The metal shop is almost done! ! ! !

I really like what you did with that garage. I just have one question. How are you going to open the cupboards behind the lighting????

Speaking of lighting, you can never get enough light. Your system looks good.

I wish I had been able to make my shop bigger. With two lathes, drill press, milling machine, grinders for heavy work, a lovely 65 year old tool grinder, tooling shelves, measuring tool shelves, four drawer 12x18 tool bit chest, material, 8 foot home made metal work bench (solid as a rock) and a 10 foot loading counter, space is at a premium. I used shelves rather than cupboards just so I could find everything. I even went to Canadian Tire and picked up one of those 24x48 plastic shelf sets. Then of course there is the entertainment center with the air compressor underneath, cleaning fluid/blueing fluid/tape/CD shelves and of course the small flat screen TV to view the gunsmithing CDs a CGNer sold me a couple of years ago. Those were often life savers.

The place is still looks messy but it is just cluttered.

You mention the shop being cold in the winter. I heat my shop with one of those electric 1500watt heaters with built in thermostat and fan. Keep the shop at a constant 10C. 14x24 shop costs about $20 per month to heat. The shop has no windows on purpose and is well insulated.

Great looking shop and I to really like your lathe stand set up. My lathes are on 4inx1/2in angle iron frames with adjustable feet. Same goes for my milling machine. Drill presses are on pedestals. The heavy one needs to be heavier.
 
Nice set up you got there. The gas bottle free standing needs to be addressed. After divorce I found a great garage for sale that also had a small house on the property. The garage is about 40 sq ft smaller than the house. Over half the garage is shop area, have room to park inside. Have all the tools I need, metal and wood.
 
These cinder blocks just don't feel right, make up an angle iron frame out of 2" x 2" x 1/4" angle with some shelves.
My smaller lathe sits on a angle iron frame. (Great shop BTW)
 
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Al Flipo said:
These cinder blocks just don't feel right, make up an angle iron frame out of 2" x 2" x 1/4" angle with some shelves.
My smaller lathe sits on a angle iron frame. (Great shop BTW)
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Very nice/neat/tidy. IMHO, not heavy enough. It may be OK for that small lathe but that shelf underneath is a good place for crud to build up. Also, you have to move the lathe to get at the back of the machine. Lathes against the wall on any side or the ends are grief looking to happen.

The OP set up his lathe the way he did to eliminate any movement. It is stationary and once set up, barring disaster, it will not lose square vertically or horizontally or across corners. This is crucial to consistent set ups.

I don't mind your idea of angle iron but I just think it should be much heavier.

By the way, the floor mat is a great move on your part. So many guys with home shop lathes don't use them or have very flimsy mats. After spending a couple of hours in front of a machine it doesn't take a lot for feet to get sore.
 
To the questions. Bearhunter on the cabinet doors it's funny you spotted that. Knowing the lights would hang down I went with a little filler and smaller doors. That way I didn't lose the space blocked by the lights. But then I had a light bulb go off over my head and re-cut the fillers to a loose fit and hung them on short lengths of piano hinge so they can tilt out a bit. The doors and gravity hold them back but an over size "thing" on the top shelf can just poke the upper flap open a little to fit and when removing it just tilts outward out of the way. Having gone to that trouble I've yet to use it for anything that bulky on any of the uppers. Oh well, you KNOW that if I'd fitted them solidly then I would have had issues.

Heat comes from that blue box hanging on the right hand edge of one of the pictures. It's a 4800 watt garage heater from CT running on it's own 220v 30amp plug. Even on the coldest day so far it's gotten the shop up to quite nice. It runs a fair bit for the first 40 minutes then it's on for 5, off for 10. And that's even with the leaky roll up door which I want to address yet to both make it less leaky (I can see daylight under the bottom lip) and insulate the back side of the panels with something and tighten the fit to the frame so I can use the garage door wiper seal. Once I do that it should only be a on for 5, off for 15 sort of deal. And what the heck, with power at 12.4 cents a KW-Hr it only costs 60 cents an hour when it's on full time. Once it's into the steady state it's 20 cents an hour. And on the milder days it only takes a half hour to get up to temp and then it's on for 5 off for 15 or more. So all in all it's proving to be just an ideal way to run heat in there. It was easy to hook it up since the main panel for the whole house is about 3 feet from the plug for the heater... :d

The tank does have a safety chain and it sits into a "C" cutout in the shelf. It's not ideal though. I want to secure the base with a few bits of angle iron screw jacketed into the floor so a hit against the tank won't kick the base out and let it slide out of the chain. It's on the "To Do" list. Being a scuba diver I know the dangers of broken valve stems.

Al. As bearhunter said the idea was to lock the machine in place. With the blocks mortared, filled and then capped with the mounting studs bedded in concrete that fills the top course and a half it isn't going anywhere unless I back the truck into it HARD!

The rigidity paid off though. I lined it up the other day with a test bar where I did skim cuts over an 8 inch span between the "collars". With very little trouble I was able to zero out any twist. Then with the two collars within a tenth according to the mic I ran a dial gauge over the top and with a slight setting of the jacking and lock down nuts under the tail stock I was able to remove the last few thou of bend. I just wish I'd done it with the better dial gauge that I've since found while unpacking a few more things just yesterday. The one I used has little 1/32 wide .001 marks. The Mitutoyo I found has 1/10 inch wide increments for each .001. With that I should be able to adjust the tilt out to about a 1/10th as well.

With the same sort of "machine a collar to use as a standard" I was able to get the tail stock lined up perfectly as well. I'd never been able to do this before. And I'm not sure I'd trust it to stay to this same standard with an angle iron stand. Besides, the sort of metal I should be using to make a stand for a lathe as heavy as this is beyond my ability to cut with the tools I've got. So the block and concrete stand is actually easier for me as well as being as strong and rigid as I was hoping for. The only downside is that I'm not moving it any time soon. But that's fine. I knew that right from the first glimmer of the idea. It's a choice I made. So far it looks like the right one for me.

Room right behind the head box is a bit tight but there's good access from the side and from up through the center opening between the pedestals. So I'm not too worried about getting in there. And if it comes down to that I've always got the engine hoist that put the lathe up there in the first place to lift it up and out where I can get at it.

Al, a back catch from 18ga steel is on the list to do next week. Just the test bar machining had chips flying EVERYWHERE! It was a mess. The one I design and have made will look a lot like yours with it serving as both a back catcher and a shield to keep the chips out of the motor area.

I'm not sure if the space between the pedestals will just hold a garbage can for cleaning up or if I'm going to make a cart to fit on casters that has a place for the chucks right on top. The 3 jaw on the machine isn't bad. But the 10 inch 4 jaw is a heavy sucker. I typically had it sitting down on a board on the floor before. But I'm getting too old to bend over and pick up things like that as often as I like to use it. So something a bit higher up is needed.

Yesterday I installed a new little Ikea LED task light on the carriage. I'll get a picture of it early next week. I used to have a big clunky gooseneck lamp. But this promises to not get in the way anywhere near as much. It's an Ikea Jansjo lamp but without the base. I made up a little bracket to hold the flex arm.

Making that bracket was also the first time I've used the new Tweco welder you see in one of the pictures. WHAT A NICE MACHINE! ! ! ! ! I've only ever used buzz box stick welders before other than the very high end Miller that I was able to use for learning how to TIG weld. It was only a few spots of 7018 but the new machine just works so smooth that it's going to make me look almost competent......:d
 
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