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Thread: My new workshop

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    51

    My new workshop

    I needed a new workshop. Simply put, over the past 40 odd years of working in wood, my tool compliment, hand and machinery, has grown along with my passion. The new shop will be my fourth incarnation of my passion for recreating 18th and 19th century furniture, and hopefully be my dream shop. My partner and I started looking in earnest for a new house. Two criteria were critically important. Firstly the house had to have character and history……lots of it, and secondly I needed to create a new workshop.

    Months of searching ensued. House after house, we looked, we schemed and were repeatedly disappointed. After about six fruitless months, we came upon a small country town in South Africa called Swellendam in the Western Cape. What a gem. Oak trees lined the wide streets. Karoo architecture everywhere, a working museum, a berry farm, exquisite Langeberge mountains, the Breede River, and peace and quiet. A far cry from the noise and bustle of the southern suburbs of Cape Town where we currently live.

    Swellendam is the third oldest town in South Africa, its beginnings were in the mid 1700’s. It is steeped in colonial history and we fell in love.

    Our house was built around 1860, thick mud brick wall and sash windows. In the kitchen we have a firewood stove. A dream come true for both of us. And best of all, enough space to create my workshop.

    Dismantling the old shop proved to be a monumental task, why do we collect 2” off cuts of wood that we know we shall never ever use? I realised that I would need to revise my layout and storage systems dramatically, if the move and installation was to go smoothly, and to enable me to get up and running in the shop in a short period of time.

    Plenty of drawings, trawling through my FWW collection and the internet and copious amounts of tea later, I had a plan! I based my system on a standardised 600mm wide by 500mm deep by 800mm high cabinet on castors. Machines are all bolted on to the 32mm countertop material, and each cabinet has a different internal configuration, depending on the mounted machine.
    List of basic 600mm wide cabinets for the Machine Room:
    1. Router Table Workstation
    2. Mortiser Workstation
    3. Bobbin Sander Workstation
    4. Scroll Saw Workstation
    5. Leigh Jig Workstation
    6. Drill Press Workstation

    List of special cabinets for my Machine Room:
    1. Lathe Workstation
    2. Mitre Saw Workstation
    3. Table Saw outfeed table
    4. Metalwork bench
    5. Grinding and polishing Workstation
    List of special cabinets for my Bench Room:
    1. hand tools (floor standing parallel to workbench) 2000mm wide by 600mm deep
    2. assembly and finishing (two tables 1200mm wide by 1200mm deep roll around)
    3. clamp racks (All wall mounted in finishing area)
    4. Computer workstation (As far away from dust as possible)
    5. Small woodburning stove to heat the bench room in winter and to burn my mistakes… maybe I should get a much bigger one!!
    6. Wall mounted cabinets x four, with glass doors. These are mainly to hold my FWW collection for easy reference and my burgeoning collection of woodworking, period furniture history, and reference books.
    7. A roll around cabinet 1400mm high fitted with numerous drawers for hardware, fittings, screws, dowels and the like.

    My partner came up with a gem of an idea, put more windows in the bench room, so I will have four large sash windows for natural light. Bless her! From the Bench Room there will be double doors leading into the machine room. All lumber will be stored vertically in the Machine Room.

    The Bench Room will have a wood floor over half of the area for the main bench. The rest of the room will have its concrete floor painted in grey epoxy. Much easier to clean spills that inevitably happen in the assembly finishing area.

    All the lighting will be fluorescent with specific angle poise lamps at the drill press, lathe, Leigh Jig and router table.

    The air compressor and the dust extraction system will be located in a separate outside cubicle, which I shall sound proof with Illsonic acoustic tiles. The dust extraction and compressed air will be piped overhead throughout both rooms. The electrical reticulation will be somewhat over the top, but I have learned rather to have too many electrical outlets than too few.


    In a corner of the Bench Room will be a stainless steel basin and hot and cold running water.

    All walls will be painted white, as will the open roof trusses.

    So far, I have built all of the cabinets, dismantled my current shop except for the dust extraction and packed all of my power tools and hand tools.

    I am rather loathe to let a removal company move my machinery, so I shall be doing it all myself.

    I am new to the forum, so if anyone has clever ideas for my new shop, I am all ears!!
    Last edited by Tobias Lochner; 11-01-2013 at 6:10 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Great Falls, VA
    Posts
    813
    Tobias, welcome to SMC! Sounds like your plans are very well thought out, indeed.

    David

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Lewisville, NC
    Posts
    1,359
    Tobias,
    Welcome to the "Creek". You will enoy your visits here.
    Sounds like you have your shop planned out very well. Will look forward to pictures of the process/progress in the future.
    Oh, You have a great first name! It caught my eye as it is not real common.

    Jim Tobias

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Leesville, SC
    Posts
    2,378
    Tobias,
    Welcome to SMC......
    Now we need pictures of that house and shop.
    Army Veteran 1968 - 1970
    I Support the Second Amendment of the US Constitution

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Deep South
    Posts
    3,970
    Welcome! Of course, we would like to see pictures of your shop when it is finished.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    51
    Thanks for the hearty welcome!

    I shall dig out a few pics of the old shop and post them and then will update on new shop as I go. We take occupation at the end of November and then windows, painting etc has to happen first though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Von Bickley View Post
    Tobias,
    Welcome to SMC......
    Now we need pictures of that house and shop.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Ft. Worth TX
    Posts
    27
    Welcome to the Creek Tobias. I think we're all on the edge of our chairs to see the house and shop. In the meantime, Go Boks!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    51
    Hi Justin thanks for the welcome. You guys are very lucky with the incredible range if tools and machines available in the USA. Although South Africa is a lot better in the range available nowadays, I imported stuff from Garret Wade, Lee Valley, Woodcraft and Incra because either we simply didn't have the product, or it was crazy overpriced. And now you have got a fantastic export from our continent in the form of Rory Harcourt-Wood. He started a company here about thirty years ago in his garage selling lumber. Now he is states based and is bringing in all our amazing African woods for you guys. His company is called Rare Woods. Support him and you will discover amazing woods.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Standish, Maine
    Posts
    325
    Tobias, I have meet Rory and have toured his facility in Mexico,Maine.
    Great guy to talk to and has some fabulous wood
    "So much wood - So little time ! "
    Past President Western Mountain Woodturners
    Past President Maine Woodturners

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    51
    Hi Brian, If you happen to see Rory again, please give him my regards. Hopefully you tried some of our great African hardwoods?

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    51
    extra router table 3 .jpgAdditions for new workshop. My third router table system. Upper left drawer has six rows of 1\2" bits and the right has four rows of 1/4" bits and a tray for table inserts, inlay bushings spanners etc. The cabinet is made from reclaimed packing crate plywood, maple edging and drawer fronts and the top is a laminate covered 32mm counter top offcut. The table will have lower dust extraction and fence extraction, mitre slot, angle poise lamp, a Router Raizer and will be fitted with my De Walt 625 plunge router. So, effectively I shall have one router (1/2") dedicated to my Leigh D4R, one router (1/4") in a milled cast iron table saw extension for the Incra Table Saw fence jointing system, one freehand Festo Router and the stand alone router table with the Dewalt 625.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    51
    This is a pic of my old workbench standing in my very empty bench room yesterday. It has a shoulder vise and twin independent tail vises. the vise screws are hand tapped from hard maple with a Beall threader (1 1/2" diameter). The bench is made from Boekenhout (Cape Beech) Hard Maple, Mansonia, African Paduak and African Blackwood. The entire maple sections of the bench are all hand cut dovetail and the Boekenhout centre block is biscuited together. Bench dog system is Veritas with Wonderdogs. Methinks I am going to build a new bench as well.......Gotta have a new bench for the new shop??
    old workbench.jpgAdditions for new workshop. In the backgroung is the uncompleted new wall unit for next to the bench. Drawers, shelves and cupboard doors to come in the next few days. All my frequently used hand tools sit in or on this unit and having it close to miy main bench means that I don't clutter up the bench itself whilst working. Fitted above this unit (already built)will be 2 metres of leaded glass fronted maple dovetailed wall cabinets to house books and periodicals.
    Last edited by Tobias Lochner; 11-04-2013 at 3:19 PM.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    51
    Wow!!! I have just done a conversion...... My bench room is 270 squre feet and the machine room is 390 square feet! Sound so much bigger than in square metres!!

  14. #14
    If the enclosed images are any example you quill have a show place of a shop. Your place sounds lovely, congratulations and a warm welcome to SMC forum.
    Best Regards,

    Gordon

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    51
    Hi Gordon. Thank you so much for your very kind words and hearty welcome. I am going to attempt to convert an Autocad layout of the new shop to pdf so that I can post it. I am all thumbs when it come to computers though!

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