Show us your Shop and Equipment

I would show you mine, but I think everybody has seen a worn out pair of channel locks and a ballpen hammer

Best thing going on in my shop now is concrete on the floor instead of working on the frozen gravel!

I don't have any good pictures, and getting them isn't going to be easy.

Lil Foot,

You win!!!

OMG! How do you move a machine as heavy as that lathe?

That is truly an awesome! home shop. I'll have to come over for some "lathe lessons."

A lady down the street lost her husband. After three years, she decided to unload his garage of tools. I needed a couple of his machines but she told me, "If you can pick this lathe and milling machine up and get it out of here, its yours. I ended up paying her for the "chickenese" lathe and small milling machine. I have yet to use them but have a few "80%" projects, if you know what I mean.

Afraid I wasn't able to get nice clear photos. Hell, I didn't even pick up. This is my shop as it happens to be at this moment. I didn't even break down the rigged vacuum setup I made yesterday (not the first time) while turning some wood (I hate to do it, but...).

Small gallery of pictures taken minutes ago, click for larger images

First pic is down the front of my shop with a few of the mobile tool boxes, the big Syncro, some carts, and you can see the 80g Curtis compressor, blast cabinet, and then my welding table in the right frame along with some of the receiver hitch mount tooling (a bead roller in the near field).

Going clockwise, second pic shows my 50T press, the 20" Roll In bandsaw, 17x60 lathe with Newal DRO (and nifty vacuum attachment), Bridgeport 2J, and a bit of the grinding cabinet (better pic later).

Continuing clockwise (bottom right) you can see the 2J again, the 2 big 20" drill presses (one high speed Powermatic, the other a US made Wilton 20" VSG low speed), some of my high density storage far back field, wooden storage and work bench near-er feild, and near field is my massive orange steel grinder cart with a variety of belt grinder/sanders, some bench grinders, a wilton bullet vise, and storage below for all sorts of grinding/welding related supplies and tools.

And final pic (bottom left) is a better view of my lathe and bandsaw.

Welcome to my shop, a study in organized chaos. Believe it or not, it's not normally so disorganized. But with both knee replacements this summer, I find I barely have the staying power to get any of my tasks done, much less keep it organized the way I like...

Like everything else, figure out as I go. My fabrication background goes back to growing up in a family filled with boilermakers and marine/nuclear pipefitters. I also worked in an extrusion machine shop as a "design engineer" (basically just a draftsman designing dies), but that was just as a spectator, though it definitely whet my interests. I've been building performance vehicles of one sort or another (covering pretty much all variations) all my life. As a logical offshoot, I bough my first machine tool around 2002. A Griz G4000 9x19, basically identical to your little lathe. It made the rod end missalignment spacers and other similar parts I needed for my current (at the time) rock crawler buggy project, but as you no doubt know, for automotive and off-road scale projects, it quickly shows it's limitiations. That led to a Rockwell 11x37, followed shortly by the 2J I still have, and then the sickness took full hold. I learned as I went, in large part due to help on forums (like chaski, hsm, and pm as well as pirate, ck5, and so on) and a guy I met early on looking for equepment who became one of my 3 (now 2 thanks to Alzheimers) best friends. He's a lifetime machinist and usually has any answer (or tool) I might need. Not shown are my big surface grinder which was on the other side of the shop with most of the wood tools (a few are visible in the pics) and grinders to keep the abrasive stuff (mostly) away from my machine tools. And I just realized I also missed my welder cart with the MM175 and Plasma setup. Also about 40% done with a propane fired forge setup, which should cover most of my range of interests until I'm no longer able to pursue them...

As for moving, with a fork lift. The lathe is obviously the worst at almost 5k lbs (without chucks or any tooling). Many of the more approachable stuff like the 80G Curis compressor (no light weight and VERY top heavy), the band saw, surface grinder, and some others came in on a wide stance pallet jack I have for just such duties. And some have rolling chassis.

If wildfire post's we all loose,,lol

One of the guys that inspired me when I was younger was a friend of my father that had equipment similar to yours, Lil Foot. Had it all jammed in the basement of his tiny house, maybe 300-400 square feet total. He was a draftsman by trade and machining was a hobby. His work was some of the most beautiful stuff I've ever laid eyes on, as far as manual machining goes. He taught me that being a craftsman was more about attitude and approach than anything else! Just a neat guy that I loved to visit with. Loved listening to his stories about being a 'belly gunner' on a B17 in WW2.

The first time i witnessed a lathe in action was in an elderly gentleman's basement. He made a piston for my 72 alouette snowmobile. Basement was full of piston blanks and rings and engine parts. Various tooling and a boring machine that would punch out the bore in a small block chevy. Was fascinating.

My first shop machine was the 130 amp lincoln mig welder followed by many things on my wish list
9"x48" south bend engine lathe with toolpost grinder and taper attatchment
50 plasma cutter
English wheel
Bead roller
20 ton press
Floor model drill press
Heavy duty sewing machine
9000lb drive on hoist
Shop crane
Forklift+ 1 for parts
Body tools (air and hand tools like hammers and dollies)
Cabinets full of specialty automotive tools
Diagnostic scanners
Couple vises
Brake lathe
Coates 40-40 tire changer
Large recirculating sandblast cabinet
Welding bench
List could go on but im boring you all

Was before i moved back in after pouring new floor.oh, it doesent all fit in here,
it doesent all fit so i have a smaller garage for some and the quonset for the rest.

He made a piston for my 72 alouette snowmobile.

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Now that brought back a few memories from the brain cells! JLO engine if I remember correctly?

skeets said:

I would show you mine, but I think everybody has seen a worn out pair of channel locks and a ballpen hammer

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Yep, in the bucket right next to my left-handed Crescent wrench and a busted set of vice grips...

Yooper said:

Now that brought back a few memories from the brain cells! JLO engine if I remember correctly?

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Sachs single cylinder sa340ss with a factory tune pipe. Rattled out about 65 mph.

skeets said:

I would show you mine, but I think everybody has seen a worn out pair of channel locks and a ballpen hammer

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And a handful of square-headed nuts and bolts marinading in a pail of used diesel oil....

I had a big portion of what I had now in my previous shop, which was a 1 car detached garage, about 6' wider than normal minimum 1 car providing a space for workbench, that was sacrificed when I got the big 5k lb lathe, which was set in place manually using skates. Everything was fit together like a puzzle, with parts and racks modified and designed to fit toghether utilizing floor to ceiling all around with my fabrication table forming the center point around which were welders/plasma, benders, tool box island (2 back to back and one across the end, all Lyonn/Lista) and so on.

When I moved up here my friend and mentor took over the shop moving, which given all that was going on was a life saver. I had already moved all the small "1 or 2 healthy men) stuff, including the Lyon/Lista boxes. So he shows up with some of our mutual friends, (sizes approximate) a 36' flat bed trailer, an 18' Isuzu flat bed (that he and I moved quite a few machines on), a drop side dump truck, and an 18' flat bed trailer with assorted pickups including mine with an 8' trailer.

At about 7 am when we started, one of our friends who had never seen my shop was standing out front with all the haulers looking at the detached garage and said to us that we brought way too much capacity. My buddy Cliff just laughed and said, "You haven't been inside yet". About an hour later I hear him comment, "It's like a F$#@ing clown car at a circus, the S@%# just keeps coming out!" Turns out Cliff got it about right, we got it all on without having to fit it like a jigsaw, and hauled it about 20 miles to my new home shop where I had a diagram showing where everything went. After standing around debating the layout, shooting the bull, giving a tour of the property (1.3 acre "horse property"), and making a few adjustments, we loaded everything up and I took them out for lunch just before 11 AM, which is all they would accept for their help.

Great friends are hard to find. That was about 6 years ago. We buried one (the one who made the circus comment) last spring, and another is now in a total care home with late stage rapid onset Alzheimers (didn't know anything was happening till last winter!) waiting to die. Tough getting old, and I'm pretty much the youngest in our group...