Replies

1. 
   Rob_Sp | Jul 20, 2021 06:06pm | #1

   This is unheard of in this day and age but simply put it on paper. Draw your shop floor plan on paper to scale. Draw your machine footprints to the same scale on another piece of paper. Cut out the machine footprints with scissors.
   You can then move them around the floor plan to best arrange them.

   This is the way we had to do it back in the old days, after walking 5 miles to the shop in our bare feet through the snow.

1. 
   ch00ch00man | Jul 22, 2021 12:59am | #12

   this is exactly how i setup my shop! it was a lot easier moving rectangles on a piece of paper than 800lb machines.

2. 
   mikefm101 | Jul 20, 2021 06:06pm | #2

   Graph paper and some cut out pieces for tools??

   Mike

3. 
   elmaduro | Jul 21, 2021 01:59am | #3

   Sharp pencils, graph paper, tool footprints, and lots of erasers. Lots of ideas and layouts in the annual FWW Tools and Shop editions.

4. 
   rob_ss | Jul 21, 2021 05:02am | #4

   "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" - attr. Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and others...

   This can be a lot of fun, especially when you don't have the resources to buy all the tools, one can at least enjoy dreaming. Paper works best!

   To help plan my shop, I enlisted the help of a professional woodworker who kindly gave advice - It ended up being how I would have done it anyway, but it gave me confidence to buy a big table saw.

   What I have found since though is that inches count. Moving my TS 3 inches means that almost any reasonable piece of wood will not foul on the lathe that sits behind it. That was a tiny move, but it made all the difference. Had to move the bandsaw to get my fat gut between the two after that, but that works too.
   This makes planning with precision really difficult - it is not until you have been in the shop for a while that you will find what works and what does not.

5. 
   john_c2 | Jul 21, 2021 05:42am | #5

   Paper? It should be 3D! Some enterprising soul should make tiny reproductions of stationary tools on a 3D printer. Then we can make dollhouse-like copies of our workshop spaces, and move the tools, workbenches, etc around.

1. 
   rob_ss | Jul 22, 2021 03:54am | #15

   Yeah - all that virtual crap is SO 2020...

1. 
   john_c2 | Jul 22, 2021 02:52pm | #17

   I have just one word for you. Holograms.

6. 
   _mj_ | Jul 21, 2021 10:21am | #6

   My shop is a closet at 170 sqft and no amount of graph paper or planning did me any good. My solution was buying the hydraulic mobile base for the sawstop. I bought another one for the jointer/planer and had a welding shop cut it down to fit. When your machines can spin around like ballerinas and go back to being parked in a corner your space expands in pretty much every direction.

1. 
   ch00ch00man | Jul 22, 2021 01:02am | #13

   170 sq/ft! wow! don't i feel glutenous right now. planning on breaking ground on a ~5000 sq/ft shop in the spring.

7. 
   gulfstar | Jul 21, 2021 10:44am | #7

   I use excel spreadsheet. Each equipment is a shape that I can move around with a mouse inside the floor plan which is a 1 ft X 1 ft grid.

8. 
   daverichards | Jul 21, 2021 11:18am | #8

   " I started to try SketchUp but was too complicated."

   It doesn't have to be complicated. You can probably find most if not all of the components you need for free in the 3D Warehouse for free. Doing your layout in 3D can be useful because you can see where you might have infeed/outfeed conflicts as well as places where you can use space above or below machines or benches. If you learn how to use SketchUp you will probably find it useful for designing projects that you'll build in your shop, too.

9. 
   fishnduty | Jul 21, 2021 01:29pm | #9

   I'll second using MS Excel. MS Visio is a bit easier as it does have a drawing tools and page layout however Visio is not included in most basic MS Office packages so you have to purchase stand alone copy.

10. 
    JT_NM | Jul 21, 2021 07:49pm | #10

    I'm in the beginning phase of building a new shop building. I can use sketch up and fusion but went with scale cutouts on graph paper to get a rough layout. It's a lot easier to move things around this way. Once I had it where I think I will want it, I drew up something on the computer to give my electrician for rough pricing. I may want to move everything around later, the surface mounted conduit would help if needed, but you have to start somewhere.

11. 
    mikaol | Jul 21, 2021 08:24pm | #11

    Uh, don't forget space for shelving, hand tool & lumber storage to name a few. And bench grinders, circular saws, drills, etc.
    Mikaol

1. 
   rob_ss | Jul 22, 2021 03:54am | #14

   All of which take up a shocking amount of space too. Good point.

12. 
    user-7627473 | Jul 22, 2021 09:17am | #16

    Sketchup does NOT need to be used as a 3D tool btw. It is extremely easy to produce 2D drawings for shop layout - which is all you need, nothing more. It would take "average person" about a half an hour to get the basics down on producing simple 2D outlines over a grid e.g.. Google is your friend here. I worked in architectural field for many years and would never use anything other than 2D for "basic plan layout" using AutoCAD or anything else. Second that on "shelving, storage, etc" - really important that.

13. 
    stephan2006 | Feb 13, 2022 12:55pm | #18

    So apparently the answer is No and several responders are Jerks. Ask a question and instead of getting an answer, you get a string of people explaining why you are wrong to want to do the thing you wanted to do.
    "In my day Sonny, We did it on rocks with chisels! That should be good enough for you you hippy!"

1. 
   Badger1805 | Feb 13, 2022 05:37pm | #20

   So enlighten us...what is wrong with someone offering an alternative method? Even though you may have been brought up with CAD, there are people here who predate CAD by many years yet somehow they were able to organize their shops effectively. If you want to use CAD, or some other simpler tool like Grizzly's software, that's fine. Why knock those who offer another method?

   BTW, it's spelled "hippie", not "hippy"...but that was before your time, so I'll give you a pass on that.

2. 
   john_c2 | Feb 13, 2022 06:02pm | #22

   Thank you, stephan, for your detailed response to the original question. It's very helpful.

3. 
   gaboury | Mar 19, 2022 11:19am | #25

   Floor plan? We don't need no stinkin' floor plan!

14. 
    jharveyb | Feb 13, 2022 03:17pm | #19

    Altho there are a lot of articles in FWW on shop layout, let's talk a few strategies:
    Be sure to consider open doors and windows as possibilities for adding to infeed/outfeed length for longer boards.
    Jointer, table saw, and planer need to be very convenient to each other, for prepping lumber after it comes into the shop.
    If space is limited (the usual case), try to make spaces do double duty. My router table serves as an outfeed extender for the table saw. Radial arm saw table is extended by the long extension table for wide rips on the table saw. (Built both the same height.)
    Things like lathe, radial arm saw, chop saw, drill press, hollow chisel mortiser go along the wall, and don't need to be on wheels. Shapers, router tables, sanders, small bandsaws are all best on wheels. I think anything that works on curved pieces may need to be on wheels, just to change orientation for the curve.

    Difficult tho it may seem, try to plan for change and upgrades. Get a big enough breaker box that you can add circuits or individual legs without trouble. Get the layout the best you can, then work in it for a while to find out how you can make it better for what you actually do. (To be honest, it is unlikely that you will get it right the first, most theoretical time.)
    My shop is 30'x40', what I consider medium size. Probably the smartest thing I did was pour a concrete floor, rather than building a standard wood floor. That gave me the ability to seize various opportunities for machinery that I could not have anticipated: 26" (3+ ton) industrial thickness planer, 24" x 6' jointer, huge Onsrud overarm router, double spindle industrial shaper, 36" bandsaw, Powermatic tenoner, 18" x 54" metal lathe, plus all the typical smaller machines. I wear good quality running shoes to work in, and have rubber mats or carpet scraps in front of the most used work stations.
    Most important thing is to have fun and enjoy both the process and the outcome!
    Harvey

1. 
   flyfisher111 | Feb 13, 2022 06:17pm | #23

   ........and, consider which machines can be mounted on casters. This works especially well with those that are not used every day, or every week.

   In my shop, the bandsaw, the oscillating belt/drum sander, jointer, and dust collector are lined up against one wall. None of these require solid mounting like the workbench or lathe. Its always easy to pull one out, connect the dust hose, use it and return it to its home.

15. 
    Badger1805 | Feb 13, 2022 05:46pm | #21

    Another tip: I used paper cutouts to scale and included (indicated with cross-hatching) the footprint of the maximum size of material (infeed and outfeed sides) that would need to be moved through the tool. Those dashed areas can overlap with each other or with aisles when you place your cutouts on the scale room drawing, since you won't be feeding two machines at the same time or walking in the aisle when you use them. For example, if your jointer is 66" long, you can draw it that way but also add enough room on the infeed and outfeed ends for the longest boards you plan to handle. In this example, if you want to be able to handle 8 ft boards, you need a cross-hatched length of 63" (96" - 33", assuming the infeed and outfeed tables are each 33" long) added to each end for a total length of 192". However, the cross-hatched 63" on each end can be located in an aisle or it can overlap another machine's cross-hatched area.

16. 
    rob_ss | Feb 14, 2022 01:26am | #24

    Since my original answer I have further changed the shop round and once more space has appeared as if from nowhere.
    I have ordered a big planer-thicknesser and had to find somewhere to put it - in the end it's achilles heel (a guard that means it needs to be 400mm from a wall) has been put to use by moving grinder cabinets to use the space - the jointer is now in the middle of the shop (ideal) and the ginders sit in space that would otherwise be difficult to use. either side of the guard. They are a bit further from my lathe than I'd like, but it is not a huge issue.

    No matter how carefully you plan the shop something always comes up. That's half the fun...

17. 
    kswood | Mar 19, 2022 04:38pm | #26

    To answer your original questions, I don't think the Dream Shop Planner is available any longer. Not sure why, but I haven't seen it for a long time now.

    To help with my shop, I am fortunate enough to have a good CAD system with 3D ability to assist. But for anyone not fortunate to have that, SketchUp does a great job and is free! As mentioned earlier, be sure to put in windows, doors, outlets, etc. to make your planning as accurate as possible. In the 3D warehouse, there are a lot of shop symbols (in 3D) available to help. They may not be your brand of tool, but you can adjust the sizes to the size of yours and allow you to plan and then spin it around in 3D and see what you think. You can also build cabinets, shelves, benches, etc. all inside of SketchUp to place in your shop. Of course, you may still find that once you start moving your tools around in the shop that you find you like something else a little better, but it's a good place to start without going to all of the work of actually rearranging. Best of luck in your design and finding what is the right design for you and your work.

18. 
    snips_hfx | Jul 11, 2023 01:21pm | #27

    Sweet Home 3d is a open source application that allows you to create rooms, draw walls and openings, set up and organize furnishings, and even get a 3d view, photo realistic image, or animated walkthrough of the space after you have it created. You can stay with just 2d for the purposes of shop organization, but the 3d view is pretty nice and you can download hundreds of pieces of equipment from SketchUp's 3d warehouse or other 3d repositories (e.g. Thingiverse).