Ask Adam Savage: Setting Up a Shop in Your Garage

In this livestream excerpt, Adam answers questions from Tested members Frank Holub, gallerytwentyeight and robotfencer about outsourcing work, giving away tools, and setting up garage shops. Thank you, Frank Holub, gallerytwentyeight and robotfencer, for your support and questions! Join this channel to support Tested and get access to perks, like asking Adam questions:

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[user]

I've been through multiple iterations of the garage shop and learned a lot of lessons. Themes that others might find helpful:

0. Build in little phases over time. Developing a shop is not a big expensive one-time task. Just bite off little chunks and you'll develop an incredibly useful shop over time. It's taken me many years to gradually arrive at my current setup.

1. I was losing a lot of time to setup/breakdown. This would cause me to delay dragging out my stuff because I didn't want to lose the parking space. Or, once everything was dragged out, I'd leave it out for weeks while my truck sat outside. Streamlining my setup/breakdown overhead drastically improved my garage shop experience. I'm far more willing to run out and use the space for a quick task nowadays.

2. Build all work surfaces to a universal height. My shop table surface can double as an in-feed/out-feed surface for my table saw. Both of those match the height of my jointer, planer and miter saw. Granted, the rolling cart tops may have various heights so the tools end up at the same level, but carts without mounted tools are also designed to match my standard work surface height. Due to 'variability' of my construction skills, surfaces that might double as in/out-feed areas are targeted to be ~1/8" below the tool surfaces. It's easier to shim up with some sheet material if necessary (it's usually not necessary) than to have a piece hang up during out-feed.

3. Everything rolls. I lose about 6 vertical inches of storage to casters, but the ability to rearrange my shop on the fly is huge. All of the carts are stored along one long edge of the garage but can be quickly pulled out and used as need, rearranged if needed and put away quickly. Nothing is permanently mounted anywhere.

4. Overhead retractable power cords! I wasted so much time dragging extension cords, stepping over cords and coiling cords. Mounted a couple of retractable power cords to the ceiling and it is SO NICE to roll out my miter saw, pull down a power cord, connect and go.

I could go on and on since I've studied this problem space for so many years. The main thing is take gradual steps, observe what works, what doesn't and keep refactoring.

[PetrolJunkie]

My advice on building a shop in a garage is to plan out your electrical before you get too far into it. It's far easier to install extra outlets and reroute your home runs or add circuits when the walls are open or bare than when there is four feet deep storage and work surfaces.

[TheGreatAtario]

Regarding planned obsolescence, watch Big Clive's stuff about LED lighting — the manufacturers very finely ride a knife edge of overdriving the system enough that it will die in a couple of years so you'll have to buy more from them, but not so much that it dies right away and you think the stuff's not as good as previous tech. There is usually a pair of strangely specific-valued resistors wired in parallel to achieve exactly the right level of overdrive they're looking for. Just clipping out one of the two is generally sufficient to cut back enough current that you hardly lose any light but gain years of service.

[NFMorley]

@6:30 - one of the biggest reasons for boards failing is the cheap capacitors used (either barely spec'd for the power running thru it, or just poor quality electrolytic caps!)... Very cheap upgrade to better ones often, but if you're building down to a price then it's stuff like that which gets cut as they'll last long enough to not be a warranty repair or return.

[ToymakersToolbox]

I've been working in a RV garage out in the desert for the past three years and now I'm moving my woodworking shop to a smaller garage in the Pacific Northwest. Here's my experience in both climates.

- Lighting is a must, but it's not enough to have a lot of lighting, it needs to be placed correctly. If you're standing at your workbench or at a power tool like a lathe and your hands are in your shadow, that's bad lighting no matter how much lighting there is. Task lighting can help. The adjustable drafting-table style lights from the office supply dealer are great for task lighting. You can put the mounting peg in a dog hole in your bench or use a mic stand to keep them out of the way. I've also used the small clip-on shop lights from the home center and just removed the spring-clips, hanging them from their cord like you would over a kitchen island.

- Moisture is a killer. Out in the desert I had the luxury of not working about the damp, but the dryness sent things the other direction, which is murder on wood and some other materials that move with the ambient humidity changes. The garage door in the PNW will need to be hardened as best I can against moisture infiltration without losing use of the door since my wife still wants to park in half the space. (Sigh) A dehumidifier will be added by the next rainy season... which is (looks at watch) an hour from now I think.

- Keep large power tools mobile. Bandsaws, jointers, drill presses, table saws, even lathes can be put on either heavy-duty multi-axis locking casters (when they're locked they don't roll or spin) or one of any of the mobile bases sold specifically for making your heavy tools mobile. Pay close attention to the weight limits of your rolling arrangement and look up the ship weight of the tools you want to move with them. Don't over-tax your casters or you'll wish you hadn't.

- Keep workstations mobile if you can. Being able to pull your workbench out away from the wall and into the middle of the space gives you better/more options for clamping, gluing, working on all faces of your build.

- Workbench height is a whole Thing, especially for woodworkers, but if you have a worktable the same height as the decks of your large stock-processing machines, you can use it as an outfeed table and save yourself a lot of headaches. Especially if you process a lot of sheet goods like plywood.

- Don't neglect dust and debris management. Even if you have a large shop vac that you roll from station to station to handle dust or fumes, have a plan to keep your lungs young.

- Heavy-duty material storage will always be needed in any sort of shop. The rolling racks I've always bought from restaurant suppliers -- the shiny chrome wire racks that are usually already on wheels -- have an astonishing per-shelf weight rating and are worth every penny and can pretty easily move out of the way. 2x4 shelving is relatively cheap, but not as easy to get out of the way if you need to get something past it.

[andrewhayden]

OMG!!! I cannot agree more about the lighting. When I had my last shop I had somewhere between 8 and a dozen 48" shop lights with 5000k daylight bulbs in a relatively small space. It made all of the difference. True colors, no shadows when working and no worries about if I was missing something.

[tothesummit]

Setting up a garage shop is a satisfying and never ending process. I bought my house over a dozen years ago and my garage has slowly morphed into an amazingly functional and pleasant space for me to spend my time. Every time I thought I had no more room to add something I was able to reorganize and make it work. If I were to list the equipment I have in a 2-car garage you probably wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't have myself a decade ago. And it's all accessible and functional. But it's always in flux and I rearrange continuously as I find a better way.

But Adam is on the money with lighting. Put up lights, lots of lights. And when you think it is well lit add a few more! Haha!

[Illumas]

"The Fire" chapter should just be, "There was no fire." and move on. It should also be the 13th chapter in biography.

[PebblesChan]

In addition to common capacitor & semiconductor failures, Lead(Pb) free solders that are tin based can grow whiskers over time that creates unwanted short circuits.

[ryandellova]

Your Q&A are somehow always relevant to situations I find myself in while working from home. Your videos are therapeutic for me, please don't ever stop

[phongbong]

5:57 that scared the crap out of me! :D looks like the joints are giving out!

[stormycatmink]

As someone who's been a part of LED lighting design in medical devices; the art of making an LED supply that doesn't fail in a few years is not trivial. The expansion, contraction, and vibration due to the thermal fluctuations from all the power running through them is often the culprit. Sometimes chemical breakdowns as well; often in capacitors. Many part ratings are specced in such a way that they only give you when the part has a 50/50 chance of failure. Even if they have better data, it's generally not exactly what you need to ensure a long-lived device. If you want to instead ensure you reach 6-sigma levels of quality, the amount of work required to ensure your components will last that long is pretty hefty. Not to mention, it often involves over-designing your power circuitry in ways that often only a medical (or military) device could afford. This is one reason why such things cost so much more. Because you're sure no one gets a board that fails in a couple years. Military devices especially are notorious for being over-specified (and often underspecified at the same time). In the commercial market, most tend to expect 1/1000 or so failures, or whatever their metric is depending on industry and product, and to deal with the angry customers when they come. The real genius is figuring out how to design a robust board that will not fail, without adding tons of cost.

[OteeseDreeftwood]

Wheels are crucial in a garage shop- every tool and workbench needs to be easily moveable (but also designed to be stationary when needed!)

[leeh]

The answer to the obsolescence question is it isn't a planned thing: it's (likely) the result of moving from lead solder to tin bismuth solder, which is requires much higher oven temps in production and is susceptible to "tin whiskers" which develop over time and short things out when the whiskers grow together. Something newer called Low Temperature Solder is making it's way though the electronics industry - a slight variation on the formula of the solder combined with a very specific but lower temperature profile during the soldering process. Lead was a great solder, but obviously terrible for the world, so part of the "They don't make it like they used to" thing is death of lead in things like circuit boards. Cheers! (Love this channel btw - has been a great companion during lockdown)

[thnarratr]

Another thing to add on top of the cheap capacitors killing boards for LEDs is metal whiskering which is intensified by the boards cycles and thermally induced stress. This is particularly notable in tin based solders. The result is short circuits when these whiskers connect

[mallninja]

Totally off topic: I just introduced my 4 year old grandson to Mythbusters, and he loves it. He walks around telling us "Remember - don't try this at home...We're what you call experts!" Every time he comes over, he asks to put it on. And when I ask him which Mythbuster he wants to be when he grows up, it's Adam. You're helping me set him on an early path toward good science, rational thinking and (of course) blowing stuff up. So thanks man!

[olsonspeed]

Good to hear that TIG welding has filtered to the top of the priority list. So far this valuable skill has eluded me, I will be watching your journey into TIG with great interest.

[echoalrexcoco]

I tried to make a light up Arc Reactor thing out of random trash I found in my garage for a Halloween thing we were doing for Band and it did it's job perfectly during the event. From under my shirt it looked like an actual arc reactor and it was so cool. I took it home that night and wanted to make improvements like keeping it cooler, less battery power, etc. I turned it on before I did anything to it and the entire thing just burst into flames for about a quarter of a second before expending all the oxygen in it and dying down. It was the first real prop sort of thing I made and ever since I've been making random crap from stuff my family tries to throw away. My hope is that that is my "fire chapter" and it doesn't expand.

I also wanna say that this channel is awesome and really an inspiration for me. It helps me know that there are other weirdos like me who like to make this sort of stuff... Not to mention Adam Savage is pretty great :)

[DJapan]

My shop / YouTube studio is in my garage. In the summer it gets very hot and very cold in the winter. At least in the summer I can open the big door when I'm not filming. Since I'm filming in there I have 4 100 watt lights on my work area plus the one bulb in the ceiling fixture.