I find that there never seems to be enough workbench area. Any ideas or secrets out there?
What items are a must & what items can you get along without?
horizontal space is a precious commodity. we all end up working on a max 12 x 12 surface. [:D]J.R.
Mine is a recycled computer desk. Lots of overhead storage, plus bins on the walls above the desk and next to it. 2 folding desk lamps, one with a magnifier and presto, instant workbench!
Best part though is a 12x18 piece of tempered glass. When building a kit it gives me a place to put the instructions that is safe from most paint and glue spills, cleans up with a razorblade, plus its a great flat assembly surface too!
Wow, so neat and orderly. At least you have that going for you. Mine on the other hand…[:-^]
You seem to have it mostly covered!! Only things I didn’t see are tweezers (I have a dozen or so different ones) KD coupler pliers, and of course - the Dremel with accessories!![:D] Great organization!![bow]
Here’s my work area. My work bench is two office type folding tables. I have home made cabinets and shelves to keep my stuff in or on.
Once I was a complete mess-aholic. I reformed. It save ions of time keeping stuff where it belongs.
The cabinets to the right of the tables have tools, trains, parts, and paints. The large cabinets to the left side have mostly buildings and building kits. The also have materials for scratch building.
The shelves include MR, books and other reference items. The other group of shelves is my model railroad museum. The black hulk high on the top shelf is the remains of a steam locomotive built my grandfather around 1925. There is a scratch build O guage engine built by my dad in the 1940’s. My dad traveled to Japan when I was young and brought me some Tenshodo stuff. The oldest is a NYC Hudson he gave to me 51 years ago.
I used to have gazillion things on my workbench, everything but space to build something! I’ve found out that I only need enough supplies to fit into a 12x16x8" Tupperware container. I have an x-acto knife with spare blades, straight edge razor blades, mini files, metal ruler, assorted sandpaper (including my new favorite drywall sanding sponge) and a Dremel tool kit with attachments. All of it fits nicely in the container and I can take it anywhere I go.
I store all my paints and glue in a smaller box, 10x10x4", also portable. I found that I tend to only use certain colors, perhaps 10 or 12 favorites, and I never keep a paint bottle that is less than half full. I have an internal mix airbrush (badger) and external mix (Paasche) with compressor that stays at the work table. If I need heavier artillery, I will go to my garage and use my machine tools, but I seldom need to do that.
It has taken me perhaps 25 years to come to the conclusion that I never used much to build a model with, so there is no need to keep a lot of things lying around creating clutter. I have several good hobby and craft stores nearby if I need to purchase additional items for a certain project. I have found this minimalist approach to work very well for me, I travel a lot and I can bring nearly my entire workshop with me wherever I go. I’ve built a lot of things at the Holiday Inn…
Heartland-WOW! I’m jealous! I’m stuck with a 2.5’x5’ folding table and some shoe boxes. What I really hate is when the weather gets bad I have to put what I need in a box and bring it inside to work. And then take it back out. And then bring it back in…ect.ect.ect.[:(]
Timely post… I’m just getting started on a new workbench and looking for ideas.
-Mike
Garry -
Good golly, your space looks more like a lab than a workbench! Spacious, well-lit, plenty of storage, well-organized.
I couldn’t function under such conditions…
Jim
Jack - that looks like my wife’s “Vitamins and Dietary Supplements” container. Y’know, the small one she takes with her when she’s only going away for the weekend. [:-^]
Ah! I’m busted! [:D]
I envy some of these workspaces! But truth told, I’m a lot happier now with my light and mobile tool kit. Only goes to show that each of us can enjoy this wonderful hobby in whatever way we see fit. Keep up the good work guys!
You got a great workspace there! You need a picture of a train right in front of you for motivation, and proper lighting! Perhaps an overhead flourescent and an incadessent spot light on a boom arm would suffice. You’re looking good so far! I seldom use more space than that to build anything.
Thanks – it’s a start, but I need a good way to organize the usual hobby tools in this small space without taking up all the desk space. Like another post mentioned, it seems you eventually end up with about a square foot of working space — that’s certainly been my experience and something I’m trying to avoid this time around.
There’s a lot of light in this room — my early-stage-construction layout is right behind me as you can see in this picture and it’s well lit with 500+ watts of daylight-balanced fluorescent:
I think all I’ll need is the typical swing arm lamp. And my plan for the wall in front of the work bench is for a wall-mounted glass display case up high for my excess motive-power collection.
I’ve been thinking about getting one of those machinist toolboxes but I’m not sure — in previous workbenches I worked out of fishing tackle boxes and sometimes it was a hassle to go through all the drawers looking for a certain tool I saw somewhere but couldn’t remember exactly where I put it. Plus, those toolboxes take up a lot of room.
It seems a lot of folks here use various methods to keep the tools in plain sight which would probably work well for me. I might start out with tools stuffed into a bunch of coffee cups and go from there.
My workbench is a 6 foot by 6 foot corner with a 5 foot table on one side and a set of shelves on the other. The only useable surface area is about 1 square foot at this time. =)
It’s organized somewhat at this time but room work is on-going.
My workbench is whatever fold up table is open for stacking my junk on. I have most stuff that I don’t use daily or need organized on a aluminum book shelf and in a (5?) drawer filing cabinet. The filing cabinet will only work for HO and smaller scales, or else you might find a couple of pieces of rolling stock and a loco or two in the drawers. Just my [2c]
-beegle55
This is a few years old. Looks even worse today. SOmetimes I cant even see the tabletop.
There is a table top in that picture? [(-D]