Our Garage Workshop

I am happy to say that when we started out on our manufacturing venture. I already had a pretty well appointed garage workshop. I had almost all of the hand and power tools I would need to take on the challenge. We added a bandsaw, the CNC, a 10" Table saw, and a router table, plus fire extinguishers. The router table is no longer used in production, as the X-Carve Pro took over it's tasks.

I am just nuts about organizing things. Everything in this shop is within easy reach. Tools and materials used routinely may be grabbed without so much as turning around. Things that are less often used are on shelves or in drawers which are also within easy reach. The glaring deficiency of this shop is that it is perfectly designed for one person. Two bodies in this shop are a crowd.

The other issues are power distribution, and climate control. I acquired a wheeled swamp cooler that actually works pretty darned well to keep things cool in the shop during summer months. The space heater is a lot less effective in the winter. I run into power challenges, especially when operating the space heater. For example, I cannot run the vacuume cleaner when the space heater is running. A mini-split might be a good investment when we have the revenue to support it. I do not like this in principle because both heating and cooling would be compromised by practically no insulation and the drafty nature of the garage. It would be best practice to convert the garage to a shop before installing A/C and this would also require additional power. Easy if power distribution were in our garage, but in this house it is at the other end of the house, and entirely on an outside wall.