long bench as you discribe would have to be cleaned off before you could use any of it.

Frank, when are you guys going to give up on the metric system and rejoin us hethens in good old imperial English measurements?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cecil Arnold

Frank, when are you guys going to give up on the metric system and rejoin us hethens in good old imperial English measurements?

---

Never, I hope. :p I much much prefere working in metric. The problem is that Canada is only about half converted and a lot of the coversion is soft (for example, most paint comes in 3.78 litre cans) . Another bad example is building construction where most of the material is still in imperial dimmensions. Thus, I am being forced to use the imperial sysytem for the construction of my new workshop. :mad: