Workshops

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

I have been watching a lot of engineering videos on u-tube among them "shop tours"by Keith Rucker, vintage machinery, I can't get over the size of the machinery and the scale of the workshops some people have got, not only could you eat your dinner of the floor but these shops wouldn't disgrace Buck House it is making me look at my workshop in a different light, 8 x 8 with everything crammed in bins full of stuff that could be useful at a later date general mess and the resident midget that hides my tools when I want them a state of permanent chaos reigns. I am sure owners of these wonderful shops enjoy what they do and I enjoy their contributions but I admit I am jealous, have now parked my vehicle on the drive and am turning the garage into a workshop.

Whats your workshop like ?

Mick

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

[John RuddParticipant @johnrudd16576]

Mick,

My 'shop once was my garage, 25 feet long and just over 13'6 wide…..

Now it houses three lathes, three milling machines, a metal bandsaw, a bench, a large conpressor and various other tooling items…There's not enough room to swing a cat let alone eat dinner from the floor…

It is so disorganised, but I reckon I can put my hands on most things…..

"A place for everything and everything in its place…" I wish…..

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

16' x 9' home made shed. Usually looks like a tip but it does. *Pictures Here*

John

Edited By Journeyman on 15/02/2017 09:59:03

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

Hello Mick,

​Has it not occurred to you that those who regularly produce U-tube videos might go out of their way to present the shop in the best light? I know I would go to some effort to do that; we never see 'behind the scenes do we!'

​On a different tack, I can never understand how some hopefuls expect to flog machine tools on e-bay with them displayed buried in boxes and junk, upside down photos, often badly lit and focussed;

I just pass those by without a second glance. The descriptions don't help either being so vague as to be useless 'dunno wot it is but in good working order'

Regards Brian

[Allan BParticipant @allanb]

Call me greedy but I have two workshops 😀

one is an 8’x 12′ shed that houses my joinery workshop, with more kit than your average commercial shop, took me a long time working out how to get everything in, and half of it has to be on wheels to allow it to be used.

The second is a standard single garage, with 2 lathes, micro mill,pillar drill ect, plus a bench with a 250L compressor underneath, and still got space to fit 3 or 4 motorbikes in 😀

I wish I could say they were both spotless, and on occasions they are (never at the same time 😂&#128514 but the min I start working on any project it ends up looking like someone has dropped a bomb in the middle and scattered tools and materials everywhere, so you are not alow

Allan

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

My 'Man cave' is the converted single garage 18' x 8' with 1 lathe, 1 mill, some benches, bench drill, Compressor, toolboxes, Wall cabinet, shelves etc. I can still see the floor & walls reasonably clearly so I obviously don't have enough 'stuff' in there .

George.

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by Brian Wood on 15/02/2017 10:07:09:

​Has it not occurred to you that those who regularly produce U-tube videos might go out of their way to present the shop in the best light? I know I would go to some effort to do that; we never see 'behind the scenes do we!'

Regards Brian

.

My mates 'Jobbing workshop' – He obviously goes to great lengths to tidy on a regular basis.

[Bob RodgersonParticipant @bobrodgerson97362]

Mine is more or less a purpose built garage/workshop based on a tandem double garage 13Ft wideX 30 ft long.

It houses, in three sections separated by curtain doors.

Section 1 : Workbench,Bench Grinder, brazing, welding equipment and electric heat treatment furnace

Section 2: Tormach CNC Mill, Myford Cylindrical grinding machine, Warco BH600 lathe, Warco Mill , Tool and cutter grinder, end mill grinder,Bench Drill and another bench for light assembly work.

Section 3: Motorcycles, BSA A-10 650 RGS Lookalike, Humber 350 OHV, Humber 350 Side Valve, and 500 Thruxtonised Velocette Venom as well as in the roof space loads of Humber frames engines and different project bikes.

The bike section is about 9 ft long and I can store four or five bikes 2 on top of the purpose made storage lift and one or two underneath plus one parked against the wall to allow access to the other sections of the workshop.

Regardless, no matter what I do it always looks a mess but that is because there is so much stuff in there but I'm like John Rudd, I know where most things are. (It's in here somewhere!)

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Like other people, I use my garage, and the car sits outside on the drive. And why shouldn't it – it is supposed to be waterproof and it is then ready for immediate use.

Internally, one lathe and vertical drill on one bench, milling machine on wheels, and a general purpose workbench. A cupboard, four sets of home-made shelving plus lots of wall mounted shelves & some of those storage cabinets for small parts. Two bicycles, a small workbench/storage unit from Machine Mart, and a small temporary home-made table made from a B&D Workmate with a 3ft x 18 inch piece of 4 ply on top. I couldn't tell you what I have, but if you ask if I have something, I can tell you if I have it and I can immediately lay my hands on it.

Messy? Undoubtedly at times, but it works, provided I keep putting stuff away as otherwise I end up losing valuable worktop space.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

Enjoyed your pals workshop vid Brian, crikey if I had one like that I'd never be seen again, although my space is choc a bloc I do like to keep the important bits of my machines cleaned and oiled, currently I have a lathe,horizontal mill, vertical mill, drill press, mechanical hacksaw, compressor plus bits in my 8×8 guess have to make the best of what we have, my Gramps used to have his lathe in a large wardrobe and my first shop was a coal bunker

Mick

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Mick;

I was amazed to see pictures of Kozo Hiraoka's workshop (of the USA geared locomotive construction books fame) and to find out that it was situated in an 8×8 corner of a living room.

The lesson I take from this is "focus", and "have only what you need".

What are you planning on doing in your workshop?

My workshop has 3 lathes, 3 mills, band saw, cutoff saw, and various other bits. Thinking about getting rid of the largest lathe and one of my mills, as it is difficult to use all of them at once, for some reason.

John.

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

John, I have 2 engines Petrolea & Rob Roy in progress but I do like making tooling and bits and pieces for my machines, trying to make a 6" shaper as I seemed to be last there when one was for sale

Mick

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Hi Mick,

The description you give of your workshop sound familiar, mine is even smaller than yours. I occasionally try to tidy up a bit which result in me not finding anything. A big workshop would be nice but I am not sure I would keep it tidier.

Thor

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

We in the UK are lucky if we have garage big enough to get a car in these days, and most gardens can't accommodate a rotary close line. Travelled round east coast USA last fall and did get a bit envious of houses with a drive the length of our street and enough out buildings to house a block of flats. But then you look at the state of some of the houses and wonder how people can live like that. A lot of the videos are done by small businesses, in USA they spend more time promoting themselves on different media than we do here in the UK. We still regard modelling in all its forms as a hobby not part of a buisness in the main.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Many of these US (work)shops are in areas of low housing density, where the cost of the land and construction is cheap. And generally, houses in N America are wooden boxes, slapped up over a concrete box (basement) in the ground. So even if you use the basement of an urban house as a workshop, it's often relatively large, as is the house above it. Wood and nails are a fair bit quicker and cheaper than bricks and morter.

Our house in Canada had a pretty large basement but unfortunately for me it had been converted into a self contained teenage / granny flat and utility. Even so, the large double garage was pretty handy as a workshop, not least given that most of the non-workshop junk got migrated into said basement flat.

My current UK workshop is almost finished now. Originally it was 6m x 15m (20' x 50&#39 but I ended up hiving off 1/4 of it as a dining room / utility in the interests of domestic politics / good investment sense. Still, the main area is a good size and I will keep the other clutter (bikes etc) down the side (sort of single garage) corridor part.

Murray

[john carruthersParticipant @johncarruthers46255]

Mine is a 6' x 8' shed, half that is observatory, and I can only stand up in the middle.
But it's much better than a workmate on the patio, it has power and light and is rain proof

[Involute CurveParticipant @involutecurve]

Performance Bikes Magazine do a Garage / Workshop 360 photograph, mine was recently featured in this Mag, I must admit it came out far better than I thought it would, the main image was centrefold with another couple of pages of more traditional pictures, the process was interesting, the photographer mounted a camera on a tripod in the middle of the workshop this slowly rotated taking numerous photographs this took about an hour, he then uses some software to lace them all together into a single image, this can also be viewed in 3D by the use of an app (which I don't have), I'm unsure how much this all cost, perhaps Neil could look into this type of thing, maybe similar software is available for reasonable prices, my workshop is now back to its normal untidy state…………….

I can send a pdf of the main image to Neil to look at if he's interested

Shaun

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

I have a 4 x 5 metre wood cabin that I built as my workshop on a concrete base. I got a mate in to use a mini digger to clear the land and level it roughly. But most of the slogging was done by hand. I find I have enough room for all my wanted equipment.

Michael W

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Interested to see it, I am not sure we would have the budget :-/

Always keen to receive photos of Reader's Workshops … anyone here fancy being a centrefold? (Control yourself Nick…)

Neil

[Allan BParticipant @allanb]

Neil

Which one of the workshops described above 😂 or just an ongoing stream for MEW?

Allan

[jimmy bParticipant @jimmyb]

Mine is a home shed, 8' x 10', absolutely full! Got a Chester Crusader lathe, Sieg SC4 lathe, small mill, decent Sealey bench drill, horizontal band saw, decent sized bench, extra bench on wheels, various bisley cabinets.

I always seem to be able to liberate a bit more space when needed though!

it always amazes me how many of the these American shops have dogs and cats in!

[the artfull-codgerParticipant @theartfull-codger]

It doesn't matter how large[or small] your workshop is you will fill it [if your like me!!] & plenty are, I started with a small wash house & progressed with various larger sheds/ workshops & they've all ended up being full, I presently have a large shed a cow byre & a large corn shed, they're all full [MUST have a sort out sometime]

Graham.

[JAParticipant @ja]

I like the idea of a workshop photograph as a centre spread.

As for my workshop, it will need all the bike bits cluttering the place put back where they belong – in the other garage – and then a really good spring clean. To get more room I intend to replace the band saw, which I hate, by a powered hacksaw.

JA

[Anonymous]

The high end motor racing machine shops I've visited have been operating theatre spotless. Most of the other commercial jobbing machine shops I've been to are worse than mine. And that's saying something!

I have a lot of machine tools crammed into a double garage. Keeps me slim, if I drink too many beers I can't squeeze between the machines. I'm impatient and run my machine tools and cutters hard, so swarf comes off hot and fast, and gets thrown everywhere. I normally do a sweep down, and sweep up on the floor, at the end of each job. And every 6 months or so I have a deeper clean to remove swarf from places you didn't think it could reach.

Andrew

PS: I have a car port for the car, so although it is outside it doesn't normally get frost on it.

[Author]

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