So I’m pretty much done equiping my new micro shop so that I have a place to work until I complete my ultimate shop, or Final Resting Place as my wife and kids like to refer to it. My temporary digs, probably through the next two winters, is a 12′ x 24′ space with a 92″ ceiling and a same sized loft with a 6′ ceiling above. The roof over the loft is a 5/12 pitch resting on 2′ knee walls. The 6′ height is measured at the bottom of the rafter collar ties and present a flat section of ceiling about 2′ wide in the center.

My conundrum; The shed/shop is super insulated as much for noise control as comfort and economy (3″ iso foam walls, floor & clg. plus blown in F.G. 5 1/2″ in the walls and 9 1/2″ in the ceiling and floor), and I still need to install some sort of dust control for an 18″ band saw, a 13″ bench planer and a 6″ jointer.  The loft is wired and accessed from either  outside or a ships ladder inside, and I’ve insulated a portion of it where my compressor is located. My not completely thought out plan was to buy/build something that I could mount in the loft and feed through a single drop to a main center trunk that would run the length of the work area’s ceiling. This would be to handle the planer, jointer and bandsaw individually.

Due to the small area the planer and band saw are to remain mobile and flank either side of a split 5′ wide door at one end. Over the door is a roll out 12′ awning with removeable side skirts that covers a wood deck in front of the entrance. Across from that I’m also building a carport of sorts to store wooden boats in during the off season. The awning will basically connect the work area with the boat storage area so that I can wheel the planer or band saw into the door when planing and re-sawing or moving boats for repair in bad weather.

The work area is conditioned space for glassing kayaks but that obviously has no effect when the doors are wide open for re-sawing, etc. My thought was to possibly install an Oneida system, maybe 2 hp in the loft, but I was trying to think of a way that the cyclones could be kept in the loft while possibly dropping the chip collection back to ground level on one side of the building. That way I’m not constantly climbing upstairs to empty the cannisters and my chip collector could be a small room that I could just shovel out.. The compressor in the loft has a remote drain so I don’t have to climb for that (apparantly with age comes limited wisdom and sloth to accompany the increase in physical girth).

My other tooling is all Festool equipment with 3 of their dust evacuators and a remote controlled ceiling mounted Delta electronic air filter,. I also have a freshair exchanger that I fabbed up that uses several activated carbon chambers so the neighbors aren’t getting gassed and the epoxy fumes get cleared out quicker. That way I don’t have to wear scuba gear all of the time. Without the scrubbers the area will hold the fumes forever, and opening doors changes the humidity and tempreature that I’m trying to control so I had to do something so that I wouldn’t look like a HAZMAT responder every time I entered the space (another great way to freak out the neighbors). So far the noise, fume and temperature/humidity control has worked fine. On days that I’m planing they’ll just have to deal with the racket.

Just to keep things interesting, once my Final Resting Place is finished I’ll be moving all of the tools and equipment into there and the shed will just be used for finishing and glassing (the stinky stuff) with the filtered air exchanger.

What say yee? 2 hp sound like enough? Dropping the cannisters and routing the discharge into a chip closet sound do-able? I want to use a waste wood water heater to provide supplimental hot water for a solar system that is part of the new shop’s in floor hydronic heat. I also don’t want to have to climb the ladder any more than is absolutely necessary.