Here's the deal -- we moved to a new home a couple weeks ago and I've been struggling ever since moving in to come up with a shop floor plan I can commit to. I did an initial floor plan and it would probably work fine, but I just keep coming up with other ideas about framing placement and such.
I really need another woodworker to take a look at my space and weigh in on my ideas for framing and tool placement, and perhaps give some fresh suggestions of what other arrangement might work well. Not looking for muscle to move tools around, just some fresh insight into the space I have to work with.
Anyway, if you live near Wilkes-Barre (I'm actually in Drums, almost exactly at the intersection of I-80 and I-81) and have a bit of time to spare to brainstorm with me, I'll buy lunch.
Bench under a window for light. I like the jointer opposite the saw and pointed in the opposite direction. There is a lot of work flow between these machines. Beyond that, I don't see that it matters much. Most shops are a product of evolution, not prior planning. Put outlets everywhere in abundance including a ceiling drop from each end of the bench for things like routers, drills etc.
It's not so much tool placement as it is planning the whole space. With the exception of my table saw and lather, everything in my shop is on wheels, so I can experiment a lot by just rolling things around after I get the space framed and wired.
Right now, the space is a great big empty that's just shy of 2,000 sq. ft. About 60% of it is going to be my shop, but the rest will be divided up into other uses after framing in some walls.
My office will be here, plus a storage room for general household storage. What my issue has been is dividing everything up in the most logical and efficient manner. The only part that's set in stone is my office. This is a walkout basement with a big double sliding door that will be part of the shop. Also on this back wall is nice big window, and that's where my office is going to go.
I'm 99% sure about where I'll frame the office walls, literally to within a foot or so one way or the other. It's all the other walls I'm not sure about. Naturally, I want to do this right the first time, and hence my dilemma. I just keep wavering back and forth about the best places for the walls as they'll relate to shop use.
I think it really depends on what you use your shop for and how you use it. What is perfect for someone else may not make sense for you.
For example, I built my 24x62 shop with multiple purposes in mind. I have flat wood tools, lathes, welding, machining, maintenance, beekeeping, electronics, farm animal care, and office. I can almost promise my idea of the perfect layout would not be yours! My wood focus is woodturning so I put a great deal of thought into laying out that space for multiple lathes and a large sharpening station. But even someone else with a woodturning focus would likely want a different layout since they probably work a different way.
One thing I did which helped tremendously. I started with a large scale drawing (about 2' long) of the outline of the space. (I built the building from scratch so for my case I actually decided on the dimensions and did the scale drawing before I set the posts and built the forms for the concrete.)
I made paper cutouts for each of the machines (and infeed/outfeed space) I had and any I planned to acquire plus workbenches, shelving, wood storage, dust collector, air compressor, etc.
I tried many options over several months before I decided where to build the dividing walls and how to arrange things. To assure enough walking space, I mocked up some things with big cardboard boxes and measured the walking space I felt comfortable with. Then I made paper circles to represent that space and made sure I could "move" them through the diagram. When I got things how I wanted them I taped the cutouts to the drawing.
This diagram let me not only plan the walls, but some specific door placement, lighting, receptacles, and dust collection runs and drops. I built the interior following the drawing and although I've made some changes the basic layout has worked well.
I know you can get software to visualize and plan shop spaces and I actually relied on 3D and cad software in my job, but I found the paper solution far easier to adjust and visualize. I recommend you try this first then perhaps make some sketches with options and post for comments.
If you want some basic suggestions to get started maybe you could post a drawing of the space then a list of the major tools and benches you have or plan, including the major use areas.
That is good advice. I like starting with paper and then maybe extending to near full scale mockups with cardboard.
The plus is, don't forget the "project". Leave a space to assemble whatever you plan to build. For example a chest of drawers will completely disrupt my tiny shop. The "place for the project" includes spaces to put the parts before you assemble.
I have a clutter problem. Any flat surface gets buried. The packrat gene reinforces this. (Don't throw away those scraps, they might come in handy.) Have a place for everything and put them away.
I have a friend who has about every tool known to man but no place to actually build anything.
Consider the flow of work. If you do a lot from rough wood to flat work, what is the flow between bandsaw, jointer, planer, tables saw? It's good to ask for ideas first. Otherwise, when you get Ellis to come by, he'll be moving things around to help you achieve that flow. I wished I'd had wheels on my giant, aircraft carrier of a jointer--he had us dragging that thing across the shop! But he was right and it is in the perfect spot. :-)
>>>Graph paper is a good thing, but the shop planner had all the nice templates of the machines . Both work reasonably well.
I did use graph paper on the dozen preliminary layouts but after putting up the building I went for bigger paper before I put up interior walls and locked in the wiring and DC plan. Unfortunately, big graph paper is hard to buy!
I used plain white paper and drew the exterior walls to scale. I got out and unrolled the old drawing - the tape was failing and the pieces were coming loose. This is part of the woodworking area and welding room.
The paper was bigger than I thought: 27"x36". I made folded paper rulers marked off in scale feet for positioning things.
One thing I liked about the paper is I could lay it on a cart in the empty shop and (for me) more easily visualize the space than on a screen or a smaller printout. After this layout, I stuck blue and green masking tape to the floor to mark out the positions of walls and things for a walk through to get the feel for the actual space.
I guess use paper a lot. When trying to decide whether my grand piano would fit in this smaller house I made a full-sized template (about 5'x9' with bench) and tried different layouts. Yay, one spot was perfect! Before I did that I was convinced the space was too small.
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