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Here's the current setup - the brazing area is separate from the mountmaking corner. I'm mostly curious; if you had this space, how would you customize it?
I understand that this is kind of a broad, open ended question. I'm young and would consider myself to be at an intermediate level, and I'm really just looking for others' opinions, advice, or guidance.
I work at the National Museum of the Marine Corps - they have a new facility where they do all of the restorations, curatorial, mountmaking, etc. I don't currently have a picture of the area (I'm new to the position). It is very well organized and they have a lot of machinery and tools that are for general, shared use within the facility. As for budget, the NMMC is a federal museum so there's quarterly funding; I've been told that whatever I need, I can likely get provided the wait time of the federal process. I will be the only person designated in that area, but it isn't a separate room, it's a shared, open space (kind of tucked into the corner but still open to the rest of the facility). My skill set is probably intermediate - I've been doing this for around 3 years but still have a lot to learn.
I will be going to the facility tomorrow and I'll try to take some pictures for reference. I'm mostly curious about how other shops are laid out, what cool or handy machinery/tools that would be useful to have, ways to organize certain things, etc. I'll post some pictures tomorrow afternoon!
This is a big ask. What kind of museum do you work for? How many exhibitions? What kind? How much space do you have? Is anything at all in place? What's your budget range? How many people will work in the shop? What are their skills?
There's no one-size-fits-all shop, in my experience. Right now I'm working out of a small preparator area at the art gallery, shuffling work from the anthropology museum to the same shop, doing some work in a science department machine shop, and using my home wood shop as well. Each space is different and has strengths and weaknesses, depending on the project.