Shopsmith Forums

tnerb wrote:I have a 20X20 concrete pad outside of the 30X30 shop that I share with my Son. I roll out the Shopsmiths out and do the bulk of my work on the pad. I work in the shop on very cold or rainy days which are few in the Desert Southwest.

Brent

If I had a 20'x20' pad next to my shop I would have to build on it.

I still have plans on my "6 month list" for a couple of bump out windows in place of a couple of decayed 8' picture windows in my shops front wall. I want to bump them out from about 2' above the ground. They will bump out 2' and will have a bench-top type surface at about 3' with some storage drawers under the top. From the top up will be all windows (then a roof of course ). The bench top may extend into the room about 6 or 8 inches. I'm currently planning one as a sharpening center and the other as a sort of office work area where I can sit at a stool and write etc. Just a little more elbow room...

robinson46176 wrote:. . . . Just a little more elbow room...

Sure 8' is wide enough?:D

robinson46176 wrote:If I had a 20'x20' pad next to my shop I would have to build on it.

You sound like my brother in law. He had a place where he kept building.

First a huge shed then another shed only bigger, then a four car garage (he only had one car). Finally the zoning board came to him and told him he had reached the 80% limit. He had 80% of his land under roof and wasn't allowed to build anymore.

Farmer, we've had this discussion before, and I still don't think there is a greater problem to finding space in the shop than the one involving "getting the crap out that doesn't belong." The reason it is 'the' or one of the greatest problems is that you have to keep at it, or it just grows back in to fill the space you cleared. And if you have a Garage/Shop the problem is much worse than if you have a dedicated space for a shop. Every time you pull the car in and unload it, something gets left on the bench, or the saw table, or the tool shelves and doesn't get put where it's supposed to go. Given a down period in the shop (like a hard-freeze winter), that stuff grows like the scum in a neglected fish tank.

A cure? Since a combined purpose shop is always any space at premium and often already at combined purpose, you may have to look at outbuilding spare space. Once I cleared my garden stuff into a new gambrel roof barn shed, I built a wood storage deck 2 1/2 ft hi space in the bottom roof line, then another 1 1/2 ft space in the top roof line for folding lawn furniture.

Haven't done it yet, but one wall will soon have wide shelves to lift mower, trimmers, carts, off floor so tractor mower/tiller has floor. Hoist available to stow Push tools on shelves.

But the shed is my wood storage now instead of a "leaner" rack in the garage. A bench out there, eliminates most mechanic tools and greasy work from the woodshop benches. Not a cheap or easy solution... took me 12 years battling the zoning board to allow the 12X14X12 Hi shed to be built. That doesn't even mention that all that garden stuff kept me from using the garage shop as a garage at all and hindered me greatly from doing woodwork at all for all the moving around required.
Dan Morrissette
Herscher, IL