7 Woodshop Essentials For Better Comfort, Safety and Security

Your woodshop is one of the most important parts of becoming a better woodworker. There are core woodshop essentials you need for comfort, safety and security.

A woodworker always wants more tools. You might start off small but over time you’ll acquire more tools as you expand the types of projects you are making.

And we’ve likely all cut plywood in our driveway or glued up a project in our living room.

But for a variety of reasons, you eventually need a space you can call your own, a dedicated woodshop for your tools and working on your projects.

I initially made do with having my woodshop under my second floor deck in a converted wine-making shed. It was dark, musty, filled with spiders and their webs and had an uneven floor.

Eventually I moved to our garage where now I have better lighting, a flat floor and I’m not battling with spiders all the time. I do have to share the shop with our car but everything is on casters to easily move around.

So what woodshop essentials do you need?

Note: you may need other essentials depending on your situation. This is not a comprehensive list.

Fire Extinguisher: The Most Important Woodshop Essential

This is first for a reason.

You need to have a reliable, full-charged fire extinguisher in your woodshop.

You have a lot of fuel in your woodshop. Lumber, sawdust and various finishes and solvents.

Plus you also have a lot of potential fire starters: sparks from power tools, sparks from grinding, oily rags that could spontaneously combust and heaters you might be using to stay warm (more on that later).

But your extinguisher also needs to be at the right place. Ideally you want one at each exit of your shop, so that you can grab it to fight a fire while having a clear exit path if the fire gets out of hand.

Learn how to use one, make sure to keep it charged up and have it checked regularly to ensure it will work when you most need it.

And consider some other safety considerations as outlined in 5 Woodshop Safety Tips You Absolutely Need

Lighting Up your Woodshop properly

With the advent of less-expensive LEDs, there is almost no excuse anymore to put up with a dark woodshop.

Nor is it safe. You need to be able to see everything you’re doing in bright light, especially when using power tools like a table saw.

While it would be great to have a woodshop with natural lighting from windows and maybe even skylights, that would limit your woodworking to only sunny days and daytime hours.

So you will have to supplement any natural lighting with some sort of artificial light.

Traditionally in most woodshops, banks of fluorescent shop lights where the way to go. However now there are affordable LED (light emitting diode) alternatives that have the benefits of lower power consumption and longer life.

I put in this set of 8 LED strip lights in my garage at the back where I have most of my tools. I couldn’t believe how bright the garage became (and my wife thinks it’s too bright!), with a less than $100 investment and about an hour’s worth of work on a weekend.