Took the first step towards building my shop

[jdurand]

At our new place they only ran the tubing for the fiber out of the building and left a coil of it there. Of course now when the fiber was to go in the telcom guys said...that has to be run out past the property line before we'll touch it. Of course we've already had all the top fill brought in and tamped. Love contractors planning ahead.

So, friends got out and had to dig a trench without disturbing the trees we now have planted and budding out.

I'd show a picture but I had an error* last night and wiped a folder on our web server. It's now restoring ever so slowly from backups. Eventually everything will be back there, hopefully by tomorrow.

* note to self, if you tell it to remove a folder that is locked, it removes the last folder you were in instead. :O

[Frank S]

My not having to buy nearly 250ft of bury conduit in 10 or 20 ft lengths then glue them together was huge.
the orange poly drop line is just a tad thicker than sch 80 cpvc and has a silicone inner liner so that makes pulling cable through it much easier.
The thing that I liked most other than being free was standard sch 80 CPVC conduit fittings will work on it, But for the connections I needed to make in the tranch I used regular plumbing 1 1/4" compression couplings because glueing the drop line to the CPVC couplings would be dodgy at best

[Frank S]

Today I was thinking about some large drill jigs that I want to make in order that all of the various drilled parts will always be the same on the up coming project that i am involved in.
In thinking about the jigs I kept coming back to the problem of trying to drill large heavy parts on a floor standing drill press that only has a 20" square table
So I decided to un tarp and haul my 6 drill back into the shop since it has a 7 foot long table it will be the perfect solution for these heavy jigs and parts It has a cord and 3 hp 20 amp plug on it already and is wired for the same voltage my rotary phase converter puts out so hopefully all I need to do after leveling it up is to add a bit of conduit a disconnect and receptacle problem solved I hope LOL

[Toolmaker51]

Gang drills - box jigs - fixtures. Tooled correctly, still a tough combination to out-run in limited production. Before CNC, those 'limits' were FAR higher.
Set ups make all the difference. Advantage is short distance between spindles compared with auto tool change. Another factor is 'Design for Manufacturing', minimization of blind holes, various tap sizes, orientation of features, left and right hand parts, creation of burrs. . . I'd recommend utilizing the flood coolant, too.
Yes there is effort, physical movement but not strenuous.

[Frank S]

Gang drills - box jigs - fixtures. Tooled correctly, still a tough combination to out-run in limited production. Before CNC, those 'limits' were FAR higher.
Set ups make all the difference. Advantage is short distance between spindles compared with auto tool change. Another factor is 'Design for Manufacturing', minimization of blind holes, various tap sizes, orientation of features, left and right hand parts, creation of burrs. . . I'd recommend utilizing the flood coolant, too.
Yes there is effort, physical movement but not strenuous.

Agreed on all counts.
actually it is hard for a CNC to compete with well thought out jigs and fixtures on some things. Even CNC must be loaded and unloaded with parts If said parts are merely through holes all of the same diameter then a radial drill drilling a stack of parts clamped in a jig with drill bushings using flood coolant will out preform a CNC almost every time, that and there is zero chance of the holes not all matching or aligning up, unlike a CNC which may be subjected to power fluctuations due to several large induction machines switching on or off unless the CNC has its own on board UPS.
I had a CNC punch press that had 30 mounted punches and 4 orbital stations go into search mode after a power outage even though it was on a UPS it screwed up right in the middle of a complex punching task ruining a couple dozen parts being processed on an expensive sheet of specialty metal

[Frank S]

I hauled my Clereman Layout drill out of the trailer and positioned it beside my Leland Gilford 6 drill

A couple weeks back
then Last Sat. I drug out my Cincinnati horizontal mill from the container

So today I cut a hole in the side of the container and removed an old 1916 Lablond16inch lathe and the American Vertical Mill base that was behind it
Next I removed the small stack of lumber as well

I don't' think even I knew how many boards I had in there


These are the boards that my friend brought me last week.

And these are the ones Jane and I picked up while curb shopping at the True Value

So I decided to remove the stuff from on top of the container and build a mezzanine floor instead of having stuff lay on the roof of the container



I laid a 4x4 oak dunnage in every other corrugation then air nailed 2x4s on top of them then covered with OSB Hey it is not the best flooring but nothing ever beats free lumber

Incase you are wondering why I cut the door opening it was not just to remove the machines
I will add a header and case the sides then build a door out of the piece I cut out and add a rubber seal , then I plan on building 2 bulkhead partitions spaced a few feet apart with a door in each of them and about 40 sq feet of intake and pass through filter area . in the very end of the container I will construct a Plenum box with about 60 sq feet of exhaust filter area duct in a 7200 CFM exhaust blower add explosion proof lighting and have a small 8x20 x 9 ft high spray booth the area between the bulkheads will be the paint mixing area.
the blower will be sufficient to have a 20 second air change at a cross flow ventilation.
If I can come up with the type of grating I want then I will make the booth a semi down draft.
The exhaust filters will insure comparable air purity to that of an industrial spray booth

[Toolmaker51]

Free and low cost are tough to beat; except for one.
Everyone obsesses about square feet, while forgetting cubic feet.
Flooring top of a container is GREAT use of cubic feet; sturdy framing, no structure to avoid, and looo-ng!
All hail the mezzanine.

We discussed placement of the Cleereman. It's there for obvious reasons, sharing operations. Plus 6 drill table supports long work in the Cleereman, which has considerably more spindle power and feed.

[Frank S]

Free and low cost are tough to beat; except for one.
Everyone obsesses about square feet, while forgetting cubic feet.
Flooring top of a container is GREAT use of cubic feet; sturdy framing, no structure to avoid, and looo-ng!
All hail the mezzanine.

We discussed placement of the Cleereman. It's there for obvious reasons, sharing operations. Plus 6 drill table supports long work in the Cleereman, which has considerably more spindle power and feed.

Yep and since I already have the 8 by 12 ft work station set up on the truck flat bed for my plate roll and forming break the 8x 16 mezzanine between the school bus and the work station will be great for adding a shelving unit against the shop wall while still leaving lots of space for other things to be stored up there Like maybe my 1951 Cushman Truckster the 500 amp Heli arc will probably not be going back up there. Later on I may add an 8 to 10 ft wide Mezzanine cantilevered along the side of the container the full length of the shop but I will have to fabricate a deep bar joist to carry most of the weight tying it to the the 3 center trusses As long as I keep the dead and live loads within reason I wont have a need for posts but a center post strong enough to mount a 270° swing 30 ft 2 ton jib crane is not out of the possibilities either It would mean the post would have to be about 18" in diameter anchored 8 feet in the ground tied to the mezzanine and the center double truss some additional horizontal diagonal bracing would also be required to tie in the 2 other double trusses but anything is doable

[Frank S]

[QUOTE=Toolmaker51;1
We discussed placement of the Cleereman. It's there for obvious reasons, sharing operations. Plus 6 drill table supports long work in the Cleereman, which has considerably more spindle power and feed.[/QUOTE]
And since the table on the 6 drill is a knee rise its elevation can be made to match that of the Cleereman

[Frank S]

Put a few more machines in their final temporary placement. I say final TEMPORARY placement for a reason.
Although most of the machines are operable as they are the exception being any that are partially disassembled of course, All of them need some attention cleaning adjusting and painting.
Where I have them spotted all can be put under power there is enough space between each of them to "A" allow them to be put to use or "B" cleaned Dissembled if need be adjusted and painted all while being out of the way of everything else.
First load for the Mezzanine 4 small band saws these will not be spaced around but since they are small and can be moved by hand they will be grouped together

the 1916 Leblond may become a very modified up graded version of itself. Mainly due to my wanting a large bore lathe and since this old lathe has a huge wide carriage with heavy way bed and has already been modified destroying any intrinsic historical "Hysterical" value there is no real reason not to modify it
I started prepping the American Vertical IE Bridgeport pattern type mill several years ago but now have the space to complete it

The Engelberg 3x120 belt sander really could use an up dated belt guard

Not sure what is going to become of the Niagara 10ft 16 ga shear

Something else to populate the Mezzanine with will be this 700 lb desk/ electronics work station.
I am thinking this will be used mostly for repair of electronics and electrical hand tools. I can fully dedicate it to something like this and being on the mezzanine it will be out of the way far enough away from any one working in the shop that the special tools required for such items will not constantly be carried to other locations in the shop.

Jane's unfortunately band saw has seen some better days. The guy who used it for the19 years we were in Kuwait decided a few years before we returned to remove it from the building and leave it outside, now at the very least a motor replacement and most of the bearings then cleaned up and painted
The sun is shining inn washing out 90% of the picture so will have to take more tomorrow