New Shop Layout

[John Bailey]

I finally got around to doing a shop layout for the new shop. Since I'm waiting for good weather to put the walls up, I'm at the point that any good suggestions are very doable. You'll probably notice my shop will be a bit different because I want to keep the middle open for small boat construction. I've included some outlines of an 18' kayak and a 16' sailboat to see how they would fit. The kayak is a definite but the sailboats in reality will be a bit smaller with a 16' boat being the largest I would attempt in this shop.

Any commets, as always, will be greatly appreciated.

John

[Bob Hovde]

The Excel file didn't come through.

Bob

[John Bailey]

The Excel file didn't come through.

Bob

Thanks Bob, I'll try it another way. Do you know if, in general, Excell files do not work?

John

[Jim Becker]

John, Excel files only work if someone has an appilcation, such as Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice to open them. It's not a "universal" file format. Export the file as a JPG or GIF if your application allows you to do that. That way, everyone will be able to view your design.

[Don Carkhuff]

I followde the advice from a tip in Finewoodworking magazine about saving shop space. I really like it.
I placed my radial arm saw and long saw bench along a wall with the table saw perpendicualr to the middle of the radial arm saw bench. Bench top height is the same as table saw height. This allows you to rest 4 X 8 sheets on the radial arm bench while feeding stock into the table saw. 2 small gaps are required in the radial arm saw bench to accomodate the fence rails of the table saw. The ends of the table saw fence rails are flush with the back of the radial arm saw bench. You can see a sketch of this in back issues of Finewoodworking Methods of Work. I sorry that I don't remember the Issue #. My table saw out feed table also serves as router table and has bench grinder hanging under the top butis attached to huge bent strap hinges so I can flip it up to the outfeed table top when I need to use it. This outfeed table also has storage under as well. Consolodating these tools like this occupies a small footprint. For kayak building, I have block and tackle hanging from the ceiling to hoist projects close to the ceiling whenever a new project requires the space occupied by the kayak and forms.
To the left of the table saw, I placed my jointer with an auxillary fence attached to the jointer's fence. The top of this auxilary fence is the same height as the table saw surface. This allows support of long boards when crosscutting.
Storage is under the radial arm bench and space between table saw and radial arm saw bench.
Hope this is helpful.
Don

[Doug Shepard]

.... Export the file as a JPG or GIF if your application allows you to do that....

That was my thought too. But I looked on Excel here at work and it doesn't look like that's an option. It DOES let you 'Save as Web Page' though. I tried it with a regular spreadsheet and it seems to work fiine. Not sure how well it works for the type of thing John is trying to upload and even if it works, there wont be an embedded pic in his message. I think it will just show up as a file or link.

John - there is a roundabout way to get a JPEG though. Open your Excel file and view the layout. Then open up whatever JPEG photo editing software you have and create a blank new file (leave Excel running). Click on Excel on the taskbar and then hit Alt-PrintScreen. That will put an image of your Excel window onto the clipboard. Click back on your photo editor, then from the menu do an Edit->Paste. You should then have a JPEG image you can edit down for size, pic quality, etc. Note: Unless you crop it out, you'll also get all the Excel application junk showing up in the pic, but it's better than nothing.

[John Bailey]

Thanks Doug and Jim,

As always, the Creek has very smart folks that you can rely on when you get a little confused, which seems to happen more often these days. Although it took me some time to figure out how to do it, I changed the file to jpeg and it is now on the original post. A bit blurred, but I think y'all can make it out. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

John

[Jim Becker]

LOL! Interesting shop "accessories" there in the middle, John...

[John Bailey]

LOL! Interesting shop "accessories" there in the middle, John...

Jim,

Just wanted to see if the future boat construction would fit, with at least a little room to wonder. Of course, I may have to lose a little weight before starting to work on the boats.

John

[David Fried]

John,

I was reading Don's posting about the radial arm saw and the table saw but I can't find the tablesaw in your shop picture. Is there one? Is it under the sailboat??

Otherwise, I really like the open center and the general layout. Can you tell us more about the Dulcimer bench?

Thanks

Dave Fried

[Keel McDonald]

John,

Good

[Keel McDonald]

John,

Good looking shop. Good luck with the boats. Very ambitious projects. Hope to see some pics in the near future.

[John Bailey]

David,

I've spent 20 yrs. building dulcimers, kayak paddles and a dingy for my sailboat. I've never had a tablesaw. I've gotten along fine without it. Since everything I make has curves, I don't plan on getting a tablesaw at this point. I may change my mind later.

The Dulcimer table will just be a 5' workbench dedicated to keeping a dulcimer in progress. There will be space above for hand tools and jigs that are used in the dulcimer construction. Same thing with the Paddle bench. I'll keep a dulcimer and kayak paddle going while I'm working on whatever boat I'm going to build.

[Dan Stuewe]

one problem...once you build your kayak in that wonderful space, you'll have to cut it into pieces to fit in your finishing room! (of course then you can just weld the pieces back together - oh wait, that was from a story from college about a car manufacturer executive's repsonse to the request for bigger paint booths! )

Have fun with your toys. My only suggestion is to make placement of them flexible so in a few months or years, you can change things around.

[John Bailey]

Dan,

As you might suspect, the finishing room is going to be for smaller projects like the dulcimers and paddles. As far as flexibility, all the big equipment is going to be mobile so I'll be able to move them if the boats get in the way.

John