Food for Thought: How Would You Build a Dream Shop?

General Discussion
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Hopefully a fun exercise!

I am curious how folks would build out a small, one-person frame workshop if they had to start over again?

  • What would your ideal process look like? Minimize time in the shop, maximize fun building

    • Have been fillet brazing, moving towards tig welding

  • What sort of machines (and how many spindles) would you look for?

I want to hear everyone’s sky’s the limit ideas, without too many constraints. This is the fun dreaming part of it all!

Backstory:

I recently moved across the US to the east coast for various reasons and have decided to really step back on the business side of framebuilding. I am still needing it as a creative outlet, on a hobby level, but I’ve been spoiled by working in production shops. After some months completely off, I’m moving into a 190 sq-ft space.

I kept all my welding and mitering fixtures, torches, files, and hand tools in the move, but got rid of my mill, surface plate, and scrap aluminum.

Some initial thoughts:

Minimizing setup time with dedicated machines would really make mitering more streamlined. Joe at Cobra talks about the ‘boomerang’ method in his shop - material comes in one door, flies through the process, and ships out the same door.

My question to the community:

  • What does your dream shop look like?

  • Or which builders do you draw shop/process inspiration from?

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That’s not a lot of square feet to use. Some of an answer might be dependent on whether you want to fab sub components needing a lathe or mill, or not. One can miter by hand but making bosses and tools like machine shop capacity. I would think about a drill press, good bench and vise, brazing stand (which could be the vise), bench grinder and the usual hand tools as a base. I really do like a flat surface, in my case that’s a 2’x3’ and used as a design surface and shit collector too. I also like peg board for tool hanging although my shop sees more than just building. As a hobbyist I don’t place much energy at streamlining my process or being quick, so my shop set up is more about the dirty end and the sort of cleaner end, the sanding/brazing end and the mechanical service end. Andy.

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