The Wood Whisperer is sponsored by Titebond. Finally, we're leaving the world of DIY renovation and focusing on the shop. But real quick, here's a timeline review of where we are so far. We moved to Missouri on July 1st and the tools were temporarily stored in my garage. We took possession of the firehouse on August 1st, but it took until the 18th to find a company to help move the tools into the new space. We took that down time as an opportunity to knock out all the improvements in the back rooms and now we're finally ready to start thinking about shop layout. I have some ideas in my head where I think things could go and now that we finally have room to move things around, we can start to actually put the tools in place and see if what's in my head actually works when it's in reality there's a lot of different ways you can do this part of the process. You can just go to a napkin, sketch right, just grab a piece of paper. It doesn't have to be to scale, just roughly get the tools place where you think they should go and see how that turns out. But there are also some other tools out there over the years, different companies have made shop planning solutions grizzly used to have one, you can just use sketch up if you're good with the program, you can actually get models of tools and pull those into a space that you've sketched and move things around. I've done that in the past. It works really, really well. Also J Katz-Moses just came out with a shop organization tool where you can actually print these things out and it's great because you just use the little cutouts, move them around a grid and then you could rearrange and play with your space as much as you want. We're actually gonna start building projects as soon as possible. So I I'm going to play with my real life size tools and get those in their positions when in doubt. Start with what you know, in my case, I've gotten real comfortable with the layout that I had in Denver and while the space is larger, I think it's a good starting point and if you remember what the old shop looked like, you might recognize this layout. So while I'm not even remotely confident that this is the best layout, it's certainly good enough for now. So when I'm moving tools around, I usually just go with my gut because I've done this process an embarrassingly large number of times. But when I'm actually, when I think about that process is applying a set of filters as I go, I mean this space is essentially a clean slate. So we have to apply a set of logical filters to decide where things go. So what I'm going to do here is lay out those filters, try to put terminology with them to make sense for you so that no matter whether you have a shop that's shaped like mine or something totally different, a big shop, a small shop, these rules can still apply and they should help you with your own shop layout. So the first filter is workflow. Put simply workflow is how we move from tool to tool during the process of woodworking. So when you design your shop, think about the steps from raw material to finished product and try to reduce the number of unnecessary steps between those tasks. So for example, three of the tools that I use the most are the jointer, the planer and the table saw. And you can see they're positioned in something of a classic work triangle. So now it's pretty easy to go from the jointer over to the planer and then back to the table saw. And the step before the jointer is usually the miter saw. So it makes a whole lot of sense to have the miter saw just across from the jointer. And since I'm gonna be storing materials in this bay, it kind of makes sense for me to have the miter saw somewhere along this wall as opposed to all the way on the other side of the shop where it's a longer walk. So for tools like the router table stationery Sanders and the band saw, I'm a little bit less picky about where these things go because they're just not used on every project. Next up is electricity wherever you plan on putting tools, you're going to need electricity at those locations. And when you have a bunch of 2 20 tools, that's not a trivial thing. Of course, if you plan to have tools in the middle of the shop, you either need to have drops from the ceiling or you gotta run extension cords to the walls. Of course if you have a raised floor situation, you might be able to run power from below. Now whenever possible, I think it's best to run your tools along the wall. It makes a lot easier to run your electricity. So whether you're running new circuits or extending old ones, it's a heck of a lot easier than going up over and down through the ceiling either way where wherever you want to put your tools, just make sure you can get power there. Next up is lighting and not really talking about artificial lighting, really just natural lighting. Hopefully your artificial lighting is just a nice, even consistent spread throughout the space. So if you have entry doors, windows or even a big garage door like this, that could definitely impact your tool layout. Now there are two places that I really appreciate natural light. One of those is at the workbench with natural light and all this detailed work that we do here, especially as you get older and maybe your eyes aren't as good as they used to be. It's really nice to be able to see everything that's going on. Makes life at the bench a whole lot easier. The other place is wherever you do your finishing natural light really helps you see colors. It also, especially if the light is coming from the side, it can help you see flaws in the surface and finishing. We use a thing called a raking light and usually it's an artificial light that's kind of coming across the work piece and it highlights any irregularities in the surface. But when you have a natural light that just Built into the room, it's a great advantage as you're applying finishes. Now this will be my finishing area. There's no table here now but there will be in the future. I just want to cut in here real quick to let you guys know how important it is that you subscribe to this channel on some of our videos as many as 40% of you watch but aren't subscribed subscribing and clicking the notification bell not only ensures that you don't miss out on any of our videos, but also gives you the warm and fuzzies knowing that it really helps us out as we provide you with great woodworking content and dad jokes. Next up is ventilation. Now, I'm not talking about fans and active ventilation. We're talking more about passive ventilation through windows and doors. When you're finishing, you really want to be in an area that allows for good air exchange to let some of those nasty fumes dissipate if you're using all natural finishes. This isn't as much of a problem. But even natural oils benefit from access to fresh air. So in addition to natural light, I like the idea of having my finishing table up here near the doors because I get that passive ventilation and nice fresh air. Another filter that I apply that some of you may have to worry about is videography. Some decisions that I make about tool placement will actually be for the sake of better video. For instance, the reason that I put my table saw at the back of the shop facing the garage doors is to make sure that the natural light is never in the shot. Back in Denver, I always had that big bright window behind my head and it would cause some nasty reflections that would often blow out the image. Now with the light source behind the camera, the shot is going to be a lot cleaner and more predictable. And the final filter, which can be a real booger - "why do they call you booger? I don't know" - is dust collection. I'm talking about central ducted systems. Once you have what looks like the perfect layout with all of the previous filters satisfied you might get to dust collection and suddenly find your plan completely falls apart. Let me show you what I mean. Now personally I like the idea of having a dust collector in a corner near an exterior door. The reason is because that bin is going to be full and heavy, so the shortest distance I have to go to throwing the dust away. That's ideal. Unfortunately, this space, my corners at the front are both near two doors. There's definitely no way I could put a dust collector here and if I push it this way now I'm encroaching on space, valuable space that I need for other tools. Now my back corners are really no better. This one has a couple of furnaces and next to a furnace probably not the best place for a dust collector. These are closed combustion, I'm not so worried about flammability, but the dust collector just kind of always has dust around it and I do have the intakes with filters and I just don't want to tax it any more than I have to. And once again coming in from that corner starts to encroach on space that I need for other tools and in this other corner we've got a bunch of electrical panels, stuff that I don't want to put a dust collector in front of because we need to access them. Now, the reason I like corners is because you can fairly easily run a main trunk down the wall where it's easy to anchor. You could then run drops as needed to the various tools and when absolutely necessary you could split out into space to get the tools that are in the middle of the floor and with a setup like this, I'd at least try to make sure that the tools on the far wall don't actually need the duct work just to avoid aggressive turns or extensive runs and before anybody suggest putting a cyclone outside, totally reasonable to do in some situations. But it's more work than I'm ready for because we really have to have a weatherproof structure out here to cover it. And also I'd have to punch through this wall and there's that nasty vermiculite stuff in there. So I do, I want to cut any holes if I don't have to. So I'm completely undecided at this point and I think that brings us to a good tip. Don't expect to get this perfect on the first shot. It's a real good idea to try to use your tools for a little while, make sure the locations make sense before you commit to a ductwork location. And in fact, if you have access to a portable dust collector, it's a great way to go for a while so you can just kind of get used to the space. So the moral to the story here is that shop layout is constantly evolving even for someone like me who's done this a number of times, I don't always have the perfect answer, especially not the first go round. So over time, I like to apply these filters and trying to think about this evolution and making sure that I'm flexible enough to roll with the punches as these changes come about and as you learn more about your space, you get more efficient over time and hopefully these filters will help you in that journey. Right, So good luck laying out your shops, leave a comment below if you have a shop layout tip, we always like to hear from you guys, Thanks for watching. So the things that I'm thinking about involved where the tool goes and then running, try that again, because I've never, you know, we're actually bug Missouri God, some of the decisions that I make about tool placement will be cut. Mhm I got this. So the moral to the story here, is that the constant, yep, I like the idea of having my finishing table up here, near the front door and the garage door just for that passive ventilation jesus with the cars just keep rolling. Todd's gonna be like, are you sure about this location? Alright, I'll see you later, grab that first, that could be replaced, Marc! Okay.
