Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello everyone!

I'm a recent member to this forum. I've been doing a lot of digging and reading and there's certainly a lot to be learned. However, I'm looking for your personal insight here.

Just a little bit of background info: I've been repairing guitars for the last 10 years as a self-taught technician. I've studied Electronics Engineering, so I also work on tube amplification, effects and I also work with electric pianos (rhodes, wurlitzers, etc.) on occasion.

I live in Portugal, where the music biz is not much of a deal, but there's not too many people doing what I do. Those who actually work on guitars are amateurs, so I've got a headstart here. Last March I flew to the United States to learn all that I could at the Galloup School of Lutherie.

I'm about to move my shop to a big city with a fairly decent music scene going on. I'm also about to buy lots of powertools and machinery so I can approach any repair work and also start building acoustic guitars as soon as possible.

This the space that I have at my disposal:



The room on the left is where the majority of the repair work will be happening. There's also a small office where I can deal with all the paper work and also make use of all sorts of equipment for plate tuning (signal generator, strobe tuner, etc.).

On the right, there's the "piano" room, which is just there so you can have an idea of the size of that room. What I would like to know is what are your thoughts and feelings towards the list of powertools, the layout of the shop and your suggestions for a nice band saw with resaw cappability.

Ultimately, I would like to see this thread as a cool introduction to shop layout and business management when it comes to investment.

I'm sorry for any eventual grammar kicking. English is not my main language. Feel free to point out any blatant mistakes.

Thanks in advance,
Celso

Cool looking shop. Are you going to have walk-in customers? Where would you look after them?

Thanks Edward. The shop is embedded in a facility that consists of a record studio, live music venue with jam sessions and whatnot, 2 rehearsal studios, a space for art exhibitions and a cafeteria. It's some sort of an arts academy where I managed to fit my shop it, but I don't own the place though.

The academy is running inside its main building, which is about 100 years old, then on the back there's another open-air stage for live music, and then further back there's a pre-fabricated building and that's where my shop is. My clients have to go though either thru the academy's building or they have to ring the bell at the service door, to get to my shop. Having said, I'm not expecting walk ins as I'm the only one running this shop but every week there are 3 different bands playing at the academy, so there's a lot of potential costumers. I'm not really sure if I answered your question correctly.

This the view to the prefabricated building where I'll be working at, from the main building.



And the opposite view:



And finally, a closeup of the outside of my shop. There's an awful lot of work being done right now, so it is indeed pretty messy.

Don't see a table saw,which to me is one of the most important tools.Also think you are a bit on the heavy side with sanding gear especially if you are strapped for money.The spindle and edge sander could wait in my opinion. Also I assume you are equipped with the needed hand tools. Just a quick impression. Good luck.

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Hi Celso, and welcome.

I wish i had a space like that, but here are a couple thoughts on your shop layout:

I wouldnt put a dust collector anywhere near a spray booth ... you are asking for trouble as far as keeping dust out. you might want to even build a small area for it thats sealed/filtered.

The jointer and planer if you have them, cant really be in a restricted area like a corner.. you wont be able to get longer boards on or in them. Ok if you put them on wheels, then you can move when required. You should count on from time to time using them with a 4 or 5 foot board.

Personally, I couldnt do without a table saw. It was the first big tool I bought years ago, and I just use it for too many things now. It needs to go somewhere in the centre.

I would have a long bench down the left wall, with storage overhead at the same height as a go bar top deck .. then you get a huge go bar area all along.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Thanks for your input westca. I had being using the table saw almost exclusively for cutting fret slots, so I didn't take up on that as a priority. But you are right, the edge sander would be overkill for a startup kit.

I have a fair amount of hand tools and jigs to build guitars. All in all, I'm just after different opinion regarding priorities. I don't mind having an inferior set of chisels so I could buy or build myself a side-bending machine, for example.

I might write down here I think it would be a good set of tools to begin with, but that's probably has been discussed here already.

Tony: much appreciated! I have been thinking about the best layout and this was a simple startpoint from someone who actually is not used to having such machines available. I will review the sketch, thank you very much.

edit: oh by the way, there's a go back deck already in the left room (on the 3d model). That's the one on the left side, the image is a bit difficult to read.

Celso that is a great looking facility! Your lucky to have a space like that, I am sure many pros would be envious. You will likely do well in a music facility like that. Also that is some great advice Tony gave you.

What about humidifier/dehumidifier? Not really tools but still very important in the shop. You should also set aside space for storing/stickering wood.

Nice space! My shop is about the same size, but it's shape is different. It is a good size, I almost have all the space I need…

Lots of good advice already, I just have a few things:

First, humidity: I suspect there no vapor barrier in your walls, correct? Unless the room is sealed from the outside air, you will more of less at the mercy of the general RH in your area. If you have large swings in RH throughout the year, this will determine what and how you can and cannot build, and you may want to consider enclosing a smaller area (perhaps a space about the size of your spray booth) and make that your RH controlled area for brace glue-ups and other delicate operations.

In your first sketch (the 3 D one) there is a partition wall, in the next plan it is gone, are you planning to tear it down? I would consider keeping it, and making one room a machine room (“dusty”) and one room a bench room (“clean”). It makes it easier to keep things clean and tidy.

The dust collector will be more effective with shorter pipe runs, so consider placing it, or the machines it serves, closer together. I would place the biggest dust producers (sanding machines) closest to the DC.

Which machines to get is such a personal choice, I have two band saws but no spindle sander, for example. For sure, I would want a table saw somewhere in there, it is common to place it and the jointer close as you often go from the jointer to the table saw. The way I work, the edge sander also belongs close to these.

Not enough bench space! A general work table which is accessible from dedicated work stations all around is often a good idea. Work islands, or semi islands in combination with wall mounted benches is a good option. Find out which tasks you to do most often, and which ones require you move from one place to the next, and place you machines and benches accordingly.

Here is the plan of my shop, just to give you some ideas of one way to do things.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

A few random thoughts...

I have two rooms: one for machines and one for wood storage and assembly. I do some hand planing and a little hand sawing in the assembly room, but nothing that creates significant dust. The assembly room is well-sealed and humidity controlled, which is essential where I live. I have some additional long-term wood storage in the attic, and plan to build a finishing room up there at some point.

My machines: drill press, sliding compound miter saw, table saw, router table, belt/disc sander with the belt section set up vertically, second belt sander (horizontal), band saw, oscillating spindle sander, jointer, drum sander, and dust collector. In that room I also have a large workbench with a built-in downdraft table (which is connected to the dust collector). The table saw has a shop-built outfeed table which doubles as an additional worksurface - it is topped with phenolic, so it's especially good for my Ribbecke binding rabbet routing jig, which requires sliding the guitar around in a carriage under the router. There is also an air filtration unit mounted on the ceiling. As far as hand-held power tools go, the ones I use most are routers and cordless drills. Lots of hand tools, of course.

A sliding compound miter saw isn't a typical part of a luthier's shop, but I find it extremely useful and use it in guitar making all the time.

If you can afford it, I would highly recommend taking a class from Charles Fox (American School of Lutherie). You will see a very different approach to lutherie than Brian Galloup's, and an approach to tooling and shop organization that would likely have a profound and extremely helpful effect on how you set up your shop. Charles makes extremely efficient and intelligent use of shop space. Everything is integrated. It's very impressive, and unlike anything I've seen anywhere else. I wish I'd taken his class before I set up my shop. Hopefully some day I'll get around to doing a major shop overhaul based on his ideas.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Hi Todd, which of his classes did you take? I checked his web site, there is the "CONTEMPORARY GUITAR MAKING" class, the "HANDS-ON GUITAR MAKING" class, the " SMALL SHOP PRODUCTION " class and the "ADVANCED DESIGN FEATURES" class... Personally I'd love to take either!

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Hi Arnt,

I took the "Contemporary Guitar Making" course. Very worthwhile. Any of his classes, though, would give a person exposure to his shop and ways of thinking about things. If I were more of a beginner, I'd take the hands-on class, and that would be the one I'd recommend to someone who's just starting out with building guitars.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Celso,
Welcome to the forum and good luck on your exciting new venture. This is a very interesting and helpful thread and I am grateful to you for having thought to initiate the discussion.
Best regards,

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George :-)

Hello Celso,

That sounds like a cool set up. Thanks to Todd for those shop ideas. Setting up a shop for maximum efficiency is a very, very difficult thing to do. When I worked in industry we had a team of engineers in charge of work flow. We had to re-arrange the machines seemingly bi-annually! It got to where I wondered if we were moving machines to increase ergonomics and work flow or to keep the enineers employed! There are a lot of good ideas in this thread!

I personally only have one room with everything in it except for the dust collector. The dust collector is in the next room (garage) to keep the noise down in the shop. I have everything on wheels around the perimiter and move stuff a bit as I use it. I have a center workbench with a 4'x6' work top. This all works pretty well but I get excited about the ability to have a two room shop.

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http://www.booneguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Boone-guitar-builder/488208541257210

Dust is a problem not only for finishing but also for dehumidifiers - another good reason to have two rooms. Some people have another separate room for wood storage, but it works well for me to have most of my wood (at least that which I plan to use within the next few years) stored in the assembly room and to control the humidity only in that one room. Not being such a large room makes it easier and less energy-consuming to control the humidity. If I did machine work in the same room I stored my wood, the wood would always be dusty, which would be a drag, unless I enclosed it somehow to protect it from dust.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Like Todd, i also use more than one room for my guitar building.Most my lumber is stored in pole barns where it is stickered and dried.From there it goes to wood prossessing building where i have a dust collector, table saw,resaw bandsaw,and drum sander.From there it all goes to the assembly room which is humidity controlled.In there is everything i need to build the guitar. When finished, it then goes to my spray booth for painting which is another building that i also paint cars in.I spray nitro in there and french polish in the assembly room.

Everything in my shop is in one room, including the dust collector. It would be very nice to have multiple rooms, but hey, I'm thankful to even have a shop!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Your location looks wonderful, a very stimulating place to work!

I work mostly in one room, and I have rearranged my space so many times I have lost count. I strongly believe in a modular approach that allows flexibility. That is why my benches and machinery are all movable, they are on wheels.

You don't need to buy all of your power machinery at the start, just what you KNOW that you will use regularly. You should also know what work you need to facilitate in your space. One aspect that is often overlooked is storage. Materials, tools, work in progress, finished work, shop supplies, books, etc., all accumulate so fast!

One strategy that appeals to me is to set up work stations around the perimeter of the shop, each focusing on particular stages of building, ie: construction, detail work, finishing, set up. that way, all the relevant tools for that stage are always at hand. the machinery could be all in the center so that it is always close at hand for any stage.

Of course, I don't work that way!

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

Hello everyone,

I would like to thank you guys for all the replies. A lot of important issues have been brought up and I'm currently redesigning the whole thing. I don't have all the machines yet, so everything is bound to change, eventually.

I plan to make a bigger spray booth, divide that in two and as a result I should be able to have a humidity controlled room for gluing and for wood storage. By doing that I'm also isolating the spray booth from the dust (the spray room is accessible from the storage room.



That is exactly what I plan to do. I didn't include the left room on the second plan just because I did that on the Grizzly ShopLayout app.



That seems an excellent idea, but I just got back from the States, so I don't think I'll able to go back to the US in the near future. I'll have to live from the first mistakes, and commit most of them on paper, if possible.

As I'm not building yet, I can only imagine my workflow... so that leaves me with guesswork. Nevertheless I'll be posting new additions to this topic, since there's a lot I can learn from plain feedback.

Again, thank you very much for your help.

Just a quick update. I reviewed the layout, dropped the edge sander and got a table saw instead. I also created a small room, humidity controlled, for storage and brace-gluing/boxing purposes. Another advantage of this newer room is that it serves as a dust barrier to the spray booth. The L shaped bench will be featuring most jigs, molds and whatnot, with overhead compartmens.



Please, let me know if you have any ideas. Thanks!

Cheers,
Celso

Much better! Now to the details…

I would move the door to the humidity controlled room to the other (longer) wall to avoid conflicting traffic between it and the entrance door, and to improve traffic flow between you two main rooms. Also consider some glass in the wall between the two rooms, it will make working in the smaller room much more pleasant. Move one or two of the machines from this area towards the wall at the opposite side of the room, if needed. What is the machine between the band saw and spindle sander?

As I said before, folks have different priorities when it comes to machines. I love both my edge sander and combination belt / disk sander and couldn’t live without them, but I am living without (and not missing) a thickess planer and spindle sander. For furniture work the thicknesser would be essential, and some builders adore their spindle sanders, I use the idle drum end of the edge sander or sanding drums in the drill press for the few concave curves I need to sand.

Your benches and work island look about right to me. Consider adding a dedicated sharpening bench, perhaps at the end of the L-bench, under the window? I would make all these benches pretty high, I’m 184 cm and my main benches are all 105 cm, but I also like to use a traditional low woodworking bench for hand planning. What do you have in mind for vises? Work islands, especially their corners, lend themselves to vises and work holding devices because access is so good, so plan with this in mind when you build it. Oh, and remember to make one shelf area over the L-bench deep enugh to work as a go-bar deck.

This will be a great shop!

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Put the machines you use most often close to the door to your hand work room. The extra steps become an inconvenience. In my case, the belt and disc sander, a bandsaw, drill press, and table saw are closer to me than the planer, jointer, specialty sanders and other machines.

Dust collector closest to the machines that require the most suction (planer and sanders), since you will lose it with distance. I find it hard to get by without a thicknessing sander, BTW.

The belt/disc sander requires a lot of access. I keep it out from the wall. The jointer and planer can be placed side by side to free up wall space. Some people place the jointer behind or alongside the table saw (but only if the jointer's fence is not higher than the saw's table.

There is a good book on shop layout, etc. Setting Up Shop by Sandor Nagyszalanczy. I wish I could find my copy of it. I'm setting up a new shop and haven't seen the book since I moved two years ago.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

As you're building from scratch...

You'll be spending a lot of time in the hand building area, consider how to make as pleasant as possible. Small, windowless, rooms feel isolating. Maybe some windows into the main shop room? Makes it feel larger.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

I think someone mentioned it before but you really should have your jointer in the middle of the room.

Thanks again for the juicy replies.



I'm sure not I'm getting this, Arnt (language barrier times two?). Are you suggesting to put some glass window in the humidity controlled room or between the two main rooms? In case scenario #1 (humidity controlled room), I would have to give up the shelf that would be on that specific wall. In case scenario #2, I'm not sure I'm allowed to mess around with the walls to put a window on them, but in either case it would lend a positive vibe to the shop. I'll think about it and talk to the owner of the place. The machine between the band saw and the spindle sander is a belt/disc sander. I'll probably switch its position with the spindle, as I use it more often.



I'm thinking of using a traditional woodworkers vise for general purposes (like the one below) and a twin-screw for holding the guitar body while scraping.



As for the go-bar deck I'm sorry for being confused, but I was considering doing all the brace gluing and boxing in the humidity controlled room. However, before the humidity isseu popped in, I had a go back deck in the other room, right next to the small office (where I'll have a refrigerator - for CA and snacks - and a oven for kilning purposes). By the way, those inconspicous fire hoses are supposed to be a buffing arbor. I didn't find anything similar in ArchiCad.

Douglas, yeah I hear you. I'm likely to spend a lot of time (or most of the time) in the smaller room, doing repairs. I'm trying figure out a way to make that a confortable and funcional place to be.

Howard, thank you for the tip. Let me say that I love your approach and have spent a fair amout of time reading your website. The jointer will be on wheels, so it's bound to be around that empty area below the drumsander. That's just the resting position, when not in use. I'll definitely look up for that book, thanks. Thanks to Edward as well, for pointing that out.

All of the machines I'll be getting are JETs, because I'm pretty close to the distributor and technical assistance, the price isn't bad and the brand has a good reputation within its class. Having said, what band saw would you use for resawing? I'm about to put a lot of effort to get all this stuff, so I will have to credit OLF and its members for all the help I'm getting.

Cheers,
Celso