Up-dated 09/08/08
This is the PTville
Garage Workshop. When we were looking
for this house, I had hoped that I could have the whole garage for a shop but
that was not to be. I could only have one
half of the garage. It took about two
months to get everything set up enough to actually do some work because the
garage was more or less a ‘staging area” for our unpacking and all my shop
tools were boxed or wrapped up. When we
left
From about December 25th or so, I spent a lot of time unpacking and setting up tools. At the same time I also had to unpack household stuff and set it up. There were a lot of things that needed work in the house that was the result of just plain negligence on the part of the previous owner. Without going into a lot of detail, I had to fix a lot of mostly little things. Much of this time involved a run to Lowes for one thing or another and then going back to return it and get something else. I’m sure that many of you know that if you add up all the little things that need doing around the house you come up with a lot of time and work. We are not in any real way done with the inside of the house. We will have to strip many of the walls of wallpaper and repaint which will take a lot of time. We are still not sure where we are going to put everything because this house is different from the last one. We had some book shelves that we are going to use in this house but SWMBO thinks we should refinish them which I agree with. And we have a lot of work to do down in the woods.
These are some photos of the garage after the movers left.
The whole business of the move and moving in was overwhelming. I was having a great deal of trouble dealing with all that was happening and all that we had to do. To complicate everything was the cold. I was not accustomed to being in that kind of cold and working out in the garage was difficult. Anyway, I guess that it was like eating a moose – one bite at a time!
I could only have one
half of the garage for my shop. There
was no amount of begging or pleading that I could do to get both halves. I measured out the half garage space that would
be the shop and it came to 15’ 8 ½” wide by 25’ long. This would be about two and a half times the
size of the old shop down in
I had to do the shop
set up in the cold of a
Here are two more photos of that same week. The one on the left is on February 17th, 2007 and the one on the right is on February 19th. I think it was about 53° that day. This should give you an idea of the weather conditions that I was working under to get the shop together.
The first thing to do
was to assemble tools. I had taken the
band saw apart down in
I also had to assemble the new drill press and table saw. This took a great deal of time because I was trying to do everything right the first time. I had a little trouble with some of the table saw alignment but otherwise the assembly went well (except for the cold).
This is the drill press in the box. I had to have some help getting the motor head assembly on top of the post but otherwise it was pretty straight forward.
What’s really cool about this drill press is that it comes with a laser. So does that mean it’s laser guided?
This is the assembled drill press. This is one of the few tools that is not on wheels. The photo on the right shows the drill press and band saw in their positions. The bands saw is on wheels so I move it all over the shop to use it.
Here is the band saw in its storage position.
My original idea was to be able to move all the tools around as I needed them. Here is a photo of both of the lathes in their storage position. To the right you can also see the scroll saw but that is not the final position that I will use.
What I had intended to do was move one of the lathes into position and then use it. After use I would return it to its storage position.
There was a little problem with the turnings that became more and more annoying and that was vibration causing a “ribbing” effect on the turnings. I finally came to the conclusion that this vibration was actually a result of the castor wheels. Even though the castors are heavy duty, the rubber must flex some amount during turning and this tiny amount of flex was being multiplied in the lathe stand. This might be especially true for the Craftsman lathe and its stand. I decided to reposition the lathes in a configuration that I would use permanently. I plan to build a shelf on the Craftsman stand and put sand bags on it and raise the stand off the ground. I also plan to do something similar to the Jet mini lathe. Those photos will be posted later.
Here are the dust collector, air compressor and scroll saw. The dust collector is moved to whichever lathe I am working on or to the table or band saw as needed. The air compressor is on wheels but it is in its fixed position. The hose goes up to the ceiling and then to the center post where I can get at it. I can move the air hose around most of the shop for use.
These are some photos of the shop taken from the garage door looking in and elsewhere.
Power is one of my biggest problems in this shop. The garage is on one 20 amp circuit s I have extension cords all over the place. Outside of lighting I only usually run one tool at a time but some of the tools require too much current for just the one circuit. One of my major jobs is to get a power panel in the garage for my shop but that costs a little more money then I have available right now. I am running an #12 AWG extension cord from a receptacle on the front porch that doesn’t do anything to the shop. This one receptacle is on a 20 amp breaker so I power the Craftsman lathe, dust collector and air compressor with it. I have to swap the cord around to the tool that I want to use so it is very inconvenient but it works (more or less).
Here is my center power post with an 4 receptacle box on the garage circuit, the air hose and right behind the post (you can just see it) is the yellow 20 amp extension cord. What a way to run a railroad!!!!
I think this shop will be an ongoing process because there is still much to be done and I am sure that I will move stuff around.
Well, after a year and a half the shop looks a little more used.
