Like most of the US at the moment, it's snowing and below zero.  Should be time for inside work.  But, I'm in a bad situation at the moment.  A week ago, I crushed my foot badly.  Prognosis is 5 more weeks keeping it immobilized.  I can walk, but difficult to stand and balance for any period of time.  And, running lathe or mill or grinding or sanding presents problems of keeping the boot and foot clean.  I may get a work-around for that cobbled together soon, though.

I read some old books/articles as I've been lying down with my foot up.  One of those was articles written by Roy Dunlop I think in the 1960's or early 1970's.  This was after his gunsmithing career was mostly over; he wasn't actively doing full time work.  He described his shop, the tools and equipment.  His power tools consisted of a 2 wheel grinder, a homemade belt sander, a jet brand round column mill, a Craftsman 6" lathe and a slightly larger English lathe with quick change gearbox.  He described his longing for a larger 10 or 12 inch Atlas lathe, but lamented he couldn't afford the space for it.  His tools consisted of screwdrivers, a few chisels, and rasps and files.  For sanding, he used 6 grits of sandpaper wrapped around files.  He switched the grinding wheels off his grinder to use buffing wheels.  He had 2 vises in his shop, a medium sized standard shop type machinist vise and a versa-vise for stock work.  

It gave me a bit of perspective on our relative wealth today in workspaces and equipment.  Plus, an appreciation of the skills of GT, BobW, Frankeore, and many others on this board.

On to the topic of this thread.  And a disclaimer.

I'm going to post a bit about finishing and organizing my shop space.  

IF ANYONE FEELS THAT THIS IS AN INAPPROPRIATE AND BORING TOPIC, PLEASE POST IT HERE AND I'LL DELETE OR ASK THE MODS TO.

Before I put some pictures in the next post, I'll describe overall what I'm doing, and what I'm starting from.

I recently retired, for the past 5 years or so I've been spending my free time outside of work building a new house and shop in anticipation of having it functional after I retire.  It's not quite done, but close.  I have three shop spaces.  

1)  Oversize 3 bay garage - shared rough work shop and vehicle storage
2)  Heated finished shop space for lathe, mill, etc with attic storage above
3)  Small basement shop under an original small 1920's house remnant, that I use for stock work, small work, and reloading. 

A bit better view of the gunsmithing bench; it's quite functional if it wasn't covered by junk and work in progress.  Some more shelving will help that.

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There's boxes of stuff from a cabinet on the floor; I had started moving things to make room for sheetrock before my injury.  This cabinet will be moved out into the access hall storage after the jewelers bench taking up the space is moved.

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The reloading bench is functional, if I could get all the horizontal storage put into cabinets instead:


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The access hall storage is very good for keeping a lot of fasteners, parts and general storage like bulk brass.

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The jewelers bench will eventually be moved into the "to be finished" space, and clear up this wall for more shelving to accept some of the bench clutter.

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Dave,

I agree with Greg. Please keep posting whatever it may be. I enjoy it all, and this one gives me hope that someday I may be half as organized as you are.

Hope your foot heals fast and well! Thanks for posting about your shops. It always interesting to see photos of gunsmiths shops and the stuff on their benches. That would be an interesting thread to start.
Good luck,
Cheers Richard

I enjoyed you post very much. Keep them going !

Boats

Sorry to hear about your foot!  Hopefully you heal faster than anticipated.  I've been down with a broken ankle before and we oftentimes just don't realize how much we take being mobile for granted!

I think this is a great topic, I need all the ideas and motivation I can get because my garage/shop is an absolute wreck.


SBoomer wrote on Jan 14^th, 2024 at 6:52am:

My shop is constantly cluttered.  When I moved to this place, I tried to limit the horizontal bench space to the minimum I thought I needed for projects.  It still is a magnet for clutter.  Every month or two I clear the benches and try to find permanent places for the stuff that likes to migrate to the bench tops.  It’s a never ending struggle.

Here’s a few shots of my shop & some background. It’s in a half basement above ground one end. 26x24. The other 26x24 end 4 foot crawl space used for storage.  Built the house 1975/1975 & shop went in same time. Small gas heater good fans no AC. Shop double door intentionally too small for a car, it’s not a garage larger door might have become one. 6 foot wide utility trailer will squeeze fit allowing heavy tool access 

Lot of work over 49 years. Kept my guns running, whatever was needed loading,  cartridge case work, metal or wood work. Also built several boats and repaired many more.  All my fishing rods built there reel maintenance and refurbishing used too. Penns and Abu’s mostly. Furniture construction and wood lathe work.

Main bench bolted to the foundation post. 10’x2’ 4 vises all iron screws with wood jaws. Fitted with several stops dogs etc. Top Pine Flooring on plywood . Scraped it down few months ago planed dead flat and oiled . This 3rd scrape down.

No storage on the bench top, not allowed, only working projects. Ready tools on pegboard hooks or top shelf. Most tools in job specific  tool boxes, pull out chisels scrapers etc, they are all in one box. Tray behind the bench catch all have 

Have a number of fixtures that clamp on the main bench. Big stuff presses etc on another bench this one runs portables. Upright holder for powder measures. Cartridge neck turner’s, Lyman Tru Line Jr  ( converted to 7/8)

Primary bench most important part of the shop.

Boats 

I like how you keep a working bench clean, Boats.  That's more what I'm trying to get to with this one.  Quit using any of the horizontal space for storage, except when something is in progress.

I'm starting in on the cleaning rods and the miscellaneous stuff hung on the pegboards this morning.  Might not have much progress for a while; my Dad passed away last night, will be busy with that for awhile.

You are making progress !! Here is my often used file storage. Simple sleeves, stored in one of the slots under the standing bench. Ends marked so I grab the right one. Other slots, left power drills , right large measuring tools squares levels etc. hung underneath 48 inch aluminum rule, often used as a straight edge . Small files chisels  etc kept in rolls stored in boxes and drawers. Protecting edges important.

Storage under the standing bench needs explaining. The bench started out as a radial arm saw bench. Drop center so the table was level with the saw table. 48 years same shop lot of evolution. Started as a joint shop my dad and I We agreed on most things not on the radial arm saw. After his passing I got rid of it.

Shops evolve and the small things pop up as good ideas, less than half are good ones. Clutter builds as time goes by. Fortunately my son has a shop and was able to pass a lot of tools alomg I like big old machinery, small enough for a home shop. Find something pass one it’s replacing  to him.

Shop, jobs change too, I always built my own fishing rods, home made jigs tools rod wrapping lathe etc. Still  fish  less often though, gave it all away keeping  enough to repair my own. Just have to let things go when they get in the way of other work.

Boats 

Last and Final . Hang fishing rods a different way, ring holders from Teak or Mahogany typical expensive sport fishermen. These same design no fancy woods.

I store a lot on rolling Dolly’s. Some from northern tool, cheap. One  government surplus & heavy duty., it was used for mess hall food trays.

High stack of recycle bins city no longer uses loading components. Shotgun mostly 20,16, 12 & 10 gage all for vintage SxS guns. One bottom bin assorted brass rifle cases. Bulky heavy and need to be moved often. My 10 meter air rifle range is in the 4 foot high crawl space behind it. Steel pellet trap target carrier on a track & flood light lit.

Under the loading bench plywood boxes some on dollys very heavy storage. Cast bullets, lead shot, and steel swinger targets.  Guessing loading bench has 500 lbs or so on the shelf another 300 + on dollys under.

Have to admit very little storage shown my ideas. Eyes always open see a good idea sketch or now with phone cameras quick picture. Museums particularly good places to look. Colonial Williamsburg has many working craftsman shops majority have good bench, shelf, hanger ideas. Boat shops and boat yard full of examples. 

Boats

Thanks, Craigster,

I thought about magnetic for the files, but what I've found is they have residual magnetism that drives you crazy holding filings.  I own a demagnitizer, that I use to remove magnetism from tooling around filings and machine swarf; otherwise it's a royal pain.  I don't want to have to demagnetize a file every time I want to use it.

Speaking of files, I took some pictures of what I currently do for files; it's in my other shop, and I need to reduce the storage there, and move part of it to this shop.

I currently have 3 drawers in my Kennedy stack devoted to files.  That should be reduced to one drawer to more effectively use the space for other tooling near the lathe and mill.  Some of the rasps will move to this basement bench area once I find or build a drawer for under the bench.  Some of the rasps will move to a woodworking/carpentry bench in the other shop.  

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Here's the rasps I'm currently using downstairs, I probably need about 5 to 10 more at the most.

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Gun bum, I do the same with my files as you do. Additionally, my chisels are kept in cardboard sleeves. Even if I lay either type of tool down for a minute, it won't be on a metal surface. 
disclaimer: I do have some 'junkie' files that I use for hacking on plastic that get gentle, but not protected care- usually cleaned off and put down in an out of the way place.

Same here have a box full of junk files, don’t give them drawer space. Do loan junkers when somebody wants to borrow a file, if so put a handle on it first. 

Boats

I was going to put up a few pictures of my "organization" but it is better to just let you visualize an episode of "Hoarders". I have finally gotten to the point where I can not do anything for the lack of a clear horizontal surface.

Charles

Dave, I did the same with my files and rasps.  The drawer is directly under my vice.  The top flat slides back and forth for access under it.  Would have been nice if it was full width...running out of room to keeping everything separated.
Bob

Two drawers made and installed; these will help a lot.  One to hold projects in progress more neatly and get them off the bench; and one for files and similar tools to have them more accessible and organized.  Bench is starting to get a lot better already.  

One thing that is apparent is that I need an organizer and space for sandpaper.  I have a dedicated cabinet in the other shop that stores from a few dozen to a couple hundred sheets of each grit from 30 to 2000.  Realistically, only use 80, 120, 150, 180,220,300,400,600,800 down in this shop, and two sheets of each at the most, with the 180 and up only needing one to cut pieces off of.  A pile in the file drawer might be a sufficient accommodation; I think I'll try that first.

Another thing that needs to go is the wrenches hung on the left peg board.  I need almost no wrenches down here, use maybe 3 or 4 of them.  These wrenches used to be in my shop because I didn't have the second heated shop and did some tasks at the gunsmithing bench out of necessity.  I hate to get rid of them; they're favorite full polish Proto 500 that were expensive/hard to afford when I got them.  Now they're excess to the full sets in the other shop, and in the way down here, the space is needed much more for other stuff.  Was thinking the big ball peen hammers should be moved out of this shop but used the biggest one two or three times in the past week; so apparently more need than I had been thinking.  They can stay for awhile.

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Wow! That’s a huge difference! You’ve got me thinking hard about this

Never heard of Boggs, found their web site. Very interesting, am going to send a few try them out.

Thanks for the tip.

Boats