12x30 Workshop About To Become A Reality

[Jim Dwight]

I had a third garage stall added last year that is 14x24 - so not a lot different in size. I have a 9 foot garage door at one end an a 36 inch door at the other end + two windows.

I use 7/16 waferboard on the walls (mine are only partially done) that I skim coat with drywall compound and paint with cheap ceiling paint. The drywall compound fills the small voids pretty well and the paint brightens things up a lot.

I am at the other end of your plan for wiring. I have only two circuits in my shop. One 20 amp 110V circuit for tools and a 15amp circuit for lights. I put a few outlets off the lighting circuit in case I ever have to use them. I had the same sort of setup in my last shop and it worked well for me for over 10 years. I can only use one tool at a time and it is only me using the shop. I have no tools that need 220V or more than 20A. I kind of wanted a 220V for possible welder use but didn't have the wire run and would probably never use it anyway. My son has multiple welders and isn't far away. My outlets are about 4 feet off the floor. I have 6 cheap 2 bulb light fixtures with 60W equivalent CFLs that give me enough light. If I ever need more, I will use the larger 23W CFLs (100W equivalent).

I used to have a big table saw and used my workbench for outfeed support. I used the router table for infeed support. These days I use a track saw and don't need so much space for the table saw. I think the track saw/table saw combination is better - at least for me. I also put a 12 inch CMS next to my RAS on the same bench and they will share stops. I like doing angles on the CMS and wider straight cuts and dados on the RAS. My dust collection is a shop vacuum/dust deputy combination on a cart. I have a small DC but haven't hooked it up. I don't have space for both and need the shop vacuum for the track saw and smaller tools. It works fine on my Ryobi BT3100 table saw.