I'm new here and was fascinated by the talk of your dreamshop discussion.
10 years ago I sold my body shop and retired (per se - - I was only 40 so
still had to earn some sort of income) I purchased an old farm with no
house but with a 35' x 120' barn and a 40' x 80' pole shed. The results
have been a 35' x 35' workshop in the ground level of the barn with a house
upstairs above it.
I am into restoring old cars so this setup got designed around that thought.
Along with the workshop there is another room which I refer to as my
toyshop. It houses the benches, drill press, glass bead cabinet, bench
grinder, and all my bins and drawers full of nuts, bolts, clips and loads
of other small parts. I also keep all my tools other than those in the
roller tool box that I keep in the shop. Outside the shop in the other
area of the barn downstairs I have an area that I store all of my jacks,
welders and other larger equipment so that when I am not using that piece
of equipment it is not in the shop where it can collect dust. There are no
permanent benches in the main shop as they always tend to be areas to stack
things we don't have any other place for. I have one bench built out of
countertop which I can move to any location in the shop depending on what I
am working on. I can put three vehicles in the shop at one time but I
usually work on only two at a time and keep one stall for working on
smaller parts such as a fender or an engine.
One key thing I have found is keeping your dust and dirt from spreading to
areas that you don't want it in. I use the cheap tarps that can be
purchased from the discount stores, cut them to the proper length to hang
from screw hooks in the ceiling and use them as divider curtain walls to
seperate the projects and control the dirt. They also work great to create
a temporary paint booth. They are not really flamable so they do not pose
much of a problem when I am using my wire feed or plasma cutter or cutting
torch. (unless you put the flame right on them)
I shop the government surplus stores and auctions when possible and last
summer I was rewarded with a 7' high sandblast cabinet for $150.00. It
needed another $150.00 in repairs but is a dream come true for the work I
do.
So my suggestions for a nice shop is a seperate area to store all your
equipment and an area to work in free of clutter. It is a dream to clean
up if you don't have to work around all sorts of equipment and it is much
better for all the equipment if it isn't getting covered with dirt and
worst of all paint overspray.
I'll shut up now.
John R. Draxler (Thunderbird Ranch) 715-884-6546
7158 Hwy. B, Pittsville, WI 54466
(jdrax@wctc.net)
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