rt-541

projects / garage shop

Garage shop

A one-car woodshop in an 18 by 20 ft attached garage with a 12 ft ceiling and a 6 in landing across the back. The truck parks nose over the landing, the potting station and machine bay take the west wall with the bulk rack on the landing behind them, and the shop takes the east wall with a locking wall-hung tool cabinet, a rolling flip bench with the table saw at one end, the DCS785 miter saw flipping up in the middle and the DW735 planer at the other end, a mobile dust cart pairing the 16 gal Stealthsonic vac with a cyclone, the compressor beside it, and a 100 A subpanel fed from the basement with a dedicated circuit for every stationary tool. Everything that cuts is on wheels.

// 3d model

Isometric render of the garage from the southeast with the cabinet locked and the vehicle hidden
Closed up, from the southeast, vehicle hidden: the 6 in landing across the back with the step at the house door and the bulk rack on its west end, the potting station in the front-left corner. The whole garage is one CadQuery scene built from the drawing-set numbers.
Render of the shop wall with the cabinet open and the bench's tools up
Working state, the east wall from the southwest: cabinet doors open, the bench with both tools up, the dust cart and the compressor in the front corner, the subpanel and heater behind.

The model is generated by a small headless CAD framework (cad/shopcad) from one Python scene module whose parameters are the sheet numbers. It runs thirty geometry checks on every build (each flip section's swing and balance, the truck against the landing curb, aisle width, subpanel working space, door swings, the dust cart's fit and tip angle), then writes GLB files for the interactive viewer, STEP for the scene and each build, the renders on the sheets, and a Fusion 360 script that rebuilds the parts with user parameters.

// by the numbers

cabinet
48 x 40 x 17.5 in
flip bench
DWE7491 / DCS785 / DW735
subpanel
100 A, 8 circuits
priced lines
$3,100

// the two carts, in detail

Flip bench with the miter saw up Flip bench → Table saw, miter saw and planer on one rolling bench with two flip sections: the states, the lock, the ballast, renders from seven angles, the STEP file. Dust cart with the 16 gal vac and the cyclone Dust cart → The 16 gal Stealthsonic and a Dust Deputy side by side on one base: renders from five angles, the tip and hose numbers, the STEP file.

// decisions

The garage keeps one vehicle, a Ford Maverick or a Subaru Forester, so the shop is a rolling shop with fixed walls: only the cabinet, the bulk rack, the potting station and the subpanel are screwed down. The 6 in landing across the back wall is the wheel stop; the truck's nose overhangs it in front of the house door, so the landing east of the nose is the way out of the house and stays empty, and the bulk rack stands on the landing's west end with the bags under it; the potting station takes the front-left corner with a pot well that puts a pot's rim at counter height. The shop stays on the east wall so the driver's door swings over open floor, with the dust cart and the compressor sharing the front corner and the bikes hoisted either side of the opener rail. There is no table saw: sheet goods are ripped with a circular saw on a straightedge, and a 20 A bench receptacle waits on the wall in case one arrives.

The cabinet locks against theft rather than curiosity: an overlapping meeting edge, hardened hasps with shrouded discus padlocks, hinge screws inside the door boxes, and two structural screws driven from inside that pin the case to its cleat. The table saw, miter saw and planer share one flip bench: the saw sunk flush at one end, the other two on flip sections whose backs are riser bench tops, locked by index plungers and balanced with lead ingots, so no tool is lifted again and the flat bench is the miter station's wings and the table saw's outfeed; the 16 gal vac and its cyclone share a low dust cart so neither tips again. Bags and totes sit on shelves at 6 in and above, or on the landing itself, never on the slab. Small parts that would otherwise be bought, hose cuffs, the planer reducer, clips, battery docks, bit holders and a zero-clearance insert for the table saw, are printed on the Core One in PETG from the model. The feeder is the one thing that is expensive to change later, so it is 100 A with a 50 A EV circuit roughed in to a capped box for a charger that does not exist yet.

Revision A was drawn on an assumed 20 by 20 ft garage from one photo. Revision B is drawn on the measured garage: 18 ft across the door wall, 17 ft of floor plus the 3 ft landing, 12 ft ceiling. It placed the house door and the side door, moved the subpanel, turned the garden counter into a potting station at the front and put the bulk storage on the landing, dropped the table saw for the bench, cut the lights to four, and added the dust cart. Still open: the door and opener heights, the basement panel, and the attic framing for an overhead platform.

// the drawing set