Finally back at it: my new shop

robloveday

robloveday

Joined
Jul 19, 2008
Messages
199
I haven't been around much on the forums these last six months because I've been in the process of moving from Milwaukee to Cairo, Nebraska. One of the best things about the move is that I now have a dedicated, HEATED workshop. It has a bathroom and an office, and more space than I can fill right now, but don't worry, it will soon be bursting at the seams with new tools. I have started at the knife making again, and the first knife I have done will be my KITH knife. Hope you like it.

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Awesome, plenty of space to work in and to add in goodies... congrats on the new shop!
 
Man-O-Man....... If I had that much room I would think I had died and gone to knife-maker's heaven.

Fill it up and get to it.

Robert
 
Way cool! What shop upgrades are you planning on? Dust collection? Air filtration? Pipe propane in from outside? More lighting? Etc, etc, etc...
 
Welcome to the good life lol. Great pics of you shop.

I am going to have to look at the map and see where cairo is. I am down in Fairbury Ne, About 70 miles southwest of Lincoln.


Bryan
 
Cool shop! Mine's a bit smaller, and no indoor plumbing, and no office, but it's well insulated. It will be great to work in there during the winter, and even the summers won't be as bad.
 
The first upgrade I'm going to get is a bigger anvil, then I'm going to get a better table saw, a dust collection system, and jointer for the woodworking side, and then a vertical mill and a surface grinder. The list just goes on and on from there.
 
Congratulations Rob!!! I'm really excited for you! Great looking on the inside and out!!!

Was it built as a garage/mother-in-law apartment? Looks like part of a kitchen in that 2nd to last pic? Or was it just an office space... Did the previous owner have some kind of business in there?

How is it heated? My new shop has electric heat, but I'm looking at other options to save $$$.

I'm happy for you Rob :)
 
I agree with Robert, knifemaker heaven! :thumbup:
I would not even know where to start with so much room. Ok, maybe not true. ;)
First thing I would work on is the dust collection/extraction system and also get a boatload of lighting in there.

Looking forward to updates. Love shops! :D
 
NickWheeler said:
My new shop has electric heat, but I'm looking at other options
Click to expand...


It may be too late if you've moved everything in.

and you likely don't want to rip up the floor.


But

The nicest heating I've ever seen in a shop is natural gas/propane hot water heating in the floor.

It's slow, stable, consistent, even heating that keeps your lathe/mills/surface grinders evenly heated.
No dimensional changes due to temperature.

It's clean, no air ducts for dust to accumulate or spread; especially if you are trying to separate a clean room from the dirty rooms.

It's perfectly quiet.

You can setup different zones at different temperatures.

You can insulate it really well from the ground with Styrofoam forms that you pour into and leave in place.


The even heating, and cleanliness are features I've not found with hot air heating.
 
Beautiful shop! Pretty light inside already, with white walls and all. Handy having the big doors, you'll need them when you're filling that place up with machinery. Heated is a big plus, not much work gets done in a 10 degree shop during the winter. Ask me how I know. Thankfully, I fully insulated the ceiling of my shop this summer so I should be better off this winter.

I can see your priorities are similar to mine. A bigger anvil! Looks like you do need one. If I was you, I'd consider making the office into my grinding room and installing some good dust collection and air filtration in there. I have a grinding room, and it's nice not having so much grit and dust around the rest of my shop.
 
The guy I bought the home from was a knife maker and a woodworker, and he built the shop specifically for that kind of work. In fact one of the first things I noticed when I was first looking at the shop, was a big 25 lb Little Giant power hammer. I tried to get him to leave it as a part of the home purchase deal, but he wasn't interested.

Nick,
the part that looks like a kitchen is the office/clean room. But those are kitchen counters that he put in there to work on. The heating is electric with two small ceramic filament shop heaters on a thermostat. It is only now starting to get cold, so I don't know what it will do to the utilities bill. A friend of mine says he can hook me up with a propane heating system for about $600. Next year I may take him up on that if the electric heating isn't cutting it.

Salem,
that's a good idea about having an enclosed grinding room. You're right about my anvil. It's only 90lbs, but hopefully in the next month or two I'll be getting a 275lb Peddinghuas anvil to replace it.
 
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Oh wow... that's awesome Rob!!! :)

Hey, I see a couple blades in progress that look familiar ;) :) I'm excited to see what you do with them! :) :thumbup:

Sam, that would be ideal, but I've never seen a radiant floor system that wasn't put in before the concrete is poured. IF I had built this shop from the ground up, that would have been my preference.
 
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