Pictures of your Work Bench

[jeffers_mz]

Perfect timing, I just finished cleaning and organizing my workshop, when this thread appeared. I discovered some basic truths in the process.

One, a workspace isn't properly organized until every item has a permanent place, in line with it's relative priority, frequency of use, and physical characteristics. Even one errant item that has no permanent home can start a snowballing cascade effect which ends in utter madness and frustration at not having a good place to do fine work. Not that I do any fine work, but it's nice to know the option exists if my skills ever measure up.

Two, you can't really make a proper home for items you don't own yet. That means a workshop's early days are a transitional period. Once you have assembled all the details that complete a workshop, a second major organizing effort is necessary, which goes easier once you have experience using all the various tools and supplies and can make experienced judgements about where things should go.

Three, room for expansion is critical, since most guys will keep adding tools and materials until they are ordered by powers echelons above reality to clean it up, or else they can no longer fit into the workspace because all the new stuff is clogging it up.

A general view:

Useful features:

1. Tons of light. Old eyes are subject to farsightedness, and photographic depth of field effects too. More light equals smaller iris "aperature" which leads to i oncreased depth of field, meaning you can see beter up close. Less light, equal and opposite reaction. Four drop lamps on clamps, with a 75 watt bulb in each, one swing arm desklamp with another 75, and a five bulb chandalier help this space approach "bright enough for now", but I've got at least 800 watts of headroom left on the circuit, which luckily, is not the same circuit the tools are on.

2. The planer (under the bench, center) is very handy for shaving hardwood down to 1/8 inch thickness or greater. Not exactly what it's designed for, and not a purchase likely to pay for itself in savings, but if you already have one, why not put it to use?

3. Bench heigth, and work surface heigth, in relation to each other and in relation to other possible obstructions. This room is actually my dining room, right off the kitchen. The work surfaces on the power tools at right are 1/4 inch higher than the kitchen countertops by design. If I have to, I can get 36 foot long stock into position and cut it into lengths up to four feet, simply because the work surfaces clear the countertops and other obstructions. To do that, I have to remove 2 of 4 stove burner grills, but that's a small price to pay to avoid lugging the tool outdoors just to work with longer stock.

4. No expensive dust collection sytem here, just a shop-vac and a small collection of hose adaptors. The hose gets moved manually from tool to tool as needed, and ends each session hooked up to the vacuum hose for clean-up. The power switch for the shopvac is always on, but the 6 way outlet it's plugged into is off until needed. This adds one layer of security for kids and dangerous power tools. The tools will not turn on even if you flip the switch, UNLESS you also turn on the 6 way outlet plug. No cutting tool surprises, and no forgetting to turn on the dust collector either. You can't forget and leave the six way on, since the vacuum is more than loud enough to always know if it's on or off. The vacuum is also nice for keeping sawdust in my dinner to an absolute minimum, remember the kitchen is a very few feet away. Fiber is good for you, right?

5. The table partially visible at lower left is a critical component. It's way more than stout enough to stand on, jump up and down on, even hammer on. One two foot by two foot piece of three quarter inch plywood, plus the table frame which came free with the $90 Ryobi table saw. I've seen lesser worktables going for $60 to $100, so I paid normal price for a good portable work surface, and got a table saw with it for free. That table saw, and all the Delta tools are not top line precision machinery. If you need cabinetry or interior trim grade precision, you have to spend a LOT more money. But for home grade work tools, those meet my needs perfectly at a substantial savings. If not, the good tools are just outside in the back of the truck.

Left side, as you enter:

Useful features:

1. The drill press is hard to match for precision drilling, and it doubles as a drum sander too.

2. The yellow cannisters used to hold tobacco. Now they keep myriad different landscaping materials, rocks, earth, sands, gen-u-wine Colorado silver mine tailings, foliage, grass etc, all in order where I can see and grab just what I want without sorting through the whole collection. Nice when paint or glue is drying and you don't have the proper landscaping material already in hand.

3. The Christmas wrapping paper cardboard tubes just viible at upper left, store longer wood, styrene and metal stocks easily, making it simple to find what you need, reducing storage volume, and protecting fragile balsa and tiny wood cross sections in expensive, long pieces. They'll roll and make a mess if you don't constrain them. These constraints aren't even fastened in place, just cut a little long and wedged where you see them. That makes mass removal easy if needed.

Help!

4. The blades in my block planes are fully retracted, which isn't my favorite way of storing them. I need a simple method to store these vertically so I can set the blades, an exacting process, and leave them that way in storage, without risking blade damage from resting it on anything besides stock to be planed. Once they are vertical and out of the way, the bench grinder moves there, and is in turn replaced by a belt/disk sander.

Main workbench:

Useful features:

1. Vertical shelving, tons of it, and organizer drawer sets from Walmart, plus organizers for two sets of tools, important, (fixed shelf left rear) and critical, (floating black 2x4 block). The paint rack took 15 minutes to build from scrap 1x2, but saves me 1.5 to 2 square feet of table space, while keeping my often used paint at arm's reach. The key to any workspace is...space, the more, the better. When you spread out and run into walls, the only place left to go is "up".

2. The bit shelf took only a few minutes to drill and cobble together, but it keeps ALL the Dremel bits close at hand, easily organized, and easy to select and replace. Now I need to add holes for all the different sized chucks, as I waste a lot of time digging one out every time I need a different one.

3. Dedicated sanding blocks (under the bit shelf left center) save so much time it's hard to relate. Right there every time you cut anything to dress the edges and trim flash. Having the Dremel plugged up and at arm's reach saves time too. You can find a General micrometer for $10-15 bucks if you hunt around, and then you can stop guessing which microscopic drill bit might get you a close to properly sized hole and start being sure, before drilling.

4. The table is covered with a rug my kids grew out of, one of those with roads and all painted on it, a play rug. The anti-skid backing functions as intended. The thick carpet protects the nice maple table underneath perfectly, no damage to date, even though there have been accidents, especially with paint. The foam backing CAN get stuck in fresh paint, but a scrap of luan plywood makes a functional project tray, gives you a solid surface to cut on, and prevents foam in your paint.

Right side, as you enter:

 

Only one simple, yet critical feature here. The two top shelves on the nearest tool bench are new. They hold four 12 inch by 12 inch pieces of luan plywood, which act as project trays for work in progress. With one project on the worktable plus four on the shelves, I can have five different projects going at once, without losing any worktable space, and without subjecting models in progress to tons of airborne saw dust or metal shavings. Since no parts of projects are ever stored on tool tables, tools are always ready for immediate use.

BEWARE: Items with wheels on them WILL roll off plywood trays, under a LOT less lateral force than you might suppose. The best solution uses a better tray with a lip to prevent long falls, but this is a start. Anytime a tray moves off the workbench, I double check to make sure all items with wheels are resting on their side. The miniscule lateral acceleration necessary to break friction and send your hard work to the floor is a LOT LESS than intuition will suggest. Be very careful with this idea if you use it.

 

To the OP:

Thanks for a good thread. the key to most of what we do is the space we work in. It is the underlying foundation for most all of our work. Tips and tricks to save time, space, money or effort are something I can never get too much of, thanks for opening this useful discussion.

 

 

[SleeperN06]

I hope to have a work area someday like jeffers_mz, that is if either of my two adult daughters ever move out. In the summer I set up outside on my covered patio, but during the cold months I move to the dining room table and work out of plastic tubs. I have to pack everything up during the week when I have to go to work. I work 4 ten-hour days so I have 3-day weekends to do stuff.

 

 The dining room table holds up my layout. We usually eat while watching TV when we are alone anyway.

 

 My wife likes to cook and have people over for dinner, so if that happens on a weekday then I don't get much done. I have belt sander and a saw on my patio and I've done some work outside in freezing temperatures.  I use a TV table as an extension to my portable workbench.

 

[concretelackey]

Jeffers hit on an excellent point. About 2 years ago my employer brought in a consultant to help in stream lining the manufacturing and shipping processes at work. While relatively common sense something that was brought up was equipment accessibility vs. frequency of use. There were many items that we used many times a day that had an unofficial home behind items that saw use once a week! This lead to some relocating on rethinking of how we did what we did.

The consultants golden rule was "a place for everything AND everything in its place!"

His silver rule-clean as you go (whether that be stage by stage or day by day make it a habit)

bronze rule-you don't wait to go to the gas station until your gas tank is bone dry so don't wait to you are out of stock for the project to get more. On the same theory, you don't fill your tank at every gas station you see.....

While inventory control was not a major issue for us, the golden and silver rules made a major difference in our production effectiveness. Tools are placed in their homes as soon as they won't be needed for the time being (that time may only be 10 minute or may be the next day). The work areas are quick cleaned daily (many work stations twice a day) and about once a week we do a good cleaning plant wide.

 

If only I could apply this at home........with my kids......

As for jeffers block planes.......years back my dad had his 'woodworkers chest" that he kept his planes and such in. The top tray had dividers spaced for each size plane that had foam rubber on the bottom. Every now and then he would spray some WD-40 on the foam to ward off moisture/rust issues. 

[reklein]

Its always fun to see others workshops. I agree in the philosopy of workshops of Jeffers and concretelackey. Here's my setup.First the addition I built on my shop last year.

Then my small projects studio.

And finally my wood room.

This represents a lifetime of buying and collecting tools, The table saw is new, but who knows how old the jointer and jigsaw are. I found them at garage sales for under $20 each aand rebuilt them. They work great. Its worth the time to shop around for tools.

[SleeperN06]

Hey reklien, I don't know if I would ever go in the house again if I had a shop like that. The wife would have to bring me my meals out there. I would be in heaven. Great Shop

Sleeper. 

[Otis]

Here's my setup.

my small projects studio.

And finally my wood room.

I would be in heaven. Great Shop

Sleeper. 

Heaven, indeed.  I can just imagine an autumn day in Indiana, working on a project out in that studio while a football game is on the TV.  Now I know what to aim for.

[concretelackey]

Here's my setup.

my small projects studio.

And finally my wood room.

I would be in heaven. Great Shop

Sleeper. 

Heaven, indeed.  I can just imagine an autumn day in Indiana, working on a project out in that studio while a football game is on the TV.  Now I know what to aim for.

I would imagine that the TV is only for veiwing modeling dvds.....like the dream/plan/build series?????

[reklein]

Only problem,I don't have a bathroom or a shower in there. But,,,,, I do have a little frig and its full of drinks and dip. I can't drink too much beer,so no beer. But I am a lucky guy. I spend a lot of time there,a few hours at least every day. Sometimes I think I might have overdid it. The layout by the way is in the basement of the house and whatever tool I need is in the other place. But then I need the exercise. My wife by the way encourages this activity. She was afraid when I retired it was gonna be less money,more old man,but so far I've ben able to keep outta her way.

[scottychaos]

Here is a pic of my workbench:

 

The cab is part of my current project..

converting a Bachmann On30 forney to On2: 

http://gold.mylargescale.com/Scottychaos/On2-SRRL9 

The big pot of plants is temporararily on the bench..its one of my three Carnivorous Plant bogs..awaiting a return to spring-like weather so it can go outside:

http://gold.mylargescale.com/Scottychaos/CP

Scot 

 

[Wisconsin Railfan]

Thanks everyone for sharing your work areas.  I can't wait to get my garage workshop setup.  It will be a combined, workshop, and "starter" layout room.  We don't have a basement, so the garage will have to do for everything. As soon as the weather gets a little warmer, and I get started, I will post pictures of the progress. 

[Sturgeon-Phish]

Here is where I work on train related stuff and small clean jobs.  The messy large stuff goes the the outside shop

This is a test track for running locos and running stock

Jim 

[rs2mike]

Nice work areas guys and gals.  I will take a pic of mine and post this afternoon.

[rs2mike]

Here is my workshop guys and gals.  the third pic is the whole view the second is my hobby bench and the first is my work bench.  The wall next to the hobby bench is a floor to ceiling wall to wall shelf.  Half is used for hobby storage the other half is household storage(paint, caulk, hardware ect) and big boy tools(drill press, compound miter saw, scroll saw).

[shayfan84325]

My Layout and workbench exist in an 8 X 16 room in my 1200 sqft shop building.  It has an automotive section, a furniture making section and the model railroad room.  There is forced-air heat and AC, and of course, cable TV.

Here's the story.  My wife and I were getting by in a 1300 sqft house on 1/8 acre.  I used a basement bedroom for my shop, but there was no room for a layout.  One day, my wife and I were talking about how we need more space.  I commented that she needs a home office for her research and writing and she said "and you need a real shop."  Don't even think it, guys.  She's mine!

So we went house shopping - After a long search we found it in a town of 1,000 people.  3400 sqft, not counting the shop.  She got her office; I got my shop - and we both lived happily ever after.  Here are a few pictures:

 

It was dark when I took this, this evening:

It's not a new building.  It was being used as a photo studio when we bought it.

In the foyer there is room to store stuff, including my old roadracing bike:

Just inside the automotive section, there's my drill ptess and scroll saw, the door leads to the wood shop:

These nest few are the wood shop, where I build furniture as another hobby (I'm not exactly Norm Abrams, but I'm learning):

This is where I do my work on cars.  That's my Scion xB (so ugly it's cute).  My street-custom VW bug has its own room behind that wall to the right:

This is where I work on trains.  I didn't straighten things up for you guys.  This is how it always looks:

So, there you have it.  Not a bad place to hang out and get things done.  It isn't perfect, but I'm pretty happy with my workspace - can't wait to retire!

I've got to tell you about a place to buy tools:  www.publcsurplus.com  It's where the schools sell their old stuff.  You bid like eBay, but there's not much competition.  That planer sells for $1300 new, I got it from a school for $326.  The band saw, $169.  Drill Press: $85

I've equipped my whole woodshop for under 2 grand, with good machines.  They sell everything there (I saw an 8.5 hp snow blower sell for $155).  Want a school bus, most sell for less than a grand.  Check it out.

[rolleiman]

Don't have any current pictures of the shop but you can visit elements of it here (most photos are at least 5 years old). Layout and shop undergoing a major reconstruction at the moment so the entire basement is the shop

http://www.rolleiman.com/trains/uppermod.html

http://www.rolleiman.com/trains/layoutroom.html 

http://www.rolleiman.com/trains/roundhouse.html 

http://www.rolleiman.com/trains/clinic1.html 

On another note, Some of you folks are WAY too organized.....  

[Driline]

Nice work areas guys and gals.  I will take a pic of mine and post this afternoon.

"Guys and gals?"  What decade of the 20th century do you hail from?

Not a real good picture of my workbench, but its located underneath my wall layout with plenty of storage cubicles.

[Driline]

My Layout and workbench exist in an 8 X 16 room in my 1200 sqft shop building.  It has an automotive section, a furniture making section and the model railroad room.  There is forced-air heat and AC, and of course, cable TV.

Here's the story.  My wife and I were getting by in a 1300 sqft house on 1/8 acre.  I used a basement bedroom for my shop, but there was no room for a layout.  One day, my wife and I were talking about how we need more space.  I commented that she needs a home office for her research and writing and she said "and you need a real shop."  Don't even think it, guys.  She's mine!

So we went house shopping - After a long search we found it in a town of 1,000 people.  3400 sqft, not counting the shop.  She got her office; I got my shop - and we both lived happily ever after.  Here are a few pictures:

 

It was dark when I took this, this evening:

It's not a new building.  It was being used as a photo studio when we bought it.

In the foyer there is room to store stuff, including my old roadracing bike:

Just inside the automotive section, there's my drill ptess and scroll saw, the door leads to the wood shop:

These nest few are the wood shop, where I build furniture as another hobby (I'm not exactly Norm Abrams, but I'm learning):

This is where I do my work on cars.  That's my Scion xB (so ugly it's cute).  My street-custom VW bug has its own room behind that wall to the right:

This is where I work on trains.  I didn't straighten things up for you guys.  This is how it always looks:

So, there you have it.  Not a bad place to hang out and get things done.  It isn't perfect, but I'm pretty happy with my workspace - can't wait to retire!

I've got to tell you about a place to buy tools:  www.publcsurplus.com  It's where the schools sell their old stuff.  You bid like eBay, but there's not much competition.  That planer sells for $1300 new, I got it from a school for $326.  The band saw, $169.  Drill Press: $85

I've equipped my whole woodshop for under 2 grand, with good machines.  They sell everything there (I saw an 8.5 hp snow blower sell for $155).  Want a school bus, most sell for less than a grand.  Check it out.

Nice Scion. How do you like it? I was looking at the new models. Somewhat larger and less "ugly"

[shayfan84325]

I sent you a PM on the Scion.

[el-capitan]

Here's pics of my workbench and desk. The upper track in the pics is the branch line from Deming to Rincon, NM and the lower tracks are staging, eventually to be covered by scenery. It's not much work space and it has slowly gotten smaller as the layout expands.

 

[Medina1128]

These were taken before I added a bench sander. 

[radar]

heres mine

[Ballantrae Road]

Here's my work area. I know where everything is......honest!

 

[dale8chevyss]

I love this thread!  Its so neat to see others workplaces and how they do things, great post!

[Wisconsin Railfan]

That's why I decided to start this post, in spring I will begin my garage conversion.

[vsmith]

Theres a workbench under there...somewhere....honestly!

[tomkat-13]

[Anonymous]

Bump   any more picts out there?

[Anonymous]

any more picts?     this is fascinating

[dale8chevyss]

 

LOL where is the fish? The tackle box is a good idea!