Thread: Max shed size?

In terms of dust collection a very large shed with all the machines spread well apart may require the use of larger ducting and hence a larger DC.

The benefit of having a very large shed is you can do luxurious things like dividing the shed up into work areas and work rooms.

For example ;
wood working machinery room that would have serious dust extraction and keeps dust out of other areas.
Dedicated sanding room or booth with massive ventilation.
Dedicate spray booth room.
Dedicated finishing room where a room air filter can be used to remove as much dust as possible including non-wood dust.
Dedicated assembly room
Dedicated metal work, electrical/electronics rooms.
Dedicated store rooms, humidity controlled rooms for storing timber, a wood drying room, a ventilated room to store paints/glues and finishes
Mechanical shop area.
etc.

Originally Posted by DaveVman

Is it possible to have a woodworker's shed for one hobbyist that is too large?

If and when we move further away from the city center, what would be the extreme maximum size for a shed? Because with my current workshop Tetris it is hard to imagine any shed being too large.

How much walking do you want to do.

In a very large shed it can be a very long walk from the bench to the table saw.



But approaching your question from the other direction, I suggest the answer lies in what you want to build and the machinery you are prepared to invest in.

If you're building a boat, you'll need a lot more space than what is required if all you are making is boxes.

Machinery wise -- in the vein of establishing the extreme maximum space requirements (and serious hobbyists can afford serious machinery) ...
assume two table saws. One dedicated to ripping, the other a full size sliding panel saw. The slider will have a foot print something like 7 m long and 5 m wide (to allow space for material handling and moving past the saw.

Then there would be a 12" jointer and a 24" thicknesser. The jointer would ideally occupy a space about 1.5 m wide and as long as 2x the length of the longest board you would put through it.

similar space approximations can be made for all your machinery.
Allowing for overlapping infeed and out feed zones and working areas, a serious hobbiest could be shoe-horned into a large two car garage (with only a little tetris shuffling required).

You really need to talk to Albert in Auckland.

All very good points.

It's about 12m from my SCMS to my wheelie bin. I notice that this is roughly the limit where if it was much further I'd probably end up with another bin closer. I don't mind the walking but it's all very time wasting.

What could Albert of Auckland tell me?

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

I would suggest that size is a function of available funds, intended use and discipline in keeping other stuff away from the shed. I had a 12 x 16 American barn in Melbourne that was tall enough to have mezzanines on the two side wings. Original intention was one side wing for 2 cars and a trailer, centre for a future caravan, motorhome or boat, and the other side intended as 3/4 woodwork shop and 1/4 metalwork shop. Mezzanines were intended as storage one side (battery fork lift added to vehicle list), and a lounge/relaxation room, electronics workshop, and small recording/production studio.

The mezzanines never happened, the vehicle list expanded to 4 cars, 2 ride on mowers, 3 trailers, and the battery fork. The rest of the shed was packed quite densely with a couple of 600mm passages through it. We sold up and went bush 2 1/2 years ago and dismantled the shed and bought it with us, but it's not back up yet, hopefully this year. I am getting the floor re-engineered to definitely carry the mezzanines, and will be fully framing, insulating and lining the interior. Will erect the 2 post car hoist that has been waiting 10 years, and install a 4 post as well for elevated vehicle storage. Will probably have another 2 car garage for the ride ons, a trailer and possibly a tractor and implements.

Hopefully will have 3.5m x 12m x 2.7 for a dedicated and enclosed wood shop, which is still fairly light for the machinery to be installed.

Originally Posted by DaveVman

What could Albert of Auckland tell me?

Originally Posted by Albert

my shed is 9x6. the [dust collector] mains are 8" steel. cry once laugh forever.
my dusty is a 3 phase 4kw baghouse unit.

am yet to place the dusty outside but I am very tempted to get a briquette press. A Felder RL type extractor with briquette press 2nd hand say 5-7 years old is about 15,000 EURO, Hoecker Polytechnik, Nestro, Spanex.. all about the same, except Alko. Alko is über expensive.

from other posts over the years, I understand that Albert is a very serious amateur -- I say "amateur" because I think he still has his day job -- who operates semi-commercially from his 9 x 6 space.
The power supply to his "shed" is 3 ph, 105 Amp.

Albert's "tool list" includes:
Masterwood OMB1V chisel morticer


SCM 5RCS1100 wide belt sander,


Omga AL129, cut-off saw


Robland NX410 PRO, combination machine


Holytek DC006 dust collector,


and he has a 10 or 20 foot container in his back yard for timber storage.

so, in terms of efficient use of available space, Albert would be clsoe to our resident expert.

Originally Posted by ian

from other posts over the years, I understand that Albert is a very serious amateur

I think this might be an understatement.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Depends on what you like to do and what you can budget. How far can you walk in a day? Divide by two to get your maximum size .

I'd modify BobL's list and divide the metal work area into a 'clean' - i.e. milling and forming and a 'dirty' i.e. heat treating, welding, grinding, casting and blacksmith areas.

I'd add a vehicle maintenance area, flammable storage, compressed gas storage, laboratory / computer / instrument / desk work room and lots of material storage. Don't forget to include ethylated beverage storage and a barbecue as well.

Of course you'll also need a toilet / washing up facility.

As you know Dave I'm moving from 9x5 to 200M2.

At the moment if you were to see inside my new space you would ask where I used to put the stuff.

No shed is big enough. Materials and equipment expand to fill the available space. Conversely, it is surprising what you can fit into a small space and still function effectively.

Cheers

The father of one of my schoolmates in primary school was the gardener/caretaker for the ~20 acre estate of a retired British naval officer - they called him an admiral but I don't think he really was. Around the main house was about an acre of semi-formal gardens and with peacocks, a 1/4 acre walk through aviary, plus an awesome veggie garden. The admiral's house was not large, more comfortable rather than flash, and the on-site caretakers house was almost as large as the admiral's but not as fancy . The admiral was a bit of a recluse and spent some of his time in the gardens but most of his time in his wood workshop which was a barn like structure about 25 x 10 m. He had separate sheds for storage that included a large naval generator (it had several large brass Royal Navy badges riveted to the sides ) because when he first established the place just after WWII it was about 10km out of town and had no mains power .

In the early 60's when I was about 9 years old my mum became quite ill and I got to stay with my mate on the estate for about a month. My mate was the only child on the estate and was nuts about footy and wanted to play non-stop kick to kick, or watch world series wrestling. This was fine for half an hour or so but then I would wonder off and stand outside the workshop and gaze through the cobwebs around the many large windows. I had started dabbling with wood from about the age of 6 when I put a bit from dad's brace through my upper thigh so I was really keen to get inside and take a look around but the workshop was always locked and strictly out of bounds for kids. At the time I remember, several well laid out hand tool boards, large machinery and huge benches and large lay out tables. I really wanted to get in there even just to take a close up look but the Admiral was pretty crusty and didn't have or like kids, or anyone from what I could gather and I was advised not to ever talk to him unless he spoke to me which he never did. His wife was Scandinavian, a much younger and very attractive woman, who liked kids and would often invite us into their house for an ice cream and/or cool drinks where she would show us some of the things her husband had made.

My parents and the caretaker family became friends and we visited them at the estate quite often and I always took a sticky beak through the windows of the workshop. Once I had started high school WW and MW I eventually worked out what all the admiral's WW machines were. There were at least large two bandsaws, several large jointers and thicknessers, at least two table saws, radial arm saw, a large belt sander, a spindle moulder. I'm not sure what brands they were but they all look like Wadkin type stuff to me. There was also a small metal working section but I don't remember anything about the gear other than that he had a welder about the size of a large chest freezer. The one thing that really stuck with me was the large layout and assembly benches which I am jealous of to this day. I din't recall any dust extraction but he must have had some because the place was always tidy.

The admiral used the workshop to make a number of elegantly made pieces of furniture in his house but by the late 60's his health had reached the point where he hardly every worked in the workshop and it started to become run down - it was rather depressing to see the speed with which it degraded, machinery rusted etc. Not long after that the admiral died of a stroke and the estate was sold by the wife who promptly left Australia. Being beachside property the estate was worth $$$$ and everything was demolished for the subdivision. I don't know what happened to all the workshop stuff but it would not surprise me if it ended up at the tip.

Originally Posted by rob streeper

I'd modify BobL's list and divide the metal work area into a 'clean' - i.e. milling and forming and a 'dirty' i.e. heat treating, welding, grinding, casting and blacksmith areas.

I agree. Separate rooms if possible, but if not welding style curtains, or panels, and a decent fume hood should take care of welding type fumes and grinding dust.

I'd add a vehicle maintenance area, flammable storage, compressed gas storage, laboratory / computer / instrument / desk work room and lots of material storage.

"Vehicle maintenance area" is what I mean by a "mechanical shop" and "computer/instrument" is what I meant by "electronics" room in my post.

Compressed gas store assumes spare bottles, or remote operation which is useful for really dangerous gasses. Otherwise it's usually better to have the bottles relatively close to the work area where they can be quickly turned off.
At work we had a large bottle storage area outside and two floors down from our labs, with dedicated lines and remote opening and closing of valves for gases like Ar, N2, and HCl. Despite the expense and automation we still lost some gas. Bottles of electronics grade HCl does not come cheap. Not to mention the danger of leaking HCl - better outside than inside of course.

P.S. Add a high-dock for truck freight and a covered hard stand for pressure washing.

Friend of mine is building a 40 x 80m shed as part of his new house... well an indoor horse arena, but I still think I can change his mind to turn it into a workshop .

Cheers, Dom

This the stuff dreams are made of: What size shed?

A lot, as I think Ian mentioned, depends on your aspirations. Boats or boxes or somewhere in between. I remember a past Forum member who recreated antique furniture using only the original methods just had a small lawn locker for his shed. I think he had to move everything out to work. If it rained there was no work performed on that day. Actually with my own shed I dare not go up one notch on my belt as entry would be impossible.

Nearly twenty years ago I bought the machinery from an old commercial joinery that specialised in windows and doors. The building was high but not large. It had one section for the machinery and another skilion on the side for storage and assembly. The floor was dirt but each of the machines sat on a concrete plinth. Of particular interest was the 24" double sided thicknesser which was driven by a motor driving a shaft. This shaft had the two drives for the blades and the two drives for the feed rollers. It would have been about three to four meters from the thicknesser itself.

The Dust Collector was mounted high up and had 200mm and 300mm spiral wound ducting. I was impressed and asked Jeff how he collected the dust. He replied that " It was 1954. We just let it blow out the back of the shed!"

I cobbled up a quick diagram of the shed. I think it was about 10 to 12 meters long and around 5 meters wide plus the skillion. Interestingly he moved all the machines into the shed by himself just by using pipe for rollers. The thicknesser without the drive shaft and motor I estimated weighed in at nearly a ton and the jointer was 400Kg to 500Kg.

P1030225.JPG

However the short answer to how big is that it will never be big enough.

Regards
Paul

Do you need a cut lunch and compass to walk around the perimeter of the shed? If not, then it is too small.

I like to paraphrase of my cousin “Rampaging” Roy Slaven and his mate HG Nelson " when too much space is barely enough"