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Lou.......And I'm leaving town for eastern VA. Too bad, maybe another future trip down I-75 we could meet up.Originally Posted by Lou Stags
Rather than photos, I think the better answer would be to make a pdf out of my Cad drawings to give you an idea. Gimme a couple days to get to it. The cad dwgs I have are cluttered with a mountain of detail that makes them illegible to anyone but me...
Kent
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
Member
Looking forward to the CAD drawings and a future meet up!
Contributor
How about above? A floor vent above? A forced air floor vent, not connected to ducting on the bottom might work? Hmm.. I don't know about fire code though, since it would permit flame and smoke between levels. Perhaps others here may be more informed. I'm a simple sparky. :-)
One can never have too many planes and chisels... or so I'm learning!!
Contributor
Workshop.pdfWorkshop.pdf
A bit of an explanation is in order..................
In the city of Atlanta, there are many residential neighborhoods very close the the "big city" buildings. Generally, they were built beginning 1920. Our house was built in 1925-ish. In those days, virtually nobody had a legitimate basement included when they built the house. However, some later came back in and excavated for a basement - but they had to stay back from the house foundation, because it doesn't go to the depth of the basement. The remaining fill material was enclosed with cinder block walls, and capped with concrete. Even so, basements are reasonably unusual to find from the 20's to the, say 40's.
So - the blue cross-hatched sections are block walls capped with concrete, of varying heights from, say 30" - 48". You will also notice that, during the basement retrofit, they saw no need whatsoever to even try to come anywhere near 90* at the corners, and they did not mind using steel support columns throughout. These berms have not really caused me much trouble. Behind the CMS infeed, they act as a base for lumber racks and the inevitable piles of off-cut pieces. Behind the DP and BS, the berm provides storage for stuff, but also made it easy for me to build a nice, long, heavy-duty runout table for the BS.
If I had a huge amount of room:
1] I would kill for a dedicated assembly area. My 72" x 72" table saw surface, and my primary workbench, are my finishing and assembly areas. I would kill three more times for a dedicated finishing room.
2] The aisles along the sides of the TS would increase to 30", but no more.
3] I would not change the spacing between the back bench, primary bench, and TS. Plus - FWIW - all 3 of those are the same height. The primary bench serves as an infeed for ply sheets and long lumber, and the back bench height allows for really long lumber.
4] I would, of course, not have the stairs coming down into the center-ish of the shop. If they were 3' farther away from the TS, then the jointer would come to the other side of the stairs.
5] I would not have the planer on wheels. This is not a really big problem.....they way I have it set up, I virtually never disconnect its DC flex hose. I roll it into place, connect it to the overhead power drop, and go. The DP gets used the least, and the planer is next on the least used, so its pretty much OK that they stack up on each other. When I say "least used", I mean that go to them less than the other tools. When I do go to planer, it processes a bunch of wood at one time, and then it's done. I can position the planer to handle boards up to 10'+ [as long as it isn't raining, because the driveway door is open for those bad boys].
My "typical" processing sequence -
> Lumber comes in through the driveway door, and goes to the racks mounted to the face of the berm block wall, under the CMS infeed.
> Onto the TS for inspection, rough layout, marking, etc.
> CMS cut to rough length
> Joint one edge and one face, if <8" or joint one edge then
> rip to rough width, and joint face if it started > 8"
> Plane to rough thickness
> stand on edge on the TS for 2 - 3 days to release the stress
> CMS final length
> rejoint one face and one edge
> plane to final thickness
> rip to final width
> joint ripped edge - maybe, depending on what I'm doing.
> detailed machining or glue-up
I don't have very far to go during this cycle. Which was my goal.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
Contributor
Sam.... Are those custom extension cords hanging from the outlets? I ask because I'm curious as to how you unplug the table saw when changing blades. I've seen similar setups where the female plug was on the end of a supported whip coming from a ceiling box, but never plugs at the ceiling.
Contributor
Joe,
The cords are hardwired in to the machines. When I change blades I turn the power off at the sub panel. The sub panel is a few feet away from the saw. I don't change blades a lot. I am planning to install a disconnect on all three machines. I have a disconnect on my compressor, and edge sander. It works out great. Eventually, I will have disconnects on all machines. The twist lock plugs work out very good.
Sam
Member
@Kent - Thanks for that layout diagram!!!
Member
Jim,
This is the tankless HWH that is being installed:
http://www.takagi.com/index.php?prod...=103&page_id=2
Contributor
Hi Lou, welcome to the Creek! A new shop!! Congrats. Ah, the fun begins!!
My shop is in a basement as well. I have 520 sq ft. I can only dream of having 10' ceilings though... My experience is that once I put a table saw in the middle leaving room for infeed and outfeed, and then a workbench with room around it, space got pretty precious. Mobile stands can be your friend...
The lally columns could present some issues for you with moving long boards in your shop. So, my first bit of advice would be to imagine about how you will work with large sheets of plywood and long lumber (8'-10'). I think this factor will have a large influence on where you position machines, having to allow for infeed and outfeed room. You may opt to break these down in another area (like the garage) before bringing those into the shop.
You may only have enough room for a single bench so when you layout your plans make sure you add a workbench with enough size to give you room to assemble, etc. Also, make sure you allow for some type of lumber storage. Sheet goods can take up quite a bit of space, even stored on a cart. (Here's where the 10' ceilings might really help you out allowing you go vertical with lumber and sheet goods.) Consider mobile flip-top stands for tools that you may use only occasionally. I have a drum sander that I plan to mount on a flip top cart with my planer. There was a recent excellent thread here on SMC with plans for a cart like this. This technique allows you to put 2 machines in the same foot print. While your walls are open, add more outlets than you think you need. You may consider using solid paneling of some sort vs drywall on the walls to give you more flexibility in wall mounted cabinetry, etc.
Good luck!
Member
Some great feedback Brian. Thanks for your response! WOuld you happen to have any layouts sketched up of your shop as I would love to see it?
Contributor
Lou, I don't have any sketches now. However, I might be able to take a few hours this weekend and work something up. Would be a good reference for me as well.
...Glad you didn't ask for photos... I'd have to clean the shop up to do that ..
Contributor
I set up my shop 4 years ago. I did a 30X30 addition on the side of my garage that I can still park a vehicle in. When I'm working on a project the vehicle gets pulled out into the driveway and that space becomes my assembly space, using 2 rolling carts. Some of the things I wished I had done differently or considered include the following.
The floor is concrete, I wish I had planned on some sort of softer and easier to clean material in the shop side. I do have the 3X3 foot interlocking mats on the floor but it's hard to roll machinery around on them.
My electrical outlets (some 220V and mostly 110V) are 52 inches off the floor (good) but are spaced every 8 feet (bad). As mentioned put your outlets every 4 feet.
All of my electrical is in conduit in the walls. I have since added a considerable amount of machinery to my shop which means adding the required electrical service has been a pain. If doing it again I would surface mount all the electrical.
Due to the aforementioned electrical service issues I have added multiple 220V drops from the ceiling. I also use twist lock plugs. It works well for me. I have added extra long cords on the machines to eliminate the need for extension cords. The plugs are hanging at 7 feet from the floor.
My compressed air system and dust collection are all mounted on the ceiling. I wouldn't change that at all. I considered putting dust collection in the floor, but decided that was too inflexible. IMHO that was a very good move.
I did not use drywall on the walls, but did on the ceiling. I installed 7/16 beadboard, painted white. The beadboard is screwed to the wall studs so I can remove it if necessary. This allows me to just drive a nail anywhere to hang things.
I also added a french cleat all around the shop. This serves 2 purposes: it acts as a moulding to hide the upper joint of the beadboard, and allows a very strong hanging rail for pegboard and cabinets.
I copied the idea from Norm's cutting bench, with the chop saw, removeable panels and radial arm saw. I did put drawers under it, and the storage is very valuable.
I wish I had a separate room for the compressor and dust collector, just to isolate the noise.
I also would love to have a separate finishing room. I do set one up in the shop, using sheets of plastic and some fans. It would be nice to have something more permanent.
Good luck, and remember that when you build a shop you're only just getting started. I look at the pictures from 4 years ago and there is no comparison to what that same space looks like now.
Wood'N'Scout
Contributor
Lou, I'm going to sound like a broken record here because I've said this over and over here on the Creek. I could give you all kinds of advice about what I've done, and what I had to change, and what I would "like" to still do... But the best advice I can give you is to visit as many peoples' shops as you possibly can to see what others have done...what will work for you, what ideas you could borrow, etc, etc. If you end up taking ONE thing from 5 shops (not items of course...IDEAS...jeesh, you wouldn't be welcome ANYWHERE if you started taking stuff...) you'd be 100 times better off than if you try to do it alone. Heck, even after visiting other guys' shops, see if you can get any of them to come over and give you their two cents on what they would do for your shop. Most of us are willing to do this sort of thing for a sandwich or beer. If you were closer, I'd invite you over, and if you wanted me to, I'd come over to brainstorm with you. Hope you find some "helpers". At this stage of the game, adding things is EASY. Once the walls are up...not so much.
I drink, therefore I am.
Member
Lou,
One small item to check before you put a closet around your electrical panel. Make sure that meets your local code. Here in Oregon we can't hide the panel in a closet.
Contributor
I presume that was the weekend of 10/8 & 9 that you were referring to, but you are welcome to stop by my shop any time you are passing through Chattanooga in the future - just let me know and I will PM my contact info. I have not figured it all out by any stretch of the imagination, but looking back I have come a long way in the past couple of years.
Paul
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