A first look at our new shop
Come along for the first look at our new shop space with Mike Pekovich.Sponsored by Grizzly Industrial
As many of you know, we’ve been slowly but surely moving into the new Fine Woodworking shop. It’s exciting to start with a bunch of new machines and a blank slate, but we quickly realized that excitement came with a whole lot of work. Laying out the new shop was not an easy task, and honestly, we didn’t get it right the first time around. We sketched everything out on paper and had the electrical wired up to match, but as soon as we put the machines in place, it became clear that what worked on paper didn’t work in practice.
For the past month or so we’ve been tweaking the shop layout until everything felt right. The machinery is in the right places and now we just need to get the dust collection tidied up and permanent electrical moved to a few machines. It’s pretty exciting! Slowly but surely, it’s starting to feel like a real shop.
While we’ve shared bits and pieces of the shop on social media, we thought it would be nice to have Mike Pekovich give everyone an official tour. As you’ll see in this first look video, this is just the starting point, and there is a lot of work left to do. But from here on out, it’s the fun stuff! Special thanks to our launch partner Grizzly Industrial and to Oneida Air Systems, SawStop, Rikon, and Bessey for helping us assemble this incredible space!
-Ben Strano
Editor, FineWoodworking.com
Comments
Looks great and excited for all of you.
Would love to see a blog post or article on what went wrong with the first setup and how they were resolved.
And the possibility of taking classes there sounds fantastic.
Best of luck with the rest of the setup!
What are the dimensions of the shop?
Plenty of space. Cable supply of planer and saw could be tricky. Looking forward to seeing your solution. Also lighting. I think you might need the electrician to come back. I think the order of work should be 1 sorting machines 2 sorting lighting 3 sorting cabling to machinery. 4 position of sockets.
Great looking shop, I look forward to watching your progress.
I’m getting ready to build my own home shop and find it difficult to visualize size. So, I’m curious about the size of your FineWoodworking shop as a comparison.
Very exciting - would love to hear how you chose the tools you put into shop. Probably one of the hardest things to do is to choose power tools. I, like most hobbyists, have a limited budget so getting the wrong tool can really set you back. Thanks
Good looking shop guys, it's always fun to outfit a new shop! I think Mike hit on it by saying something along the lines of you kind of learn where to store things as you begin to use your shop. I built a 24x26 shop about a year ago and my wife fusses at me that I move the tools around like my mom moves furniture around her living room! It took me 10 years to layout my garage space so I figure it's going to take at least 1/2 that to figure out how to layout my own stand-alone shop. Cheers!
Not much work going on yet; too clean :) Looks like outfeed table for table saw not in use yet as no groves for miter gauge or you only use for rips and sheets and move out of the way for crosscuts or sled work. Ugh on workflow if so. I've had my shop for 5 years, still trying to figure out what where. But established huge 5x10 outfeed table as first addition. Both sit at an angle to align with doors so can run long rips. Lots of random stuff on shelves. Your space appears to be luxurious.
Thanks for the look at the new shop.
?why don’t your videos allow “Closed Captions”, I watch the videos in many different locations where I cannot have the audio portion? It would also help us “old” woodworkers who may have lost some of our hearing.
Thanks
Charlie C
You're right! We have the ability now and honestly I forgot to turn it on. Fixing that now! -Ben
Nice looking shop, seems airy, roomy and "empty". While it's wonderful to have plenty of the right kind of lighting in the right places and light colored walls to reflect it so you're not "Working in the Dark", its the walls - they look so "Bare". I look forward to seeing them cluttered up with shelves, cubbies, jigs, and all the brick-a-brack a well used shop acquires as time and use take their toll on our well-laid plans. Enjoy the ride.
(Unfortunately, the downside of having product "Sponsors" will be conducting any unbiased reviews of tools, tooling & et cetera. Sticking with construction techniques, etc., will avoid any doubt in the readers minds as to bias in comparisons between manufacturers products. [Yes, I've been accused of being "Direct" before - sorry.] Like I said, "Enjoy".)
Congratulation! I cannot imagine a better time in a shop than just before it starts up!
Layout: I suspect there is no perfect layout. Past the basics of siting the jointer and planer in proximity your workflow will depend on who is using the shop and what projects they run. In a demonstration shop for a major woodworking magazine I suspect (hope) that production (in the sense of repeat projects) will be unlikely - unless production itself is the topic. The mix of high capability woodworkers and unique projects is likely the perfect storm of needing flexibility in your shop. Let us know how that works out once the dust settles and you mop up the blood!
BTW: are you planning to offer tours or perhaps an open house day for local (or not so local) subscribers? Keep me posted!
Looking good. Nice to see the mid-range tools rather than all high-end 3 phase stuff too.
It's important that people see that you don't need to sell your first born to do great woodwork.
Great looking space. Thanks for the update. Looking forward to seeing things evolve.
Log in or create an account to post a comment.
Sign up Log in