Space-saving suggestions for small shops

[SteveM]

My old shop was 14x40 plus an additional 9x15 for storage.

My new shop space is 32x12 - a 30% decrease for just the shop space and 45% smaller than the total space in the old shop.

Now, in the move, I had to sell, give away or throw out a lot, so I do have a little less stuff, but it's still going to be cramped.

I'm looking for ideas on how to save space.

Ideas on how to lay out machines, how to store tools, how to store metal stock and other supplies.

One advantage here is that the ceiling height is more than 8', while it was about 7-1/2' in the old shop, allowing me to buy 8' tall shelf units. It's 8' to the underside of the two beams that run thru the shop and 8'9" to the bottom of the floor joists.

I plan to put the bench with the P&W mill and lathe back-to-back with the South Bend lathe in the middle of the aisle.

Most of my tools are in tool boxes, so I don't need to waste wall space hanging tools up.

I expect to be hanging stock from the ceiling (I'm going to get a rolling step ladder).

Other than one really heavy (65 lb) grinder and one heavy buffer, all the grinders and buffers will be stored under the bench and will mount to a space on the bench where they will lock in place.

Any other space-saving ideas?

Steve

[David2011]

I’ll be watching with great interest. I went from almost 1300 sq ft to 380 sq ft plus a loft of about 200 sq ft. I gave up the lathe and full sized milling machine that I had when I moved when I retired. Since I have woodworking tools as well, I built rolling stands with drawers for almost everything. Two benches don’t have casters; everything else is mobile with locking casters. My current lathe is small; only 11x26 so it’s on a mobile cabinet that has 21 drawers which are mostly shallow. I don’t expect to move the lathe frequently but had to be able to get it from the chainfall hoist to its home space. All of the drawers are on ball bearing full extension slides so they can tolerate some weight. My solution for portable bench tools was to build a 24” deep x 6’ long bench with 4 drawers just under the top and open storage beneath. The open storage has two full depth trays, again on ball bearing slides for easy access to the off-duty tools.

Unfortunately I don’t have any magic layout suggestions. Sometimes I have to rearrange the shop to accommodate the project at hand. Mentioning this because I’m probably not the only one that works both metal and wood. This is more useful for woodworking than metal but one thing that has helped was to make the working surface of every applicable tool the same height as the top of the table saw. A portable cabinet about 32”x55” was set up 1/4” lower than the tops of the tools so it can be used as an assembly table or an outfeed table for anything in the shop.

[David2011]

One other thing that I did was to set threaded inserts into a bench top. For a steel top I would just drill and tap. Each tool was mounted on a steel or aircraft ply mounting plate with identical bolt patterns. Any tool can be used at any position available on the bench top. They’re secured with 1/4x20 socket head capscrews for easy swaps.

[liveaboard]

My metal shop is a 20' sea container.

layout is dependent on your particulars; but wheels are good.
i plan to make a grinding bench on one door, so it's outside when the door is open.
I also put in a gantry hoist that slides the entire length with an arm that can reach out through the doors.

When working on a heavy object, this is really very useful. It can't lift the mill, max is around 400kg. But it can lift the 80kg table or 60 kg head.
The trick was to make it really close to the ceiling so it takes up very little space.
Larger wheels would make it a lot better. It's hard to slide forward and back with more than 150kg on the hook.

[rmac]

drawers ... drawers ... drawers ... drawers

Amen to that. It took me way too long to figure out that drawers work much better than shelves for storing almost everything.

-- Russell Mac

[RSG]

Lots of shelves! I have a tiny shop but every inch of wall clad with shelving.

[liveaboard]

I agree about the drawers.
I made a mistake; the drawer runners I got aren't strong enough. They're ok for the shallow drawers but I can't store heavy things in the deep ones.
Shallow drawers are great for many small items that you need access to.
Making drawers is a lot of work, and uses a lot of material too. But a year later, the time and expense are forgotten while the drawers are useful every day.

This bench I made to fit inside my container shop is about 8' long with a 3/8" steel top plate

[SteveM]

Shallow drawers are great for many small items that you need access to.

Agreed. I picked up a nice Snap-on mechanics top/bottom combo that has mostly thin drawers and I like it so much better than having a bunch of deep drawers. Lista cabinets are great for that too, but they are expensive - about $100 per drawer.

There's an upcoming industrial auction where they are going to have maybe 10 of those 5-drawer map cabinets.

My dad had two and they were the best toolbox ever, especially for machinist tools, as you could lay out everything in a single layer.
I'm going to try to bid on enough of them that I will need a step to look in the top ones.

That will probably let me get rid or one or two toolboxes.

One of the two beams running through the room is a steel beam, so I'm planning to get one of those beam trolleys so that I can pick things up to put them on the bench.

On an aside, I picked up a tool balancer at a garage sale - not for balancing spinning tools, but for balancing the weight of tools. I plan to mount oi over the lathe to use to pick up chucks.

Steve

[liveaboard]

I found the prices of those boxes a bit extreme; also, I wanted one strong enough to put an engine on top of.
Or a milling machine.

It took a while to make and those drawers take a lot of material.

[SteveM]

I found the prices of those boxes a bit extreme; also, I wanted one strong enough to put an engine on top of.
Or a milling machine.

Whoa!

Steve

[Rich_Carlstedt]

Steve I have had 7 shops in my hobby time and their is never enough space and I highly prize every square foot.
My last move went from 36 x 28 to 23 x 23 so i feel your pain.
First, if it's not too late make a layout on a CAD system or by hand and move your stuff around to fit every thing in it's space.

Years ago, I did an engineering study for a business on laying out equipment to gain maximum utilization of equipment and minimal (wasted) floor space for walking . Since then I have followed in my own shop. It turns out to be what I call a Square Donut Plan. Now this does not apply to long corridor shops like the Sealand trailer shop a few postings earlier, but to larger square type layouts.
You might call it a "Island " layout , like they use in some modern kitchens..it is really efficient for working
So in my shop,m i have most of the walls covered with cabinets or machines, and then in the middle ( ie island) , i have my Bridgeport, Lathe, 2 drill presses ,surface plate, and a Disk Sander. Whats neat is I have had to machine or drill long pieces up to 12' and no problem .

So here is my tip for storing long pieces of rod/stock. Go buy some 3-4" PVC pipe and mount them at the back of your benches as seen here
in a photo. After doing some tubes, I found PVC Square Down Spouts which is even better. But they are thinner and need a bit more support but they can be stacked 3 high
Rich

[SteveM]

First, if it's not too late make a layout on a CAD system or by hand and move your stuff around to fit every thing in it's space.

I mapped it out on graph paper and made post-it models of all the machines and cabinets.

Low tech, but it works.

Steve