Workshop Tour by DavidW

Random or Off Topic
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Here’s pictures of my ‘shop’.

Again… I’m trying to cram everything into 1/4th of a 2 car garage. I found this is a lot easier if the first step you take is buy the wife the smallest car you can find that will fit the whole family.

[95 new photos added to shared album] Garage 'workshop'

Looking through the pictures, you will see I have tools everywhere. When I actually do ‘real’ work, I have to spend the first half hour setting up all the tools. I back the wife’s car down to the end of the driveway, which gives me the rest of the garage and the top half of the driveway for setting up shop.

I wheel the table saw out to the driveway. Then I pull out bench-top tools as needed. Most of the bench top tools I end up using on the ground. Some of them I set on top of the table saw.

Right now if I need the table saw, then I set up two saw horses and have the wife help me lift the CNC machine over onto them.

If you look closely, you’ll see my old lathe laying on it’s side behind the table saw. I built the wooden mount so that it slots in to the grooves on the top of my saw horses. It’s a heavy beast, but I can just manage to move it around and get it setup by myself.

What you can’t see is that the table saw stand has two doors on the front. All my hand sanders and my circ saw live there, as well as a box I built for converting my drill press into a drum sander.

I’m a big fan of older tools. The lathe is a Craftsman from the 1950’s. There’s a large jointer/table saw combo made by Delta in the middle of the shop from the 1950’s as well. I still need to get new belts for it and finish refurbishing it.

Whenever we get around to it, we plan on building a storage shed in the backyard for all the yard stuff and bicycles. That will free up the rest of the wall for me to finish building out the workbench. The plan is to build another rolling cart for all the bench top tools with T-track to clamp them down. Somewhere along that wall, I’ll build an enclosure to mount the MPCNC into. I’ll probably make it big enough to wheel the table saw up under it when not in use like it is now.

I’ve thought about hanging the lathe from the ceiling when not in use. I still haven’t found a good place to try and do that.

I have a larger compressor by the garage door on the otherside… another one of those ‘older than I am’ tools that I have in my shop.

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Those are good ideas. Bicycles definitely take up a lot of room, and they can’t be packed in very well. There’s not a real good reason the CNC needs to be at counter height, most of the time. You are only working on it the 15 minutes that work needs to be inserted and removed. I was thinking of putting it in the bottom of a cabinet, near the floor, underneath a workbench. Having it at 48" off the ground would be fine too if it helps you store your table saw.

I wonder if it would help to build cabinet doors on those big storage shelves. You could use the outside to store some tools, still within reach, and they wouldn’t be able to be covered. Things like your cordless drill, a few screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, chisels.

I bet that power wheels is nice when you need to go get supplies though, huh?

Thanks for sharing. You have a nice set of tools. I’m most jealous of the lathes (there are two, right?).

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One lathe. I just talked about it twice.

That power wheels is a 6v car running on 12V. The front end bunny-hops when the kids first start going, and yes, I have ridden on it.

The Harley is a much better parts grabber. I have saddle bags hanging on the wall to the right I can throw over the passenger seat when needed.

I’ve thought about putting doors on the cabinets, but then that would require enough clearance to open the doors. I could do a sliding barn-door style, which I’ve considered too, but just haven’t taken the time to do it.

I wouldn’t try to hang tools on the doors. My dad did that, and when he would get pissed because something wasn’t working, he’d slam one of the doors a tad too hard and the tools would fall off… I have a bit of his temper :frowning:

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I like it, I think it follows my philosophy. Get the tools you need (want) and you will find a way to make it work in your space! I have rebuilt an engine in my dining room before, gotta love the old VW bugs.

The Car thing is actually pretty awesome. Leave room for the car, always clean that spot up, then you have an instant clean workspace when you need it, and a happy wife. The only downside is large projects that take multiple days I would assume have to be for her so she is willing to leave her car out until it is done!

Nice, pretty cool to see all the shops and how we do things. I guess I need to take some embarrassing pics of my own.

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I just assumed the stuff on your shelf was from the family (and therefore could just be closed in without ever opening it again).

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Hehe, I’ve been there too… hard to find space when you live on 25th floor of a building anyway…

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I’ve had the honor of living below a dude that rebuilt an engine in his apartment. Not sure what required it, but he was using a drift punch on something at midnight once. I whacked the ceiling and heard a “sorry” come down. Then a bunch of scraping and shuffling and the hammering started again, from the bathroom.

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My parents lived with a big-block engine with a sheet of plywood over it as their dining room table for over a year before dad finished rebuilding it. He’d work on it, and then when dinner time came, he’d throw a bunch of shop towels on it and put the plywood on top.

After dinner, he’d clear off the table and get back to work.

For as crammed together as it is, I do manage to get quite a bit done in there. A quick look through the pictures shows that I’m in to a lot of hobbies…

The motorcycle takes up quite a bit of room, but you have RC gear (boats, helis, cars, quads), electronics stuff, HT equipment. I’ve dabbled in speaker design/building. There’s boxes upon boxes of spare equipment for the reef tank.

The wife and I considered me renting shop space somewhere to have some real work space, but I think part of the charm of a home shop is how easy it is to go to it and dabble around at the end of the day.

Right now the entire shop has a layer of dust from the CNC. I really need to get some better dust collection or enclose the thing.

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As mentioned in another thread… We finally got a storage shed in the back yard. This freed up a lot of space along the wall and I’ve been slowly getting my shop more useable. I’ve added a few pics to the google album above. You can start to see a slow transformation in the space layout. I still have a lot of junk to get out of the garage and more shelving/carts to build for tools before I’ll be done.