Help me rearange my shop-Gorilla arrives Tomorrow!

[Larry Browning]

The Gorilla will be on my front porch tomorrow! Even though Oneida will do my duct design, I think I really need to rearange my shop before I send the layout to them. I have spent several hours with Visio drawing my shop layout. I really need some help/ideas, because I can't figure out how to do this.
The Shopsmith and Planer are on wheels, everything else is stationary.
Thanks

Larry

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Hi, That looks llike a great shop with a LOT of room. One concern is the location of the DC in the same room as the water heater. Unless you provide for return air back into the shop you may force air up the water heater flue unless of course it's electric.

[Ken Waag]

Larry,

Nice shop. Bathroom and a fridge? When do I move in?

Seriously you've got lots of space so the options abound. The only specific thing that struck me is that you may want a stationary spot for the planer so you can have a permanent DC hook up to it.
Are you planning to run duct at the ceiling? Or do you have any below floor access?

Ken

[Andy London]

I would probably move the fridge to the room with the desk and put the cyclone on that wall. Although I have mine in a seperate room, I may as well remove the door, even with a 20 X 24" opening cut in the wall, I still generate negative pressure in the main shop with the door closed, so currently I just leave the door open a bit.

The initial idea was to keep any dust and noise out of the shop but the unit works so well, as it should, there is no dust put back in the air and as for noise, it isn't that much louder than my air filter. At the moment, I run it 90% of the time I am in the shop with a 6" gate open, it seems to keep the air very clean. With my former single stage, I had the high quality aftermarket bags but there was always a small leak and I was sonstantly cleaning the bags to keep the CFM up at the hoods....in short a mess I wanted to hide, thus the DC room. I had no idea a cyclone would work like it does.

I did try a filter in my return hole in the wall, just to cover the opening and baffle the noise, but there was too much resistance from the filter so I have a buddy that is a blacksmith making me a nice grate.

Good luck.

Andy

[Frank Pellow]

That's a great shop Larry.

Your machine placement looks good to me and I like the fact that the dust controller will be in a different room than the machinery. I assume that the drop for the mobile planer will be out in the open area to the right of the doors and below the table saw (in the diagram).

[Rich Konopka]

Wow Larry, that is a real nice Big shop area you have to work with.

Have you considered clustering your machines closer together? For example, the joiner and planer can be located back to back. The router table moved next to the tablesaw. Are there any new tools in the future? where would they go.

Think of how you work and create work zones which cluster the activities so you do not have to walk back and forth. For example, Consider moving the final assembly area next to the finishing room.

Keeping the machines closer together will save you money and increase the efficiency of the DC because you will have fewer and shorter runs. Also, it will reduce the area you have to clean up in the shop if all the machines are in the same proxmity.

Thanks for allowing me to add my 2 cents.

[Charlie Jones]

Thats a nice space. I would get lost. I agree with Andy about the seperate room. I added a closet on the outside of my building for the cyclone. I insulated it with R-19 and made a baffle air return. I checked the noise level with a meter and its running 74 DBL at the TS. All I can hear inside the shop is the air rushing into the pipes. The most usefull way to run pipe is down the middle of the ceiling. That way you can can move drops around easy. I used 6" S&D pipe
and did not glue it. This is a view of my closet with cyclone installed before I put the door on.

[JayStPeter]

Larry,

That's a nice size shop. I like the layout as well. I enjoy having the TS, miter saw, and a bench as a little work triangle.
The only thing I'd change is that I'd make the planer more permanent. I'd put it next to the jointer and make a surfacing station with DC drops. You may even want to consider swapping the TS and jointer so it is closer to the lumber rack. Make sure to leave some room for a small table to set lumber on while being surfaced. I just drag my little portable assembly table over.
Also, when I did my duct work, I considered future purchases. I always have a list of things I know I'll eventually buy. I left some wyes in the system that are capped off. It'll be easier to add drops later that way. I already know where I'll put future drum sander and lathe purchases

Jay

[Larry Browning]

Thanks for the input. I will answer a few of the question asked so far.
I do have a crawl space under the shop so I was thinking I would run ducting to the TS and jointer under the floor. The bandsaw is on the wish list but I wanted to at least plan for it. Oh, yeah, I think I will add a spindle sander to the mix as well. Where should that go?
I was thinking that I might move the miter saw to where the lumber rack is, move the lumber rack to where the shopsmith is and the shopsmith to where the miter saw is. Also I kinda like the idea of swaping the TS and jointer and then adding the planer next to the jointer. Since the shop is pier and beam I would like keep the heavy equipment over the center beam.
More later, I gota get back to work.

Larry

[mike malone]

larry..that is a shop gloat!!!
Most of us are working in a space the size of your finishing room.

congrats on the gorilla, let us know if it is a US motor. BTW you'll need 2 helpers to set up the yellow beast when it arrives...(don't ask me how i know this)
good luck, mike

[Michael Gabbay]

Larry - my 2cents...


I would run the main line straight across and then branch for the far wall somewhere after the table saw. I'd run a dedicated line to the table saw and maybe share a line between the jointer and planer. At least you could run a drop there with 3 gates - TS, jointer and planer which would be non-dedicated.

Onieda did my design and had a bunch of good suggestions. You can ask them to try to keep costs down by having shared lines between machines. I generally don't need dedicated lines except for table saw and miter saw. But my shop is much smaller so I need to be flexible with space.

Nice shop!

Mike

[Ken Waag]

Larry,
I don't know if you are still looking for ideas but check the layout below.

Iwould run under florr at least to the TS and Jointer. Nothing worse than a drop in middle of open space.

[John Miliunas]

Good lookin' shop, Larry! Actually, the shape mimics mine to a great degree. Hence, a recommendation or two. For starters, your idea of moving the MS is a good one, because to get DC going to it from where the Yellow Thing will be would require some pretty extreme turns. I would not, however, put your lumber storage clear at the far end of the shop. Keep it where you'll be doing the bulk of your processing, otherwise you're just making more steps for yourself for each process, including offloading when you get the material in. Then, it appears that from your main double doors to the fridge, you have in excess of 30'. Why not consider putting your jointer and planer back to back perpendicular to your TS? With 30', you'd have plenty of infeed/outfeed room for 13 or 14' boards and how often is something like that processed? (Unless you're making many, many feet of trim molding.) I would then take the workbench and put it on the outfeed end of my TS, especially if it's the same or a little lower. Even though you have an outfeed on the TS, you may be surprised at how handy another table beyond it may be when running extra-long material. Oh, and I don't mean to butt that up to your outfeed table. Leave room all the way around it. In planning for a BS, I would also consider making accommodations for it closer to the TS/Milling area. I don't know what your intentions for a BS are, but I find myself using it a LOT for assisting in the processing of rough lumber. So, why not keep it close to that action. I'd probably put it on a mobile base where the tool cabinet currently resides. Move the tool cab over enough for it and you should still have the room you need for your miter station. And, with both the tool cab and BS on wheels, you can still process extra-long material on the miter station if the need arises! Also, I would probably put the other massive chip-maker (router table) in the area of where you currently show your jointer. Two reasons: 1) If at the same height as your assy. table, you have extra support for long pieces. 2) As stated, these things create a LOT of chips and this placement would get you more in-line and closer to your cyclone. As for sanding equipment, they primarily produce finer dust and I have found the keeping them at the end of the DC run is OK, so that is where I'd locate those types of machines. Plus, those are more in-line with the refinement steps of the building process and not always used, so you may as well keep them a bit more out of the way. Basically, my recommendations are such that you're creating more of a "loop" or circle of routine processes and saving yourself many steps. That's a BIG shop and if you can alleviate redundant steps, you'll be saving more energy for doing the fun stuff!

[JayStPeter]

Ken/Larry,

I liked my 6" jointer in that position relative to the TS, but not my 8".

Ohhh to have that much space to play with.

Jay

[Andy London]

Oneida announced this morning they are keeping the Baldor motor, for those who are waiting I thought you would like to know....smoking deal as these motors alone retail for over $500.00 USD on the net.

http://www.oneida-air.com/news.htm

Andy