When it comes to workshops, I will be the first to admit that compared to those whose entire workshop consists of only a small table in corner of the basement or – shudder -- a drafty little corner in the garage, I really feel blessed.
Almost from the day we moved into this house my wife has
graciously granted me pretty much free reign of the basement. Save for one small corner reserved for the washer,
dryer, water heater and furnace (now walled off from the workshop), the entire
basement is pretty much mine.
The problem has been that I never really took the time to
properly “design” the area. It just sort
of “grew like Topsie” with benches and tools scattered about. As a practicing engineer, I should
have been more careful, but I was too impatient.
Soon after I bought my lathe – probably 10 years ago -- I
realized that I needed to either add dust collection capability or choke to
death on the dust I was producing. One
of the local tool stores was having a sale on Jet dust collectors. I bought one
and installed it, greatly over estimating its capacity. Then, as if to add insult to injury, I very
careful positioned the two most dust producing devices, the sander and the
bandsaw at the two most distant points of the collection system. It worked…it was better than nothing…but not much
better:-).
My retirement, which started this past January,
has given me the opportunity to completely revamp the shop with the goal of
improving its overall utility, specifically in the areas of available workspace,
improved dust collection and storage for wood and tools.
Regrettably, I don’t really have any pictures of how it used
to look for comparison but here are a few pictures of how it looks
now.
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| Overall View - Bandsaw and Lathe |
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| Drill Press Bench |
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| Assembly Bench |
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| Electronics Bench |
I plan to make a number of posts in the near future to discuss some of the improvements I have made. Keep on Watchin'!
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