Putting together a shop away from the house?

Looks like it'll be a while before I have a proper house, and putting a shop into this apartment is a little impractical for me. So, anyone here have any experience figuring out how to acquire a relatively short-term shop or shop space? Is there such a thing as a rental shop for an HSM guy?

Reply to
B.B.
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I did, once. Had to live a couple years in Portland, Oregon - nice place. I lived in an apartment and somehow (forgot how, irrelevant now anyway, use craigslist) found a guy looking to share shop space.

GWE

Reply to
Grant Erwin

--Why yes, by golly there is a thing going on at the moment in the SF Bay Area: a guy is trying to start a coop shop program and he hopes to see the idea spread to other cities. Natch the name doesn't spring to mind but I've got the card somewhere and will get back to the list. --Plan B: getcher self a van or a trailer and fit it out; two friends of mine have done this and it seems to work pretty good, plus it's already "packed" if you have to move, heh. --Plan C: A relatively new phenomenon in the Bay Area are other coops that share a common shop for individual projects. Probably the best known one is the Shipyard, but there's another one called Nimbyspace and there are more. You might want to get together with someone in city gummint and see if there's an area in need of a bit of revitalization and offer to take it under a collective wing..

Reply to
steamer

Are you thinking about this outfit?

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Peter

Reply to
Peter Grey

Cute "reply to" address.

If none of the sharing or coop ideas work out, you can often rent garage space separately from houses. This was the case when I lived in the city -- we had a duplex but the neighbors had use of the garage.

Reply to
Tim Wescott

I like the trailer idea -- you still have to find a home for _it_, but think how nice it would be to have the shop when you're out camping!

Reply to
Tim Wescott

My dad owns several airplane hangars at his local private aviation aiport. He rents them out. Nearly half the units are full of stuff that's not aviation at all, several home shops, a copy machine repair guy, a guy building his own palne, etc. A big advantage of this route is tight security (sence 9-11).

Reply to
Karl Townsend

Around here, a $1000 square foot shop space rents for $400/month.

- - Rex B Fort Worth TX

B.B. wrote:

Reply to
Rex B

Thieves would love the trailer, they can steal all of it at once ;)

Reply to
Nick Hull

Bolts through the wheels to the chassis or (better) a collar locked onto the

5th wheel hitch? With signs to warn the crims not to try.

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

Some storage lots have guys with shops in the units. Call around.

Reply to
Stupendous Man

Back in my apartment days, I rented a storage unit for some small woodworking projects. It only had one outlet, though, so it was a bit limited. You would need to look specifically for a unit that comes with power. And around here, it would be too hot in the summer to use it much.

Reply to
Gary Brady

An artist studio is another possibility, I see them for rent from time to time, in the newspaper or on craig's list under artists.

I know an artist who rents people's garages for working space.

Richard

B.B. wrote:

Reply to
Richard Ferguson

Peter Grey wrote: > Are you thinking about this outfit?

Very much like a shop that started in the Boston area (Woburn, actually). Folded quickly. His killer was the rent - the location had to be convenient and convenient locations are expensive. It'll be interesting to see how Techshop does. It's a tricky business: you have to have a lot of "members" to carry it, but that means that you need a lot of machines so the members have access. And the demand for access will be concentrated: evenings and weekends. A tricky balancing act. It's not something that I'd invest in.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

The guy behind it used to teach a machine shop class at College of San Mateo that was specifically aimed at folks into robotics and battlebots. CSM is part of Silicon Valley, so his new shared-shop idea is nearby and gives much local talent a place to assemble, now that CSM has stopped the classes. I can see the first "chapter" doing well; as for spinning off other chapters, well, maybe. I could see something springing up in San Francisco and maybe Oakland where there is much going on in the way of projects but one would think that as population density falls off the idea would have to offer something pretty spectacular to succeed; maybe on-call cnc or some such.

Reply to
steamer

--Tell me about it! You should have seen all the duffels and boxes of tools I took with me to Burning Man this year... ;-)

Reply to
steamer

Where are the pictures?

Kevin Gallimore

Reply to
axolotl

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