Tables and Built-in Workshop Storage Options
Some of you may remember that my workshop serves both as my bookbinding and woodworking den. This has some advantages and creates some challenges, not very typical for a bookbinder’s studio. Workshop is far from being a comfortable place at the moment and I have lots of plans on how to improve it. However, I’ve already done a lot of work and wanted to share some thoughts with you.
Everything becomes even more messed up because I have my students to come to my workshop for the classes.
Here are the main features:
- There are woodworking power tools in the workshop and I needed to create working area(s) for them;
- Woodworking tools create tons of dust and shavings;
- I need four or five tables for my bookbinding students;
- There should be shelves, cabinets and other storage options both for bookbinding and woodworking tools and materials.
That’s how everything looked like in the beginning. Just a 20 m2 living room:
I took some of the furniture out and started building tables:
First version: simple tables. This allowed me to start a new teaching season without any delays.
However, these tables were not stable enough. The initial idea was to build some sort of a shelve into each of the tables. And here’s the Second version: table with a shelve.
What a mess!
When the first shelve was built, I understood there is some place for a second shelve and some other improvements. Like map-cabinet-style drawers, file-cabinets, separators for small or long objects and more.
Anyway, I was using what was available. It happened that I’ve got 30 ebook cardboard boxes. Each of them had upper and lower trays, which I decided to use as small drawers for screws, tools, endbands and other miscellanea dispersed over all surfaces of my workshop.
So, here is how the current version of the first table looks like at the moment.
The small shelves are made to fit the cardboard boxes almost perfectly and I hope that dust wouldn’t get inside. However, the first try was not perfect. For example, when I started building divide walls, I found out that the two large shelves are not parallel to each other… Will try to do a better work with the next table =)
I also need to make a better dust protection for the wares stored on the large shelves. These polyethylene covers wouldn’t let any dust inside the table. However, when my students start working at the table, they pick up all these wooden particles on their cloths.
I’m thinking about buying roller blinds or something. At least you can use a vacuum cleaner on them unlike the polyethylene curtains.
And here is my router tableю It is always used by my bookbinding students during classes (with the router switched off) because it is the lowest one in the studio. With the next update it will also host my table saw =)
I’d be glad to see your thoughts in the comments!
Read More
Some time ago there was a really nice discussion of storage systems for a bookbinder’s workshop here and at our Facebook page. You may want to check both of the following links:
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