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.
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’s outfeed table. Built from melamine and cheap birch plywood from Home Depot, it weighs a ton and is as solid as a tank.
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.
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.
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…
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.
Here’s another angle of the main shop area. I am standing next to the soon-to-be-a workbench.
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. 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.
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.
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.
That’s it! Thanks for looking.
Hi Dave:
That looks like a great shop…………..you’re too organized
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Did you just move in…….everything looks so new.
I like your extensions for your planer and the idae of the hand tool wall.. I see your worrking on your bench, what is the first piece of furniture you have on the drawering board……of course drawn fullscale.
Neil
Hey Dave,
Great looking shop! You’ve got a lot of space to work with. I enjoy keeping my shop as clean as possible as well (it doesn’t stay that way for along, but I try).
Keeping with the whole Christopher Schwarz / Opera thing, what kind of bench are you building?
-Craig
Great workshop and a great use of space
Having heard your podcast where you argue a bandsaw to be the first tool purchased, with respect to the argument for a table saw, I notice I do not see a bandsaw in your shop. Is it hiding somewhere?
As the owner of both tools, I would have to disagree with you on that point. I’ll take a tablesaw any day.
Hi all,
Sorry… I’m a little behind on responding to comments on this page.
Neil: I’ve had my shop in this basement for about 5 years. I just like to keep things clean. I’m a little fanatical about it.
Craig: I started building my bench before I read Chris’s book, so I missed out on some good advice. I didn’t design it to have the legs flush with the front edge of the top, and I wish I had. Oh, well. The top will be similar to the Holtzapffel, but with some minor changes.
Rick: I do have a small bandsaw; it’s not visible in the pics on the shop tour. I should probably update this page since I have moved things around a bit again. Personally, if I could only choose one tool to keep, I would choose the bandsaw in a heartbeat… and I don’t even have a nice bandsaw.
That’s my opinion, though, and others may not agree. That’s cool.
Dave
Hi Dave,
Just started listening to your podcast. The bench you’re making…. have you started on the top yet? I thought you might like to know how to get a perfectly flat top for very little money. I got my top when they installed new lanes at the bowling alley where I bowl. The pieces I got were twelve feet long and the forty three inches wide. The best part was they gave them to me for free! so I took two. Now if I ever get around to building a base……..
Hey Dave,
I just added the link to your shop tour from the Shop Tours page of the ‘Ol Dave’s Woodshop web site this morning. Your shop make’s mine look terrible. Shame on you! Never the less, my shop looks exactly like yours (in my dreams). I have gotten some new equipment that I have yet to post to my own shop tour but will get them on the web site at some point.
Right now I am flat in the middle of finishing up some new kitchen cabinets for our house. All the upper and lower units are in place and a new Corian counter top has been installed. I am just finishing up a pantry unit to mount and then a china hutch and roll-a-round island with a hard maple cutting board top is down the line. When that is all done, I’ll continue updating and rearranging my shop.
I must say, it looks like you have a good start on the new bench. I want one of these so bad I can taste it. I must have at least 10 or 12 different sets of plans for a bench and as you say…………….some day! Good luck with your site down the road, I think it’s pretty awesome!
Dave
Dave,
I am so jealous! My shop is not near as large as yours, nor is it as clean!
Sadly I have had to set up shop in an out-building on my in-laws property which is in fairly poor shape but at least it’s a place to let my tools rust! j/k
Great podcast. Love the fresh point of view. Keep upi the great work!
Pete Bretzke
Maple Valley, WA
Dave,
I am a new fan of your podcast. I really got a kick out of finiding out you invented the hammer. I thought I was the first to clean up a tapered leg on the jointer. There are hundreds of things my Dad taught me that I thought he invented
found out later they are just the way things are done right.
I have all the same tools you have except mine were all made in the 40s and 50s from my dad.
Your shop looks great. We don’t have basements in South Texas but we do put a priority on AC!
JB
Nice site , enjoying the podcast now and really like the site
I’m jealous… I have a to share an undersized two-car garage with our two cars. It’s a good thing I don’t have many tools! No, wait… That’s never a good thing!