This morning I went over to Sears to get a compressor. I ended up getting the Craftsman 30 gallon, 6 hp, oil-free vertical unit (Sears Item #00916731000, Mfr. Model #16731). It was on sale for $299.99. Picked up the compressor "starter kit" for $19.99, which came with a coiled air hose, lots of NPT fittings, teflon, air gun, tire inflator, etc. Went home and "assembled" it (which meant unbolting the compressor from its crate and installing the wheels and bumpers), and ran it through the break-in (run it for 15 minutes with the drain cock open, close the drain, let it cut off automatically, it's broken in).
After hearing how loud the compressor is, and having seen what lots of other people do, I decided to stick the compressor in the closet in my laundry room, which is adjacent to the garage. I could run the air hose and power cord right through the wall.
I ended up wiring a dedicated outlet into the closet (so I can unplug the compressor right there if/when I need to move it), but also wiring up a wall switch on the garage side so that I could control the compressor on/off from inside the garage. Works like a charm. Now the compressor is still loud as hell but at least it's "buried" behind walls and most of the high-frequency noise is pretty well muffled. Here's a picture of the wall on the garage side, showing the switch, back of the outlet, and the air hose coming through. You can also see the phone hanging there...I hooked up a phone jack in the garage...er...shop...I need to start calling it my shop.
I decided to run the wire through all the studs in case anybody ever decides to cover the shop walls (we rent this house, and as I mentioned, we'll be moving, so I didn't go too crazy).
Lighting in the shop was piss-poor to begin with, so I bought a couple of 2-bulb fluorescent light fixtures from Home Depot (about $7.49 each, plus about $8 for two 2-packs of 40-watt bulbs). I mounted them on opposite sides of where the H-frame jig will go. Had to get rid of the useless foot-long electrical plugs and wire power to the lights directly. I didn't want multiple extension cords snaking all over the ceiling joists.
For workbenches, I have multiple plywood sliding closet doors that we're no longer using. My nextdoor neighbor, Tom, loaned me a table to use as a base in the interim. I plan on trimming off about a foot of "depth" from the door and building a frame, installing electrical outlets, etc. This is going to be up against the wall when it's done.
Here are the 2x4s I'll be using the build the bench frame. Yippekaye. We'll see how one bench does space-wise. Might have to build a 2nd one.
Plans for tomorrow...build the bench frame, give it some electrical outlets, and build a T-split for the compressor air. I'm going to split the air where it comes in from the closet. One line will go up and over, with the coiled air hose coming down from the top of the jig. The other line will be free to move around (50' long), go outside and prime parts, rivet or drill at the bench, etc. I'll probably install regulators on each line, so I can run the jig line wide-open for drilling and riveting, while running the roaming line down at low pressure for priming, etc. Or vice versa. Gotta have flexibility. After that I need to clean the hell out of the shop. Lots of dust and crap.