Hey all,
After drooling over workshop/mancaves such as those provided by fermis and Hawkeye, I decided to toss in a dose of reality for those of us who have smaller work areas, either through no fault of our own (dorm/deployment/etc) or our significant other relegates us to the area of the house least seen by the public. My area is currently 1/3 (sort of) of our laundry room in our rental house. No carpet means no carpet monster, but if I ever drop anything, I hear it hit once, then it's gone...like gone forever, hamming it up with the one sock the dryer eats every cycle I suppose.
But I digress. I needed a way to keep things organized, but functional and roomy for the space available. I found this artist's desk at Michael's after Christmas for 75% off (original price was like $80) brand new, so I snagged it, of course. The three "shelves' on the right side are designed for scrapbooking and are cloth but hold up with a few Osprey titles or the latest FSM or two. The worklights are from IKEA and were $7 each. Clamp to the desk and are fully articulated with 40W bulbs so I can put light pretty much where I need it anywhere on the desk. The, uh, iPad? Well it wasn't cheap, but it takes up less space than a laptop, was a required purchase for my job, and I can get any reference data I need from my server in my home office, such as any PDFs or websites. I can even keep up on FSM forums (although I can't post with the Safari browser). Oh, and I can also listen to some good music while building, or throw on an episode of WWII in HD or one of the Military Channel's "Top Tens" if I need a little break.
Paint Rack: I built this a couple of years ago, mainly to have something easily accessible. At the time I was using Tamiya and MM Acryl exclusively, which explains the shelf height for each paint row. The paint bottles are held in place by small 1/4" dowel rods which run through the ends of each side. Not pretty but it's functional as can be:
So, how do we keep all our tools, etc close by? IKEA can be a great resource. For $39 I found a rolling four drawer cart (designed to be an end to one of their computer desk lines) that I thought would fit the bill. But I still needed space for styrene, cutters, etc. Home Depot to the rescue. For $5 I found interlocking 16"x16" high impact plastic pegboard sections. I attached one to the left and right side of the cart (the mounting hardware was the same length as the sidewall depth, so no drawers were harmed in the making of this). I spent $6 on two packets of assorted hardware for hanging stuff, which also included the pegboard mounting hardware.
I have an Iwata Smart Jet compressor which has a long coiled hose that runs from the auto shut-off switch to the regulator/moisture trap/airbrush holder. This three part contraption is removeable (sort of) as long as you put the two screws back into the compressor, as they hold the end plate on. I found a couple of short (1 1/2") drywall screws and mounted the regulator/trap/holder bracket to the edge of the cart, so that each drawer would still clear the bracket with the moisture trap installed. This allows me to store my airbrush during sessions, have access to the regulator and keep an eye on outlet pressure without having to move my butt off my chair. Some say lazy, I say resourceful. Anyway, on with the story.
I used the topmost drawer to store more paints. As I said I used Tamiya and MM Acryl when I built my rack, but this drawer holds my Vallejo and "overflow" paints without a problem. This photo also shows the Smart Jet bracket mounting a little better as well.
The second drawer is the same depth, so I use it to keep my airbrushes, oil paints, Prismacolor markers, and pastel chalks organized, as well as having my pigments and the all important examiner's gloves. Too many German Gray and Dark Yellow fingers to mention, I'm afraid.
The third drawer is for tools, and some spares (1/35 stuff as that's mostly what I've built since starting back in November). I originally was using a Plano tackle box with removable jig trays to store my stuff in, and I kept those trays to use as tool storage. Here is how it all fits together:
This tray has my most commonly used items, such as my Xacto knife, blades, sanding sticks, Q-Tips, micro brushes, pin vise, etc. The second tray holds items less commonly needed, such as my miter saw, miter box, dental picks and stuff like that. Third tray is all my spares and bits of stuff.
The fourth drawer is pretty empty right now, I usually stash a WIP that is small enough to fit inside and try to keep it from becoming the "junk drawer". We'll see how that evolves.
So there you have it. If you work in smaller scale stuff (most 1/72 aircraft and 1/72 or 1/48 armor and some 1/35 armor) you could probably even use the top of the cart to do some assembly as the casters will lock to keep the cart from shifting. Not saying it would be perfect, but a 16"x20" hobby cutting mat fits on the top nicely.