How to Set Up a Garage Workshop | Ask This Old House

[Music] I actually built this piece myself you did uh-huh this is nice thanks it's just kind of a pine basic piece biscuit joiner around the edges and things like that very nice so you're a woodworker well I'd like to be I used to have access to a wood shop in the city but I don't have that anymore I do have a one car garage that I'd really like to make into a wood shop but that that process is going slow all right well let's see let's take a look at that garage maybe we can do something for right it's brain right here yeah this is the Chicago L it's the brown line I take it to work every day well that's handy so here's your garage nice little grudge good workshop I say you have a workbench and a table saw sitting up the top of that that's a little high so when you're cutting all the sawdust will blow in your face and your eyes I like to have the table saw down low at least flush with it with the workbench that way you can extend the workbench size by using the table saw and also an outfeed table now in a small space like this you also want to think about ventilation you're not always going to want to have that door open I would imagine right at the time so you if you're making a lot of sawdust off your finishing you got to think about the fumes so I think we can think about a ventilation in front of that window okay all right and then we gotta think about portability I would imagine you want to have the things move out of the way in the winter when you get some snow might want to park the car yeah that'd be nice yeah all right I see you've got some power in here so that's good you've got some hand tools but I've got some ideas to make this a really good workshop great I'd love to hear all right all right now we solved your table saw problem and that was simple all we needed to do is buy a stand at the home center and mount it to the saw now that sets the table saw at about 33 inches which is a nice working height for a workbench okay now the other thing we have to deal with is your workbench it's a little bit too high yeah we want it to be a little bit lower than the table saw but we also want it to go out of the way so what I did is I made a bench that will mount to the wall the legs drop down and I have a couple of hinges on the back and we'll mount that to the wall so when you swing this up the legs will swing in and it will hold the bench out of the way nice now the bench is set at the right height just a little bit lower than the table saw so you can also use it as an outfeed table when you push some long material through the table will catch it and if it's real long you can open that door and push it right outside all right now all we need to do is Mount the frame to the wall [Applause] [Music] all right Stephanie drivers screw right in there [Applause] okay okay so now when we drop it down the legs will swing out supporting the outside edge if you want to grab that piece of 3/4 inch birch it's 2 feet by 4 feet and place it on here and I want to make sure we have plenty of overhang so you can use it as a clamp base also once we screw this down we'll rip another piece to end fill the back all right so now if you want to drive a screw and then now you notice I use the county sink bit because I want the screw head to be below the surface that way if you're working on the top of the saw or a chisel you don't hit the screw head okay okay all right so drive that home nice alright let's drill one down this side this gate latch will hold the table up and out of the way when you don't want to use it okay so now you had this peg what standing up with some brackets on it I think if we take the pegboard and hang it horizontally like this you'll be able to hang a lot more things on it sounds great okay I think that's a good height just about four feet off the floor let's get a screw in there [Music] all right Peck Wars done looks good all right now we talked about ventilation let me show you what I did here I mounted a 2x4 on the window casing put a couple of hooks in it mm-hmm I've drilled a couple holes in the top of your fan to line up with the hooks now I'll just take it line up the hole with the hooks and put it in place just drop the fan down unlock the window and open it turn the fan on there you go all right so you have your table saw to do all your ripping of wide pieces and narrow pieces but you need a saw to make all your cross cuts okay yes actually a compound miter saw oh wow that's angles a different direction the nice thing about this are it's a sliding compound saw now a lot of the saws have the tubes that set the saw away from the walnut huh but this hinge system allows you to keep the saw tight to the wall giving you more floor space out here that's really cool it's also sitting on this table right here the table has extensions that you slide out so when you cut something that excess piece doesn't fall on the ground perfect it's on a stand that's mobile but it also folds up to get out of the way when that snowstorm comes you need to get the car in the garage that sounds great so now that we know where all your tools are going we can lay some interlocking foam pads on the floor to make it easier and softer to work all right Stephanie your shop is really coming together well no it looks great so what I did is I brought a few more things that I think you would really needed a nice-sized shop like this alright I brought a little plunge router that you can change the attachment and make it a trim router nice I bought a portable hand planer to do that fine tuning of your edges or even thinning up a small boy alright a palm sander and you need to really get that finished down and nice and smooth so when you stain or finish your board we better than hand sanding I brought to drill drivers the reason I do that is one for drilling holes so you don't have to change the bit and the other for screwing in the screw so it saves a lot of time exactly now the batteries for these will actually fit in this little portable jigsaw which will cut all those curves perfect now I know how you like to use a biscuit joiner but to speed up the process sometime and when you don't want to use the biscuits you can use this right here this is actually a pocket hole jig it holds the wood into position push it in there you clamp it down you drill a hole which is a special drill bit okay and it will cut a slot in the board just right to set the screw in oh nice so now when you want to put that joint together you just take the two boards like this and you clamp it right at the joint making it nice and firm so it won't go anywhere make it tight clamp it down and drive the screw in alright you screw it together and you have a nice tight joint super strong super strong alright well I think you're all set in your new shot well thanks so much for coming to Chicago and helping me out I can't wait to get started on my next project well I hope you send me a picture that next project definitely thanks so much tom my pleasure [Music]

Channel: This Old House

Views: 2,804,818

Rating: 4.8102484 out of 5

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Episode, TV Show, garage workshop, Tom Silva, Chicago, garage, woodworking shop, light switch, workshop, moderate skill level, tom silva this old house, tom silva house, tom silva construction, tom silva tools, tommy silva

Id: e9GSTO-4Txo

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 15 2017