I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

Brad
--

************************************************** *********************
Brad Millard On-line ballistics for small arms...
www.eskimo.com/~jbm
************************************************** *********************

In article tboac.141791$Cb.1500376@attbi_s51, James B. Millard says...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Lots.

And, all over the place.

More light is good. Another way to do this is to put
a compact flourescent in a clamp on reflector fixture,
and wherever you find yourself putting that, put in
a fixed tubular fixture.

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

"James B. Millard" wrote in message
news:tboac.141791$Cb.1500376@attbi_s51...
I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide
what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

Brad
--

************************************************** *********************
Brad Millard On-line ballistics for small arms...
www.eskimo.com/~jbm
************************************************** *********************


Just as a reference I use 4 footers in my garage, er I mean shop. It
measures 28x24. There are a total of 14 fixtures. Another thing to think
about is that most people find that the older they get the more light they
need. I'm now 51 and have noticed this in the last year and a half or so.

Lane

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:22:49 GMT, "James B. Millard" wrote:
I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Human beings evolved to see best in sunlight. Direct sun is about
10,000 foot candles. Open shade, blue sky, is about 500 foot candles.
It may be too much cost or too much heat load to light your entire
shop to that level. But don't go below about 250 foot candles if you
want to enjoy working in there. Shoot for 500 to 1,000 foot candles
in the places where you really have to see.

When lighting a bench or a machine, don't just put a light over it. Put
one to the back, one to the front, or one to either side, so that no matter
where you stand, lean, or reach, you aren't shadowing the work.

You can't have too much light. Use as many lights as you can. Never
use one light when you can use two, three would be even better.
There's nothing more annoying than getting in your own light so you're
shadowing the work you're trying to see.

Don't forget to put plenty of light over the floor areas where there isn't
a bench or machine either. Most people cheap out here. Bad idea. That's
where you're going to need to see to find the little bits that go "ping"
when you're disassembling something. That's also where the inevitable
big repair or fabrication project is going to wind up.

I'm serious that you need a *lot* of lights to get good illumination
everywhere in the shop. The more you use, the happier you'll be
with the result. My shop is bigger than yours, and I started out with
only 20 tubes. Not enough light. I've added 16 more, and still use
dedicated task lighting on the machines.

Don't cheap out on the fixtures either. Good name brand fixtures
( I use Lithonia Lighting) will put more than double the amount of
light toward the floor than the cheapy "shop lights" sold by the likes
of Home Depot. The tubes and ballasts will last longer too.

On the subject of tubes, spend the extra to get tubes that mimic
natural light. Your eyes will thank you.

Gary

"James B. Millard" wrote in message
news:tboac.141791$Cb.1500376@attbi_s51...

Anybody have any ideas?

Can't tell you much about placement, but avoid the $20.00 shop lights
that you see stacked at Home Depot etc. There is a reason why they never
use those in commercial establishments. Stick with good fixtures that take
T8 lamps, you will get more light for your money.

Vaughn

Brad: I have a 25 X 50 shop that has 5 (4 tube) 8' fixtures across the
floor area and 3 (2 tube) 8' fixtures (end to end) over the 40' bench and I
wish I had more light, thinking of putting up 5 or 6 more fixtures. Good
advice from everybody else....more lights make for a happier work area. I
got my fixtures from a department store that they were renovating, they are
good quality, paid $10 each, you might find a bunch of good used fixtures at
a local renovator/demolition type of company, cheap. Won't hurt to call
around.

Mike


"James B. Millard" wrote in message
news:tboac.141791$Cb.1500376@attbi_s51...
I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide
what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

Brad
--

************************************************** *********************
Brad Millard On-line ballistics for small arms...
www.eskimo.com/~jbm
************************************************** *********************

James B. Millard wrote...
I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?


In the shop, work surfaces should receive 100 foot candles from the
general lighting alone. A foot candle is one lumen per square foot.
Additional task lighting is often desirable at individual work stations.

The 100 foot candles is what you want *after* losses. The major sources
of loss are fixture inefficiency, lamp age, dust on lamps, and wall and
ceiling reflectivity. Together, 8-10' ceilings, 3' work surfaces, and
typical values for the aforementioned losses result in almost exactly a
50% reduction in the initial luminance of your lamps.

Fluorescent tubes typically supply 60-80 lumens per watt. A 40W tube, the
most common and cost effective option, typically puts out about 3000
lumens when new. Accounting for the aforementioned losses, each tube will
actually put about 1500 lumens on the work surface. Since you need 100
lumens per square foot, a tube will illuminate 15 square feet.

14 x 18 = 252 sf; 252 / 15 = 17 tubes, or 9 fixtures.

By the way, 40 watts per 15 square feet is 2.7 watts per square foot.
Some lighting designers use 2 watts per square foot as a lower bound,
which yields 20 square feet per 40W tube.

252 / 20 = 13 tubes, or 7 fixtures.

For a rectangular area, you can run the rows parallel to the long edge or
parallel to the short edge. Sometimes the choice is dictated by other
design considerations, such as dust collection ducting or other
obstructions. If not, be sure to consider both alternatives. You can
often get more uniform lighting by running a higher number of shorter
rows.

Jim

"James B. Millard" wrote in message
news:tboac.141791$Cb.1500376@attbi_s51...
I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide
what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

Brad
--

I have a shop approvimately the size of yours. For lighting I have:
4 x 4" over the entrance way
2 x 4" over the main work bench
2 x 4" over the fine work bench
2 x 4" over the welding area
1 x 2" by the tool chest
A 2 bulb circelene over the drill press and grinder
and a single bulb circirlene over the storage cabinet.

As other have said, go with good quality fixtures.
Lights of America are -not- quality.

Nate

--
http://www.NateTechnologies.net:8000

Another lighting tip is paint, when I painted my shop white, I could not
believe the improvement in lighting i.e. savings in electricity.
Alan

"Nate Weber" wrote in message
...
"James B. Millard" wrote in message
news:tboac.141791$Cb.1500376@attbi_s51...
I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide
what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any
idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

Brad
--

I have a shop approvimately the size of yours. For lighting I have:
4 x 4" over the entrance way
2 x 4" over the main work bench
2 x 4" over the fine work bench
2 x 4" over the welding area
1 x 2" by the tool chest
A 2 bulb circelene over the drill press and grinder
and a single bulb circirlene over the storage cabinet.

As other have said, go with good quality fixtures.
Lights of America are -not- quality.

Nate

--
http://www.NateTechnologies.net:8000

Brad
Shop lighting

Anybody have any ideas?

Just a comment or two. Separate the feed to the lights so you can vary the
intensity and areas illuminated. And use 4 lamp fixtures so you can vary the
intensity within the fixture. Split the wiring in the fixtures among the
switching circuits.
Bob AZ

Brad, I use second hand commercial fixtures. Try to find 4 footers, they
have less hum than the 8 foot tubes.
ALSO, I have one overhead light bulb to get me into the shop. From that
point on I only turn on the fixtures near my work area. All of my fixtures
hang on chains from the ceiling and can be relocated if I move my machinery.
All of my fixtures also have had a chain pull installed (about a dollar each
at the hardware store) and I simply pull as many chains as I want. Very
flexible, non committal and inexpensive.

Ivan Vegvary

"James B. Millard" wrote in message
news:tboac.141791$Cb.1500376@attbi_s51...
I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide
what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

Brad
--

************************************************** *********************
Brad Millard On-line ballistics for small arms...
www.eskimo.com/~jbm
************************************************** *********************

"James B. Millard" wrote in
news:tboac.141791$Cb.1500376@attbi_s51:

I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide
what I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house
a workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any
idea how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

Brad

In the garage we built, (28'x32'), we had used commercial 8'-2 bulb
fixtures we had on hand, we put a row centered every 3', parallel to the
short wall, 3 fixtures butted, (24', 2' space from each wall). These are
mounted (IMPORTANT POINT HERE) directly to the ceiling using 1" stand-
offs made from conduit, it is important for balast life and fire safety
to space flourescent fixtures from the ceiling. We also added a row of
hanging 4' flourescents over the workbench, which runs full-length along
one of the short walls. The ceilings and walls are white, with a light-
grey floor. These lights are switched using 4 switches:
1 switch for the bench light row.
1 switch for the ceiling row closest to the bench.
1 switch for every other row across the ceiling.
1 switch for the other rows.
The theory behind this is, you don't need the whole shop lit up if you
are only working at the bench. You don't need the whole shop lit up if
you are just retrieving something, or doing something that doesn't
require a lot of light. But when you DO need light, you have plenty.
Since we do some auto-body repair in this shop on occasion, we even have
brackets on each wall, where we hang extra fixtures horizontally about
18" off the floor, these plug in and are not hard-wired, makes it much
easier to see all the rock dings in those rocker panels, and the 10,000
door dings in a camaro door. (OT-, but WHY does every camaro accumulate
door dings at such a huge rate?)
We were very happy with the lighting arraingment. Place is sold now, so
some other guy is happy with it :/

In your case, with 4' fixtures this would be 3-4' fixtures, 1' from each
wall, x 6 rows = 18 fixtures. This would be 2 bulb fixtures. You can
space them out more if you use 4 bulb fixtures.



--
Anthony

You can't 'idiot proof' anything....every time you try, they just make
better idiots.

Remove sp to reply via email

In article ,
Gary Coffman wrote:

I'm serious that you need a *lot* of lights to get good illumination
everywhere in the shop. The more you use, the happier you'll be
with the result.

This is an area I have not yet attacked (though I am painting the floor
white at the moment - a dirty white floor gives more light than a clean
grey one). Walls and ceiling will also be mostly white. One thing I'm
considering, in the light fixture line, are metal halide fixtures - not
great if you're popping in for 5 minutes (they take that long to fire
up, unless there have been great improvements since I last checked) but
they are very efficient, very bright, and throw the best color renditon
of any available lighting.

Also, at least one incandescent bulb lighting each piece of rotating
machinery is a reccomendation that sticks from my long-ago shop classes
- avoiding the 60-hz strobe effect (though they are very inefficient).

--
Cats, Coffee, Chocolate...vices to live by

Brad,

I am a watchmaker and have a 20X25 foot shop w/ 3 west facing windows. My
watch bench is under one of the windows, my watch lathe is set so my back is
to the windows (about 8 feet away) (I actually only have to swivel in my
chair to take something from the watch bench to my watch lathe). My 8 inch
lathe is set so I get light from the windows (about 12 feet away) along the
North wall. In spring and fall I open the door on the east wall which adds
more natural light.

My mill is in the Northeast corner of the shop which would be the darkest
spot if it were not for ceiling fixture directly overhead.

My shop is in the basement of a split level, so my windows begin at about
stomach level.

I have 5 4 tube fluorescent fixtures in my drop ceiling. Walls and cabinets
are eggshell white (semi gloss). I have one fixture situated over the mill,
another situated over the 8 inch lathe, two along the windows (over my watch
bench and a counter) and a fifth over my wheel cutting station.

At each machine I have a $10 (from IKEA) Halogen lamp. I also have one at
my watch bench. Since I have one machine table set up with my watchmaker's
lathe, micro drill press and carbide graver grinding setup, I have one only
one of the halogen lamps there.

In addition, at both benches (watch and clock) I have the traditional swing
arm lamps.

I like light (obviously); it is one of the most underrated tools we use. I
work with a loupe 50% of the time and the increased contrast is nice.

On machines the fluorescent lights sometimes create a strobe effect. This
is the reason I use the fluorescents as a background/fill while "swamping"
it with natural or incandescent light at the actual work area.

The shop has air-conditioning so I cannot address the impact of heat from
the lights. However, it is rare that they are all on at the same time.

Hope this helps.
--
Regards,
Dewey Clark http://www.historictimekeepers.com
Ebay Sales:
http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAP...ems&userid=dsc
Restorations, Parts for Hamilton M21s, Products for Craftsmen
Makers of Historic Timekeepers Ultrasonic Clock Cleaning Solution

"James B. Millard" wrote in message
news:tboac.141791$Cb.1500376@attbi_s51...
I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide
what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

Brad
--

************************************************** *********************
Brad Millard On-line ballistics for small arms...
www.eskimo.com/~jbm
************************************************** *********************

I've been doing some work in classrooms with various lighting
levels. One has .8 watts of florescent per square foot. Too dark
for old eyes, rough on young eyes and close work. One has 1.1
watts per square foot, ok for general work, not good enough for
close work. 1.3 watts per square foot in the machine area. Ok for
young eyes, not good enough for the over 50 crowd. My personal
shop averages 1.5 watts per sq ft with some brighter sections
over major tools. That is marginal, more fixtures are sitting in
the corner waiting for an install.

All of this figures that the fixtures have 180 degree reflectors
and you clean the bulbs now and then.

Jim Wilson wrote:

James B. Millard wrote...

I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide what
I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...

I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?



In the shop, work surfaces should receive 100 foot candles from the
general lighting alone. A foot candle is one lumen per square foot.
Additional task lighting is often desirable at individual work stations.

The 100 foot candles is what you want *after* losses. The major sources
of loss are fixture inefficiency, lamp age, dust on lamps, and wall and
ceiling reflectivity. Together, 8-10' ceilings, 3' work surfaces, and
typical values for the aforementioned losses result in almost exactly a
50% reduction in the initial luminance of your lamps.

Fluorescent tubes typically supply 60-80 lumens per watt. A 40W tube, the
most common and cost effective option, typically puts out about 3000
lumens when new. Accounting for the aforementioned losses, each tube will
actually put about 1500 lumens on the work surface. Since you need 100
lumens per square foot, a tube will illuminate 15 square feet.

14 x 18 = 252 sf; 252 / 15 = 17 tubes, or 9 fixtures.

By the way, 40 watts per 15 square feet is 2.7 watts per square foot.
Some lighting designers use 2 watts per square foot as a lower bound,
which yields 20 square feet per 40W tube.

252 / 20 = 13 tubes, or 7 fixtures.

For a rectangular area, you can run the rows parallel to the long edge or
parallel to the short edge. Sometimes the choice is dictated by other
design considerations, such as dust collection ducting or other
obstructions. If not, be sure to consider both alternatives. You can
often get more uniform lighting by running a higher number of shorter
rows.

Jim

Human beings evolved to see best in sunlight. Direct sun is about
10,000 foot candles. Open shade, blue sky, is about 500 foot candles.
It may be too much cost or too much heat load to light your entire
shop to that level. But don't go below about 250 foot candles if you
want to enjoy working in there. Shoot for 500 to 1,000 foot candles
in the places where you really have to see.

You must own some stock in sunglasses. I have been working on a
relamping project at work. One of our test areas has ambient lighting
at 150 ft cnd (at working height) and it is exceedingly bright. Most
of the areas are at 60-80. 100 is our optimal goal. You are never
going to get enough light even enough to avoid task lighting. Loosely
quoted standards are as follows:

General lighting 60-70
Detail work 90-100
Assy work 70-80(maybe 90)

Depending on your ceiling height you have a few options in current
lighting technology. Less than 12' and you are restricted to
flourescent only. If so, go with T8 style fixtures. They are very
nice. If you are 14'+ you can start looking at Metal Halide fixtures.
They have a better color rendition, but they have a bit of a slow
start drawback(with pulse start, it's about a minute cold). They take
a lot longer when they are hot.

JW

wrace wrote:

Ah yes, lighting, one of my favorite subjects. Lighting is easily my number
one biggest regret when building my shop. I have a 28 x 36 shop with twenty,
twin tube, 8' fluorescent, w/ mag ballast and t12 bulbs. I curse these
things every day I use the shop. They hum so loudly and at such a frequency
that it makes it almost impossible to work in there for more then about

Turn them on one at a time. I think you will find that only a few are
making trouble. For now.

Ah yes, lighting, one of my favorite subjects. Lighting is easily my number
one biggest regret when building my shop. I have a 28 x 36 shop with twenty,
twin tube, 8' fluorescent, w/ mag ballast and t12 bulbs. I curse these
things every day I use the shop. They hum so loudly and at such a frequency
that it makes it almost impossible to work in there for more then about 5
hours at a time. Forget about listening to AM radio as well. In fact, you
can always tell when the lights are on in the shop just by pulling in the
driveway, because the radio in your car will be completely blown away.

Having said that, up until a couple days ago I was very happy with the
amount of light in the shop. It was VERY bright in there. I got a loaner t8,
8' fixture to try for a while and what a difference it made. Quite, starts
instantly, and much to my surprise, the quality of the light was
outstanding. This fixture had some sort of "natural light" bulb in it. I
never realized how harsh and yellow my old fluorescents were until I got
this t8 set up.

So, I'm replacing all the existing t12/mag ballasts with a t8 retrofit kit,
to the tune of $1100 for material. I should have used t8 in the first place.
Don't scrimp on lighting. Oh btw, they tell me the t8's use half as much
energy.

Wayne

wrace wrote:

Ah yes, lighting, one of my favorite subjects. Lighting is easily my number
one biggest regret when building my shop. I have a 28 x 36 shop with twenty,
twin tube, 8' fluorescent, w/ mag ballast and t12 bulbs. I curse these
things every day I use the shop. They hum so loudly and at such a frequency
that it makes it almost impossible to work in there for more then about 5
hours at a time. Forget about listening to AM radio as well. In fact, you
can always tell when the lights are on in the shop just by pulling in the
driveway, because the radio in your car will be completely blown away.

Having said that, up until a couple days ago I was very happy with the
amount of light in the shop. It was VERY bright in there. I got a loaner t8,
8' fixture to try for a while and what a difference it made. Quite, starts
instantly, and much to my surprise, the quality of the light was
outstanding. This fixture had some sort of "natural light" bulb in it. I
never realized how harsh and yellow my old fluorescents were until I got
this t8 set up.

So, I'm replacing all the existing t12/mag ballasts with a t8 retrofit kit,
to the tune of $1100 for material. I should have used t8 in the first place.
Don't scrimp on lighting. Oh btw, they tell me the t8's use half as much
energy.

Did you call your power company to see if they
have some sort of freebee/discount energy saving
plan to help you out with the conversion?

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:22:49 GMT, "James B. Millard" wrote:

||I'm having a small shop built and am getting close to having to decide what
||I'm going to do for lighting. the shop is 14'x18' and will house a
||workbench a small lathe and mill and whatever else I accumulate...
||
||I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
||how much or exactly what optimum placement is.
||
||Anybody have any ideas?

As others have written, the older you get, the more light you need. A 60 year
old needs about 10 times the light to see as well as a 20 year old.
So, more is better, and wide spectrum is helpful.

My shop currently is 24x40, with a 24x30 work area.
Lighting is:

10-ft tracklight bars on either side, halfway up the celing slope. I use
incandescent floodlights directed as needed for projects. They will reach work
on the bench, work on the floor, pointed at the wall for indirect backlighting
of the bench. And they are cheap.

A big metal-halide light (bright white light, like they use at HD to light the
store) in the center of the shop ceilfing, for "fill", and to add a little white
to the spectrum. These are very energy efficient.

Flourescent tubes over the benches and equipment.

A mixture of halogen, incandescent, and flourescent tasklights, wall mounted
pivots, articulated arms to position over bench work. You can find these
2nd-hand pretty easily.

Corded halogen floods and smaller worklights to get under cars and into engine
compartments with.

Overall this works pretty well. What I'd add is more flourescents, and paint the
walls and ceiling white.
Rex in Fort Worth

On 31 Mar 2004 07:29:28 -0800, (Jeridiah) wrote:
Human beings evolved to see best in sunlight. Direct sun is about
10,000 foot candles. Open shade, blue sky, is about 500 foot candles.
It may be too much cost or too much heat load to light your entire
shop to that level. But don't go below about 250 foot candles if you
want to enjoy working in there. Shoot for 500 to 1,000 foot candles
in the places where you really have to see.

You must own some stock in sunglasses.

No, but I've spent a lot of time in TV studios. We used to light at
1,000 foot candles, but cameras got more sensitive and we dropped
the levels to 500 foot candles. That was nice, like being outdoors
under a friendly shade tree. Then cameras got too sensitive, and
management got tight fisted about electric bills and air conditioning
loads, and we dropped the lighting to 125 foot candles. Man that's
dark. You feel like you need a flashlight just to read a script.

Gary

Yes, our power company has a bit of grant program, but it is only available
to businesses. Turns out I have a business license (have not used it yet
though). I guess the grant is smaller for a business that shares a
residential power meter (like my shop does). They wanted to know if I had
the license posted (which I do), and if I had any business cards. So I made
some cards up real quick on MS publisher, and wala I had business cards...

The power company inspector is coming over this week to "take a look at my
business". Apparently the max amount allowed would be $10 off each fixture.

Wayne

"Jim Stewart" wrote in message
...
Did you call your power company to see if they
have some sort of freebee/discount energy saving
plan to help you out with the conversion?

Has anyone tried 6500K or "daylight" bulbs? They're supposed
to provide a "whiter" light than the standard fluorescent
tube does. They are kinda expensive, but if they provide a
quality of light that is easier on the eyes, they might be
worth it. Also might be able to get some extra "therapy" out
of being in the shop in the winter time.

??? wrote:

..... This is the reason I use the fluorescents as a background/fill while "swamping" it with natural or incandescent light at the actual work area...............

nic wrote...
Has anyone tried 6500K or "daylight" bulbs? They're supposed
to provide a "whiter" light than the standard fluorescent
tube does.

Yep. For the machine shop, they make no significant difference. Not worth
the price, IMO. On the other hand, they do give a better rendition for
finishing woodwork, at fluorescent energy consumption and heat output.
However, most woodwork (at least most that I do) is used in a home
lighted primarily by incandescent bulbs. And AFAIK, the *only* way to be
sure you are getting the color you want is to finish the piece in the
same light that it will have in its intended place of use. That means
using incandescent light in the finishing area.

They are kinda expensive, but if they provide a
quality of light that is easier on the eyes, they might be
worth it.

Doesn't happen, in my experience. Save the bucks and put in more lights.
That definitely helps.

Cheers,

Jim

[...]
I was thinking about flourescent lighting but I don't really have any idea
how much or exactly what optimum placement is.

Anybody have any ideas?

I've used some of the features mentioned and a few others. I have a 22' x
22' shop and have 2 zones on switches. Both zones have 2 florescent
fixtures, 3 would be better, mounted on the ceiling. There is a 3rd circuit
with wall mounted fixtures. In addition, each zone has an 8', 95 watt, that
is switch operated when I really need to see. Machines have halogen, or
compact florescent fixtures to supplement. All the walls and ceiling are an
off-white. This works quite well.

In article .net,
Jim Wilson wrote:

nic wrote...
Has anyone tried 6500K or "daylight" bulbs? They're supposed
to provide a "whiter" light than the standard fluorescent
tube does.

Yep. For the machine shop, they make no significant difference. Not worth
the price, IMO. On the other hand, they do give a better rendition for
finishing woodwork, at fluorescent energy consumption and heat output.

Try the 5000K bulbs, very good light and only a bit more expensive than
the cheapies. Been using them for 20 years in house & shop and am happy
with them. I do use some cheapies over the computer because they are
dimmer.

--
free men own guns - slaves don't
www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5357/

"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
...

On the subject of tubes, spend the extra to get tubes that mimic
natural light. Your eyes will thank you.


These are called "full spectrum" lamps and I second the recommendation.

Also to be considered is real daylight from sky lights, especially since you
are building the shop.

--

Roger Shoaf

About the time I had mastered getting the toothpaste back in the tube, then
they come up with this striped stuff.