welcome to the furniture workshop, i’m jimthompson. today i would like to cover creating your own workshop. if you have ever wantedyour own shop this should help you understand just which you need. i will go over tips onshop space, critical tools, as well as some lumber and project ideas. so if you are completelynew to woodworking this should help you get started. i think more folks would enjoy woodworking if they knew they could build project
five essential woodworking power tools, with just a few tools. from a simple startyou can build a really great shop. my recommendations here today are for folks who are buildingsmall furniture projects. i will try to give rough costs on the differenttools we will talk about and to help you budget things and after watching you should be ableto get a pretty decent shop going. okay first
off you really don’t need a dedicated spacefor your shop. you can put everything on wheels whether it is your table saw or your bencheslike this one here put them on casters and that way you can set the shop when you needit and then tear it down and put it in a corner when it is not. it makes it very convenientyou don’t have to have that space just for your shop.but you do need adequate lighting. so i recommend at least a few of these. i have got mine athome depot. i have got about a million of them at my shop. they are about 13 bucks apiece for the actual lamp and they hang on little chains. they are preassembled readyto go. the bulbs themselves they start off priced about 6 bucks a piece, $6 or $7 a piece.i use a natural light bulb which basically
mimics sunlight which is great if you spendin a lot of time down in your shop. you can get them a little cheaper with the syntheticstuff that they have. but those are ones i like a lot and another thing i recommend isdefinitely have good ventilation. your finishing fumes will really cause trouble if you arenot venting that out. obviously a garage is ideal. if you can useyour garage have your big door up. you are in pretty good shape there. i don’t havethe luxury here. i am in the basement. so what i have done to kind of cure that getthe fumes rolling get some cross breezes that may be these little screen frames that i amgoing to get a little breeze in here and that do great. so just keep that in mind you don’twant to be in a closed environment especially
in the winter time when you are doing yourstaining and your finish work because that can really cause you some problems down theroad. so when you are picking your spot to haveyour temporary shop or permanent if you are lucky, definitely keep an eye on how manyoutlets are available. you want to have at least two outlets run in so you have fourplugs handy. here i was lucky enough to have a friend set me up in here with much electricityas i need, but make sure you have access to at least two and what i also recommend todo. i did a video on this last month is build a couple of work benches one small, one talland put them on casters like i said before and also get yourself couple of power stripsand secure couple of power strips to it that
way turns your couple of outlets into a bunchvery, very handy. so definitely do that and check out the video i did last month if youneed a plan for a decent work bench on the cheap.and another item i recommend to get this is about $20 item down at home depot. a lot ofthe home centers have these in format or another. this is great if you are spending a lot oftime in your shop. this will save your feet they are wonderful. i have got them in frontof all the tools i spend a lot of time on. when i am not making a video down here i havegot a couple of them right here. they spend half of time in this one spot and that makeslife little easier on your feet and in another inexpensive item that it is a real life saverthese plastic shelves.
these you can get at the home center for about20 bucks a piece. i noticed recently they actually have a wire mesh version which isreally good as well. obviously you can build some of like that pretty easy, but what isnice about these is the reason they have these slots in them keeps you from getting all yoursaw dust building up just kind of flows through and then you can just hit the shop vac onthe floor. so building yourself you got to get in there with the nooks and crannies.if you buy these ones with the slots it just makes life a little easier when you cleaningthings up. and another item that is great to have i don’tknow if you can see it. at home you just see a little bit of it all these wooden clampracks. so probably the number one thing, that
woodworkers buy are more and more clamps.i have got dozens and dozens of them and my basement floods quite a bit so i would liketo keep things off the floor so i have these clamp racks. keeps everything nice and neatand i don’t have worry about them getting all rusted. i am hanging on the wall righthere. this is actually you get down building your benches, i recommend you build a coupleof these cheaper clamp racks out of your scrap wood and that just keeps everything organized.in addition to the fumes you will get in your shop i recommend you also take precautionsfor shop noise, saw dust and debris. now to counter act the noise that you will get inthe shop and help you concentrate i recommend you get a good pair of ear protection. a pairlike this will run you it is about $10 the
home centers carry them now. if you own afirearm you may already have a decent pair you can use so these are good. they protectyour ears but what i find is you actually get better more precise cuts when you arewearing these when using say router, doing an edge or something that has a little bitof finesse it will usually help you to concentrate on the job at hand. definitely pick up a pairof those. it is always a good idea to have a few pairsof these as norm recommended so do i, i have got them in all shapes and sizes. these kindof hug your face a little bit and keep things from kicking up in the table saw in particularand i take it a step further. actually i use this mask when i am using the router becausethe router kicks up an awful lot of debris
and again this lets me concentrate in whati am doing. i don’t have to worry about anything getting into my eyes and messingup the cut. that is a few things to consider safety wise.so for keeping your shop clean a lot of workshops have fancy dust collection systems and i haveto admit after 20 years of wood working i have only got a shop vac and some dust pansand brushes and i recommend you actually start with a shop vac as well. you can always stepit up to a dust collection system put that throughout your shop and they are great butthey are just pricy and kind of complicated. for simple folks like me nothing like a plain,vanilla shop vac to get the job done one of this size down at the home center will runyou about $80 and it has worked well for me.
i usually clean up each time i’m in theshop i will run the floors just there is no risk of fire. so one of these and couple ofthose you are good to go and down the road at some point i may get myself a dust collectionsystem and if i do i will let you know all about it.
