blackdogwoodshop's Workshop

My shop is in the one and a half car garage in the basement of our home. In addition, I have a small shed that I use for wood storage (amoung other things). I am fortunate to have gathered together a reasonably complete shop with a good set of power tools and hand tools. Many of my tools have been purchased used including most of my hand planes and my drill press. My router table and planer outfeed table/lumber storage rack are shop made. Other items I have purchased new, including my table saw, planer, band saw, radial arm saw, jointer, spindle saner, and routers.

Although my shop is of modest size, I have been able lay it out so that I can work with 8 foot material at all of the major workstations without moving any tools around. This includes the workbench, table saw, radial arm saw, planer, and jointer. One key to this is having common table and bench heights at adjacent workstations. This allows me to efficiently prepare stock without moving machines around.

Shown in the pictures are as follows:

Picture 1. This picture shows the view from the garage door looking into the shop. You can see the table saw and outfeed table, the jointer, the router table (on the right), the planer (far right just in the edge of the photo), and the drill press all the way in the back. Note the outfeed support for the table saw can be adjusted to either of the two bench/table heights in my shop: 36” and 40”.

Picture 2. A close up of the planer and the stand I built for it. The stand is 8’ long and provides lumber storage under the planer and outfeed support for boards up to 8’. The stand is on rollers so I can roll it out to plane stock up about 12’ long if necessary. The table height of the planer is 40”. The router table and rolling tool cart (visible in photo 1) provide infeed support for the planer. Above the planer, you can see my makeshift clamp racks.

Picture 3. This picture shows a view of the area with my spindle sander, band saw, and workbench. The workbench is nothing to write home about – it was left in the garage by the previous owner. I adding some screws to make it more stable, and I added the bench vise. I keep about 100 lbs of dumb bells on the shelf to hold it down. Hand planes are also stored on the shelf below the bench. The bench will get an upgrade eventually.

Picture 4. This picture shows my radial arm saw. This is an invaluable tool for cross cuts. I do nearly all cross cuts with this tool.

Picture 5. This picture shows a view from behind the table saw looking out of the shop. This picture was taken at night with the garage door up. On the near right, you see the small rolling cart that I use for keeping commonly used tools close at hand. It also sees use to roll works in progress around the shop. Below the table saw, you will notice the rigid shop vac that serves as a dust collector for the table saw, spindle sander, belt and disc sander, radial arm saw, router table, and band saw. To use it, I move the hose from one tool to another. I have a cieling mounted (the ceiling is only 84”) switch above the table saw to turn it off and on. On nice days, I raise the door, turn on a box fan, and let the dust blow out the door.

Picture 6. This picture shows a close up of the router table. As you can see, I built the router table. This was one of my first projects ever and includes some pretty bad looking (but functional) dovetail joinery. The table height is 40”. The router is wired to a switch that turns on both the router and power to an outlet on the back of the table. As such, I can plug the shop vac into the table and use the switch to turn on both the routher and the shop vac. The dust port is in the back. The fence is there on one of the shelves. It’s a 2×4 and some particle board. To use it, I simply clamp it to the table.

Here is a diagram that shows the current layout of my workshop:

Thanks for taking time to tour my shop!

-- Daniel, Southern Indiana -- "Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." -- http://blackdogwoodshop.etsy.com