New Shop Pix

New Shop Pix · 07-03-2009, 11:17 AM

I guess we're about a third of the way through with building my new shop. The heat has slowed us down some. It's going to be 48' x 24' and it is attached to the back of my old shop, which will become general storage with a small corner as a finishing booth. There are windows all the way around the top of the walls. The two end windows will hold a fan and a window AC unit with a wood-burning stove in-between. The walls will be insulated and then covered with luann which I'm going to paint white. Eventually, I'm going to insulate the roof, as well. I have a walk-in door on one side and double-doors on the other near the wood storage. A good friend of mine is a contractor and he is providing his labor and expertise in exchange for me building his kitchen cabinets.
My next, and hopefully last, purchase will have to be ducting for the dust collection system. I have a Delta 2 HP unit that I bought a couple of years ago but have not used, yet. I have the books, I've read the web sites, etc., but the planning of this thing is still difficult for me. Running the electricity is a breeze compared to the ducting. I'm planning to run a 6" main with as big a pipe as possible to each machine. I guess I'll use PVC because of the cost savings but it really does make finding the parts difficult. Has anyone priced out the true difference between PVC that you plan yourself and the metal stuff that a company will plan for you?

Thanks

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PChristy · 07-03-2009, 11:24 AM

Very nice Susan - Looks like it is coming along great - you might need to hang a couple of "You Are Here" maps in there - you might get lost with all that extra room you are going to have

Alan in Little Washington · 07-03-2009, 12:19 PM

Susan- as far as DC, the 2 hp unit will do for the interim, but a shop that big really calls for a 3 hp minimum or even better, a 5 hp unit. You will also want to either discharge directly outside into a bin or upgrade to a cyclone someday. Use NO 'T's, 2 45's vs a 90, and as short and straight runs as possible.

For piping- when you talk PVC I hope you mean 6" ASTM 2729 S&D (sewer and drain) which has thinner wall than the Schedule 40 used in house plumbing. S&D is harder to find, especially in 6", so you may need to go to an irrigation supply house. John Deere Landscapes (15 locations in SC) sells 6", but will charge you twice as much as they would if you were a landscaper- so find a friendly landscaper to buy it for you. You can usually find 6" S&D fittings at Lowes.

Prices: PVC Sched 40 and S&D pipe are close in price. Sched 40 fittings (which will not fit S&D) can cost almost twice as much as S&D fittings.

I don't recall, but prices of S&D and metal pipe might be similar, but S&D fittings are usually much cheaper than the good metal fittings, especially the fittings you get from Oneida, Grizzly, Norfab, etc. which can cost over $30-$40 for a 6" wye (S&D 6" wye at Lowes runs $16 - $20.) Big box store metal HVAC fittings are thin, flimsy, etc, but close in price to S&D PVC.

I used all 6" PVC S&D and am glad. Easier to run and reconfigure. Friction fit, NO GLUE, if your want put a tiny bead of silicone (not acrylic) caulk on the outside of joints to seal them. Silicone is easy to rub off with your fingers when you reconfigure- which will likely happen some day.

froglips · 07-03-2009, 12:25 PM

Wow!

Thats a stunning shop!

I love those windows too. So much light.

Enjoy!

Jim

bwat · 07-03-2009, 12:47 PM

Awesome shop space you have there and it sounds as if it is well planned. I too LOVE the tall windows for added light. What type floors have you planned?

BKind2Anmls · 07-03-2009, 01:54 PM

Thanks, all. And thanks for the advice on the DC unit. I will have to wait for a long while on a bigger unit, but I had nothing in my old shop so I hope there will be some improvement. I am so tired of dust over everything that I am building all enclosed cabinets for storage.

The thing I'm having the hardest time figuring out are the drops down to my tools. I posted a question about it in another forum.

For the floors, basically we built a 16" OC deck and topped it with something called AdvanTech panels. I'm going to paint with porch paint. Should be a lot better than the concrete floor I currently have.

McRabbet · 07-03-2009, 06:26 PM

Awesome shop building, Susan! The clerestory windows will bring in loads of natural light and will keep all of that precious wall space unobstructed. I agree with Alan ILW's comments regarding ductwork and fittings -- I installed 4" S&D pipe with my old 1HP Penn State DC and it served me well until I got larger dust and chip generators, so I'm in the process of upgrading (a long story) to a ClearVue CV1800 Cyclone with 6" S&D. I bought all of my pipe through a distributor in Spartanburg, SC for about $1.60/foot and 6x6x6 and 6x6x4 wyes, 45* elbows and straight couplings at Lowe's. I've removed the 4" ports from several of my power tools and replaced them with shop-made 6" ports (just 3/4" plywood and either 1/2 a coupling or a 4" length of S&D pipe glued in with Gorilla Glue). I bought clear PVC flex hose from McMaster-Carr ($65 for 25') and wire hose clamps from Redmond Industrial & Sons for under $1 each (PM me for details if you need). My ductwork is under my shop floor because my house is cut into the side of a hill and I have 3-1/2' to 9' of dry crawl space under my 800 SF basement shop. My cyclone will exhaust outdoors through an 8" x 16" vent hole.

Given the configuration of your shop, I would recommend running a main down the center line above the main chord (the beam that spans the walls) and adding wyes to run at 45* out from the centerline to dual 45* elbows joined with a short straight length to make 90* drops to your machines. You could use additional wyes in a drop to dual machines and put blast gates (again, easy to make) and a short run of flex to the ports on machines. You'll need support for the duct coming down with a stud or something similar, but as Alan suggested, do not glue your joints. Hope this helps -- I'm envious of your shop space!

LeftyTom · 07-03-2009, 08:46 PM

Mercy, that is a big shop, Susan.

With me, the smaller my shop, the less stuff I can accumulate before I have to clean it out.

Gotcha6 · 07-03-2009, 10:14 PM

I'm one of the few people on this site who has been privileged to see your current shop and its expansion in person recently. I was mostly impressed with your garage door accessory.
Guys, she has a custom made roll up screen fitted behind her overhead door. She says it's not to keep out mosquitoes, but hummingbirds that fly into the shop and become trapped. We should all be so lucky that we live that close to nature.

scsmith42 · 07-03-2009, 10:29 PM

Susan, your shop looks GREAT! I know that you will be excited to start working in it.

Regarding your question about the drops, have you considered coming up through your floor instead? I noticed that you have a crawl space, and under-floor electrical and dust collection will keep the shop looking cleaner overall, less work for the DC system, and no drops to work around.

Scott

Robert Brunke' · 07-03-2009, 10:47 PM

Susan,
Great looking shop!
If you haven't purchaced the luan for the walls yet, you will find that you can purchase 7/16" OSB for less money and will be more durable for the long haul.
Regards,
Robert

BKind2Anmls · 07-03-2009, 11:28 PM

I really appreciate everyone's comments. Unfortunately, with the 2 x 10 joists, I actually have very little floor clearance. I also figured it would be easier to make modifications in the duct system if it wasn't under the floor. (Not that we women ever want to move the "furniture" around!) As you can see from the drawing below, I have tried to locate my machines in the half of the shop closest to the DC. The DC will be located in the upper left hand corner on the other side of the shop wall (in the old shop). I was planning to run my main duct diagonally across the shop.

Rob, I wish I had your knowlege of dust collection systems...but I'm sure it's hard-won through hard work. The dust collection stuff is what I am looking forward to least. It's just not my forte. I made a mess when I tried it in my old shop. Now I have a bunch of 4" PVC, fittings, and flexible tubing just laying around outside.

The storage cabinets at the top of the drawing will be made 18" deep with shelves. The doors will be shallow boxes in which I'll hang pegboard for tools. I have some super heavy-duty piano hinges to hold them up.

Where you see the benchtop planer, jointer, and miter saw side-by-side, I plan on having cabinets stretching 7 feet on either side. The machines themselves will sit on a rotating cabinet so I can flip upside down the machines I am not using. This will leave me a level countertop that I can use for planing/jointing/chopping long boards on whichever machine is flipped upright. These cabinets will house "drawers" (probably table bussing trays on cleats) behind doors.

The sanding area will house all my sanders plus a down draft table, sand paper, etc.

The assembly table will be large and low with PVC tubes through the base which will house my clamps. I saw a plan in one of the woodworking magazines.

I plan on hanging a small wall cabinet near the other wall-located machines (where possible) to hold the accessories for that particular machine. The open area behind the table saw is where I will set up my sawhorses and cutting grid when I need to cut down large sheets.

I've drawn out the plan with chalk on the actual floor of the shop but I'm sure I'm missing half of the things I will need to make room for.

This all cetainly won't happen overnight. It will take time for labor and time to save up more money to continue. But I hope this will be the last shop I will ever have to build.

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scsmith42 · 07-03-2009, 11:40 PM

Susan, one thing that I did in my new shop (that has worked very well) was to group my equipment together - away from the walls - in workstations. For instance, my combo jointer/planer, shaper, and 17" bandsaw are all grouped together in a triangle. The moulder and the straight line rip saw are also back to back, but with the moulder canted at an angle. The tablesaw and the spindle sander are together, as are my edge and combo belt/disc sanders.

It's worked out very well, and enabled me to compress more equipment into less space, with better access around the machines.

BKind2Anmls · 07-04-2009, 12:40 AM

Very interesting Scott. You could then run a single drop down in the middle and break off to each machine. That is definitely something I will have to consider.

Thanks

Travis Porter · 07-04-2009, 04:07 PM

Very nice shop!!! I agree with running the main line down the middle and having wye's from it there. I ran all of my pipe attached to the ceiling as my shop lighting hangs down about 10" from the ceiling so it made it pretty easy.

I used metal pipe for my shop. To give an idea of metal pipe costs, I used snaplock pipe I bought from Home Depot and lowes, but I bought all my wyes and elbows from Oneida (not the cheapest place for pipe I learned after the fact). My main trunk lines are 8" and I go down to 6" for branches and then fown from there.

IIRC, I bought 8-8" wyes, 10-8" 90's, 4-6" 90's, and I believe 2-4" 90's and 2-6" blast gates. I spent about $480 on just this. The snap lock pipe is pretty cheap from Lowes/Home Depot. I bought all the reducers 8 to 6, 6 to 5, 6 to 4 from the Borg as well as that stuff was pretty cheap. All in all, I think I spent around $700 including blast gates. I got all the blast gates at the cheapest places I could find aluminum ones. I think I got 4" Shop Fox gates for about $6 each. I did need a couple of 6" gates and got those from Oneida.

There were a few reasons I went with snap lock. It is cheaper than spiral, and 8" stuff is easier to find and lighter than PVC, and lastly, I don't like getting shocked. I still get shocked occassionally from the short sections of flex pipe I have, but it is a rare thing. I am a "nervous" sort, and it is easy to come up behind me and scare the fool out of me and getting shocked from static electricity is a surprise I prefer to avoid whenever possible.