Shop tour (warning: lots of pics)

Dave Noftz

Member
Messages
4
Location
Chicago suburbs, IL
Hi all,

I've been in the middle of a major shop reorganization the past few months, and I thought I might post some pics of what I've accomplished so far.

This first picture is the entrance to my basement shop to help you get your bearings. The staircase leads up to my kitchen. From this point, to my left is the main shop area, and to my right is the assembly area.

IMG_0350.jpg


So, turning left for here gives you a broad view of the main shop area. In the center, you can see the outfeed side of my Unisaw. I built my own version of The Wood Whisperer outfeed table. Built from melamine and cheap birch plywood from Home Depot, it weighs a ton and is as solid as a tank.

IMG_0351.jpg


Here's a closeup of my milling station. I set up some infeed and outfeed support for my planer, which really comes in handy. The shelves are used to store my handheld power tools. I'm running out of room on those shelves, so I'll have to come up with some alternate storage soon.

IMG_0352.jpg


Here's my dust collection system. It's a 2HP unit from PSI. I've only had this guy for about a month, so the bags are still shiny white. I used to use my shop vac as a dust collecter... man, what a difference! I set up a pre-separater for the jointer and planer. It is surprisingly effective. It catches pretty much all of the chips from these two machines. I used S&D PVC pipe for the majority of my ductwork. I have a 4" main duct that runs along the wall at floor level.

IMG_0353.jpg


This is my miter saw station. It is located on the infeed side of my table saw. I store all my hand tools and other misc. items in this cabinet. I finished building the cabinet, but I still need to add a raised countertop with a stop system... but I never seem to get around to it. Some day...

IMG_0356.jpg


The wall opposite the miter saw station will become my handtool area. As you can see, I'm in the middle of building myself a new bench. The base is done; I still need to make the top. This will be much nicer than working on my table saw's extention table, which is what I've been doing for years now. Eventually, I plan to move all my hand tools to storage cabinets and shelves on this wall. I sheathed the bare stud wall with 3/4" plywood and some 1/4" beadboard, so I should be able to attach things anywhere that I want on that wall.

IMG_0357.jpg


Here's another angle of the main shop area. I am standing next to the soon-to-be-a workbench.

IMG_0359.jpg


Now, if I turn right from the staircase, I'm looking into what will become my assembly area. Just a few weeks ago, this whole area was filled with junk. I built some storage shelves and moved all household storage to the back room of the basement. You can see the shelves on the far left of this photo. In the middle of the picture is my fancy assembly table. :rolleyes: At some point, I'll build something better, but for now, it's fine. I just wish it was flatter. I plan to put my sharpening station and a small metalworking area over here, as well.

IMG_0360.jpg


Here's my lumber storage. Shorts and cutoffs are on top. The green bins are for cutoffs, one for softwood, one for hardwood, and one for plywood. The bottom shelf is reserved for plywood. The rest of the rack is general wood storage.

IMG_0362.jpg


Finally, if I turn around at the lumber rack, you can see the storage I have under the stairs. This was my old lumber storage solution, but it was a real pain in the neck. Now I use it for general shop storage. Eventually, I'll build a clamp rack and hardware storage on this wall.

IMG_0363.jpg


That's it! Thanks for looking.

Dave
 
Thanks for the tour, Dave. (And welcome to the forum.) Man, you've got enough space to build a house in that shop. :thumb: Nice set-up indeed.
 
Nice shop. I envy the high ceilings and ample space. It's too clean though. Need to get some shaving spread around. ;)
I hope that's a lathe in the far right corner of the second picture.
 
Wow, look at all that space! And clean too.

Anyplans for controlling your humidity down there (we guitar makers are always thinking about the RH in our shops).

Great looking shop!
 
Great Shop

Dave,

I will add the same comments as the others---A great, wide open, shop. Yes I am also jealous.

I have the same PennState DC that you have. I works great. I did run 6" PVC all of the way except for 4" flex drops for each machine. All of my plumbing is above head height. I did put a very slight down towards the DC slope to all of my ducting.

My DC is "outside" in what we call the Outhouse so I didn't need the 1 mil bags. The Outhouse is a room attached to my garage.

Enjoy,

Jim
 
Wow Dave - I think you've redefined basement shops!!:thumb: Very well thought out and executed from the looks of it. "Major reorganization" is an understatement!

Nicely done - so far.

Wes
 
All I can say is Wow Dave. :thumb:

Do you actually use these tools? It all looks way too clean. :rofl: I think you need more stuff to fill up all that wasted space. :thumb:

Is ther any other way to get in or out other than the stairs?
 
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. I've had my shop in this basement for about five years now. It has evolved over time. Over the past few months I've gotten more serious about organization. Moving everything around gave me the opportunity to give it a good cleaning, but I do try to keep everything clean since I don't like tracking dust and dirt up into the house.

I am definitely blessed with a large basement. When we had the house built, I insisted on a full deep-pour basement. The results is a 1200 square foot space with 9' ceilings. About 20% of the basement is dedicated to household storage (there is a back "room" in the basement that I didn't show in the pictures), and I have slowly taken over the rest of it with my shop. :thumb:

Nice looking shop. How well does the overhead DC loop to your table saw work? I need to do something like that for mine.

My setup is pretty simple. In this first picture, you can see that I have a Y connecter and a 45 degree elbow that results in a vertical 4" branch off the main duct.

TS_ductwork_1.jpg


The vertical PVC goes about halfway up the wall. I used flex hose to connect to the ductwork that I suspended in the floor joists. I switched to flex for this section because I had some obstacles to work around. The ductwork in the ceiling runs over my table saw and ends in a wide 90 degree elbow with a short piece of ductwork dropping vertically downward.

TS_ductwork_2.jpg


Finally, in this last shot, you can see my 4" flex hose drop from the ceiling. I have a reducer on it to bring it down to 2.5", and a short length of clear flex connected to my Shark guard. It actually works really well... better than I expected.

TS_ductwork_3.jpg


Nice shop. I envy the high ceilings and ample space. It's too clean though. Need to get some shaving spread around. ;)
I hope that's a lathe in the far right corner of the second picture.

Ah, no lathe yet. Actually, I don't have a bandsaw or drill press, either. All three are on my list for future acquisition. I've never done any turning, but I'd like to have the ability to turn custom knobs, some decorative elements for furniture, tool handles, etc. A midi lathe might be in my future.

Anyplans for controlling your humidity down there (we guitar makers are always thinking about the RH in our shops).

Humidity hasn't really been a problem for me, but I don't build musical instruments, so my tolerances are bit wider. I epoxy painted the floor a couple of years ago, and that made a noticeable difference in humidity. I generally see around 35% humidity in the winter and about 50% humidity mid-summer.

Great shop Dave, I would love to have that much space. Now get it dirty.:D How do you get your big projects out?:huh:

You hit the nail on the head there. The big disadvantage of my basement is access. It can be a challenge to move sheet goods and heavy machinery down, and finished projects up. Even though I have the space for larger machines, I generally stick to smaller ones due to this issue. For example, when I bought my jointer, I was interested in a Grizzly 8", but I ended up going with a 6" jointer instead because the 8" was just too big and heavy to get down the stairs. Getting my Unisaw downstairs was an adventure that I'm not anxious to repeat.

If I'm building something large, I need to either design it in a modular fashion, or, if that's not an option, I can always do the final assembly upstairs as a last resort.

Dave
 
Dave that is an amazing space, with so much room, I'd get lost down there!

1200 square feet, man, I'm working in 1/4 of your space!

I hear you about getting down into your shop with heavy stuff, brother do I hear you! :D

The Bandsaw, drill press and a midi lathe will really round things out.

Welcome to the Family! :wave:
 
Top