RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

H5487,
 I apologize, I meant nothing by my comment and I was not trying to take away from you or your thread in any way.  I do appreciate what you are trying to achieve here, and I do the same all the time. My current "shop" is nothing more than a spare bedroom in our house and I am packed in like a sardine here. So I'm always dreaming about having a bigger and nicer place to work.

Once again, I am sorry if I gave the wrong impression. it was not my intentions.

Ken</p>

aerofly0610

My current work shop is a garage in the parking lot of my apartment. Not a lot of space and it gets COLD, but it works. 2 moves ago I had a nice duplex with a full basement. It was like a fat L shape. I took old doors and cabinet doors from my dad and made a really cool bench system with it. I had it wraped around 2 walls, doors on top for benchtops and I cut up the oak cabinet doors for shelving down below. I then made a double wide rolling table that matched up to the tables on the wall so I could turn it into a giant U bench or roll it away for a separate project. I had shelving along the other wall in the 'l' part of the basement. I separated this area with a plastic wall to prevent dust from getting into my other stuff. I had pegboard all the way down the benches. I put outlets underneath the benchtops. I was going to put in an air system but moved before that happened. I installed lots of overhead lighting over the benches. I also had a surround sound system set up for some tunes! I tied all the electrical wiring into a single switch that was on the ceiling as I walked into the bench area. When I was done I could flip it off and not worry about leaving an iron on (thus not burning the place down). In the '_' part of the L I had storage of other stuff and then under the stairs I put a work bench for computer repair. Being an IT guy everyone expects me to fix their computer! I had a router and switch setup which I then tied into the phone system and wired up all the rooms with Ethernet ports. It was as close to a dream workshop as I could get. I miss it dearly but Lord willing I may have something like that in the future.

I have a crude layout uploaded.

H5487

Ken,

I wasn't offended in the least and I know that you and some others were simply pointing out that pictures of other guy's shops are often helpful. (Which is true.) I was just trying to keep this thread from becoming a duplicate of the other "Show Us Your Workshops" threads where the focus resorted to guys showing us that they had 7,674,615 planes in their shops. Instead, I would like for this thread to be a repository of workshop design information for those like me who are looking to build a nice shop based on other's experiences. For example, I never thought of controlling all of my outlets with a single switch so I could easily ensure that everything was turned off when shutting the shop down for the night.

To put this thread in a model railroad perspective (my other hobby), think of it as a collection of layout ideas and plans, not pictures of guy's layouts.

Harvey

Insanemoondoggie

I.m not to good at making plans , something I would like to look into . Do you just use Microsoft paint or do you have to buy a program ?
One suggetion I would like to make , is have your building table so you can walk around it and have good lighting over the top of it. Also I would set up some way to exhaust the fumes to the out side .
Well try and post some plans of my shop. Be fun to learn something new.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

The three most important things to me are:

1 - One table firmly attached to a wall (with the legless design) for attaching a vise to - one mistake I made originally with mine was I made it too wide, I thought a nice wide table would give me lots of room, but it made it difficult to reach the items on the peg board behind it!

2 - A second, free-standing table (Preferably on wheels) so that you have 360 degree access to whatever you're working on.

3 - Lot's of good lighting!

dignlivn

My building table is on wheels and when i'm
building a wing over 70 inches I lay my
interior door on part of it. That gives me about
11 ft. of area 30 inches wide. I too have a dedicated
circuit on my outlets. turn off the switch and if I forgot
to turn off something it's off reguardless. I use 4 lights
2 of them are movable hanging types. Stereo and tv
come in handy also, not to mention a heater and fans.

Bob

Lnewqban

RCKen,

I have read a mention to you in Model Aviation magazine of December regarding your help to re-organize a club: my hat if off to your effort.

Your bathroom layout interests me, because I am in a similar situation.

H5487,

I understand your point; however, I don't believe that pictures and even videos can harm this thread.

Flat layouts don't show spatial details, and they may have been hard to understand for many of the RCU readers.

All threads get pushed around a little, and it is at to the moderator to make it come back to trail.

flyingvranch

I have a 20x24 shop buit onto my home just for model building. After 37 years or so of building planes I have developed a few ideas that might help others. I too looked at the other threads with interest, as I am somewhat a shop junkie anyway. The re-occuring theme is always not enough space and half finished airplanes are sitting around getting dinged and/or forgotten. I am certianly guilty of this myself frequently, and even with my big shop I still damage my projects with hangar rash.

My main interests are large scale planes. These take up a lot of storage room after they are built. My main fault in designing my shop is not designing a dedicated area for storage. I have resorted to storing my finished planes in my RV outside.

As far as workbenches go, each person has their own ideal bench design in their head. I went through several designs over the years and noted the advantages and disadvantges and I have finally came up with my ideal bench. (for now anyway) I have perimeter benches running around the exterior walls that serve as building stations. An example would be a pin board area, a saw/sander/drill press area, electrical soldering area, etc. I feel that it is important to get these benches dead flat and level for accurate building. Take your time here when constructing.

I have a large 4x8 island bench in the middle of the shop that serves as the main assembly area and a general catch all area. On large planes I find it VERY helpful to be able to walk around the plane to build and especially for eyeballing dihedral angles and such. I also have a dedicated electrical service to the shop room. I have outlets placed every 3 feet around the entire room and also incorporated into the main center bench, for a total of 62 outlets! Believe me they all get used too.

Sanding dust currently goes everywhere till I build a downdraft sanding box. The electrical assembly area has it's own 12v power supply setup that I copied from my club field charging bench. I can charge several batteries at once and my soldering station has all the necessary supplies at hand such as solder, flux, shrink tubing and the like. I have a small cheap moveable vice to hold hot things and use a small piece of tile as a heak sink. Hardware storage is an issue that I have yet to resolve. Plane parts come in all shapes and sizes and can take up a lot of valuable shop real estate fast. I'm still looking for ideas in that department.

My shop is heated and cooled via the house air conditioning system. I do infiltrate the house with dope fumes occasionally which I rather enjoy anyway. Wifey has learned to enjoy it also or so I am told. The only problem is that we can't remember each other's names anymore....

One other issue of must have's is an exterior door if possible. I thank myself each time I carry a large plane out to my landing strip here at the ranch. Being able to fully assemble a plane in the comfort of your own shop and then just walk out and fly is a luxury that I am very grateful for. But just having a exterior door is very important. I hope these tips help a few!

AA5BY

I've enjoyed this thread about what to consider when building a new home and incorporating this hobby into the design. The thread is much more than what a model room looks like because quite frankly, during the planning of the construction the layout and furnishing of the room doesn't seem as important to me as the other issues like the relationship of the room to airplane storage, outside access, easy access to a lavatory, adequate closet or cabinet storage, proximity to shop equipment, and such.

The room will take care of itself after construction of the house is finished, but the other issues will then be somewhat fixed in place, so, forget the room for now other than having lot of plugs and lighting and a size that suits your needs.

If your primary aircraft storage will be the garage ceiling and walls, then the room should be adjacent to and have a three foot door minimum between it and the garage, better yet would be double doors.

As noted in the above post, there should also be an outside door to the back or side yard. This will allow taking a project to the patio for planing or sanding, or easy access to an outbuilding and shop equipment.

There should also be a half bath adjacent with a laundry or bar sink.

If possible, have access to the room through a hallway in the house rather than having to go through the garage.

Last, a fairly large walk in closet with lots of shelves would be ideal.

I know, this sure seems like a lot of doors and no wall space left. Consider the hall bath and closet in the hall on either side of the access to the house to eliminate two doors into the model room. That leaves three, one to the garage, to the outside and to the house.

Last, if an outbuilding is not in the works because of codes or space... consider adding some space to the garage for some shop equipment.

H5487

Excellent Stuff! Thanks for your tips and ideas!

Harvey

aerofly0610

@ Flyinvranch that wood work is awesome! Did you do that yourself?

flyingvranch

Yes I built everything in my shop including my shop and home as well. I enjoy dabbling in woodworking from time to time. Thanks for the compliments!

I had another thought about shop layout and location. I am fortunate that I can build any outbuilding that I need. But I decided against putting my shop in a detached building. The reason for this is that I spend a good deal of my spare time in my shop when I'm not involved with my ranching duties. We have no children, so safety concerns in that department are nil. My shop is connected to the rest of the house through a doorway leading into the pantry/mudroom and then on into the kitchen. This way I can be in the shop and still be involved with what's going on elsewhere in the house. Pets can wander in an out and the wifey does not feel like a shop widow. I think that this is very important for harmony in the household. Many times she will wander in the shop to watch TV and hang out with me instead of staying in the living room. It seems to work very well for us and certianly recomend this to others if they are able. The down side is that dust does occasionaly get into the house, but I usually just shut the shop door before I sand etc. Also when your wife sees nearly all of the thousand hours or so that you have put into the construction of your latest plane, she tends to take the hobby more seriously, instead of looking at them as silly "toys".

Just food for thought.....

jbarnes

Funny you should mention that. I had the basement to myself and two years ago finished the basement and created what I felt was the ultimate hobby room. I then created the ultimate craft area in the same area as my Man Cave. We got a nice radio, heated and air conditioned, well lighted and comfortable for the two of us. We have our two areas but yet can talk and enjoy each others company. Even my wife thinks its the best feature of my new Man/Women Cave. Jerry.

aerofly0610

Most people will roll their eyes at this, but I want to be a carpenter like my Savior. I'm an IT guy by trade (currently Telecom) and was a B-52 crew chief in the USAF. I love working with my hands,,, fixing things or creating things. I am not artistic at all. I hope someday I can make beautiful wood items like tables, desks, cabinets and sell them. One of my Uncles did as you did, flyingvranch, built 2 houses and did all the wood work himself. He even made bed frames and dressers. Everything looked like it came from a hollywood mansion! It was just so amazing! I'm currently in an apartment complex and the landlord allows me to use my garage as a hobby workshop, but I'm not allowed to have any heavy duty tools (electric bill). So someday I hope to do like you and my uncle did, build my own house and create amazing woodwork!

Daddyo57

My Feedback: (15)

I Love all the "Man Cave" pics here and great ideas about the benches with room under for storing big stuff!!!! great ideas here! someday I want a room for just building my RC stuff, maybe when the kids leave and after I build my wife a sewing room, but not before!! LOL I have been promising her a sewing room since we got married... My garage serves double duty for everything but it is working so far... I need more ceiling room for storing airplanes though.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Harvey think vertical when you lay out your shop. Often you see a shop crammed chock full of stuff just above waist high, and nothing but empty space above it all.

I went with lots of cabinets, many floor to ceiling as going up verses going across saves more room for more stuff. I added the multi drawer storage cabinets on top of all the short cabinets for small part storage. Also staging your equipment as to how often it's used will help out too. Stuff you will only use once a year doesn't need to be out taking up space.

And make your big tools double duty, like a table saw, look at all that room under it. Add a shelf or small cabinet to it and you have storage for every spare accessory for it, saving room say in a cabinet or hanging on a wall. Drill press, mine has a set of racks attached to the back of it to hold all my pipe clamps, again using wasted space for good storage.
My sanding station stores my jig saw under it. Same size platforms, allow one to be swapped out for the other in the top spot. If I'm in a hurry I can use either no matter where they are. Bandsaw holds a small shop vac under it, easily removable for hooking up to any of the other big power dust makers. Planner and jointer both have hook ups that dump the debris right into a plastic garbage can. Wheel out the unit, hook up the hose to the can and go for it. Lid for the standard plastic garbage can got swapped out for tornado style woodworking lid. Hook the shop vac to it (it has a real long hose so most of the time I don't even have to move it) so dust collection is handled by the vac, and bigger debris go in the can.

Build bench due to constraints is nothing more then a cheap flat panel wood door on a pair of saw horses, real easy to store it away if need be. I may go with a pulley set up so I can just raise it out of the way, so if I'm in the middle of something on it, I can just raise the whole thing and all is safe and secure.

Good that you are pre planning your shop, that's what I did. I used what I had on hand and what I plan on adding to lay out mine. Not bad if I say so myself, 2 car garage holding 8 big cabinets, 5 multi drawer units, rolling tool chests, build bench, one shelving unit, major stand alone tools for big stuff, air compressor, 5500 watt gen set, garden tractor, couple ladders, full sized washer and dryer, house a/c unit, sink, refer, 17 r/c planes on pvc pipe racks, and still have room to fit my quad cab truck and wife's car in there if need be.

Bright white walls and ceiling help reflect lighting, and epoxy coated floor make it look nice and clean. Thou adding muti colored sprinkles to the floor finish tends to make finding something small you dropped a real bugger.

Having everything up against the walls, and going vertical leaves me a lot of open space in the center for the bench to sit, and all kinds of room to work around what ever is on it.

For power to the bench, I went overhead with a retractable power cord set up. If I need it I pull it down, if not it's up and out of the way. Have multiple wall outlets for stuff needing power and not involved in what's on the build bench.

Oh yeah, I did mention the refer for beverages, also have a/c and heat, running water, stereo, sat tv, and bathroom is just across the the hall.

Garage door allows for big stuff to come in and go out, my largest bird has a 9 1/2 foot wing span, and the two newest ones to be built this winter will be just as big so lots of room will be needed for them. And a floor to ceiling pull curtain can split the shop for doing paint work on one side and other stuff on the other side.


Next up for me is to knock a hole in one wall to install an exhaust fan to help with fumes from painting and such.

H5487

Glacier,

That's a lot of good information. Thanks! Some of it I already knew but you also added some new ideas into the mix.

Harvey

H5487

One feature that I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet is a hanging blueprint file rack. These can be found relatively cheaply at Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, etc. One could also be homemade.

A hanging blueprint rack would allow plans to be stored unfolded and unrolled. It would also allow someone to hang new plans to allow the curl (or folds) to diminish before starting on a new build. And plans stored in such a way would make it easier to locate a specific plan. The best part is that a hanging rack takes up only wall space, and not floor or workbench space. (Glacier Girl will appreciate that!)

Harvey

Mods-R-Me

My Feedback: (1)

I haven't been on RCU in a while, but thought I should show a few pics of my shop. I scratch build and CNC cut my designs, so it more of a rapid prototyping area. Here's a shot of my CNC mill, lathe, and almost complete CNC router. Composite aircraft will be flying out the door a record speeds once the router is done. The entire shop is plumbed with copper piping for compressed air and 35 outlets are distributed throughout via conduit/50A sub panel. It's not as impressive as Min's "MANLAND", but it is "NERDLAND" for me.

42etus

My Feedback: (2)

Nice!! I'm in envy of all the CNC goodies. My only comment; having the air compressor (or anything else for that matter) in front of the electric panel is a violation of the National Electrical Code.

Prairie Mike

oh my, the electrical code cops will be after him.
or..............................he could tell 'em to shove it. It's his shop.

Now don't be politcially correct aqnd respond to this supposedly humorus reply. It's the holidays, enjoy

Nice shop by the way.

daven

My Feedback: (1)

Air conditioning and heat are musts, and I would suggest going overkill rather than under. People think of the cold up here in Minnesota, but I get just as much enjoyment out of that big 22,000 btu airconditioning unit in the wall of our garage.

I like pegboard on the walls, but I noticed the standard brown chip color just seems to absorb shop light. If you put some up, paint it white first, really helps reflect light and just seems brighter. Also, don't run the peg board all the way up to the ceiling, especially if you have to lean over a bench to get to the peg. You can find out that the top half of your peg board is unreachable without a step stool.

when setting up my garage workspace (nearly 800 square foot 3 car garage), we added a seperate sub-panel for the electric with a 50 amp breaker on the main panel. This made it easy for the Heat breaker, Air conditioner (220volt) breaker, additional lighting, and running extra outlets through conduit and exposed boxes. For a workshop, I like the conduit, as its easy to modify later without ripping out walls and cheap and easy to install. I ran two sets of wires with breakers for all of my electrical, so that the left side of each 4 outlet box was on one breaker and the right side of each box was on a seperate breaker to help break up the load.

the biggest suggestion I can give, is to keep the stuff you actuallyl use frequently in places that are convenient, and the stuff you break out once or twice a year up high, or tucked under in a cabinet somewhere. Good labeling of bins and cabinets is also very helpful, and if you can keep common items in the same area. I have one pretty good sized cabinet where I keep all of my paint, chemicals, airbrush, masking tape, primer, sandpaper, etc.. in. I know if it has to do with paint, prep, or chemical, its in that cabinet. Once you get use to your setup, its much more efficient.

With lighting, you may want to look at both flourescent and possibly track lighting. I have some track lighting that aims light directly on certain areas (band saw, main work table, vice, etc..) I like the track light, but the bulbs seem to give off a bit more heat than the flourescents. This is nice in Minnesota, but may not be advantageous in Texas.

Good luck, can't wait to get a new work shop going. Mine is sitting vacant, waiting for a RC modeler to look at my house...

Mastertech

My Feedback: (31)

1. Light with T8 lighting.

2. Run 3 times as many electrical outlets as you think you'll need.

3. Floor outlet under the main workbench

4. HVAC a must have.

5. TV, DVD, Stereo, Fridge required

6. Several building boards that are fixed and a couple movable

7. Figure part bins that you'll need then triple it.

8. Dedicated Cabinets for paint,glues and electronics.

9. Wood storage rack

10. Covering storage rack

11. Down draft sanding table

12. Wing and fuse racks as far away from the main building boards as possible.

13. Kit storage racks same place.

14. Peg board (Slot board is better but far costlier) from 4' to 6' above that or below is wasted space.

15. Saws and sanders on roll around stands.

16. Keep one wall behind the main building board open for hanging plans for the current build.

17. Shop vacuum.

18. Fans

19. Shelves running above the peg board to store stuff.

20. Tall rolling chair.

21. Document stand to hold instruction manuals to read them easily. Staples about $5

22. Heavy masking tape dispenser.

23. Cabinets everywhere you can think of to hold tools.

24. Decide where you want to charge at and add electrical outlets there.

25. Computer.

daven

My Feedback: (1)

I've been doing this for a while, and just saw a great suggestion that I wish I had seen 10 years ago.

22. Heavy masking tape dispenser.

Mastertech

My Feedback: (31)

Always seem to need the masking tape while you're holding something. Heavy lets you pull the tape with one hand. Good ones can handle several rolls on the same dispenser.