Need floor plan suggestions for a 12'X14' shop

[homeshow]

I have a 2x4' forge table, a hand crank blower, and a 2'x6' wood table. in a 12'x14' shop. I need placement for a small propane forge, 8" grinder, and a 2"x72" belt grinder and a post vice. With room to walk around. Any suggestions? Pictures and or drawings would be great as well.

[swedefiddle]

Good Morning,

 

Take a piece of blank paper, draw the size of your building to scale, try different configurations thinking about what you will need to use the most frequently. Leave room for a thinking department (a chair or stump).

 

The floor space is one area, the wall space area is another, the ceiling space is free so use it.

 

Neil

[Frosty]

This is something everybody with a shop has to deal with and just asking what to do is just too vague to expect good help. What are you planning on doing project wise? 12'x14' is a huge area for making knives but almost useless for gates and railings or general fab work.

 

About the only thing that comes to mind with what little I know is to mount all your grinders on a lazy susan in a corner so you can bring the one yo need to the work station without taking up a huge amount of floor space for several machines.

 

The forge needs to be out away from a wall for several reasons. A 2'x6' is more a bench than a table so it could go up against a wall unless you have to be able to work all round it.

 

I love yard/garage sales and like to hit them every weekend if I can. Remodel cabinets are high on my hit list, base units are excellent light duty bench bases and wall cabinets are . . . GOOD.

 

Aw, that's more vague ideas than I want to expend. Shoot us some specifics and we can do more than just muddle around.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[njanvilman]

Will you have a large garage door on an end?  An overhang off of any side?  You did not mention an anvil, but I assume there will be one.  Draw many configurations, then try them.  Nothing you have is too big to move easily a few times till it works.

[Chinobi]

location of windows, style of roof (flat, vaulted, open/covered, partially blocked by a roll up garage door, etc), shortest/safest path for forge chimney and where the dragons breath from the gasser will end up, and availability of electrical outlets will also drive where best to place items.  where is the door to get in/out located?

 

I threw together a kind of scratch floorplan for you to play with, you can do the same on graph paper as well to make it larger scale.  the 4 big boxes are representations of your 12x14 shop space so you can play with different alternatives.  the smaller boxes are pretty self explanatory, however I had to guess at dimensions for some because there is no one dimension for any of them, and depending on how/what they are mounted to can be wildly different, so I assumed based on designs I have seen.  the 2x72 grinder is represented as living on a 2'x3' table/cart, the vice is a compact 1.5' square mount, 8" grinder on a 1' square pedestal, and the gasser on a 1'x1.5' base of some sort.

 

make a few copies, cut out the equipment and shuffle them around in the space until you are satisfied with the layout, leave yourself as much walking aisle as you can, less than 3' starts to get real cozy in a hurry :)

 

I put grids on one so you can see how things line up more clearly, its REAL easy to just assume a dimension and be totally off between your minds eye and the real thing!

 

second set of grids below that is if you want to freehand a piece of equipment in based on its dimensions and don't have any graph paper. (shaded lines are a 6" grid, solids are 1', same 1/4"=1' scale)

 

good luck :)

 

12x14 shop.pdf

 

edit: apparently I overlooked the tank for the forge, ideally on the cart/stand below the forge or otherwise under the table, if not they are what, 12.5" diameter for a 20lb tank?

[homeshow]

Propane bottle to go outside piped in. The ideas about the cut outs, cabinets and lazy susan are great. Posting this was a great way to get ideas. The shop is attaching to the side of a 16x24 metal barn building. The long side is a common wall with the door anywhere on the opposite wall. 10'6' high at the long side 8' on the door side.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Is it already built? If not have you looked into alternative building techniques like ; rammed Earth, Earth berm, straw bale, etc... The rammed Earth is nice because you can use old tires rammed with dirt for the walls (inexpensive) plus you get great insulation R-values out of it. Most usually have stucco, or shotcrete covering the tires. Good insulation in a shop can come in handy.