So my crowd funding campaign to get the new workshop and tools went up yesterday.. I smashed through the goal today which means I'm officially getting a nice workshop packed full of tools.
I had a look at two units today, one was a bit old and shabby - the other is pretty much perfect for what I want. It's a bit too big but gives me room to grow into it. The main floor is about 3600sqft (mixed office and workshop), with 2800sqft of mezzanine area (will be perfect for my spray booths, laser, finishing, stock storage).
My main concern is the amount of supports the mezzanine has - there's not a lot of gaps between them. I don't really work with sheet goods so I'm not too worried about how awkward it will be to move a 8x4 sheet around.
The spacing between the support columns is about 4m x 3m - or 12ft x 9ft (the gaps, not centre to centre). The previous tenant was selling bolts and fittings and such, so I'm guessing they had pallets of metal bits and bobs up there and needed a really high floor loading.
There's a spot I can fit an 5x10 or 8x4 cnc router if the campaign continues to do well (still waiting on a newsletter to 75,000 readers next week making mention of it) and I get the funds for a chinese ATC, its not ideal but it would give a clear run through from front to back if I did put sheets of stuff in, or full bed jigs.
Pictures of the mezzanine:
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Bay door to the left of photo. Stairs to the right. Big CNC would go next to the stairs in line with the bay door.
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The boxes on those pillars are the 3 phase - two already installed right where I'd put the compressor and dust collector room.
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From corner of the unit, through the doorway is the office.
It looks like it was a pretty expensive mezzanine to install, I'm hoping somewhere it might have some load ratings or I can see if it's possible to pull down the middle row of pillars?
Tools wise on the ground floor, i'll be looking at:
Table saw (duh)
Big drill press
Lathe (mostly for goofing off with)
16" bandsaw
mid sized compressor
smallish cyclone to start with, a friend wants to help me build a large one (video for his youtube channel)
jointer/thicknesser combo
89" belt sander
mitre saw which will need about 12ft on one side of it
router table
somebenches, probably down draft, for sanding and hand tools. I don't do a lot of work with hand tools - chisels are for removing double sided tape for me, i don't own hand planes, or nice saws, etc...
Any thoughts on how those tools would work with the mezzanine supports and spacing - is it a blessing or a curse? I figure it's going to be super handy for dropping dust collection, air lines, power etc.. but not sure how its going to be detrimental to workflow.