I recently rented a larger space to crank out some boards. My current shaping room is 8’ by 12’ and I find myself hitting my elbows on my light shelves and frankly, it’s a bit claustrophobic at times. So I’m setting up my new room and I have this huge area to work with. There are support posts coming down throughout the room and if I work with those, the room will be just over 13’ wide and 25’ long. I’m wondering if that is too wide for the side-lighting to be effective. I like the idea of going big with this one because ultimately, I’d like to have several people shaping at the same time, i.e. a father son that want to spend some quality time together, and I don’t want to limit myself on the size of future projects, SUP’s or even small boats, who knows? I’m definitely going this wide with the new room and if the lights are too far apart, I was thinking of mounting one side on portable sawhorses to narrow them when needed. I got a really good deal on materials and I have more than I need to complete the build, and the rest, I’ll scrap from the unused part of the building. The owner was going to donate it for a controlled burn, so he doesn’t care what the hell I do in there. So other than heating and cooling the area, is there a downside I haven’t considered to having a room this size?
I’m just a hack but my shaping ia 13 by 32 so I used a pair of Home Depot outfeed rollers, modified them to hold the light box so I can slide them the right distance apart. I like about 9 ft.
I’ve had several larger shaping rooms, Cleanlines and I worked in a room very wide with lights only on the outside to 2 sets of racks, it seemed to work.My last Florida factory was 9’ wide and 27’ long, lights along the entire walls and 2 sets of racks end to end, one set short bds. the other long bds. It offered up the ability to easily do paddle boards set between the set of racks.I am now in a room 9 wide 20 long, easy to do 12 footers
I would want to do years of research before I ever attempted to build a boat. But I really am intrigued with the flat water fishing SUP thread that’s going around here. That might be one of the next things I tackle in the new space. Thinking of adding rod and spear gun mounts, fish finder, cooler, engine mount, and maybe some lights for gigging flounder, catamaran style for stability, concave fighting deck for lower center of gravity, bed-lining the rails and hulls so it can bang off docks and go down ramps, a set of wheels for portability, beer holder, am I forgetting anything microwave, TV, flux-capacitor?
