Hand Tool Shop - How Big?

[Jake Hillestad]

Those of you that run a strictly (or mostly) neander-shop, I'm curious what the footprint is. I'm in the midst of deciding whether or not it is worth doing a little basement demo and reframing the shop area in our new home or if I can live with it as is. The lady of the house assures me there's no need for change . I'm interested in the following and any other thoughts you want to throw out there:

1. Where is it located (basement, shed, garage, etc)?
2. How big is the space? How'd you land on that size?
3. What type of work do you do? Do you find you wish you had more or less space? Different layout? etc
4. What would you change? What would you add? Anything you have that you feel is a waste of space/time?
5. Pictures more than welcome.


Fire away gents.

[Kees Heiden]

My current shop is in a 6 x 3 meter garage. It also contains a motorbike, a small tablesaw and plane/thicknesser combo and a metal working bench. So, it could have been much smaller. My previous shop in the shed was only 3 x 2.5 meter. So the current one is spacious to me.

The handtool area contains a workbench, a sink, a metalworking bench and a cabinet full of tools made from old kitchen cabinets. Perfect!

[James Pallas]

Your tools and bench and work area around the bench doesn't take up much space. When you start putting together a project and getting it off the bench so work can continue is when problems arise. If your building dressers and dining tables you need a lot of room, at least double the space of your tool and bench area if your building boxes and picture frames not so much. my space is enough for my bench and tools. If I build something bigger I toss the car out of the garage for a while.
Jim

[Jim Koepke]

1. Where is it located (basement, shed, garage, etc)?
&2. How big is the space?

25'x25' two car garage.

How'd you land on that size?

It was there when we moved here.

3. What type of work do you do? Do you find you wish you had more or less space? Different layout? etc

Most of my work is just for enjoyment though some of my projects have been sold at the local farmers market. My shop stores most of the tools for my various types of work. Garden tools, auto maintenance tools, electrical and plumbing tools have their homes in the shop. It also stores some lumber, hardware and a lot of other things.

Less space? Is there really anyone who would want less space?

4. What would you change? What would you add? Anything you have that you feel is a waste of space/time?

My hopes for future additions are a bigger bench and a better tool storage arrangement.

jtk

[John Vernier]

I'm in a 1 car garage, 26ft x 10.5ft, and I have some machinery: an old Unisaw with a small outfeed table/router table, 14" bandsaw, drill press, 36" lathe on stand. I use a lunchbox planer which stows when not in use, and I don't have a power jointer at the moment. My workbench is 8 ft long and most of my hand tools live in a full sized chest on the floor, with a lot of storage shelving hung high on the walls. I also share space with the lawnmower and other garden implements, ladders, my bicycle, and too much lumber stacked against the walls. If I didn't have the machinery, the space would be big enough for me to have several large furniture projects sitting in the shop at once, with plenty of room to manouvre. As it is, floor space is a bit tight if I don't exercise some discipline, but that's my problem to manage. I hope to build a garden shed to store some of the extraneous stuff and some lumber, then I think I could tackle a kitchen build without tripping over cabinets. I might be able to take some more pictures later, this is what I have ready to post:
Tool Chest (M2 file) 013.jpg

The floorspace needed for hand work is really quite small. I would recommend trying to work in the space you have before knocking out walls.

[Bill Houghton]

If I could talk myself into getting rid of the tablesaw, and didn't do all the other non-woodworking maintenance on the estate (plumbing, electrical, cars, etc.), I could probably be quite happy with hand tools in my 11 by 11 foot shop.

[ken hatch]

I'm in a 1 car garage, 26ft x 10.5ft, and I have some machinery: an old Unisaw with a small outfeed table/router table, 14" bandsaw, drill press, 36" lathe on stand. I use a lunchbox planer which stows when not in use, and I don't have a power jointer at the moment. My workbench is 8 ft long and most of my hand tools live in a full sized chest on the floor, with a lot of storage shelving hung high on the walls. I also share space with the lawnmower and other garden implements, ladders, my bicycle, and too much lumber stacked against the walls. If I didn't have the machinery, the space would be big enough for me to have several large furniture projects sitting in the shop at once, with plenty of room to manouvre. As it is, floor space is a bit tight if I don't exercise some discipline, but that's my problem to manage. I hope to build a garden shed to store some of the extraneous stuff and some lumber, then I think I could tackle a kitchen build without tripping over cabinets. I might be able to take some more pictures later, this is what I have ready to post:
Tool Chest (M2 file) 013.jpg

The floorspace needed for hand work is really quite small. I would recommend trying to work in the space you have before knocking out walls.

John, not to hijack but....I really like your English bench.

ken

[steven c newman]

Working in Dungeon Shop.......90% hand tool.

[ken hatch]

Jake,

My shop is in a standard two car garage with a small (6'X10') tool room attached. I do mostly hand tool work with sometime lumber prep by the machines. In the shop are two 8'X2' work benches, one 6'X20" sharpening bench, a large floor tool chest, wall mounted cabinets and tool tills, lumber stores, 3 hp dust collection, 8" joiner, 18" band saw, 20" planer, a floor mount drill press, and a 3hp cabinet table saw. In the tool room is a mini lathe, my grinders and a Tormek, the saw sharpening vise and station, and a large standing mechanic's tool chest.

A photo looking from the left side of the main bench, part of the tool chest's lid is in the foreground. Not in the photo is the drill press to the right and the sharpening bench to my left and the lumber stores.



Would I like a larger shop? Sometimes while working on large pieces but 90% of the time not so much. About the only thing I would really like to change is the overhead door. Carriage doors with a door and windows would make the shop almost perfect.

ken

[Malcolm Schweizer]

My current shop is located downstairs in what was originally a second sitting room. I have a zero lot line house with ground level openings on both floors due to being built into a hill. My shop has an exit door to the street, which is convenient.

My house was built to fit the lot, so it is not square. I hate that. It makes layouts difficult because corners are not 90 degrees. My shop is 16' on the long wall, and the opposite wall is 14' long. The side walls are roughly 12'- I think the short one is 11' and the long one 12'. It's a bit too small even for handwork because I use really long wood and build surfboards and boats. The boats are built on the porch or at another shop that I have access to.

I'm trying to buy the house next door, which is 24' by 32' and it would be a dream shop with all sorts of blasphemous power tools! If it were just a hand shop, I would say my dream hand tool only shop would still be fairly large because of the boats. I need 20' length minimum.

If I could change my existing shop, I'd make the darned thing square- but that's impossible since it's 18" thick stone wall construction. If I had 14' by 16', that would be beautiful. When we bought the house, the plan was that the master would be my shop, and this room would be the master bedroom. The master is roughly 16x17. Wifey was all for it until she realized how cool that master bedroom was, and that it looked out over her patio garden, and I lost.

When planning your shop, start with the workbench, then figure where the tool storage would be, then plan it so that you have at least 3' all around your bench. I'd call that a minimum. That means 3' to any obstacle, like a drill press or a tool storage unit- not 3' to the wall.

My $.02

[John Crawford]

The lady of the house assures me there's no need for change .

"Darling, what I'm most concerned about is noise and sawdust. I think with a little framing, it will keep everything contained in there much better." Perhaps drop some shavings around the house before this.

[David Eisenhauer]

I have a 24'x26' free standing building I use for my shop. I have lots of power equipment that I am slowly getting rid of and will have more room to spread out as this progresses. My shop's dimensions work for me as for running stock through the various machinery, but it is the third shop I have set up and was aware of a few inches here and there on equipment placement being difference makers. As stated above, the problem lies in space for assembly/glueup with larger projects, and in my case, shutting down the shop for woodworking on spray-finish days. I have always been glad I did not have a basement shop with the requisite carry in/carry out issues, plus the lack of natural light and ventilation through windows and doors.

[David Ryle]

16'x16 originally a farm blacksmiths shop,the remains of the forge and chimney are still intact. Mostly hand tools,also a table top thicknesser(aka 'the screamer..it's bloody loud)'a band saw and an old table saw that I use exclusively for ripping lumber and to be honest I should really give the thing away it sees so little action.

[John Vernier]

John, not to hijack but....I really like your English bench.

ken

Thank you! I like it too. Very straightforward to build and I haven't found much it can't do.
I took a few more pictures of the shop today so you can see most of the workspace. Not that it is a perfect exemplar, but I think it shows that a lot can happen in even a fairly modest space. My great shame is the stack of lumber in the first picture, which takes up the spot where a piece of furniture being built ought to sit. I will have to sort that out...
shop2.jpgshop3.jpgshop 1.jpg

[Joe A Faulkner]

I can't answer from experience since my shop has power tools as well as hand tools and from time to time I use sheet goods, but what would I want in a hand-tool only shop?
In no particular order:

1. At least 14' of wall space for a lumber rack. When I go to a mill, I generally buy 30-40' of something that I won't use right away and another 30-50 of something I need
2. Room for a 8' x 2' workbench with no less than 3' of clearance on all sides.
3. Room for an assembly table or second work bench (currently a 3' x 5' bench that doubles as an outfeed table for the TS). It could be against a wall, but I'd like to access it from at least three sides.
4. 8' or so of wall space for wall mounted tool cabinets, saw tills, clamp storage
5. A sharpening station
6. Room for a couple of saw benches
7. Room for a stool, trash can, shorts bin.
8. Natural light and lots of it.

You get the idea. Think about what you want in terms of workstations and storage stations and the type of foot print they require. Make some rectangles to scale on graph paper of these work areas. Laminate with scotch tape and cut them out and then start laying them out on graph paper and see what configurations suit you. You can also spend countless hours browsing shop tours where you will find everything from guys with beams on the floor, to guys with 3' benches on apartment balconies to dream shops in fully restored, climate and dust controlled carriage houses, one-room school houses or inner-city factories.