New workshop to be

[lamanoditrento]

I'm pretty excited, I've just gone unconditional on a house. It is a high set house with an under height "built-in" which I intend to convert into a workshop (53m2). While I wait for settlement, I am busily watching youtubes and reading old threads about dust control, soundproofing etc.

But I would grateful for any advice anyone would have for setting up. What would you do with this space? How would you arrange it?

Things I have in mind are:
I'm thinking I would like to climate control (temp/humidity) the whole workshop. My kiwi blood struggles in the brissy summer.
I'm thinking of soundproofing at least a 'machine room' but maybe the whole thing
There is not a lot of head room (maybe 2.5m tall)
Eventually I would like to run classes in the space

So I am currently thinking of making the multipurpose room into a machine room, remove the north & east walls of the store room...

[kiwigeo]

First step....assign one room as a dedicated wood store.
Second step...separate areas for machinery that creates alot of dust.

[Steve.Toscano]

If i had my time again to design a workshop this would be my bare minimum:
Machine room | Dirty room (possibly in same space as machine room) | Clean room (for general glue ups, handtool use, and french polishing etc) | Wood store | Finished Guitar store.
Also spray booth if you are spraying.

Assuming residential zoneing, so soundproofing is a must if you intend to use machinery.


50sqm isnt much space for teaching. Especially once you divide it up into rooms. It might do for 1:1 teaching but will struggle for much more then that considering seperate benches while still fitting machinery rooms etc.
*I have general workshop space of around 160sqm and am pretty much at limit with 6 students at a time*
Can you put dust extractors outside the space (maybe butt a garden shed up to it with ducting into the machine room ).

The beauty is that size of a space is piss easy to humidity control.

Good luck with the purchase and workshop setup.

[WJ Guitars]

Trent great project to plan for!

In regards to sound rating your workshop, acoustic insulation wool with sandwich wall and ceiling treatment helps to drop the db levels. See example section view. If you want have a spray room suitable for nitro lacquer I would recommend an explosion proof exhaust fan with enough power to drive through a carbon filter. Then no issues with the environment or resident complaints.

Wayne

[lamanoditrento]

First step....assign one room as a dedicated wood store.

If the whole shop is humidity controlled, do I need a room for wood store.

50sqm isnt much space for teaching. Especially once you divide it up into rooms. It might do for 1:1 teaching but will struggle for much more then that considering seperate benches while still fitting machinery rooms etc.
*I have general workshop space of around 160sqm and am pretty much at limit with 6 students at a time*
Can you put dust extractors outside the space (maybe butt a garden shed up to it with ducting into the machine room ).

I do have a further 35sqm I can also build-in. It just becomes a bigger project that I had thought. Hmmm.

In regards to sound rating your workshop, acoustic insulation wool with sandwich wall and ceiling treatment helps to drop the db levels. See example section view. If you want have a spray room suitable for nitro lacquer I would recommend an explosion proof exhaust fan with enough power to drive through a carbon filter. Then no issues with the environment or resident complaints.

I hadn't thought about a spray booth at all just yet. Spray finish has really been on by back burner. Great looking diagram there tho Wayne

[kiwigeo]

If the whole area is humidity controlled then I guess there's less requirement for a separate wood store. For me getting the shitloads of wood out of my main shop meant more room for building....

[lamanoditrento]

If the whole area is humidity controlled then I guess there's less requirement for a separate wood store. For me getting the shitloads of wood out of my main shop meant more room for building....

I would have get shitloads of wood first. My modest stash isn't going to clog much up

[nkforster]

I'm set up in a fairly small space. Effectively a three car garage. One cars' worth is split into two small rooms - one is humidity controlled where the wood is stored and glue ups happen. The other is where most of the handwork happens. It has the best light.

Then there is the main shed - just over two cars worth of space - again, kind of split - 2/3 is the big machines - table saw, sander, buffers, linisher, spindle moulder. The other 1/3 is split - the rear part is the store room - stacked from floor to ceiling with jigs and tools, the front part has the small machines - band saw, routers, disc and bobbin sander.

If you're ruthless about chucking out scrap a small shop can still be pretty spacious. Spend on decent extraction. You don't need a complicated set up. I have one 4" pipe running from the extractor which has a flexi hose on one end which gets switched from the jointer to the table saw to the sander. Switching the hose is as easy as opening and closing blast gates and reduces the pipe work. The small machines are all serviced by a hoover/cyclone 60mm hose set up. Its a pretty clean shop considering how much work I do in a day.

Spraying - you're in Brisbane Trent yes? If you are, drop me a message, I can help point you in the right direction. I've been training up some local sprayers to do guitars. Their satin work is the best I've had, and I just got the first gloss guitar back from them. It looks very promising, I'll be flatting it off and buffing it at the end of the week.

[Fisherman]

Congratulations Trent, that's very exciting!

[lamanoditrento]

Thanks Peter!

Nigel I will send you a DM. I have been getting Andrew to spray my guitars (I do the sanding) but I know he's totally over it.

[kiwigeo]

My plan was always to acquire shit loads of wood and then offload some of it so I no longer have shitloads of wood. Ive sold off a lot of the stuff...but I still appear to have shit loads of the stuff

If the whole area is humidity controlled then I guess there's less requirement for a separate wood store. For me getting the shitloads of wood out of my main shop meant more room for building....

I would have get shitloads of wood first. My modest stash isn't going to clog much up

[Dave M]

So how come everybody gets to have a new workshop!

Not to do with layout and you probably already know this Trent, but everything that can go on wheels should be. I have a relatively small space for the heavier machines and being able to roll them out of the way is invaluable.

Have fun Dave

[Richard]

I’m in the middle of a complete overhaul/rearranging of my workshop so I’m probably in a similar mindset to you. The main point I’d add is to be flexible and don’t overthink layout etc. too much. I’ve been in this space a bit over a year and I’ve gone through several iterations of the layout.

Agreed on machines on wheels/mobility bases where possible and feasible. I also prefer to use smaller benches that are easier to move (some on wheels). Even in my larger workshop (~150m2) the flexibility is invaluable.

I’d personally be looking at putting machines in the car area of that space for ease of moving things in and out. I don’t know what machines you have or what is on your wish list for the future, but the ability to get heavy things in and out is something you might only have to think about every few years, but being able to get a heavy duty trolley or pallet truck in or lifting off a trailer with a chain block makes a world of difference.

Isolating the dust extractor in an external enclosure for noise and dust was one of the best things I ever did in my old workshop. Just be mindful of this if you plan on climate controlling the entire workshop — it becomes useless if you’re sucking all the air out. Or make sure you’ve got really good filtration (pleated filters and/or cyclone) if you’re recirculating the air.

I only have humidity and temperate control in my assembly room. I just try and deal with Brisbane’s heat and humidity as best I can. Growing up here probably helps a bit...

[kiwigeo]

One thing Ive done with my machinery is locate it around a centrally located dust extractor.

[WJ Guitars]

As mentioned having machines on wheels and strategically locating power points on the walls and ceiling if feasible avoids running power cables on the floor and avoids trip hazards in the workshop.

Wayne

[kiwigeo]

So where's the car going to go Wayne?

[WJ Guitars]

The guitar building is the priority not the car! 0h well, I almost got away with it Martin until the wife caused a detour turn for me to build a new garage behind the house. The wife had no understanding what the important priority was.

Oh well, the guitar builds had to sit on the side line again.

Wayne

[lamanoditrento]

I had thought I would build an external enclosure for the dust extractor. I am bit over the noise and the heat it generates, but I hadn't thought about the fact it could be sucking climate controlled air out... I had thought I would build it directly on the otherside of the machine room to reduce ducting and hadn't really thought about a central location.

All good ideas to keep me thinking while I continue to wait for settlement.

And yes, I will be putting things on wheels/mobile bases.