Workflow Designed Shop

[navigator7]

I don't believe it!
A new shop is on my horizon!!
Initially, my dream shop was going to accommodate two 18 wheeler style trucks but that era has come and gone.

I asking for input from this group for design features you would include in your new shop
...If your were to do it over?
Or....features you are truly proud of and would never do without?
Or...I really wished I would have done this:____________?


Here are my parameters/issues:
o One/two man shop.
o Including living accommodations for short term rental during fire season. (AKA Mother In Law Apartment)
o I'm requesting an experienced professional opinion of how much square footage is really needed to design/build a shop around a SB, moulder/planer, table saw, drill press and band saw?
o Type of work anticipated: Lithopanes, signs, trophies, 3D carvings, props, and custom moulding and widgets for custom home builders.
o A 60"x 90" SBot
o WX: Low temps of -20ºf to highs of 108º for extended periods.
o Snow: 1' to 4' and very hot and dry in summer.
o High winds and blowing dust at times. (Rural ranching and farming area)
o I don't see myself doing cabinets right now but if I did....I see big time assembly and finish space issues during extremes in weather. I need to be able to work year round.
o Terrain: 2 acres of relatively level virgin sage brush hidden from public view.

Here are the features I want in order of importance.:
o In-floor heat.
o Wood stove
o Insulated work area.
o Roof design that drops snow away from entrances.
o Extensive use of eves for shade and storage and working out of the sun.
o Windows...not the puter, the see through kind.
o Outdoor storage to protect from snow, water and sun damage.
o Hot and cold running water a bathroom with shower.
o An office to get away from noise so I can talk on the phone and still see the machine.

We just built a pole barn shop for a machinist/welder. In less than a month he discovered his workflow gets jammed up by poor design. (His, not ours). He is really frustrated with his new shop because his assembly area interferes with machines. (CNC)
I don't want this to happen to me. I call it Paralysis by Analysis.

What say you guys?

TIA

Chuck

[kartracer63]

I would add a spray booth to your must have list, and a separate sanding room.

[myxpykalix]

If you don't have the ability to draw up plans yourself try to get a architect to draw up some plans if you are incorporating some type of living space.

The first thing i would do is take my hand and stick it in my pocket, if it doesn't disapper all the way down to my elbows then you're pockets aren't deep enough for all you want to do!

Budget, more then anything is going to dictate your ultimate size of building. A few thoughts i would have are.
DO NOT build your building out of metal. It will absorb and retain both cold and heat far more then wood.
I was in an 84 lumber (pole barn type of metal building) and it was colder inside the building then it was outside.
If you have the budget i would do a wood building and spray foam the inside.

[navigator7]

Good one, Eric!
I've never used a spray both or sanding room.
What features make the space worthwhile?

I'm imagining the reality of all my tools covered with multiple coats of different projects .... murmuring all along I should have built a spray and sanding booth.

A work associate has a storage facility that used to be a barn/warehouse. He converted it with the use of movable partitions so storage customers only pay for space they use.

Would the creation of a spray and sanding booths be possible by the use of panels on rollers as needed???

Problem with heated floors is no drilling after the concrete is poured.

[chiloquinruss]

I have a high ceiling in my shop which makes for easy movement of all kinds of oversize objects such as . . . . .
Russ

[navigator7]

What is high, Russ?
8' seems low and unacceptable to me.

I'm thinking 14' is suitable.
With the right door...even a big rig or trailer could get in.

[michael_schwartz]

figure out what you need for flat work surfaces and double that number, and then add some more after its all said and done.

[dlcw]

Chuck,

Are your relocating to WA? The Wx you are talking about exactly mirrors my Wx in Newport, WA.

I went with a SIP construction shop 40x80. 8/12 pitched roof (100lbs. snow load) and 2 each 10' wide insulated barn style doors over a 20' wide opening. The eave walls (4") have an R30 rating and the gable walls (6") R36. The ceiling has 24" of blown in insulation giving me a R60+ there. The building is pretty air tight. Radiant floor heating keeps dust movement way down.

The building was completely open when constructed.

I've added a 12x12 office that has a 4'Hx6'W window that allows me a clear view of the shop. It also enables customers to see the shop without going in. For interior walls I used construction adhesive to secure the bottoms treated lumber plates of the walls. Walls are 2x4 construction with a layer of 1/2" OSB and T&G pine on that. With this method I can hang anything anywhere and not worry about hitting stud.

There is a bathroom with a shower stall and a floor drain.

There is a utility room for water heater, radiant floor boiler and other utility stuff and a floor drain.

The final interior room is a 14'x14' finishing room.

My ceilings (at the peak) at 16'. At the eave walls 10'.


8031

I have three industrial variable speed ceiling fans in the peak.

Lighting is 8' fluorescent fixtures with color correcting low wattage bulbs. I can power 8 8' double bulb fixtures on a 15amp circuit and standard house light switch. The are four banks of 4 each 8' lighting fixtures on the ceiling.

All outlets are on the outside walls and are 50" off the floor. I split my 400 amp service between two panels - one at each end of the shop. This save significant wiring.

One long wall has a 50' workbench (at 38" for my comfort) with full extension heavy duty drawers. There are a couple of workstations you can sit at with a stool.

I have 2 heavy duty workbenches and one dedicated perfectly flat assembly table. All these tables and benches are at the same height (38"). Eventually the assembly table will be put on a hydraulic raising/lower system to move projects to my height.

I have a large 10'Wx10'Hx14'L wood storage rack for hardwoods.


8032

I also have a space to store plywood:


8033

Hanging from the ceiling are 3 Jet air filtration units to help clean the air.

There is a room for the dust collector but once I've got the budget I will be putting a cyclone collector outdoors and free up the 8'x10' room that currently houses the dust collector. Metal dust collector piping! Helps grounding issues significantly.

The most important thing is to figure out your workflow for typical projects. Keep all your material prep machines located together. As with lots of small shops my tablesaw is the centerpiece. Around this I have machines positioned so that workflow is not restricted and flows smoothly. My sliding compound miter saw is normally located along a bench that also has my radial arm saw. It is fastened to a mobile cabinet that can moved to where I am working when I'm doing a lot of miter work. When done its cabinet rolls back to the long bench.


8034

The building has LOTS of double casement windows with film applied to help block some of the summer sun. Even in the summer I can open the shop up and put fans in the windows on one end and pull air through all night long. In the morning I close up all the windows and the shop rarely gets above 70 degrees - even on 100+ degree days. People ask if it's air conditioned. Nope.

Hope this helps a little.

Don
www.dlwoodworks.com (http://www.dlwoodworks.com)

[david_white]

Dust dust dust how to collect it how to get rid of it. If you plan to run moulding don't underestimate how much dust and chips you will generate. We blow ours directly into a dump trailer and sell it for animal bedding.One more thing no matter how big you build it you will always wished you had built it bigger.

[navigator7]

HI Don!
I'm in Tonasket just West of you a bit.
Your shop is what I had in mind.
Not quite as big.
Where is your Sbot in the foto?
My wife wanted me to ask you if you are going to The Spokane Home Show in February at the Spokane Fairgrounds.
She is looking for an excuse to get out of dodge...whilest I go visit you. ;-)

She wants me to actually see an SB up close and working before I $plunk$ it down.

You up for a visit from a former member of Uncles Sam's Confused Group?

USCG ;-)

Chuck

[navigator7]

Kripes....@ David,
I forgot to ask Don what he does with his waste sawdust.

You are right.

Dust dust dust. We live in a high wild lands fire risk area.
Two ways to get burned out:
Sloppy house keeping and mother nature.

The pellet making thread we had a while ago still has my interest.

Besides...sawdust is for saloons, not shops!

[bill.young]

If you use Sketchup there are 3d models of the various ShopBots in the Google 3dwarehouse, and just about any other kind of tool that you can imagine. A couple of ShopBotters have used them to model their ideas for floor layouts for shops...and the price is right.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ and search for "ShopBot".

disclaimer: These models are somewhat stylized and not necessarily current...they're pretty close though.

Bill

[dlcw]

Chuck,

We are going to have a booth (#202) at the Spokane Home Builders Association's Home Improvement Show in April 16-18. Stop by!

Wall-e's (shopbot) location in photo. It resides right next to the hardwood rack and has its own dust collector.


8035

As far as swinging by the shop, shoot me an email (in my profile) and I'll send you my phone #. Give me a call and let me know what time would work for you and stop on by for coffee. I love company!

I always loved the term "Uncle Sam's Confused Group". Haven't heard it in awhile.

Don

[gc3]

http://www.isixsigma.com/sixsigma/six_sigma.asp
http://www.strategosinc.com/articles/job_shop_lean_manufacturing.htm
http://www.wmep.org/Articles/irani8stepsjobshopart.aspx
Links above to help you design a profitable shop for 2010 and beyond.
Also try posting your question at www.woodweb.com (http://www.woodweb.com) business and management forum


Gene Crain
www.plantasymaderas.com (http://www.plantasymaderas.com)

[bcondon]

Foam Insulation.
We have it in the house and there is never a draft. I put fiberglass in the back room of the garage where the shopbot is and you can feel a slight draft. (good for cold and hot)

My Wall-e is taller and made to work in a standing position. I do have a stool I can plot my backside in but I like to work with my head above the gantry. I have my dust collection in a double sheetrocked closet so if there were a fire, it would be self contained for a longer period of time and the double sheetrock contains the noise better. I love seeing everyone's shop


Flourescent lighting.

[dlcw]

Chuck,

For sawdust I have a slash pile that I start creating in the fall after I burn up the previous years slash pile. I put the sawdust near the slash pile and tell people they can have free sawdust if they need it for anything (animals, pets, keep the tomatoes from freezing, etc.)

If there is any sawdust left at burn time I use my front loader to push it into the burning slash pile.

Don

[kartracer63]

Chuck,

I'm just saying that when I redesign my shop, I'll have a separate spray area from my sanding area. I'm pretty much doing the same artsy farsty stuff you're doing for now. It would be nice to keep the saw dust (sanding dust) away from my finishing area. If there's any way you can keep it apart from the other... I'd figure out a way to make it happen. The sanding dust is the biggest enemy of everything in your shop.

[beacon14]

Whatever you make the floor out of, make sure it's nice and flat.

[chiloquinruss]

My ceiling is 18 feet plus. My dust collection is all pvc but with internal ground wires. When I had the slab poured I also added several seperate ground rods. One for the Bot itself and 1 each for the power panels. I also added 1 for my ham gear.

http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/312/39308.jpg

Russ

[dlcw]

Hi Russ,

N8YF here. I thought about setting up my ham gear in my shop and decided, since dust is it worst enemy, I would not. I do have a 2m/440 rig set up and am thinking of setting up my Kenwood TS-480 and a G5RV hanging in the trees to play on HF.

To reiterate what David said, a FLAT floor is a must. I gave my flat work contractor a requirement of no more then 1/16" out of flat. I paid extra for this requirement but it has been well worth it.

Don

[chiloquinruss]

Don - my ham gear is in a semi-dust free office area in the shop.

My floor is flat enough but I did shoot all my walls with a laser before I started building benches. I also shot my bot table top before starting to run it on a regular basis.

The building is a pole barn with sidings. Even so the contractor did a great job in that when he was all done the 40x50 space was less than 3/4 inch out of square corner to corner. I thought that was pretty cool for a pole barn.

Chuck - If you look at my pix I posted you will see that I have a roll around table that is the same height as my table saw and the bot work surface. I have a 1 man shop and so somethings are very hard to move by myself (1in mdf!). It is a simple matter to go to town and get my sheet goods, load them in my trailer, return and unload onto the roll around table for unloading to either the saw, the bot, or the lumber rack.

Make a drawing of your shop and then draw in the proposed tools and their location. Then draw a piece of ply and move it around the shop. It will be real eye opener. An 8ft piece is 8ft going to the bot and maybe some pieces may be 8ft coming off the bot. You also need to be able to get to both side of the bot to remove pieces. I had a problem with my miter saw layout that I had to modify my lumber rack for cutting really long boards (12-16ft).

Russ

[gene]

Go to grizzly.com and use the workshop planner to build a virtual shop with all the toys in their place

[ghostcreek]

For my shop, my finishing area was an after thought. I wish I had planned that better. I added on a 16'x16' room, used only for finishing. Like everyone stated, plan, plan plan. Draw it up and consider all the operations you will/could be doing. Don't forget finished storage area. Products will sometimes need to be stored untill the client is ready. Enjoy this time Chuck, you won't get a better chance to make your life easier.
Michael

[tparr]

Considering the wide temperature range you are facing, you might want to put styrofoam (I used 2") under the concrete floor. I live in Michigan and that has been a great comfort factor. While you are planning the floor, you might also consider putting the DC system under the floor. Be sure to anchor it down or it will float during the pore.

[navigator7]

@ Russ,
Don's and your shop pics were are real bonus.
Wife got to see what things should look like in a real shop.
"What are those white tubes?" she asked. ;-)

This is what I'm looking at so far.
You can kinda see a rough Sbot model sitting on the floor:

8036

I like the idea of roll around tables with evereything built to a common height. My employer built a shop this summer and I've been pulling my hair out trying to get him to do the same thing. Too many young guns floating around that don't mind working on their hands and knees on the floor.
The table saw, the bot, the chop saw and moulder are tools that need plenty of room.

@ Gene,
I'm hacking it our with my Ashlar Vellum Cobalt. I've got Sketchup but not the pro...and am way more fluent with what I already know. Thanks for the idea. I may have to get it at a later date to send file to customers who use it.

@ Michael,
The cat is coming some time in the next week or so to hack out a road to get access.
We have road restrictions on due to warm weather making a mess of everything.
I want to get the site prepped before it becomes a dust bowl later on.
It will be my last shop so I'm enjoying every minute! I know proper planning now is not only the least expensive building method but it also makes dollars bills.
I titled this thread "Workflow" because, to me there is a logical flow of material through the shop.
Figgering exactly how this should be is a real bugga boo with me.
Sunlight, prevailing winds, drifting snow, snow and rain sliding off the roof, proper drainage during a thaw and how we will see the shop from our house are important things to me.
I'm a huge fan of eves...as the photo shows.

@ Thomas,
I was in the concrete biz for some time. Styrofoam under the slab with coils is almost universal here. For home construction, I think it is code but I am not certain. We did a home this summer. I wanted photos with tape measures to mark the coils in case something wasn't right. Sure enough, an electrical stub out for a wet bar was in the wrong location. It was bad. ;-) I used to pump concrete so I'm already figgering how to pour this without using my former competitor and still have good circuits. :-)
Pouring pole barns with hydronic heating coilings can be a real pain in limited space without a pump. I've got plenty of room to get the way around with mixers.

What do you mean by "DC"? I will be using in-floor heating and rebar. In my experience, the rebar keeps the foam down except for when the folks do a mono and expect loose foam to stay put.

I've enjoyed this exercise so far!
Thanks guys!
;-)

[dlcw]

DC = Dust Collector

Being where you are I would consider fire proof/resistant materials on the outside of the building. My roof is metal and my siding is Hardy(sp?) Plank.

My radiant floor system consisted of plastic over the dirt, 6" rigid foam over that, heavy gauge wire mesh over that to hold the radiant floor tubing, then tubing, then 4" of concrete with fiberglass mixed in to substitute for rebar. I've had a couple of cracks (normal for a 40'x80' slab) which were easily filled with the concrete crack filler from Ace Hardware. All of my electrical wires runs through the attic trusses and then down the walls to receptacles, light switches, etc. There are no horizontal running of wires in the walls. I know where the conduit runs down inside the walls so using screws to secure things is not a danger.

Chuck, take LOTS and LOTS of pictures during the construction process. Use a tape measure to get relative distances of things from other things in the photo's for reference later on. When I put my well in and dug ditches for water pipes I used a tape measure and took photos to get the depth of the ditch documented. Do the same with any thing you run underground. Make sure you get a picture relative to something that will not go anywhere in the future in case you have to find the ditch again.

Have fun!!!

Don
www.dlwoodworks.com (http://www.dlwoodworks.com)

[bleeth]

Chuck: Take a look at page 74 of the January "Fine Homebuilding". When I think about that "retirement" shop I not only think of the layout, but I also think of how many years I have spent going to work at a building that was really ugly. There is much about that shop that doesn't work for me, including putting it on pier blocks, but the basic simplicity and design freedom of the timber frame and panel construction results in a structural integrity that is terrific and an appearance that is really inviting.
I figure I could pull it off in 1500 feet of shop and have plenty of room for 1 to 3 men working. Put the office next to the spray booth and the MIL over them, and leave high ceiling for the rest. Just make sure your booth has the right exhaust and seal. Nothing like going "home" to a place stinking from rising Polyurethane fumes!