Nice! I’d like to use my garage, but too hot and too cold depending upon the season. Insulating it , closing air gaps, and adding environmental controls is more than I can afford right now. But I love seeing these pictures because it shows what others are able to do in their own unique situations. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, although during the summers, I switch hobbies and it looks more like this. This picture is a couple years old and before I added the tool cart and tossed the stool for a high desk chair.
Edited to add: all the paints and modeling tools are in cases or small trays and they go back into the red toolbox and cabinets. The reloading presses get bolted back to the benches and the case annealing an trimming stuff goes back on the benches and the covers come off the balances and scales. Takes about a day to reorganize in the spring.
I found, at least for me that if I have to spend more than 30 seconds finding something, I just often don’t do it. It’s a bad habit that I sometimes manage to break. So to make it easier for me to build models, I’ve tried to organize my area on the principal of degrees of usage. So commonly used items are within easy reach and stored separately from other tools or supplies. Less used, but still used more often than infrequently, items are stored separately from commonly used (to save space and make it easier to find things) and stored separately from long term storage for the same reason. You know the drill. “I know I have a scribing template for curves, where is it?”
Probably my biggest challenge was improving my airbrushing process. I used to break it down after every session, clean and lubricate, and then put everything away. Because of that, I started many kits but never progressed to the painting stage. So my painting skills are not as good as I would like them to be.
Now I will clean the airbrush using the flushing approach and keep everything handy. I break it down after an especially long session of spraying or after a week of intermittent spraying or if I notice issues with spraying. This has helped me tremendously.
Exactly. If I can’t find it, it sucks the enjoyment out of it. I keep all the stuff I regularly use in cases on the “assembly” bench:
Common paints, clear coats, thinners, air brush cleaners, etc in trays and shallow boxes on “paint bench”
More paint lives in red tool box. Open spaces are for paint trays
More tools live in the drawers of red tool box
All I have to do is swivel my fat ass around in the chair, open the drawer and grab ‘em.
I’m not thin either, but most likely more lazy: I’m too lazy to turn my ass around - let it be motionless, and everything revolves around it.
I bought whatnots on wheels and when I need to change my work place, I just drag different whatnots.
This is how I will apply pigments
And this is how to solder
If necessary, I can still buy the same whatnots. There are still ideas in the plan based on the same concept: it’s not me who goes to the closet, but the closet goes towards me.
That’s an outstandingly good set up! Love the modular approach! A++
The duct work for your paint booth is really impressive. I saw the complete set up in an earlier post of yours. Well done.
Its a good starting point but, experience tells me, it’ll grow…
Actually, after 55 years of model building, I’ve concluded that the size of your space doesn’t matter. There is a 12" x 12" square in front of you where everything happens. That’s all the space you actually use. All the space outside that square is just stuff. Yes, it’s wonderful when the children move out and you can recreate one of their bedrooms into your dream studio, but it’s all just for your stuff. All your modeling is done in that little square. I started out one day in the 60’s on a metal TV tray, and I can still build a complete model with a TV tray and a tackle box full of tools and supplies.
I now have a beautiful 42" x 30" workbench with double Ikea drawers on both sides in a studio built just for me. It’s my bunker. No one can touch me there. But all you really need is a little space for yourself and the Zen to create in that little 12" square.
Preach it.
SSGToms, for the most part I agree with you. Nearly all my work occurs in the area of the pad along with the paint booth. But what does not go there are the various tools, supplies, and other stuff that you use (except when you are using them). A little extra room for stuff to lay while keeping that area clear and some place to store those tools and supplies so they are easy to get to, go a long way to increasing the pleasure of building while decreasing the frustration of too small a space.
I built a 21 foot cabin cruiser in a 21 foot 3 inch garage (as a hobby). It took me 10 years, and for that entire time, it was extremely frustrating working in that confined space. I got it done, but there were many purple cloud days because of those tight spaces.
Another variant is Still In The Box building.
Parts are in hand being worked on or back in the box.
Nothing except empty sprues leave the box until the
build is finished.
I used to work for United Airlines as an aircraft mechanic and I would take a small fishing tackle box with basic tools and the model parts I wanted to work on. I would do that during my 30 minute lunch break. You can definitely get things done when you need to adapt to your surroundings.
Beautiful! But where do you actually build models?
Definitely agree 12" x 12" = 144 square inches.
The “hot zone” on my desk is the glass area in front of the work matt. 18" × 8" = 144 square inches. Everything else is storage or ready racks for tools.
So true Matt !
A couple of months ago I FINALLY got my dedicated space in a spruced up corner of the basement. Good lighting, shelving for the shelf queens, comfy chair, a $15 desk from St. Vinnies and a space heater. It’s 57 in the basement ! My work space has boiled down to the bottom 2/3rds of my 18" cutting mat. I do have lots of space for sub assemblies though. Tool box, it’s the same one I bring to monthly Club GBs. It’s not real big but big enough!
I’ve also resurrected the TV tray. I sit in the warmth of the living room keeping the “War Department” company while I work on indy tracks.
I built my shop in the basement a few years ago. I use vinyl shower liners to wall off my spray/air brush painting area (on the left) that has a wall exhaust fan. They also are used on the rolling storage racks that hold my finished models just to keep any dust off them. This way I can re-arrange the space if I need to.
I typically have several projects going at once so the multiple benches comes in handy.
One more shot of the back wall. I use magnetic hooks attached to the ceiling grid to secure the shower liners.
Holy Moley! That’s not a hobby room - that’s a factory!