Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello everyone,
I've built 8 or so guitars some years ago, unfortunately I've had to take a break, building a house, raising small children and life in general getting in the way.
Finally, I'm in a position where I can get back into building. I've finished (well mostly) the house and even built a dedicated workshop building.
Due to some external circumstances, the shop is way bigger than I ever planned to build.
It's basically a 20'x40' 2x6 insulated building. All one single space at the moment.

This huge empty space is giving me a bit of anxiety I guess So I'm thinking I might put up some partition walls to split it up into rooms.
Basically I want a relatively low-dust area for hand work and assembly, a room for the dusty machinery (I think a table saw, router table, big bandsaw, small bandsaw, a small jointer, drum sander, drill press, spindle sander and a disk sander, maybe a cnc in the future) a room for wood storage area, and a spray booth.

Perhaps those of you who have been longer at this than I have, have any tips on how much space to give each of these areas, or maybe any other good to have machines I should include in my layout planning?

Maybe I'm overthinking this and should just leave it all open? Any advantages/disadvantages?
Would dust be a problem or getting a very good extractor would mostly take care of it?

My previous guitars were built all by hand tools in a small 2x4m area, so this is new territory for me.
There's a lot of advice out there for general woodworking shop planning, but not so much for luthier shops.

I’ll be watching this closely. I have the same ‘problem’ coming up, slightly bigger at 40x30.

One thing I want it for the place to still feel big. But you don’t want to be trying to control RH in a big space like that, so I’m going to quarter it and have the corner with 2 big picture windows be the main build room.

I’m still going to have a selection of power tools in it, the ones I use every few minutes. My big straight cut resaw, mini edgesander, 9” bandsaw, and tablesaw with dado. I use these tools so frequently that having to leave the room to use them every few minutes would be very annoying.

I’ll have a rolling go bar deck as well.

Beyond that, I’m still scratching my head...

Due to the permitting process I need to get it right the first time...

One easy decision, among the hard ones: If you want a spray booth, then set up a spray booth as part of the space. You don't need a big one for guitars, but if you want to use it for other projects (like furniture), then making it a fully set apart room is a good idea. Make it the size of a small bedroom. There's a whole set of separate design criteria for the spray booth innards, but in terms of space, you can subdivide it now in your plans.

The rest comes down to how you want to work, and what you want to pay for. Here is a good question: If you don't want to control RH in the whole space (which would be understandable), how will you otherwise heat/cool the larger whole or whatever subparts are created? You can leave the whole thing open (except the spray booth), and just control the environment as one big whole. Or, you can split it up, and figure out solutions per room. Which is cheaper? Which is harder to manage? How do you want to work? Those are all questions to research and ponder.

Another good separate room to have: A place for the air compressor and the dust collection system. Those can be pretty noisy.

Another good separate room to have: A bathroom.

I know I am presenting more questions than answers, but these are the things that I would want to consider if I had a brand new workspace.

Personally, I would subdivide a spray booth, bathroom, and compressor/dust collector room, but leave the rest of it open, and just heat/cool/RH control the whole open space together. But that's me, and there would be some downsides.

Good luck with the decisions!

Lucky you! A blank slate can be quite intimidating. That's a decent sized space, so you should be able to do a lot with it. And you seem to have identified the primary areas that I'd target. I'm currently working with a little smaller space in a basement, so no spray booth for me.

1) A clean space. I'd probably block off 1/3. I'm going to put a big fixed picture window (tempered glass) in the wall with work benches on either side to allow light to pass through and to keep it feeling open. The door will also likely have glass and sized so I can roll my biggest tools through just in case.
2) Spray booth. Think about where you vent this so you don't blow fumes on a flower bed or your neighbor's bbq!
3) Equipment room. I'd make a small sound-insulated closet space for my compressor and dust collector. Just to isolate some of the noise.
4) Lots of outlets and separate circuits for equipment and lights.
5) Lots of lights!

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Some good ideas to consider, thanks!

Here is an initial sketch with a lot of partitions. I'll try on some other, less divided layouts as well.

The small office would be heated separately from the rest with a small electric heater.
Machine room would have a pellet stove with some of the hot air vented to the hand tool and storage rooms. Ideally I would like to control humidity only in those smallish two rooms.

The good thing is that the building is more or less in the woods, so noise, fumes etc are not a concern. Nearest neighbour is more than half a mile away.
The bad thing is that I have no water at the moment, and it is a bit problematic to get it set up. So I will resort to use the house bathroom 100ft away

That looks like a well thought out layout. I have two questions, out of curiosity more than anything:

1. What part of the country is this in? Just thinking about climate considerations. You have a stove, but no air conditioning. There are places where you will need both.

2. What type of roof, ceiling, and floors are you thinking about for this building?

If there is attic space, that can be more storage, and/or maybe where you run some stuff like HVAC ductwork and/or dust collector ductwork.

I would love a hardwood floor in my next workshop. It feels great and looks great. I can't have one in my current shop, and it stirs envy when I see that someone else can.

1.This is actually across the pond, in northeast Europe - Latvia. So it's about the same as middle of Canada, but a bit warmer in winter due to the proximity of sea.
We get long, but not too cold winters (it can dip to -22f for a few days in some years, but happens less and less these days) and shorter not-so-hot summers.
There's about 2-3 weeks in a year that would warrant an AC, so it's not too common.
I expect I'll have to run a dehumidifier in summer and fall and a humidifier in winter when the air dries out from heating.

2. I have a corrugated fibre cement roof on the building. There is an attic space, but since the ceiling joists span 20ft, it can only be used for very light storage. Not sure I want to run any ducts through there, I'd rather keep the vapor barrier intact and run everything inside the box. Same for electrics. It's easier to change things around as well, if the layout changes in the future.

Inside walls and ceiling is 5/8" t&g softwood.
Floor is baltic birch plywood 13/16" thick. I could theoretically put some hardwood over it, but at the moment it's over my budget.

Here's how the shop looked when the exterior was finished. Still needs a ramp and stairs/porch.
I'll snap the interior shots a bit later.
I started building it in May and just now wrapping up the interior trim.
All built single handedly. It was an interesting experience to tackle a project that big alone.

Wow! Lovely place to spend some hours!

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

That's a beautiful little shop building. Wish I had the triple group of windows like you've got, I've only got one window in the whole shop.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I have a separate space for hand work/assembly, and my bigger machines in a separate space. However the drill press, disk sander and bobbin sander get used so often I keep them in the hand work room, using a shop vac to control dust.

There is, I think, an optimum layout for hand work where you can reach any tool you need with minimum walking about. Some people do this simply with mobile panels carrying their tools rather build actual partitions.

Cheers Dave

I'm with Dave m2. My shop is about 30x14 and always wishing it were more like yours at 20x30.

My shop has evolved over the years but a couple things I find indispensable are:

All stationary tools are on wheels so they can be easily pushed out of the way and corralled along a wall, especially the ones that do not see daily use.

My workbench is also on wheels but sits in the center of the space and is about 4'X8'. Storage underneath. There are 6 different vises around the bench and often more than one is in use at a time. I love being able to work at the bench from all 4 sides.

Use of hand tools and power tools are so intertwined I would go nuts if everything were not within 3 steps from the bench.

My RH fluctuates from 25% to 95%. And it isn't hard to keep a reasonable handle on it in a 30x15 shop. With yours all insulated and vapor barrier'd I would not worry about RH control for the larger space.

You can always add more walls later, I'd recommend starting out with less rooms, test the space and add them if you find you need them later.

Have fun, a new shop is about as good as it gets!

Brian

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

While plumbing for a toilet might not be feasible, having a slop sink that is gravity fed by a water cooler type bottle of water would be a good idea to have somewhere. It will be a real hassle if you have to go 100 feet to wash out a glue brush. You can fling the drainwater out the window and shout “GARDYLOO!!!”, like in Edinburgh a few hundred years ago.

Are you doing anything to treat the floor?

If I had that much room I would do the same. don't worry about "dust" unless it's a spray/finishing area. Dust gets everywhere. If you want a high dust and low dust area, you are just fooling yourself. Dust only matters when the finish is going on. I have a 17' x 20' for "everything" and I spray in a different building. Works very well. Oh and make sure you have a utility sink in the corner of your "everything" room.

It does seem smarter to start with a large space and see how it goes. I can always put up some partitions later on.

Yes, a gravity fed slop sink is definitely a good idea i will install one for sure.

Wheels on machines and benches - also smart. I will probably move stuff around a bit until everything finds it's place.

Floor finish.. I don't really want to paint it, as I don't like the look, clear coating it seems like it might make it slippery when there's some sawdust. So I might just throw a coat or two of floor oil on it and call it a day. I'm not really looking for "clean", it is a shop after all so it will get worn and dirty.

Sawdust on plywood can get slippery too. Something that gives good footing, and also cushions and insulates the floor some, are the rubber antifatigue mats. They are easy to put down and easy to take up, so adding walls and changing locations of things is easy. They vary in thickness and price. The 12mm thick X 61cm square interlocking mats are the type I prefer:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Norsk-Gray- ... 4-23-12070
If you like colors:
https://www.amazon.com/Norsk-Non-Toxic- ... SUJCA?th=1

+1 on slippery sawdust not to mention the rubber mats are comfortable. Although not as nice as the ones that Clay mentions, Woodcraft has some that are about 2' x 4' and they used to put them on sale at regular intervals at a very reasonable price.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Hi, if you look at the thread above titled Vacuum work holder, you can see in Michaeldc's reply an example of work shop layout, similar to what I suggested above.

Dave

Nice looking building! I did the same thing a couple of years ago--built a 12X28 multipurpose building, and did it alone. Built me a little crane to set the walls and get the rafters and roof sheeting up. I thought that for a scrawny 63 year old retiree from a desk job I did pretty well, and it was fun. Half of the building houses my less frequently used machinery and wood storage, the other half is general purpose storage. My main shop is the downstairs of my house.

Dave

If you do go with a separate “clean” assembly room consider leaving enough space for a couple of island workbenches. They are great.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

In my really small shop, my island workbench is my tablesaw with a cover over the table. Works fine, and I have jigs that lock into the miter slots allowing me additional opportunities, Island workbenches are really handy no matter how you get there. I also have a very small carvers bench on wheels that I can position where-ever it will fit that has my vacuum clamp holder as well as an end vise on it. It stashes out of the way when I don't need it. Again, a big plus 1 to island benches if you have room for them.

Dave

Thanks! It's quite surprising how one can lift huge objects with just a hand winch and a couple of 2x4s

Ah, now that is a great idea to get more wall space without more walls!