The shop tour section of Badger Pond was a nice feature, I think it would be nice to have a shop tour forum here. You can get all sorts of ideas from them, plus you really get to know a poster.

I remodeled my shop in the early 2000's and built my workbench and shortly after it was done I posted a shop tour including this picture of my bench area. In the following years whenever somebody asked about my shop I posted this picture. In the intervening years major stuff has happened and I thought it was time to do an updated shop tour. I was going to do it next srping after I cleaned everything up but thought it would be more realistic to post it now. My normal pattern is to work in the shop all summer, garage sale junk all summer that collects on all flat surfaces, and then clean it up in the spring. So this is the picture I posted to show people my shop.

shoptour4.jpg

And here is reality as it stands yesterday afternoon, after spending about 3 hours straightening up a bit. My shop was built as a two car garage and has one functioning overhead door. My most used entrance is the side door but on a nice day like yesterday I open the overhead. My lawnmower is stored here, a rototiller that used to be my dad's that needs work before it will run, and I also store the bikes around the left corner. On the right beside the door is my Powermatic shaper on a mobile base, hardly ever used. I have cutters to make five piece raised panels. My radial arm saw is on this east wall with a long table, wood storage above it. Right now I have a bunch of barn wood from my grandfather's barn leaning there in front of the shaper with scraps from my day job in front of it.

1 open.jpg

In front of the door is my Powermatic 66 3 phase with inverter. Right now I have an old Craftsman saw in front of it that was given to me with other tools, I am not sure where to put it. Flat surfaces collect misc. stuff. I am putting all my tools on casters so they can be easily moved. I do not have room for any more major tools. The Powermatic table saw currently has table leaves on it that I am painting and misc. garage sale purchases, I may clean it off this afternoon.

2 saws.jpg

This is the east wall of the shop. Directly behind the dust collection pipe is my radial arm saw. I bought if for $100 and spent about $600 for a new motor. Wood storage rack is black pipe supported with 2x4's lag bolted to the wall. I have a large air compressor in the back corner. I built a small wall to hang jigs and fixtures on, and my dust collector is right behind that.

3 wood storage & compressor.jpg

This is the south west corner of the shop, misc. storage. You see the bikes here and some cardboard I have collected to store my saws for the winter. Behind that is a large shelf that holds all sorts of stuff, plane parts, electrical fittings, my grinder (currently not working) , extension cords, just all sorts of misc. storage. If you look closely you will even see a kitchen sink. My lantern collection hangs from the ceiling here. In front of the shelf is a rolling cart for misc. tool boxes and to the right of that is my shop built band saw that was given to me. Behind that is my combo sander that I bought for production of a specific run of measuring gauges and is really a handy tool. Behind that are walnut parts from an ent. center I dismantled.

4 misc storage.jpg

To the north of that is my sharpening bench and my grandfather's anvil, on the west wall. Also my Jet mini lathe.

5 sharpening.jpg

Further north beside my tool box is my fastener and bit storage. I straightened this yesterday, had boxes setting on the floor. I added the one organizer at the top which is still empty and the two wood shelves above it. The organizer is missing some drawers; I bought two of these organizers for $4 at a garage sale and put all the drawers in one and was still short 4 drawers. I figured I would buy the drawers on Ebay until I saw what people wanted for them. I imagine I could have my Stanley #1 plane if I had all the money back that I have wrapped up in this hardware. You see my crate of saws at the bottom front. Misc. tool storage to the right.

7 Screws.jpg

To the right of my bench, on the north wall, is my band saw and an old drill press (that needs a motor) on a rolling cart. The shop built lathe that was given to me is behind it.



Last is my bench area with tools on the wall behind it. I spend about $10-$20 a week on my stuff, and looking at these pictures it seems to have added up some. The original main tools were purchased for a cabinet business I ran for a while but all the misc. stuff was purchased with my allowance which is $45 a week and I pay for my gas out of that, so I have $10-$20 left over to spend.

6 bench.jpg