If your neighborhood is like mine AND if you are getting a permit for this
work, then you won't have any choice - you will have to put in fire-preventive
drywall.

I painted my first shop's floor with expensive epoxy paint. After 4 years I
wanted to repaint it - millions of chips, scrapes, dings everywhere. I sanded
it and cleaned it immaculately. Then I painted it exactly to the manufacturer's
spec. It PEELED. Now I'm never going to paint a concrete floor again and if I
do it will be plain old floor enamel. My new floor is bare concrete and the
thing I don't like about it is oil soaks in. Bummer.

I use a 2-ton folding engine hoist of a modern import design, modified to
accept an 8-ton long-throw air over hydraulic pump.

I use low-profile fluorescent lighting that the garage door clears.

I do welding/grinding or woodwork outside my shop. I used to have a canopy
just out front which extended the season wonderfully - I'll have to replace
that one of these days. I do machine work inside. I don't paint in there
either.

Oh - here's a very important bit--get a SOLID agreement with your whole family
that this is YOUR space and is NEVER to be used to store things like Christmas
ornaments or old toys. This will never work unless you have another space for
things like that which you use in concert with a focussed plan for clutter
control in your life.

I have 200 amps of power to my shop, more than I need. I have a 30A phase
converter (7½ hp idler) which is wired into the system and there are 3
different "busses" of electrical wiring run around my shop - there is a 117V
bus, a 220V single phase bus, and a 220V three phase bus. I have a 4-gang
117V outlet box about every eight feet on my walls, up where I can see them.
The 220V single phase busses terminate in 4" square boxes, and the three phase
busses terminate in small disconnect boxes.

At present I still run airlines all over my floor as needed. However, I did
forge a bunch of hooks so I have biggish hooks on many studs to hang cords,
welding lead, torch lead, and air hose on.

A big improvement came when I bought some real sets of sheet metal drawers.
If you can, plan in a few hundred drawers - and pay attention when you buy
them. The ones 18" deep are much more useful than the ones 12" deep. Buy a
good labelmaker and put things in drawers as you come upon them, and label
a bunch of drawers all at once. Later you can move the drawers around to
get them in reasonable order. Between the wall hooks and the drawers, the
clutter in my shop went down by a factor of 100 or more.

This spring I am building an outdoor undercover rack for metal stock - this
isn't stock for machine work, rather for fabrication work which I seem to do
a lot more of. I'm planning to cut all metal to 10' lengths when it comes in,
and to have it all up on end so I can more easily remove any piece. I'm going
to separate it into angle, flat, pipe, square tube, round bar, square bar.
That will get me a lot more space inside my shop.

I suggest measuring the footprint of your tools and scaling them down and
going onto your computer, make a scale drawing of your shop (probably a
rectangle) and put all your major components in there (all drawn to scale)
and then you can move them around and think about your layout. That's a whole
lot easier than moving things around full scale! It's good to also start with
the end in mind. Are you ever going to bring home a surface grinder? Where
will you put it? A hydraulic press? A propane forge? A big belt sander?

Finally, the more I go into metalworking, the more I realize the value of one
of my simplest tools - the lowly file. Think carefully about how you store your
files and buy them good quality handles and keep them sharp.

Grant Erwin
Kirkland, Washington


Peter Corbett wrote:
Good Day Everyone

I am one of the silent ones that read the postings in this newsgroup.....I
am building my garage/shop as soon as the snow disappears.Many of you have
gone thru this..I am trying to think of what I should plan into this garage
before I build it...I am a Machinist and Millwright by trade and I also
enjoy woodworking and welding. I am open to all suggestions ....here are a
few ...but please feel free to add more..

-what to paint the concrete with?
-what type of exhaust system?
-which is better drywall or plywood interior ?
-different hoist systems?
-what seems to be the common electrical requirements?

Thats kind of a start...but as I said please feel free to suggest things to
put in or do......I finally talked the warden into the size...She was a
tough sell but I did it.It will be 28 x 32....the only clause is to save
room for her to park her van in the winter.I would like to try and
implement improvements to my design before its built and try to have no
regrets after its done.

Thank You in advance

Pete