Building a Workshop - Mostly Festool Shop. Thoughts?

[black flag]

I'm new to all of this.  I've been casually building stuff for years and recently decided to take the plunge and do this for real. Part of the process was building a new garage and workshop.

This is what I'm trying to fit into my shop:
2 - MFT/3's
1 - Assembly Table
1 - Drill Press
1 - Router Table
1 - Kapex workstation (custom)
1 - Work table / storage
4 - custom sysports

I've worked up a quick layout in Floor Planner. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks,

Eric
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[size=10pt]Kapex KS120, TS55 EQ, RO150 FEQ, Domino, T15-3, CT33, 2xMFT/3, OF1400, PS300[/size]

 

[mouppe]

Hi,

Welcome to the FOG, and Festool.

This forum is a great place to start. Here is my tuppence-worth. I think the MFTs should be in the centre of the room. This makes them much more useful. Similarly, I would put the router table against the wall but in the centre of the wall so that you can feed long material through it. You are not giving yourself much of an outfeed the way you currently have it. Slide it to the right.

The same goes for the kapex, but to a lesser extent and to the left.

Why do you need 2 MFTs at the outset? You have an assembly table and a worktable. I would go with just one MFT and see how you get on.

I would be tempted to do away with the (very expensive) sysports and store the systainers under the assembly table.

Is it essential to be able to use both doors? If you could do without one, it will increase your wall space massively.

Your workspace is only slightly smaller than mine. Mine is almost rectangular at just under 400 square feet. I have my router table, mitre saw and lathe against the short wall at one end, a workbench and an MFT down the centre of the room, and a planer and sink at the other end. Along the long wall are my systainers, tool chests and clamps etc.

Finally, I would get all those blue fellows out of your workshop!

Richard.

 

[junk731]

I would consider moving your kapex station to the middle of the long wall so you can cut longer lengths when needed and make your router table mobile with locking casters. It can be moved out when working longer lengths.

John

 

[sw1211]

Do a search on posts from Rey Johnson (I think that's his name) he has a garage set up and has done a lot with not a lot of space.

 

[Kevin D.]

You need to think about what needs each station/machine has insofar as to how it deals with the materials you will be using at it.  You need things on wheels, or setup to not interfere or work with close neighbours in unison, via sharing the same work height, thus can be used to straddle material.

Here's a few shots of how I squeezed more stuff and room into an 11.5 X 21 garage shop.  Note the planner on wheels that actually pulls out from under where my miter saw is.  The table the miter saw sits on, can slide the whole saw back and forth so that the router table and ras on each side can each be used to support pieces straddled across any one of them.  The router table is actually on a sliding stand affixed to the wall and the manufacturers stand sits about six inches off the ground.  It's actually a much nicer height to work at.  I hate crouching to work all the time.  The drill press has a clamp storage rack that is fully removeable of the rear, and has a debris tray, its own DC, and ample storage for forstners and bits.  The whole DP is also on wheels.  It has to be.  Plywood storage is in a cage 3 feet off the ground, and there is ample overhead storage as well.  It takes a lot of thought to set up a shop correctly with limited space, and I found that scale mapping with cutouts was one of the necessities to get this done right.  I can't draw for beans, nor do them on a PC, most things happen in my head, with my hands, or with scaled cutouts as a last resort.

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[nickao]

Take that big open space to the right and use it!

Keep the cars outside.  ;D

 

[Wood_Junkie]

I would flip your setup on the horizontal axis.  In other words, put the Kapex and router table at the bottom of your picture. 
What you have down there is two doors that are positioned in such a manner that you could use either or both of them to deal with long workpieces.
Use one door on the "infeed" side and the other for the outfeed side, and you could handle 16' lengths of... well, whatever.

Also, I would decide which end of your shop is going to be designated for assembly and finishing, and group your stations together closely.  This would allow you to add a temporary barrier (as simple as sheel plastic that can be rolled up and stowed, with a zipper) allowing a more dust free environment for those activities.

Alternatively, insist that the cars will be parked outside during final finishing operations and use that half of the garage for that purpose.

 

[Sparktrician]

I agree with Wood_Junkie.  I'd say the same if you were to park a surface planer at one end or the other of the Kapex station where you could easily roll it out when you needed to plane long boards and take advantage of the two doorsets.  Where's your dust collection?  What about a table saw?  I think I'd change the southeast door from a single to a double to match the southwest door for more working room, too, or perhaps change both to roll-ups. 

 

[black flag]

Thanks for all of your suggestions, pictures and links.  I'm working on newer layouts and will post them up shortly.  Good times!!!

 

[RDMuller]

Two MFT tables are great.  I have had 2 for about 6 months and have moved my workbenches off to the side.  With 2 tables, you can space them further apart when you need to so that you can work on larger projects.  They are wonderful when placed beside each other for day-to-day use.  And when you need one elsewhere, you still have one left in the shop!

 

[Corwin]

Two MFT tables are great.  I have had 2 for about 6 months and have moved my workbenches off to the side.  With 2 tables, you can space them further apart when you need to so that you can work on larger projects.  They are wonderful when placed beside each other for day-to-day use.  And when you need one elsewhere, you still have one left in the shop!

Yep, and you can joint the long sides of two MFTs together and use a FS1900 guide rail in the brackets for those bigger projects...

 

[Tom Ryan]

You don't seem to have a place for storing lumber and sheet goods.  Of course, you could store stuff "temporarily" on the other side of the garage.

Tom in Central PA

 

[Curiouslywhacky]

I use the spaces over the work areas for lumber storage. I installed the really heavy duty cast standards with 16" arms making sure the standards are lagged to the studs. Got the units from Lee Valley. I have a 9' ceiling and my lumber storage is mostly over the chop saw starting about 4' up all the way to the ceiling and 12' long. The arms are about 1-1/2" high allowing for a huge amount of material on five levels. I have a similar setup over my lathe.

My sheet goods are on a swinging door type deal that can hold about 12" thick of goods vertically with masonite dividers top and bottom to create 4 sections. I used heavy duty gate hinges lagged to a double stud wall for that. I park my band saw and planer which are on mobile bases in front and move them to get at the sheet goods. I swing the whole deal out on its outrigger caster and select my panel or replace one if that's the case. Works great and takes up little space. I suppose that a lower ceiling would work but the sheet goods would necessarily be horizontal.

 

[DavidCBaker]

Love to see some pictures of that, Curiouslywhacky. Sounds like a nice setup.