Shop size?

[George Dunham]

Well...it's time to build a shop. What are your opinions on shop size and layout. I am making acoustic steel string guitars. Also need a walk in spray booth.
I've made 20 guitars in a shop which is basically 8 feet by 10 feet, with some equipment in an adjoining garage. Too damn small.
Here are my parameters.
Large enough to support a part time business..5-10 guitars a year to start out, with some repair.
Small enough, so that all space is optimized.
Large enough to move freely.
I have: drill press, band saw, router table, drum sander, belt sander, 40 inch bench top, joiner, shop clamp on a pier, Go-clamp table, polishing arbor, dust collector and small air compressor. Will add a table saw. Pretty standard set of equipment. What I don't have is good wood, large form storage and a spray booth.
Initial plan is for a 16 by 24foot structure with a 6x6 spray booth and 6x6 office/anteroom.
This will be built from the ground up, not moving into a current structure.
Thanks

[Bob Gramann]

The pictures below show a 15x30 foot shop set up close to what you want. I pull in a spray box with a fan when I spray. I built 8 instruments in there last year. It would have been a couple more but I traveled a lot. Before this, most of my shop was in a 14x24 garage. I controlled the humidity in one small room in the house for glue ups and storage. I thought that this shop would be humongous when I had it built in 2006. At that time, I had no plans for a lathe or for the large bandsaw (I did have a 14"). Now, I wish I had made it larger. I would like more humidity controlled lumber storage (it's now outside in a shed). I would like more storage for instruments in the stages of construction. I'm sure that I could optimize it better. If I had another space where I could make dust, I would put the table saw there because I use it infrequently and don't need humidity control for it (I could put the lathe out, too). I set up the router table when I need it. I'm sure that whatever you build, it will eventually be too small. Good luck.

[Bob Gramann]

And here's another thought: I would be much happier with the space if it had a ten foot ceiling. I'm stuck at just under 8 feet because this was in the basement of a large addition to my house. A 10 foot ceiling would solve many of my storage issues. And, an attic or second story over that would be even greater.

[Mario Proulx]

Go as large as you can afford to, then work within those limits.

My shop's 24' x 34', plus a 6'x14' spray booth. The building is 24'x48' and I kept 14' x 18' as a garage for the car and stuff, but I am now seriously considering kicking out the car and taking-up the whole thing, and/or adding at least a partial second floor.... My ceilings are 7-1/2 feet and I'm happy with them, but I don't understand how a 10' ceiling would help with storage; you need a LOT of lighting so it's not like you can hang stuff from the ceilings? Remember that heating/cooling and maintaining RH is dependent on the cubic dimensions of the space, not the square footage.

[Bob Gramann]

I like high shelves, high cabinets, and lofts. It's storage without taking floor space. You can hang the lights from the bottom of the cabinets. Unless you're willing to build a sphere, a cube holds the most volume with the least surface area.

Regarding dehumidifying, I specified a plastic vapor barrier under the slab. When the concrete was being poured, I caught one of the workers slashing my plastic. I shouted "what are you doing?" He said he was letting the water out. The dehumidifier has run a lot more than I want it to. Against advice, I have left the concrete bare as a floor. It has worked out very well. It is easy to clean and hard to damage. If I could come up with a moisture barrier coating that would make a good floor surface, I would use it. So far, I haven't found anything I like.

[Gordon Bellerose]

I agree with the other guys; you can't have too much space. I also park my vehicles in the garage, so everything needs to be mobile.

My ceiling is 9 ft.; high enough for me. I can move a full sheet of plywood and not touch the ceiling.
If you are building a separate spray room, then you may not need to go to the lengths I did regarding cabinets.
My thought when I was building them, was that in a wood shop, every shelf that is open collects dust.
So I closed mine in right to the ceiling.

My spray booth is in a corner of the room. It is approx. 36 x 36 x 48 across the front. I sweep, vacuum and wet the floor to control dust when I spray.
The booth is vented out the bottom by a fan, and vents outside.

(The door is open here and not visible)



I also use an air filter mounted on the ceiling.



All of my tools are on wheels, and can be wheeled out whenever I need to use them.

[Gordon Bellerose]

One other thing.
I built my cabinets as a separate unit under the counter. They roll out for extra counter space when needed.
I find this invaluable as counter space is always at a premium.

[Alan Carruth]

Things expand to fill available space. I've moved into three shops over the past 25 years, each bigger than the last, and somehow there's still not enough space.

Concrete is essentially transparent to humidity. If you don't have a good vapor barrier under the slab, you'll need one over it. When I built my current shop, in the barn, I had a skim coat of concrete put in to level the existing concrete floor. I then laid a grid of PT 2x4s, 2 feet by 4 feet O.C.: ran through lots of cartridges in the nailer. The spaces were filled in with rigid foam sheet, a 6mil vapor barrier put over that, and then the plywood for the floor, with tile over it. Most of the rest of the shop already had plywood on the walls and ceiling, and I put vapor barrier over that as well. Most of the winter I can keep the humidity around 40% with a small room humidifier unit, and a pan on the wood stove. In the summer the A/C does a good job most of the time, and I run a D/H in the spring and fall. If I were doing it over, I'd have used foam-in insulation in the walls rather than fiberglass: it's tighter, and serves as it's own vapor barrier.

I wish I had high ceilings...

I split my space (about 900 sq ft, iirc) into five rooms, fancifully called the 'office', 'bench room', 'finish room', 'machine room' and 'wood room'. There's also a closet between the wood room and the office, that I use for acoustic testing. The point was to keep the big dust makers in the machine room, with two doors and the bench room between them and the small finish room. The plan was to install a good dust collector in the machine room. Sadly, it took me a long time to get the electric service up to snuff for that: the cyclone is now finally in, but needs to be plumbed in with ducting. The place is dustier than I'd like, but I'm getting there.

Windows! My last shop was in a basement: never again.

[Bob Gramann]

Yikes! I never posted the pictures.

[Bob Gramann]

Yikes! I never posted the pictures. One more thing to add: behind the shelves, where you can't see it, is a regular utility sink. It's very useful.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Bob. Nice looking shop.
You're right. A sink in the shop would be invaluable. I have a basin and I have to carry bottles of water to fill it.

You're lucky to have a dedicated space. As I said, mine is in my garage and I have to park my vehicles there also.

[Gilbert Fredrickson]

I currently build in a Six-Pac pick-up truck camper perched on the side of a mountain over the Sonora Desert. The view is great but the shop is very, very small. It is staked to the ground to withstand the regular hurricane force winds. I control the arid environment with a small humidifier and store assembled pieces in XXL Zip-Loc bags in the small closet. I should post a picture.

[Doug Shaker]

Isn't there a line in Alladin about being a genie in a bottle: "Phenomenal cosmic powers! Itty bitty living space."
Does that mean you are a luthier genie?

[Jason Rodgers]

Oy, and I thought my 88sqft was cozy!

[John LaCroix]

My shop is 16x24 and was framed up inside my barn. I have built up to 6 guitars at a time in it, but only have built a single instrument per year for the last few years - been too busy with other stuff. The biggest mistake I made was not having the slab sealed. I like the concrete floor, but I get terrible humidity swings in the spring after the snow melts. If I did it again I would probably have a moisture barrier installed and seal it with epoxy. I do have a tub sink - I would definitely recommend having one. I don't spray much but what I did was build a sort of mezzanine at one end of the shop - it is basically a framed plywood platform suspended from the ceiling with 2# iron pipes at the corners. In the center I installed a sheet metal vent. When I need to spray I can duct the fan exahust out a window and hang a curtain down from platform. The pipes mean I can take it down if I need to (never have). It's also handy to store wood/etc. up there.

In the center of the shop I have a table saw with a large out feed table - I don't use the saw much but basically I use it as a 360 deg walk around work bench. There is another platform suspended above the saw which doubles as a go-bar deck and instrument in progress storage on the top. The size works pretty well but I am going to be building a new shop in AZ in a couple of years and am going to go smaller - probably 10x14.

[Clay Schaeffer]

"Large enough to support a part time business..5-10 guitars a year to start out, with some repair"

For those who build a shop for business reasons, how long does it take to recoup the initial investment?

[Mario Proulx]

You have to amortize it over the life of the business....

[AL Lombardo]

I remember that I may have read this here, many years back...

"OPTIMISM" - a luthier with a mortgage

[Mario Proulx]

No, optimism is a bank giving a luthier a mortgage... <lol>

[Clay Schaeffer]

"You have to amortize it over the life of the business...."

And hope your name is Martin! 1833 to.....