Introduction and a question on setting up shop

[GCheatham]

Good morning,

I joined the forum a few days ago and have enjoyed reviewing the forum topics. I live just south of Atlanta and have backed into an interest in building my first kit.

During covid I ended up developing an interest in family genealogy and found out that I had a grandfather that served in a unit well known for their use of the long rifle during the American Revolution. I decided I wanted to get a long rifle to hang on the wall in the home office with a Don Troiana print and my SAR certificate for my grandfather. I picked up The Gunsmith of Grenville County to learn and quickly came to the conclusion that I wanted to build the rifle. I am a home woodworker and I studied metalwork in college back in the dark ages so I'm hopeful with going slow and asking questions I can do this build.

Currently I have a Jim Chambers Mark Silver VA rifle kit on order and while I'm waiting I'm trying to accumulate any tools I don't have and set-up a space to work. I have a climate controlled basement but the current woodshop is full - no room left to add much of anything. I do have two areas that are studded out and I could set up a bench with a little work. One is 8'x 16" and the other 12' x 12'. Neither has an exterior window. My question really is how much room do I need should I get deeper into the hobby after the first build? Which I can see is a big possibility. If I'm going to build a bench I'd like to do it once in the appropriate space.

Any insight on which of the spaces is better would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Glen

[smylee grouch]

Welcome Glen and good luck with your first build. That Chambers kit is a good one, you should like it. A 6 foot bench with vice mounted in the right place about 42 inches off the floor should work. Every one is different so a lot of these specs will vary from one maker to another.

[Frank]

Your 8 foot bench equipped with a patternmakers vice and a machinist vice would serve you well.

[Bill Raby]

My last workshop was 7 x 11 feet. It was a little cramped but I made it work.

[FALout]

My first work area was a desk set on a skid(basement floor would get wet when it rained), it wasn’t much but better then the garage especially in the summer.  Mostly use hand tools, but recommend a drill press even tho some get by with a hand drill or cordless drill.

[Eric Krewson]

I had a 5X7 alcove in the back of the garage that was my workshop for 18 years, I didn't make guns at the time but I made over 50 bows. I had a 7' heavy duty workbench bolted to the wall so it wouldn't move when I did some heavy drawknifing, my workbench had a sturdy AMERICAN made 5" vise and drawers for all my files, rasps and cutting tools, I had a bench mounted drill press.

I moved on to bigger and better things and now have a full blown shop that I build rifles in. I don't use any more room in my shop to build rifles than I did in my former corner of the garage to make bows.

This is my old garage workbench collecting dust in the basement of my new house just before I gave it away;



The new one is much nicer but it doesn't work any better than my old one. Notice the post on the end of the workbench to support my rifles while they are in the vise, VERY important.

[Hungry Horse]

 My go to bench is the woodworking bench offered by Harbor Freight. The wood vice on it can be utilized with a little padding. I find it just about the right size. It’s heavy wood top make a stable base to work on.
 I can’t emphasize enough the need for a good light source. The new LED strips are pretty good. But you may want to put them on a couple of separate circuits, because they can be too much at times. Good luck.

 Hungry Horse

[Audi]

My go to bench is the woodworking bench offered by Harbor Freight.

I'd not seen this before; if it's halfway decent, that's a lot of workbench for the money.  On sale til tomorrow for $160, too.

[Bill Raby]

   I used to use the Harbor Freight workbench. On its own it is too light to be of much use. But I screwed it to the wall and it was fine. Did not a bit after that. Now I have a workbench that is 7 feet long and 1 foot wide. A skinny workbench is the way to go. You can work from either side. Problem is that you need to have more room for it.

[M. E. Pering]

Welcome, Glen.  My first couple rifles were built where ever I could find space to build them.  Sometimes that meant on the kitchen floor.  But it really doesn't take a lot of space, and no dedicated space unless you decide you really like building and want to continue.  Currently I have a homemade 2' x 6' bench, with a couple vises mounted to it.  I made the top of 16 2x4s stood on edge, glued together, and it is rock solid.  If I had a shelf below it, I could use that to store my chisels, but I don't, and space is not at such a premium for me, so I store those on another nearby bench. 

But in my opinion, most importantly get a quality vise.  It may seem simple, but having your work firmly held makes things easier.  Along with that, make some simple 2x4 'T's to help support the free end while being help in the vise.  I have a used many different vises, but strongly favor a pattern maker's vise. 

Another thing that is vitally important is lighting.  Make sure you have adequate lighting.  There are aspects of this work which qualify as fine woodworking, with hand tools.  You must have good lighting to achieve the best results.  And for most of us, magnification as well.

I wish you luck, and do keep us abreast of you progress.

[smart dog]

Hi Glen,
Give yourself enough space so you can swing your long guns around and not bang into to anything.  Like many, I used to have a corner of a garage, not by choice but by necessity.  When I had the opportunity to build a shop, I gave myself as much space as I could and a walk around bench.











dave

[Goo]

Your work space IS a tool and the more rapidly you come to this conclusion the sooner you will achieve success.

[Steeltrap]

I see Smart Dog's work area has the same ceiling mounted heater I have in my garage\work space. I also have one window for the window A\C unit that makes summertime work much better!!

[Kevin Houlihan]

Dave,
 Don't all those ribbons in the window fluttering in the breeze distract you? 
Kevin

[bigsmoke]

We;;. I have never built a pistol, let alone a rifle, but I have built an amazing number of powder horns.  Because of the number, I have always tried to be machine heavy, but often I was room short.  My first shop was in a six stall garage, 40' x 30'.  So, I built a room about 20' x 10' and that worked fine.  Next workshop was about 24' x 6'.  That worked OK, but was a bit cramped.  Then I got two portable shop buildings and joined them together with a dust control section in the middle between them.  That worked very good.  Each building was 14' x 8' and I did all my sanding on the west building and the rest of the work in the east one.  That was fantastic.  I really loved that setup.  The final set up was a room built in another garage, this was 12' x 10', and it worked fine.

Equipment wise, over the years I had a Shopsmith with several attachments and although that worked good, I did get tired of the various setups, so I finally wound up with a band saw, a drill press, a 12" disc sander, a wood lathe, a 16 brush flapper sander, a 2 x 72" belt sander, a good vice, and an electric motor with a buffing wheel on one end and a grinding wheel on the other end.  Also two routers mounted on a steel plate mounted on the work bench.  It had a 2 x 6 and 2 x 4 frame and a top bench surface and a lower shelf made out of 1" particle board. I think the bench was 6' x 2'. All the equipment was set up around the perimeter of the room with the middle part open.

When I retired in 2020, I sold the equipment and then cleaned and painted the shop and now it is my wife's office.  She loves it.

John (Bigsmoke)

[Frozen Run]

Welcome to the forum and great job picking out that kit, everything Chambers puts out is a real dandy!

The dimensions of your shop are largely irrelevant unless you plan on moving in a lot of large power tools. There is a well known builder out there with somewhere north of 600 or maybe even 800 guns and when my friends go down to visit him they say his shop is shockingly small. So the important thing is to be smart with the space you have and to be smart with the tools you buy, you don't need that much or that many of either. You'll have more success and enjoyment out of always having your one go to tool at hand than you will with constantly having to walk across your entire basement to rummage through a pile of stuff to find a tool you don't even remember buying. The caveat to that statement is I have never met a gun builder that was content with the size of their shop or the amount of tools they own.   

Things to consider when selecting a shop are does it have windows? Windows are a huge plus, lighting is critical and you will need to look at things under both artificial and natural lighting, plus having good ventilation along with a nice view to look out. Placement and number of outlets, and ideally the absence of any utilities that could get damaged or interfere with work. I personally don't have any of those things but would without hesitation trade down to a much smaller shop for just one window.   

The vise is the heart of your shop and everything else is dependent on or built up around that; so get a stout, heavy, high quality American made vise that locks up rock solid. Something around 5" jaws and you'll likely have to search around flea markets or vintage tool spots to get one. Then get some 4" wood screws and anchor your bench to your studs so that nothing moves at all.

Dimensionally what I prefer for a workbench is one that is not much if at all wider than what I can reach over and get because it's frustrating to have something out of reach. Length at least 4 feet but ideally 6 feet or maybe a bit longer, since the guns are long. And the height of the bench will be so that the jaws on the vise are level with your forearms when they are parallel to the ground.

Lighting is critical, led fixtures overhead and cross lighting with clip on gooseneck lamps you can clip to anything or an architect lamp, throw in some incandescent fixtures in there if you can find them. Experiment until you find the ideal lighting arrangement. There is a lot of subtle nuance you just won't be able to pick up on or worse yet have your eye's deceive you on without proper lighting and cross lighting. A little tiny dip here or a minuscule bump there that needs to be addressed that you absolutely won't see it without correct lighting and you'll think it looks fine and you go to pick it up and say wow, this looks awful. You'll need to take your gun out of the vise a lot to study it, work a tiny bit then study it from every angle, spin it round in your hands, look at it from different distances in different lighting, look at it against a white background such as drywall, take it outside and look at it in natural lighting. Pencil in on the stock what you observe and what needs to be addressed. Don't use fluorescent bulbs, I think it's because they wash out fine detail and fatigue your eyes but I'm not sure why exactly, just that Mike Brooks told me not to use them and that's good enough for me.

[GCheatham]

Thanks everyone for the great advice. I scoped out available space given the need for natural light and I’m going to do some rearranging and free up a space that has three windows. It’s right next to the existing wood shop so it should be convenient. I can get build an eight foot bench in the area.

I appreciate the advice and photos it really gave me an idea on what I needed space wise.

Thanks
Glen

[Bob Gerard]

Whatever size you end-up with, have a workbench that's high enough so that you aren't stooping over your work. I feel like Quasimodo sometimes at mine!

[Eric Krewson]

I forgot to mention my work bench height in my newer shop, it is 42" tall so I don't have to bench over my work.

This is a tall guy friend learning how to make bows, you can see how tall the workbench is.

[Craig Wilcox]

Welcome to the forum, and to the delight of building longrifles!

First, enlarge your climate-controlled area by a factor of four.  24' x 24' is really approaching a good size.  Yeah, you will have to dig a lot of dirt out, pour concrete, build walls, add electrical circuits, etc.  But you will find that this hobby endeavor is totally addicting!  You will start with one, sure - perhaps a kit gun.  But soon, you will be into building from a plank!

You will eventually need a large bandsaw, and about 3,000 chisels/gouges.  And several workbenches, all with suitable vises, and different grindstones, drill presses, perhaps a milling machine and a good-sized lathe.  Add in a TIG welder, small furnace and quench tubs, a nice large anvil.

Soon you will be saying that the 24' x 24' really needs enlarging!  For sure!

Enjoy all there is to making your own flintlock line of firearms!