Check out the pictures of this project.
Project Description
The Eagle Lake shop is a basement woodshop that is approximately 440 sq feet; of which I use every inch. Having a small shop forces me to be better organized and to find creative ways of using my space.
Like most small shops, I have some machines on wheels to allow me to reposition them if needed. I have positioned and oriented the major machines in the shop so that I have at least eight feet for infeed and outfeed. The bandsaw and wide drum sander do not have 8 feet for infeed and outfeed (more like 5ft or 6ft), but they are on wheels and can be easily repositioned. Even then, I rarely find myself using this equipment for longer stock.
One important area for me is what I call the 'L'. I suppose it's similar to the “worker's triangle” referred to in kitchen design. The 'L' in my shop is the perpendicular relationship between my router table and my tablesaw. I made four items in the shop the same height so that they could all work together providing infeed and outfeed for each other. The four items are the workbench adjacent to the router table, the router table, which is five feet long and includes my horizontal router table, the tablesaw, and the table saw's outfeed table. The arrangement of elements in this manner has proven to be quite effective for supporting stock at the router table and tablesaw.
Every area of my shop has a useful purpose. I create storage in just about every unused space I can. I have two areas for wood storage - the ten-foot shelves above and below my miter saw station, and the racks in the dust collector room. For wood chip and dust control, I have an ambient air filter that is suspended from the ceiling and I have a dust collector that’s connected to each machine. I try to encourage new woodworkers to buy a dust collector before their next big tool purchase. If I had known when I started how much of a benefit a dust collector would be, I would have bought one sooner.
Read more about my dust collection system here.