Shopsmith Forums

It has been fairly chilly here this week after having been quite warm so I was firing up the wood furnace which sits in the basement woodshop. While waiting for things to get going I was sitting in a chair (a nicety) looking around the shop and thinking about the universe.
I have a number of things I consider to be niceties in my shop.
I guess number 1 is space. Both a blessing and a curse. At just under 1,000 sq. ft. (24' X 40'). I love having the room but it is also prone to "collect" stuff... This isn't something I went out and built, it was just already here "collecting stuff" and I got rid of most of the stuff and walled off this shop. I also have another about 500 sq. ft. of space that I can borrow from to store shop stuff like paint, varnish and supplies on shelves as well as a bit of extra wood storage. I can also use that space to store extra firewood on a couple of mobile racks in the winter.
Number 2 is full time heat and AC 24-7-365... I never had a shirt sleeve shop before. The other shop (farm shop) in the 36' X 50' converted barn couldn't in the past be gotten warm in cold weather if you sat it on fire. The heat and AC in this shop doesn't cost me any extra which is a big "nicety". BTW, the "other" shop is getting the old wood furnace from the house and I have "official approval" to put an air conditioner in the farm shop for part time use. I have several fans in there now and it does stay reasonably cool in most weather. The AC will be for closed door projects in really hot weather. If I know that I will be working on something in there when it is hot I will be able to turn it on over night to pre-cool the space and the stuff in it better and as long as the doors stay shut it will be a lot easier to work. Sadly the old wood furnace is still sitting on a moving dolly in a corner of the basement woodshop waiting for it to quit raining every 15 minutes.
Number 3 is having it available 24-7-365 in any kind of weather without setting foot outside.
Number 4 is the chairs I mentioned. I have a couple of nice comfortable oak office chairs in there and just last night my wife and I were sitting in them talking about "things". I also have 4 padded retired kitchen chairs stacked in another room along with a few folding chairs for visitors. Soon there will be several lawn chairs sitting out side of the walk out door. It's still too muddy there now. The older I get the more I like having pairs of chairs or a bench around the farm. It's nice to sit and talk (or think) and know that you won't need help getting hoisted back up off of the ground.
Number 5, when my father and I plumbed this wing of the house over 40 years ago we installed a brass faucet with threads for a garden hose on the concrete block post near the chimney as a fire precaution. It sits about 30" up from the floor and I have a Rural King plastic bucket sitting under it on a couple of concrete blocks. Even though the shop is in the house it has been very nice to be able to step to that post and wash my hands often as I work without running upstairs. Especially so when doing gluing or finishing etc. I only have to carry the bucket about 12' to pour it down a floor drain.
Number 6, I really like having compressed air in the shop. Maybe closer to necessity than a nicety... My woodshop compressor is too small, too noisy and often underfoot. I have much bigger compressor in the farm shop that runs the air tools there as well as the tire changer. I have long wanted to put in an underground conduit between the house and the farm shop to carry air, water etc. and someday fairly soon my son will bring a smaller bore machine home and we will bore and pull one under the driveway. It's about 100'.
I am probably not at the end of this "nicety" list but I am finally getting sleepy again so I'll stop here...
What is on your list of niceties that you have or want in your shop?

Lots of nice even lighting. I put in six 8-ft dual T-12 fluorescents in the main area (about 15' x 20') a few years ago, plus a few smaller ones in some corners. No need for any local task lighting now.

Also running water, as you mentioned. I bought my wife a nice new laundry sink, and plumbed in her old one in a corner of my workshop. There was already a drain pipe roughed into the concrete floor. It's a huge convenience.

Air conditioning and plenty of light.

Jack

MORE LIGHT.

One "nicety" that I missed mentioning is having a walk out door in a basement shop. Having a 5' opening to move bulky stuff in and out through is another. So is all of that natural light (in the daytime ).
I may have mentioned somewhere that I am going to put in a big window about 6' west of that door. I already have the window. It is 4' high and 6' wide double pane with the dividers between the glass layers. I'm really going to like that window. Basement shops can be a bit like a cave and mine is no exception. I want to start painting it soon and it will be a very light color, probably a light tan.
I will likely have to rearrange a few things with the window but I do that almost daily anyway. I have a lot of items for other hobbies that I may move to near that window for the natural light. Leather working stuff for one and I have a batch of jewelry tools that I want to use at a small bench near the window. We have a large number of old bed sheets from various sources and they work well to toss over other hobby stuff to keep out the sawdust etc.
I'm currently installing the electrical boxes for the new lights. I have been running the lights mostly on short extension cords so far to get a feel of where I wanted most of them. The old 8' 2 bulb flourescents are failing and I don't really like them anyway so I am changing them all out. I like a mix of light types in a shop.
Even though I am not very productive I'm really enjoying this shop since for most of my life I had to use what ever hole I could empty out and use. Dirt floors have been all too common in some previous shops with wood platforms built a few inches high to keep part of the stuff up away from the dirt. That was fairly common for tradesmen in the early days. Some like tailors built platforms up a foot or two. It was easy to keep clean and served as a work surface. Some built up higher because it made a warmer floor to work on.

I miss certain things, a lot. The first shop I had after leaving home was in a basement and it had several really nice features. One was ceiling height, the low point in the ceiling were heating ducts and that was at 9' plus. You could stand a piece of plywood up and there was room to spare so you could actually move it around in that plane.

The second thing was light, the lot was sloped so the front was on street level and the about half way back it started to slope away. This allowed nice light in the windows towards the back and no windows in the front.

The back entry way was to the outside via a dual cyclone door, while a few steps up you had nice access to take things in and out and large things at that.

This was an older home but they had upgraded the wiring and circuit box so plenty of power and it was divided into 3 rooms, the front one we used for storage, the middle was my shop area and the back was for the washer/dryer/sink/more storage and it had room to spare so I used that for my finish room.

I have none of that now, wish I did. All of them are shop niceties but I manage with what I have.

Ed

1-LEDs!!
Replaced the fluorescent overhead noise makers with Costco LED lights. The clamp on and swing arm lamps that pointed at the work bench were replaced with one large 4' LED with diffuser. One of those swing arm lamps now has a flood beam LED!! and it goes where more light is wanted. Nothing is dim in its path.

2-An old comfy office chair I bought nearly 30 years ago. Have the arms removed but it is a great place to sit and ponder.

3-A 12" dual tilt miter saw on a collapsible roller stand. Amazing how much time and aggravation is eliminated. This may not be considered a nicety by some, but for me, it has changed significantly how I function.

4-A huge amount of INCRA stuff. Router table (adapted to SS), TS-LS with wonder fence, miter express, miter 1000 SE. It is possible to make things without its precision, but I probably wouldn't attempt half the stuff I do without it.

5-Time to play--- I remember when I bought my first SS in 1979. I either had lots of money but no time to use the SS, or lots of time to use it but no money to buy wood! Then later in life, stage 3 cancer and then a heart attack. So yes, for me, time is a nicety. Maybe the best nicety.

Be well,
Ben

Since I built the current (and last) shop from the ground up I thought about it for a long time before it was built. The building is about 60' from the house. Here are some of the things I consider niceties.

Size matters. 30' X 40' with a 9 1/2' ceiling.

Running water and a bathroom. My wife wouldn't have it any other way. The bathroom is 5' X 5' with a toilet, laundry sink and a 10gal. water heater. All the years I worked in the garage it was a pain with no water or bathroom.

Lots of light. The main portion of the shop has nine 8' fluorescent light fixtures. There are four 4' X 5' windows, two on each long wall. There is almost no need for task lighting.

A separate 10' X 12' finishing room. It has two windows and two 8' fluorescent light fixtures. The door is a 6' wide double door with glass.

There are a few more but these are the main ones. Having designed it and building it from the ground up makes a lot of difference.

John hit it... A bathroom. Many times after that second cup of coffee i've looked at that laundry sink as i run up the stairs!

ChrisNeilan wrote:John hit it... A bathroom. Many times after that second cup of coffee i've looked at that laundry sink as i run up the stairs!