This Couldn't Work...Could It?

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texasfootball21

Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2008
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274
Location
San Antonio, TX, USA
I have a crazy idea that I expect will be shot down very quickly, but I have to ask anyway.

My poor excuse of a shop consists of two counters in the garage covered in equipment and pen parts, a lathe on a work bench, and a table saw in the middle of it all. The garage is not heated, nor cooled. It is poorly lit and has terrible circulation. My tools suffer from the horrible conditions and my horrible care. My lathe bed and tail stock quill is rusting, and I feel like I'm letting everything fall apart.

I don't go over to the shop for a number of reasons. Some of them are: I don't feel like putting on 3 coats and 2 pairs of pants so I can keep from freezing in winter, I don't feel like taking off most my clothes so I don't burn up in summer, I don't have time to go sit in the garage for 4 hours because I know once I'm there I won't be coming back anytime soon, the garage is such a terrible mess I don't want to be over there, the other members of my family have converted my small shop space into more storage and I'm not in the mood to try to make enough room to even make it to my lathe, and the list goes on...

I just got back from the "shop," which prompted me to make this thread. Someone backed up our trailer into the garage with about 16 bales of hay on it. My table saw has been slammed against the back wall of the garage and a table with sandpaper and other materials has been knocked over.

Needless to say, I'm sick of trying to work like this. I have almost stopped penmaking altogether, mostly because I am sick of my shop driving me crazy.

Now for my crazy idea...

I have a walk in closet attached to my room. It isn't too big, but just big enough for me to think up this idea:

What if I turned the closet into the shop...

At least the wood lathe and assembly equipment. I would leave the table saw and drill press in the garage. Prep the blanks in the garage, but do the actualy penmaking portion, as in turning, finishing, and assembling in the closet shop.

What do you guys think? I would have to clear everything in there out and give up the storage space but it might just be worth it if it worked out.

Possible problems I see are that I would not have a closet (obviously), controlling dust on my tiny budget, as right now I just wear a good mask with changeable filters, low circulation, the carpet would be a pain, I would have to build my table space to maxamize work area. Another big concern of mine is about dust making its way into my room, which I couldn't stand. There are tons more problems I am waiting for you guys to point out that make this a crazy idea that could (probably) never work.

Anyone have any thoughts? Or any other crazy turners out there try the same thing? I want to get back to penmaking and I don't think I can stand making one more pen in my garage.

Just thought I'd throw up the idea...
 
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I've often thought about the same thing. When we moved into our house there is a huge, almost the size of a normal bedroom, WIC attached to our Master Bedroom - it was supposed to be the "Craft Room" but is really just storage for all of the junk that I just can't get rid of.

Needless to say, the garage is my current workshop. It also doubles as storage and laundy room. It isn't insulated, is colder than the freezer in the same garage, and has electrical issues.

My wife gets torked. She doesn't like the woodshavings and saw dust tracked into the house and doesn't like that she has to go out to the garage to do laundry.

My fear of putting the "Shop" in the upstairs WIC would be that dust and shavings would get tracked into the carpet and other rooms of the house, no matter what type of dust system I installed.
 
You need to call.........."Clean House". You'll get cleaned up, organized and have a killer designer setup!!! Get your camera out and make your plea!!!

Tell Neice you neeeed her, Mark, Tris and their 'Go To Guy'!!!

Well......it couldn't hurt!

I feel your pain..........


Barney :bananen_smilies022:
 
I turn in a bathroom. It's 4'x6'. I have an L shaped workbench along two walls, two stacks of drawers under one of them, pegboard on the walls, shelves near the ceiling for blank storage, my chainsaw hanging from the ceiling, a 5hp shopvac... etc. It is attached to the main shop with the tablesaw, drillpress, sander, etc. All the turning, finishing, assembly, etc. is done in there, and I'm thinking about getting a tabletop drillpress and a sander of some kind in there as well.
 
When I first started turning, I was in a rental. It had an open garage with a 4'x8' "storage room" that had the electric water heater in one corner. I could close it up in winter and put a small heater in there and keep pretty comfortable. In summer door open with fan. Worked pretty good. I've contemplated in past using our third Bedroom, but I decided I liked having a wife around and built a 30x30 shop.
 
Gouletpens also turned in a tiny space. Check his site for his blog and you will see some pics of what he started in. An apartment storage closet IIRC
 
I don't have a shop -- just a guest room with a VERY busy shop vac. I vacuum thoroughly after every turning, and have it running with the nozzle attached to the tool rest while I turn. It's noisy, but I close the door and my wife doesn't complain. Ear plugs help. So does Rock and Roll.
Doug
 
Why not put the hay outside covered in a tarp.. move everything from storage you can and cram it into the WIC.. Put a few shelves up and cram the rest out of your way. And use a small heater when you need to.. WD40 will help stop the rust.
DONT do the turning in the house.. you need proper dust collection.. Long term? how will "breathing" leftover stirred up dust and ca stuff all night long affect you? Another woodworker I know, just had a lung removed from lung cancer just last month and spent a month in the hospital over Christmas.. some of these woods are NOT safe to breath the dust in.. DONT RISK YOUR LONGTERM HEALTH!

Maybe I am too caucious, but after each visit to the shop I change all my clothes (keep seperate shop clothes) and then straight to the bathroom where I clean up well before going anywhere in the rest of the house. I have 3 kids (oldest is 6) and want to stay healthy for them and keep them away from the dust.
 
When I spent time out of state a few years ago I turned in an apartment using a home-made dust collection system that was not noisy. I used a large cardboard box, from a TV, put a filter in it and attached a high-velocity fan to the front. For the duct I used the flexible aluminum ducts used for dryers. It was quiet, pulled in dust real well, and my sandpaper when I dropped it. It did not pull in the bigger chips but these were easily vacuumed up. It was quiet enough that the occupant on the other side of the wall could not hear it.
 
Sounds like you really need to think about what you want and then find a way to work towards that end... Make a plan and try to stick to it.

Without trying to be rude - If you don't keep up your outside space then what about the inside one? I too live in Texas and suffer the same issues - freezing temps and wind in Dec-Jan-Feb and brutally hot temps in June-July-Aug. I also use my garage which is neither heated or cooled.

However, I have slowly (over the past year) been making changes to the environment to make it more pleasant for me to work w/o breaking the bank:

1. Use a small propane heater for the winter and a decent fan for summer
2. Use a 1000W lightstand b/c I have not had the time/money to add ceiling lights
3. Use floor padding where I work ($10 @ Harbor Freight).
4. I just installed a single-stage chip/dust collector
5. Planned air filtration system by summer (if all goes as planned)
6. Building a tool storage unit to hang on the wall

So far the most expensive thing was the dust collector at around $300 all said and done.

The tool cabinet is from an old piece of 4x8 3/4" plywood I had laying around and everything else was less that $50 each at Home Depot, Ace Hardware, or Army/Navy Store.

There are a ton of other things that I want to do to the shop, (compressor, walls, new flooring, better lighting, wood storage, etc...) but I tackle them 1 thing at a time until it becomes the space that I want. The problem then becomes leaving it to go to work and to spend time with the family...

geeeze - I rambled on...

Just my thoughts - David
 
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