Very Small Shop

U

unky_gumbi

Joined
Aug 28, 2009
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So I have collected enough tools to make a small shop in what use to be my bike storage room in the house. With recent renovations at work I can't make knives there any more and the weather is too cold to do it outside this time of year, I was left with no choice if I want to make knives through the winter.

Now when I say small I mean small the room is all of 8'X6' and it is also where the trap door to the basement is so I loose some valuable space there too.

small_shop.jpg


This is the layout I have come up with till I can clean out and convert the garage in the summer. Big job there because there is no power, heat or insulation, and the previous tenant used it to store junk that he left behind.

I just figured that for those of you that think your shop is too small, just look at what I am working in and it will make you feel much better about what you have:D. All my finish work is done in the living room at a spare computer desk so there is no dirt or contamination risk on the finished blades.

Why yes I live alone, why do you ask?:p
 
My "shop" is in my basement, and it is 8'x12'...I have my home heating unit in there, as well as my water heater :eek: Every square inch is used :o So, I say it is definitely possible!
 
Look great. When i started i was in school and living in the dorm. I stored my grinder in the cab of my pick-up. When i wanted to grind i would pull it out and have to hunt some power. Big shops are nice but you wont have to walk as far.
 
Sam Salvati said:
Looks good to me! I like more room on either side of the grinder but I like to do long stuff :D
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I have no choice on the space on the sides of the grinder, there are two walls to deal with. Right now the bench is 31" deep but I am cutting it down to 24" so I have a little room between the drill press/saw and the grinding bench. Besides the biggest I have made so far was 12" overall

rickmenefee said:
Look great. When i started i was in school and living in the dorm. I stored my grinder in the cab of my pick-up. When i wanted to grind i would pull it out and have to hunt some power. Big shops are nice but you wont have to walk as far.
Click to expand...

I don't think that my grinder is that portable, its the grinder in a box kit, 60 pounds of steel, 45 pound motor, and its getting a 230V VFD so I will be limited as to where I can run it. Up until last week I was still using files and a 30X1 belt sander to make my knives.

I can't wait to move everything out to the garage in the summer, I am slowly clearing out the garage so I can run the electrical and insulate it, but it need new siding before the insulation and -20C and 2 feet of snow makes doing the siding challenging. I should state that this is a very small house I am in, all of 465sq/ft:eek: the garage has almost that much open floor space its 12X25
 
I feel your pain.

I'm in a garage, and sharing the space with the car and a bunch of shelves, so I have 14 linear feet for my workshop.

A couple thoughts - can you put up a row of pegs behind the grinder to hang belts on, or on the wall to either side of the window? If so, you might free up a bit of room for a bench on that side.

Also, are there other tools you are thinking of adding? (Like mill, grinder, polishing wheel, etc?
 
There will be no more tools added to the little shop, it will stay as it is till I move out to the garage.

There is roughly 41" of space for belts right by the door and once I pull down the shelf over the trap door I will get some more hanging space there. With the shelf there the belts hang down too low and could get damaged by the trap door when I go and read the water meter.

Once I move the main shop out to the garage this summer I will be converting this little room into my finishing/sharpening room. I don't have a car or anything to share the garage with so thats near 300 sqft after insulating for Winnipeg winters of pure shop space. that is when I will set up my forge, HT oven, a press, and possibly a buffer. I am sure that I will find other tools to add once I have the space, I know I wouldn't mind a small mill and lathe, but the cost is out of my range right now. I know for a fact that a large chunk of my expendable income will be taken up with the garage conversion, right now its just 4 walls, 2 doors and a window.
 
I work in small spaces too. I'm a big believer in casters. I don't know how solid the trap door to the basement is. If its up to a bit of a load, maybe something like along the line of a small table/bench maybe like a butcher block table on casters could go there? That way it could be rolled off when you need basement access.
 
I built an 8x8 platform and raised walls on it a couple years ago, so my shop was ~7.5x7.5. Honestly it was quite enough room for a basic shop. You'll be able to work out just fine with yours.
 
Phil Dwyer said:
I work in small spaces too. I'm a big believer in casters. I don't know how solid the trap door to the basement is. If its up to a bit of a load, maybe something like along the line of a small table/bench maybe like a butcher block table on casters could go there? That way it could be rolled off when you need basement access.
Click to expand...

I am thinking of a 2 drawer file cabinet on wheels in that space. I would keep my sandpaper in one drawer and my templates and other paper work in the other. With the space being as tight as it is I will need to keep everything organized. I have built up two small tables, 12X18 each, for the drill pres and porta band saw. Each little table has shelving underneath for related items like spare blades for the saw and drill bits for the drill. There is also storage space under the grinding bench for things like steel and pin stock. I don't want to put anything that isn't hard under the grinding bench just because of the sparks from the grinder. Once I get things a little more organized in there and everything in its place I will shoot a couple of pictures to show how cramped it is. That should be by this weekend if everything goes as planned.

I think I will be fine as long as I am the only one in there, get more than one person in there and you can't get by each other, and I am not a large person, all of 5'8" and 165lbs.
 
It may be small, but there is a real advantage to having shop space in a heated room, available to use at a moments notice.

It makes it much easier to pop in for a little work in small spurts.

I wish I had that.
 
I'm curious - was there a particular reason for separate tables for the portaband and the drill press? I just set them both on a workbench...
 
Also, the first time I read the plans, I thought the space behind the door was "Bell Storage." I thought 'Wow - I must be doing something wrong!"
 
I think you'll do just fine. :)

When I think of 'small shop', I think of Ernie Swanson. He made his first few knives on his front porch and in his bedroom.
 
Tait said:
I'm curious - was there a particular reason for separate tables for the portaband and the drill press? I just set them both on a workbench...
Click to expand...

They are on separate small tables so I can stand in between them when grinding, I didn't like the idea of not being able step back if I have to for something like a broken belt. Right now the grinding bench is preexisting and is 31" deep, I am cutting it back to 24" today to get a touch more space.

Tait said:
Also, the first time I read the plans, I thought the space behind the door was "Bell Storage." I thought 'Wow - I must be doing something wrong!"
Click to expand...
I thought of making the dims larger, but they looked good till I loaded the picture up here:o
 
A little while ago someone posted pictures of a garden cart with a top shelf. He put a heavy wooden top on it and would roll it out of his garage to work with it. Each tool or two faced one of the 4 edges.

In seeing your set up I wonder if something like that would work and the walls could be used to hang belts and the far wall could have a bench for the drill press, etc. You could rotate the table to use the tool you wanted and maybe in the summer it could roll into the garage (if you have one)
 
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