Hi there!
Welcome to Shop Greatness Weekly, your go-to resource for smarter shop setups and better builds. I'm Travis Lathrop, a mechanical engineer turned entrepreneur and the owner of Shop Nation, and my goal today is to get you one step closer to Shop Greatness®.
Here at Shop Nation, we define Shop Greatness as
creating a workspace that's intuitive, intentional, and friction-free, so you can spend less time hunting and cleaning, and more time creating what you love.
The goal of this newsletter is to give you ways to think about shop setup that work best for you. Things like layout, storage, tool recommendations, dust collection, 3D printing, and all the nuts and bolts that go into *your* definition of Shop Greatness.
This week's issue is devoted to the newbie, who is thinking about building out their own shop but isn’t sure where to start. We'll cover some basic frameworks to think about before you buy a single tool. Specifically:
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Defining your shop's purpose (e.g., fine furniture, DIY, plywood projects)
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Listing your hard constraints (square footage, noise, egress , etc.) and
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What to prioritize within your budget (utilities, main workbench, starter tools, etc.)
Let's dive in.
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Starting with Purpose
What will your shop be for?
This is a really important question; maybe the most important question. That’s because setting up your shop without defining your shop archetype is kind of like buying coffee based off of a mythical “taster’s” choice: you have no idea what it’s supposed to be because you don’t know what it’s trying to be. Your archetype will affect the main four shop setup factors:
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Layout (zones + clearances)
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Power (120V or 240V, or a mix)
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Dust Collection (ducting and what CFM [cubic feet per minute] req’s), and
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Storage (long v. bulky v. small parts)
So even though your layout will certainly change with time, it still pays to get it basically right the first time, and you can adjust later as needed.
What is a shop archetype, you ask? Well, here are a few to consider:
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The Sheet-Goods Shop (plywood, built-ins): Special considerations around a 4x8 sheet of plywood: can it get in? Can you store it? Will you be table-saw-centric or track-saw-centric? Will your workbench be large enough for, say, cabinet or table assembly?
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The Fine Furniture Shop: mostly hardwood. Workflow usually goes something like this: rough lumber in - joint - plane - rip/crosscut - joinery - assemble - finish. So think about what you’ll need at each stage: a clear-cut milling path without any U-turns, a robust workbench with good workholding options, a clamp wall, and solid dust collection: you’ll be making more dust with all that milling.
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The DIYer: General home projects out of your garage. The focus is on flexibility, especially if the car needs to park there at night. So in addition to thinking about layout and core tools, you’ll also need to consider safety, like locking cabinets with sharp tools and making sure wayward family members don’t accidentally get hurt.
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The CNC/3D Print Shop: Obviously the biggest consideration is the CNC/3D printer’s footprint, but also think about power requirements, material storage for sheets and filaments, how you’re going to organize all those bits, collets, nozzles, and maintenance tools, and dust/ventilation requirements.
You’re not married to one archetype, but you do want to optimize for the type of shop that’s best for 70% of your projects.
So think forward for a moment: what do your next six months’ worth of projects look like? A hardwood dining table? Fixing the deck? Revamping your closet? For each one, note the critical requirements: sheet handling vs. milling/joinery, clamp length/quantity, finishing space, and overall assembly footprint.
Which brings us to the next consideration:
Hard Constraints
You’ve got to work with what you have.
It’s a golden rule of woodwork, 3D printing, and most things in life, including (and especially) shop setup. So while you can run out to Home Depot in the middle of a project to get more screws, some problems are harder to just fix like that: your HOA and neighbor considerations, the square footage of space you have to work with, and whether the space can be a dedicated, full-time shop or needs to be reassembled every weekend.
So it pays to think outside the box for a moment, and list off any constraints you have now, before you buy anything. Things like:
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Space: overall square footage, ceiling height, columns, doors/garage openings
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Access and egress: getting 4x8 sheets in and around the space, turning radius
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Dual usage: do cars need to park there? Will your spouse want some of the space reserved for something else?
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Noise: besides neighbors and HOA stuff, will your planer wake up family members in middle of the night? (You’ll get feedback on this one pretty quick – trust me.)
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Power: What capacity does the space have now? Where are the outlets? Do you have/need any 240V circuits? (Answer: yes, you definitely need for the big tools: table saw, jointer, planer, dust collection.)
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Storage: A shop can never have enough storage: for tools, for materials, for consumables, and countless other odds and ends that contribute to smooth operations. Do you have something to work with?
Which brings us to the elephant in the room…
Budgeting
You see these YouTubers with fully decked-out shops, Festool everything, and tons of cool toys.
It’s hard to remember that they started somewhere too; likely right about where you are right now, with no shop to speak of, very few tools, and a passion to create, whereas you only heard about them five years into their journey. So don’t compare your Level One to someone else’s Level Seven. Remember:
Shop Greatness is about building systems, not collecting trophies.
So hold off on the Festool shopping spree for now, and think about the different layers of your shop and how to best build them out for the long-term.
Layers?
Yes, layers. Here’s what that means:
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First layer: shell + utilities. This layer has the highest ROI, because it’s the most basic and therefore universal to every project. Things like shop circuitry and lighting, basic storage, lighting, and insulation.
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Second layer: core surfaces + main tools + dust collection. Your main workbench/outfeed table, which includes such philosophical questions as whether your shop is table-saw-centric or track-saw-centric, and your dust collection basics: a shopvac with a separator. I get asked all the time what tools to start with, and I have three: a drill, a circular saw, and a pocket hole jig. That’s really all you need to get started. You can get great deals on places like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.
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Third layer: scale. Once the basics are done, you can start putting money towards other stuff. So your next tools would probably be a random orbital sander, a router, a miter saw, and lots of clamps, and you can build out your storage, dust collection, and everything else.
So, in a nutshell: splurge on your electrics, lighting, workbench, and dust collection; save for the nicer tools and upgrades.
An Exercise
Here’s an exercise I did when designing my new shop, which works equally well for a fully-equipped high-budget workspace or repurposing part of your garage.
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First, map out your space on graph paper, with each box representing a foot (or half a foot, or whatever).
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Next, list off the large tools, shop furniture, and dust collection systems you have or want to include, and make to-scale representations (and maybe even do a mock 4x8 sheet of plywood).
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Finally, play with it. Move everything until you find one or two configurations that work well for your workflow.
Visualizing the space in this way will force you to answer all the questions we raised, and will open your eyes to new possibilities. I actually made a video about this last year, where I 3D printed mini-machines and an entire shop at 1/24 scale (yes, I basically made a maker dollhouse). Overkill, but fun, and useful for visualization and thinking this part through.
That’s all for now, folks!
I hope you found this useful, and would love to get your thoughts and feedback on anything you just read.
I recently built out my dream shop and documented the process on this YouTube playlist, so if you want to go down a ~2.5 hour rabbit hole on what to think about, that’s for you.
I’ve also created ridiculously detailed plans (150+ pages) for the world’s best workbenches that integrate a table saw, general workbench, assembly table, router table, and utility hub all in one space. You can grab any of the five variations for those (portable jobsite, versatile garage shop, mega, ultimate, and “shmedium” garage) here, and check out some YouTube playlists for those here and here.
See you next week,
Travis