Garage Woodworks Shop Tour


Recently Brian from GarageWoodworks.com made a shop tour video, which you can see in a link below, and I asked him if he would be interested in sharing a shop tour article as well. Brian is a self taught woodworker with a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry who started Garage Woodworks in 2006. You can subscribe to his YouTube channel or follow him on GarageWoodworks.com.



 

My woodshop is in a 23′ deep by 22′ wide two car garage with a 9′ ceiling. If you’d like, you can take a video tour that I recently created.

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My table saw is at the center of my shop and has a 3 hp motor and a 50″ fence. This is my second table saw and I’ve been very happy with it. For dust collection, I use a shop vac which is connected to a mini cyclone and bucket.

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To the right side of my shop is my lumber storage rack that I made from 2×4’s and plywood; it’s connected to wall studs using lag bolts. I originally tried to separate the wood species by shelf, but that was more difficult to accomplish than I anticipated. If you like, you can read more about it here.

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Just past my lumber storage rack on the same wall is my 6″ jointer. It has its own dedicated shop vac for dust collection which, like the table saw, is connected to a mini cyclone and bucket. I see a lot of other woodworkers switching to a helical cutter-head which I don’ see myself doing any time soon. I really like the ease of sharpening my own jointer knives.

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Further past the jointer on the right wall is my peg board. It holds everything from nail guns to mallets and keeps my shop from getting chaotic. I could probably use one more peg wall, but I don’t have any more wall space.

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My bandsaw is to the left of the woodshop and is not connected to dust collection. This hasn’t been a huge problem; I just clean up as I go. The saw has a 2 hp motor and a full 12″ of resaw capacity.

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Further to the left and behind my band saw is my jig storage wall and my clamp rack. I used to have my homemade jigs scattered across the shop in different locations, but hanging them on the wall has made me a little more organized.

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Behind my table saw is a huge outfeed table that I made for my table saw. It serves several purposes. Aside from an outfeed table it’s a work surface, an outfeed table for my planer and a setup region for the router table. I also use it for an assembly table and as a result it has glue stains all over it. The twin screw vise is a homemade vise that I built. You can see the build video for the vise here.

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Just next to my outfeed table in the back of the shop is my router table. I made it by glueing together two pieces of 3/4″ mdf. I also made my own tilting router table fence for it, which I think was my invention. Aside from tilting forward or back, it features a split fence so that the bit opening is adjustable.

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My planer, which utilizes the same outfeed table, is also ducked to the same dust collection run as my table saw through a Y connection.

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Behind the outfeed table on the back wall is my work bench. This is made from stud grade 4×4’s and mdf. It holds a lot of things like my miter saw, drill press, and dovetail jig.

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My router bit storage rack is a new addition to the shop and I have been very happy with it so far. The individual bit holders are adjustable which allows you to give each bit adequate room and to arrange them by but type. You can see the build video here.

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Regards,
Brian


 

7 COMMENTS

  1. Why the painter’s tape on brand names on some equipment in your video? Afraid of giving a little free advertising?

  2. My own shop is comprised of a much larger area, of which some areas I won’t show pictures, because many things are proprietary to my shop, and created on premises. I understand the need to cover names, but most who do this stuff recognize whose equipment you are using, whether you name them or not :) I would love Black & Decker to sponsor mine with the Firestorm branding, since they are everywhere. Amazing how much a bad company changed the perspective, to be better than Ryobi :) Then again, Craftsman has done a good job at retooling to bring quality into a substandard species :) My shop doesn’t have all that yours does, but then again, I try to keep it to what I actually need and use, rather than clutter to fill the voids :) I think your router bit holder will be my next project, as the cabinets they come in are useless :)

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