reorganization in progress

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Central (upstate) NY
While helping Ned build his shop, which seems wide open and airy at the moment with a really spacious 12' by 20' skylight, I wonder if my shop space could be arranged differently.

I'll add pics to this thread later as well as exact dimensions but wanted to mention a few general things to get my organization part of my brain working. At last count, there are 5 neurons that compose that part of my brain and 4 are down for maintenance with needed parts on backorder. :rofl:

The shop is a slightly longer than normal one car attached garage and is 10' or so tall. There is a set of fixed stairs to the basement in this garage as well as a set of folding stairs to the attic.

The major equipment that live in the shop are an RAS (my first stationary tool, a 12" turreted Delta 33-890, my pride and joy!), a floor standing drill press, a 14" bandsaw, a 6" jointer and the all purpose table (it serves as a workbench, router table and assembly table all as needed - it can also be used as a mobile or stationary support for the RAS) that is approximately 4 foot square. There is also a dust collector, a vertical tank wheeled carriage air compressor and two steel mechanics cabinets. In addition to the shop stuff, there is a shelf that is ~18" by 4' that holds some bench top tools as well as miscellaneous stuff like grilling accessories. The trash also lives in the garage in between trips to the dump.

The garage is attached to the right side (looking at the front) of the house. There is an entry door to the garage to the left of the overhead door - directly in front of the entry door is a half wall, behind which is the bottom landing of the basement stairs. So, facing into the garage through the front overhead door, on the left is the half-wall for the basement stairs. Along this wall are the jointer and bandsaw. Along the back wall are the mechanics cabinets and air compressor. Along the right side wall are the RAS in the middle, with the drill press to left and the work table to the right. The shelf and trash are between the worktable and the overhead door. The dust collector is in the corner of the back and right walls. Mounted on the ceiling to the front of the dust collector is the ambient air cleaner.

More to come later, including pics and dimensions.

Here are the pics! No dimensions yet, I was busy making saw dust and breathing in glue fumes to take measurements.

These were taken from just outside the overhead door and are arranged to start from the far right corner of the shop (taken from inside the garage) around to end at the left wall of the shop space - the door to the house is to the left of the plywood pile, not seen.

storage_area.jpg

long_wall.jpg

far_wall.jpg

half_wall.jpg

There is a wood storage area in a room (an enclosed sun porch thingee) accessed from the door to the left of the red half height mechanics chest. When that door is opened, the home for my Gorilla ladder (currently standing around at Ned's shop construction site) is obscured from view (the blank spot of wall to the left of the red mechanic's cabinet).

I'm thinking that just some organizing will be helpful. In fact, the only layout change I think that I want to do would be to rotate the storage shelf 0 degrees so that it clears the overhead door by only 4" or so. This way if (when... :dunno: ) the trash pile blocks access to the shelf I can pop the overhead and get what I need without playing (wife's words) mountain goat. (What's that? You say I could just move the trash pile out of the way? What kind of nonsense is that?! :rofl: )
 
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Sounds to me like you need to get your priorities in order. First off the Mrs can deal with the trash, that leaves you with more free shop time. No need to waste you time trucking it from the house to the garage and then from the garage to the dump when she can do it!:thumb:

Second NO TRASH should ever be allowed in any shop. That wastes room that new tools can be occupying permanately.:huh:

Trust me on this, I had this discussion with my wife and we came to terms on this...right before she left me and became my ex!! :rofl:
 
Hi Mark,

I'm with Travis. Move the trash outside.
Actually, I live in the country and we keep it outdoors in the usual barrels. When we have a load for the dump, off we go with the utility trailer.

I dunno about you, but I don't think I would last 15 minutes indoors with our trash. We recycle paper, glass, cans and anything else we can. That means that the trash holds only the rankest and smelliest of the household detritus. It ain't pretty.

PS - looking forward to a FWW visit.

Ken
 
Hi Mark

First thing I have to say is your shop has HUGE potential, HUGE..... but, you got to get it cleaned up and squared away. It is not a large space, but you do have a lot of height, and a TON of wall space, plus, you can roll stuff outside to work, a luxury I DO NOT have.

Think seriously about dumping a ton of trash first, this will give you room to think, then work out a floor plan, and then, build some basic cabinets for them walls, I'm so very envious of guys with lots of wall space, I guess I have WS envy..... :eek:

Keep at it, do a bit at a time, and you will be there in no time.

Here is what I went from in a couple of years of just banging away at it when I could sneak in an hour or two..........

shop4.jpg

In the beginning

dungeon_after.jpg

Same space a couple of years later......

Cheers!
 
Ok. My resolution for this weekend of shop decluttering is to put the new fittings onto the small twin tank compressor that have been sitting around for a long time and take it to the basement. I can always bring it back up later if needed.

I'm thinking that the first shelf should go between the broom and the door in the half-wall picture. I can go from almost the whole ceiling to about a foot and a half above the floor there (I have some hooks for bungee cords at that height now). I'll make a plywood carcass with screws and glue, and will pre-drill appropriate sized holes in the sides (two each side) and get some shelf holder hardware bits so that I can size the shelf heights to fit what I start putting there. I'll French cleat it in place. This should be able to get accomplished this weekend.

I am not going to plan on finishing the 5 1/2" "riser" platform for the planer mobile base so that I do not get overwhelmed. This will also let me decide whether to put drawers in the riser or just have it be a shelf. Perhaps the wall shelf will free up enough space so that if I make a drawer I can figure out how to use the PC dovetail jig that hasn't seen use yet. :huh:
 
No better time than the present

The small air compressor is replumbed and moved to the basement. I also put some tools away last night. Pics later after I return from my road trip that includes a stop at the nearest Woodcraft today.
 
Shop Shelf done!

Even with Saturday being consumed by Ned'sroofing and much of today spent playing with the new toy, erm, I mean, studiously learning about the use of the latest tool addition to the shop :rofl: (see my first lathe thread in the Vortex), I managed to get the shelf completed.

shop.shelf.jpg

As can be seen, I haven't yet had time to populate the shelf, but this can be done a few things at a time. Even if I only move 1 thing in the morning before work and spend 15 mins when I get home moving more, I'm sure I'll find some horizontal spaces soon.

Stuart, thanks for the encouragement.

Board, thanks for letting me post my goal and that I completed it.
 
Hey Mark, looks really good, I'm sure lots of little things will find a comfy home there!

Could be some of your last flatwork for a while :D :wave:
 
added some pegboard - a minor gloat!

Well, I had a raging migraine and/or sinus thing after work today that left me almost unable to make it home. :eek: However, after overdosing on some Excedrine and drinking plentiful amounts of fluids I noticed that I felt better walking around than laying down. So, of course, I went to Lowes to price some things for the pegboard I planned to install this weekend.

My garage shop has white painted walls - and the white painted pegboard at Lowes was $3 cheaper than the brown unpainted stuff. Also, they only had one sheet in stock. Since my headache was pretending to go away, I took this as an omen and bought the stuff needed for the project.

Here it is installed (in case the pic isn't clear, the 4' by 8' sheet is vertical between the two windows).

pegboard.JPG

The next projects for shop improvement will be making a rack for the turning chisels to mount on the pegboarded wall section, finishing the mobile base for the lunchbox planer and then getting the Ridgid OSS (with belt option) on a mobile base. Once the mobile bases are completed, I plan to move the drill press out between the bandsaw and jointer (so, among other reasons, it can be used as an outfeed table for either machine) and then the planer, sander and shop vac will be parked between the DC and RAS.

The level, large rulers and clamps might also get moved from hanging from the air cleaner to the pegboard.

Again, thanks for letting me post progress pics - it helps me stay motivated - it also helps to know I'm not the only person infected with the Packratum clutteridium bug. :rofl:
 
Mark,

You keep going, and you'll have to make an appearance on a DIY "Get Organized" show.....:rofl:

Looks nice, and I hope your "affliction" gets better soon....:doh::rofl:
 
Here's the pegboard with some stuff on it. And ... is that ??? can it be ??? a horizontal surface?!! Was I able to actually use the RAS??!! Why, yes, I was. :thumb:

lathe.chisel.storage.JPG

Ned was kind enough to come over and play with my new lathe so that I could focus on some shop improvement projects. I have substantially completed the mobile base for the planer. The back of the base is pictured below. The front is empty right now, awaiting a drawer to be installed. This will be my very first drawer construction, and I'm a bit nervous. I used some scraps of 1/2" plywood offcut that was given to me from a friend for the top and bottom of the drawer carcass - the stand is a HF BS stand. When I bought my HF BS, a friend had just finished building a homemade base for his, and passed along the HF base that I used on mine. I finally got around to assembling the base that came with my saw for this planer stand project.

mobile.base.back.JPG

After constructing the drawer for the front, I plan on adding some extra drawers along the empty side of the stand between the 3/4" plywood (previously enjoyed post-addition / remodel leftovers from my folks).
 
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I haven't made any drawers yet, but I am one step closer. Looking at the "cabinet" side of my in-progress planer stand, I figured it would be about the perfect space to set up the dovetail jig.

I used a bit of 2 by 6 left over from my reloading bench upgrade and got to use my new, green Ryobi Li ion tools for the very first time! This got zipped out in about an hour this evening.

dovetail_jig.jpg

Now I have one less excuse for not trying my hand at drawers.

...

And - my dovetail jig is now officially off of my shelf sooner than Ned's roof is up! :rofl:
 
Mark, you are on a roll. The shop is really starting to look great. Some folks shy away from peg board but I find it quite handy and have it in various locations around the shop.
 
improved on the dovetail jig / planer stand - new pics!

I actually finished the upgrade to my dovetail jig / planer workstation. Last week I added the dovetail jig to the planer stand. Upon further reflection, I realized that the dovetail jig would not properly work the way I had it set up.

So, I thought about things throughout the week and decided to make a hinged arm that can open up when the jig is in use, but then closes back up to save space when not in use, similar to the footprint of what I did last week.

Here is the basic setup of the work unit - first are dovetail side and planer side images of the unit folded together for storage of the dovetail jig and then is a picture of the work unit opened up to allow full access to the dovetail jig.

dovetail.front.jpg

dovetail.planer.front.jpg

dovetail.open.jpg

I also put in a stop to keep the unit closed.

dovetail.close.lock.jpg

There is also a stop to keep the unit open. I am not fully happy with this yet - I might wheel the unit near my workbench when I'm using it and tie it into my vise maybe.

dovetail.open.lock.jpg

The next time I have a goodly amount of shop time (looking to be two weekends from now) I plan on trying to use the dovetail jig for the first time.
 
I bought an EZ Smart system this week and got totally overwhelmed with "Where will I put all this stuff?" so I spent some time organizing the shop again.

First I rearranged my pegboard area to accommodate the new guide rails.

EZ.guide.storage.jpg

Then, after making a Smart table for the system, I made a place for it to live against my half-wall above the basement stairs and moved my planer / dovetail jig stand in front of the half-wall.

Here is what the half-wall looked like some time ago.

half_wall.jpg

And here it is now.

half_wall.2.jpg

Moving the planer stand freed up quite a bit of walkway space in the garage (which must be traveled through to get to the basement), which should make the LOML happy. :thumb:

I'm still not quite at the making projects stage of the tool collector - woodworker continuum, but I am making some good progress in the ability to make projects (i.e. shop organization).

I have to put away a little bit more detritus from the day, but am hoping that either next weekend or the weekend after I can make a drawer to go into the planer stand. Don't know what I want to store there yet, but I do want to use the space. The reason that space is there is so that the infeed / outfeed tables of the planer are coplanar with my RAS and do-all worktable.
 
I can hear the empty space below your planer calling out:

"drawer, drawer, I need a drawer"

Ken

This is going to be as bad as Ned's roof isn't it?

Your time is coming.....:rofl:

It does with everyone.

Mayhap my time is now ...

Good thing that I just zipped off three of the four pieces needed for the drawer carcass. I guess I should go back up to the shop and see if I can make them fit together. :huh: :dunno:
 
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