When you are planning to make things for your own use in your shop, you need an overall picture of the general scheme. There is usually a problem of limited space and the way to make the best use of it. Most workshops just develop as you get new ideas and new equipment, which you pack in somehow. It would be better to spend a little time planning ahead as much as possible. If it is a hobby shop, however, some of the happiness and satisfaction of using it comes from a more free-and-easy approach than would be necessary if you depended on the shop for making a living.
For you to get the most satisfaction out of something made for shop use, it has to be justified. You might enjoy making a special accessory or new piece of equipment. You might consider that is sufficient reason for making it, but if it then gathers dust and is rarely used after the first time, was it worthwhile? If it takes up valuable space with out being used, that is a further problem. You have to decide whether the item is to be tackled just as an interest project, or if it will have plenty of further uses. If it is your hobby, making it just for the sake of making it might be all the reason you need.
Be careful of overcrowding your shop. You must be able to move about safely. Some addition or accessory might increase the scope of a particular machine, but check that in doing so it will not interfere with your movements about the shop or your operation of another machine. Often, it is better to make more bulky items so they can be taken down or folded. If something you make for use with one power tool can also be used on another, that is a bonus and could be a very good reason for making it.
If your main activity is metalworking, you might not have a great need to swing large pieces, but a woodworker has the 4-foot- x -8-foot problem. That is the size of most plywood and other sheet materials. It is very helpful if you can arrange to handle full-size sheets with a table saw or band saw, and additions elsewhere should not restrict this. Additions to these power tools might make handling sheets safer and more convenient. It is less accurate to cut sheets with portable tools, but if your shop is too restricted.
STORING TOOLS AND MATERIALS
In ideal conditions, the shop has plenty of working space, and stocks of material are stored elsewhere, but not too far away. Even then, material for jobs at hand and all the shorter ends that are too good to scrap, which you know will be of some use one day, are more likely to be kept in the shop. In most shops, the stocks of material are kept in and around the working area, and it seems to be the smallest shops where this is most likely.
Tools also have to be stored, and the number of these you accumulate can be surprising, whatever your activity or craft. Nowadays, most hobbyists have stationary and portable power tools. The professional must have them to stay in business. If you call yourself a craftsperson, you will have and use a large number of hand tools. If you want to do more than just copy mass-production methods, you will use quite a lot of hand techniques.
As a result, you have to store power tools and their accessories, as well as your large selection of hand tools. Even if you are naturally untidy, you soon realize that there has to be some order if important things are not to be lost in your shop chaos.
Tools thrown together in a box take up the minimum space. Tools in fitted racks on a wall, in a drawer, or in a cabinet are kept safe and within reach and you know where to find them, but this takes up space. In the average shop you will have to compromise.
There are many tools that do not suffer from being stored together. Others, particularly cutting tools such as chisels and files, should be kept separate so their edges are unharmed. Accessories for some power tools are quite small and could be mislaid. They are better kept in fitted racks near where they are needed.
Work out the compromise to suit your tools, allowing for additions. Remember, you also might need to store materials, and space is limited. Decide which tools must have individual storage. They might require only a nail for hanging or a fitted rack. Not all individual storage has to be vertical. You could make fitted compartments in a drawer. There might even be a lift-out tray to take a second layer.
At the other extreme are the tools that can be loose in a box or drawer. This will leave you wondering about the many tools in between. You might wish to put all your wrenches, punches, screwdrivers, and other hand tools in wall racks. Is there space and would that be justified? There is little point in putting little-used tools on a wall rack if they will only gather dust. It would make more sense to decide which wrenches, screwdrivers, punches, and other tools of a kind you use most frequently. Will they suffer if packed together? Those few could go on racks, while the others are put in boxes or drawers.
Relate storage problems to benches, stationary power tools, and the general layout of the shop. You have to consider the whole workshop area. In general, materials can go where they least interfere with your working activities. Place hand tools in racks or drawers near the bench working area. Consider your movements. Try to arrange things so what you need is where you need it, if possible. (Space problems might dictate otherwise, of course.)
Consider the probable frequency of need with portable power and hand tools as well as accessories and equipment you make. If you make a new piece of equipment or an accessory for a power tool and it has to stay in position, it should be used fairly frequently or you might find it taking up space you would rather have for something else. Then your new piece becomes a nuisance.
Experience will show which tools you use most. Store them within reach. This means installing a wall rack above the bench to hold the tools you always use so that you can reach them with little effort. A drawer directly under the working area will do the same. Other tools that are only used occasionally can go elsewhere, in higher positions on the wall, or in lower drawers under the bench. Tools that are needed for special jobs that only occur rarely can go elsewhere in the shop. They are better kept clean in boxes or drawers as activity in a typical shop develops an inordinate amount of dust.
If rust might be a problem, closed containers are better than open racks. Use drawers or make wall racks with doors. Silica gel, either as crystals or paper, will draw moisture away from steel tools. Include some in storage places for tools and steel stock.
As much as possible, plan the shop and what you make to go in it to suit your physical needs and those of any other regular user. This gives you an advantage over the use of store-bought benches, cabinets, and other equipment.
Fortunately, most people are between 67 inches and 70 inches tall in normal shoes, so it is possible to settle some average shop equipment sizes. For instance, the top surface of a bench should come at about the height of your hip joint. For most people that is between 28 inches and 31 inches (Fig. 1-1A). If you are short, sawing or planing on a bench that is too high for you can be very tiring. A tall person using a bench that is too low does not suffer as much.
A metalworker might have a bench at this height, but the important height is the vise jaw level, which will suit most workers at about 34 inches (Fig. 1-1B). Some workers in more delicate metal forms might favor a few inches higher than that, although the basic height will suit most when sitting on a high stool.
Fig. 1-1. Arrange shop equipment to suit your height and reach.
For working downwards, the average craftsperson can use a trestle or other support at chair height or a little higher. A height of 16 inches to 18 inches (Fig. 1-1C) is sufficient.
A wide bench top is valuable if you use it for assembling wood frames and cabinetwork, but if you want to reach across the bench easily, a width of 27 inches is about the comfortable maximum for a bench against a wall (Fig. 1-1D). If the bench is free standing and you might work from both sides, it could go up to 33 inches.
If you visit a store and walk between blocks of shelves, the things the storekeeper wants to attract to your attention are all at eye level or probably little more than 12 inches above or below that. Let this guide you when placing wall racks, tool cabinets, and things you need to reach or see. Put the things you need most frequently between about 54 inches and 76 inches above the floor (Fig. 1-1E), if you are average height. If there is a cabinet projecting from the wall over a bench, leave a clearance of at least 20 inches (Fig. 1-1F). You can reach a little higher than your upper sight line, so position other tool racks there, but if there is more wall space and you are prepared to stand on something to reach it, tool or materials racks can go higher.
A very convenient level to reach from a normal standing position is directly under the bench top. A drawer 6 inches or so deep can store tools, hardware, and a great many other items (Fig. 1-1G). If you make much use of your shop, this will probably be the place for all the marking tools, notebooks, spare screws, and the multiplicity of things essential from job to job that you accumulate.
You will want to make use of space at a lower level, but this involves stooping or kneeling. Allow for that. Shelves too close and wide might prevent you from seeing and reaching to the back. Drawers that can be pulled right out might be better. Leaving space for a chest that can be withdrawn could be worthwhile. If you might sometimes want to take a quantity of tools elsewhere, some sort of portable container should form part of the shop equipment.
The foregoing heights are given as they relate to a bench and wall storage. Use them as a guide for other shop equipment. It is probable that your table saw came as a unit on a stand at a set height, probably about the same as your bench, although its table adjusts a few inches. Most workers find it better to have a jointer lower than this, which might be an advantage as large work on the saw table can swing over the jointer.
Opinions vary about the height of a band saw table, but the usual preference is rather higher than a table saw. If it can be high enough to clear the guard on a nearby table saw, it will allow you to swing a large piece of sheet material about the band saw.
As with the band saw, you might have your own preference about the height of a lathe. It is the height of its centers that matters. Experiment with a height around 36 inches.
PLANNING
There are more than 100 ideas for things to make in your shop for your shop in the following pages. If you made them all, there might not be room for you as well.
Many of the things you can make are comparatively small and portable. Hopefully, they will all be of use to you. If you are intrigued by tools and like to gather them into your kit, you will enjoy making them, particularly as most are different from anything you can buy. These are projects to tackle when and how often you wish. You might even make some for your friends or to sell.
Think more about some of the bulky items. Are they for you? Do they suit your needs and shop? If size related to available space is of paramount importance, you might have to discard one project in favor of another—or build a bigger shop!
When some home shop workers make an accessory or piece of equipment for use in the shop, they construct it to the point where it can be used, then never finish it properly. There might be an urgency about the job it is to be used on, and time is never found to get back to finishing it, or the attitude is that it serves its purpose and its appearance does not matter.
Leaving a tool unfinished is unwise. You would not buy an unfinished tool. You will appreciate the tool you make much more if its quality is at least as good as any store bought tool. Smooth polished wood and clean bright metal will encourage you to do work of comparable quality with the working aid you have made. There is also the impression it makes on other people. If a visitor to your shop sees a crude thing, no matter how effective it is, he will judge your workmanship by it. If he sees a high-quality special tool, and you say you made it, his remarks should help your ego.
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