new shop design help

[SVanderkolff]

We are i the middle of renovations at my house and one of the by products is that I get a new shop. The shop is 13 X 30 . I have attached a layout of the shop but would like some input. I am strictly a stock removal maker since my wife, for some odd reason, will not allow a forge in the basement of the house. I will be painting the whole room high gloss white and installing copious quantities of lights and power. Hopefully you can see from the picture there are 3 doors, one to the outside, one to the storage room and one to the rest of the house. The workbench placements are just my ideas and I would welcome other options and suggestions.
Thanks
STeve

[mrnewberry]

One suggestion is segregating the grinders as they can make quite a mess.

[Harry Mathews]

Segregating the grinders is a good idea. We did it in our shop and everything is still dusty. You might want to think about the process you use in making a knife because in a large shop equipment location can cause you to do a lot of walking. Not that walking is bad but it eats into shop time.

[Frank Niro]

I feel that the particular placement of the different pieces of equipment you have or figure on getting is most important. Keeping the dirt in one end where you may have stuff like grinders and buffing wheels and of course some sort of exhaust system. I'm sure you will love your new shop Steve !!! I have an old "new" one and I still think is super. Frank

[cliff fendley]

If possible I would make that back room for the grinders, sanders, buffing. Anything that makes dust and set up a vac system in there. Put the big heavy machines like mills, lathes, in the front room where you need more area and easier to get them in. Plus even though they make a mess it doesnt usually become as airborn.

When I did my shop addition a few years ago I built seperate grinding and buffing rooms with the flap type walk in freezer doors. I got the idea from Gil Hibbens shop. I can keep the rest of my shop much, much cleaner.

[Alan Folts]

Steve, that is almost identical in size to my workshop now. I can agree witht he seperate grinding room as others have stated.

One thing I can suggest is to use as MUCH space outside yoru shop for noisy things... My shop has dust collection tubes run over most of the walls as well as compressor lines for compressed air... The dust collection unit and the compressor are OUTSIDE the shop, as well as hepa air filtration unit on the grinding room are all outside the sho, to keep down the noise levels...All of these are on remote switches so they can be run without going out to the unit.

You have mentioned light as well. I would suggest mixing light sources... Most of my shop is COVERED with 4 bulb 4 foot flourescent fixtures... BUT they will give you afalse sense of hope... minute scratches will NOT show witht he floursecent lighting.. High pressure lighting (like they use in shows) will show EVERY scratch and depression... so mix wht kinds of light you have and you will be able to see your knife in the best and worse of conditions....

Think about what you MAY use the space for and not just now, I find that as i expand, the few extra dollars i spent to "over engineer" the systems in my shop then, are paying off now.

If you have any questions, or want some pics or examples, just let me know!!!

Alan Folts