Below 265 SQ/FT Its a bird, its a plane... its a tiny shop! Also know as The Hole.

[bmwrd0]

I am going through a major remodel of my tiny shop, and figured I would start a thread on it. I did make one at one time, over in the vintage tools thread as I am a vintage tool collector, but I haven't updated it in several years, and there has been a lot of changes since then.

I could tell you about myself, but that isn't what you are here for, so suffice it to say that I am retired early on disability, own an old house, and am a cluttery person. My shop is a 11'X13" room in the basement, which is great for me, as I don't have to go anywhere when I decide to do shop work. No out building, no freezing/boiling tin shed, no worries about break ins, etc. And the size is actually nice, because I would just fill up whatever space I had with more junk.

Now, to get everyone up to speed, I used to have a 6" Craftsman lathe, built before WWII, along with a matching 1/2" grinder, also from the war era. But, in a rather rapid fashion, I found a bunch of interesting bench top machine tools, and was upgrading each of them before I finished the last. So, having picked up a 6" shaper, small horizontal mill, and then a 9" South Bend (which was just as quickly followed by a 10" Logan/Powr Kraft).

So, the plan is to get all of them finished, working, used, and enjoyed, while at the same time working on whatever projects come my way. Which are usually bicycle, shooting, or tool related. But, first, I need to clean up the years worth of junk I have managed to squirl away, and make this space fully usable again.

Going clockwise around the room

Gerstners filled with machinist tools, and my very old fastener storage drawers.


My 6" AMACO shaper, needs a better motor and adjustment of the advancing settings.


The Logan/Powr Kraft lathe, current project. This is from 1943, so probably saw duty on a Navy vessel.


The back bench. A week ago it was under control, but with the moving of all the machines over the weekend, it ended up being the dumping ground. This is on the list to get taken care of soon.


The tiny mill, a Pratt & Whitney #3 from the '30s. Mostly done, but I never really liked the motor situation on it, so thinking about that.


The Walker Turner corner. The grinder is a 1/2HP, missing the left side cover but is other wise all original, while the drill press was a repaint by me 20 years ago. Works perfectly, does all that is asked.


Main workbench. Which was also mostly cleaned off a week ago. But, when in the middle of a project things tend to pile up, as I have always been a cluttery kind of guy, and not one of those people who shadow their tool boxes, and scrub the shop floor so much you can eat off of it. Let that be a warning!

And, finally

my main tool box, a Kennedy stack.

You probably noticed, but I took all these photos from standing in basically the same spot in the middle of the shop floor. That is how small it is! You can usually see part of the last subject in the current photo, to give some perspective.

There are other tools and boxes spread out around the house, basement and the actual garage (sized and aged for a Model T, so not an easy place to park), and part of what I would like to do is get them all in better locations, more related to what I do. What I will probably do is pick a spot, most likely the stuff next to the Kennedy, clean it up, and keep moving around the room from there. I do plan to move the 18 drawer parts cabinet under the back bench to the main bench, and other small changes to add to the useability of the shop as I do all of this. But, I also want to get the lathe up and running pronto.

Wish me luck!

(and, by the way, if you too have a tiny shop, post a pic and lets talk about what works. The more the merrier!)

 

[gearhead1960]

Subscribed!

 

[Miss the Pontiacs]

Good luck Love the wood cabinets and vintage power tools, lights are fantastic. Can you merge your original thread if not I would bet a moderator could assist.

 

[Prospecter]

Nice set up. Good bones. Nice thing about a smaller shop is that everything is just a few steps away.

 

[littlebean]

this is going to be fun to follow

 

[zanyad]

Following! Looking forward to the refurbs and gleaning ideas for my own space!

 

[wachuko]

Subscribed. That is going to be a nice journey! Do share as many photos as you take us along.

I have a Walker-Turner drill press like yours!! Love it! And also have a Logan 820 lathe... besides being functional, they are works of mechanical art.

 

[old_smokey]

Lots of cool tools and stuff here, looking forward to seeing where it goes!

 

[littlebean]

I'm especially interested as my half a (UK) garage space is just under 8'x8'.........

 

[bmwrd0]

Spent the day making... a complete mess.


But, it was in service of order, and this is what that looks like now

I had originally planned to do a quick reorder of where every thing is in the shop, and just work and do other changes as time allowed. But, got to thinking, why not do it all now? I figured it would give me a chance to clean under the work bench, which I haven't done in a decade.

This gives me good storage, nice organization, and a place to set all of the boxes of things I want to keep together, such as set screws, motor brushes, a tap and die set, and of course my surface plate.

And I found some interesting things, some I was missing, some I had completely forgotten about.

a lot of junk, bicycle parts and a few sockets. The big surprise was a perfect condition Park cotter press. I knew I had one, but had no idea where it went.

Until next time...

 

[gearhead1960]

It’s like going to your own estate sale when you find stuff you couldn’t remember where you put it…

 

[littlebean]

when you find stuff you couldn’t remember where you put it…

unfortunately my short term is soooooooooo bad I instantly forget where I found it...........

 

[DaveAndStuff]

Dude, get some oil on those Gerstners

 

[slim_grim]

Tuning in! Some killer stuff in that little space!

 

[captain14]

The smaller shops always get my attention. There are probably more GJ members that have a small area to work with and not a 40x40 garage on the property.

 

[bmwrd0]

Did some more organizing

This is the other workbench, which is piled with junk going out on eBay eventually, as I work through the pile. But the two wooden cabinets of three drawers at the bottom are actually metal drawered card files full of electrical misc., hammer handles, odd clamps, rifle scopes, things like that, while the four drawer metal cabinet (I think it was for micro film, originally) is for electronic stuff like telephony, soldering, stuff like that. The wood four drawer on the upper right was a till safe, and now holds fasteners in boxes, like such


I also spent some time in the pre-dawn hours finishing up one of those little projects that always seems to be thought about but left unfinished due to not having the exact correct materials on hand. Well, I forced it to my bidding

The hole on top was for a 3/8" rod to some sort of handle, and I didn't have any handle that would work threaded for that size, so I drilled it out, tapped it, and here we go

Now I have all the standard pitch drill bits handy, and sitting on the far side of the lathe bed with an easy handle to grab and find the size I want. The index was supposed to have a brass ring around the top (there is one at the bottom) to indicate sizes, but as it is missing, I don't feel bad about making any changes.

 

[bmwrd0]

Since I was doing some tapping, and clearing out more "I'll get to it..." projects, I started to work on a new handle for my arbor press. When I got the press at a flea market, it was in good condition, but it had a 2' piece of tubing as the handle. I didn't want to just get a piece of all-thread and put some nuts on the end to keep it in place, so I picked up some threaded balls from McMaster when I was ordering some other stuff, and never got around to digging through my scrap steel to see if I had a good piece of 1/2" rod to use. And promptly forgot about it.

Well, when I was doing the other tapping, I of course found a good piece of round bar, and started on the project. But I was having a heck of a time getting the die to bite, and so I stepped things up, as is the course over here at GJ.


had to pull out the big gun


This set goes from 1/4" to 3/4", and, best of all, it cost me $10 at the Restore!


Action Shot!


And all buttoned up. This little guy is great for seating bearings on electric motors, which is my primary use for it. I do need to find a better home for it though...

 

[slim_grim]

Magnificent. I've got an old Dake press slid to the back of my workbench. Really need to get it mounted somewhere that I can actually use it.

 

[oled]

Wonderful old tools, a tiny workshop that is getting organized, lots of vintage drawers. I am watching this thread.

 

[bmwrd0]

When I found time during the week, I was able to get a few shop things taken care of.

I cleaned up an old drill press vise



That is the start of cleaning the machinist tooling and lathe tooling I picked up over the last couple weekends on the cheap. Rusty, but still a lot of life left in what I picked up. Some I will sell, some I will keep.

Also started cleaning up a rusty Stanley #8C that had been taking up room on my bench


And along with those little chores, I was able to get more unneeded junk out of the shop


It is really nice to be able to see the whole front of my tool box again...
(a lot more than that came out, but that was the best visual)

One step at a time.

 

[bmwrd0]

Mostly cleaning this last week.
This

to this


Also, cleaned out this drawer by getting all of the metric out of my roller, and putting it in a carry box to go under a shelf. If I need that stuff, it most likely will not be in the shop, but needs to go out to my truck, so it was just taking up space, space that could be better used.


Finally found the correct left side cover for my grinder, and got that installed


But, I spent this morning wiring in the new (to me) drum switch for my mill

This particular switch is called a "chop stick" style, and is not really for a split phase motor, but with a little ingenuity you can make it work.
One thing to do this is that you need to run a jump between two of the leads, #3 and #5. I was originally going to just use a piece of wire, but then I decided to do this a little more professionally.


I made a template from some shim brass, and then cut and drilled the strip of 1/16" brass below to run a solid conductor.

like so.

All buttoned up and mounted!

 

[bmwrd0]

Disaster!


Not really, I am still in the process of cleaning things up, and at times you have to make a mess to clean up a mess.

Going from this lot of random wood being piled up against the shaper

To pulling it out to get easy access to the dead zone behind the lathe

which is a great spot to store the wood I don't want to get rid of, but don't have immediate plans to use.

I am also in a big push to get all of the Logan parts I am not going to need moved on, which, in turn, is forcing me to go through all of the stuff I had earmarked to put on eBay, and start taking pictures and getting things listed. Which the boxes you see stacked in the back. Backlogs are no fun, but the second best time to start on them is now.

On the lathe front, I didn't quite get the back gears set up correctly, so I am in the middle of pulling them (another reason to get access to the headstock by pulling out the shaper) and making a recommended modification to make installation easier.


there is an eccentric shaft that rides inside the shaft shown, and you need to get that exactly right to use the back gears.

 

[bmwrd0]

To get everything adjusted right, you need to cut a screwdriver slot on the eccentric that the back gears ride on, like so




Not much space in there to get everything lined up right, but it helps to install the spindle with bull gear to make sure everything works.


Of course, that is when you realize that if you had put the spacers in at the same time you would have the spindle installed.

But no.

When I pulled the spindle out to install the spacers and whatnot, that is when it decided to fight me every step of the way. Bearing shields that would not go in place, woodruff key that kept popping out and jamming things, and so on. I ended up having to re-contour the shield edge, clean up the keyway in the bull gear, and stone the sides of the key itself to get everything to go smoothly. That and a bit more bearing grease to keep everything in place and slide home. But we got there!


That is the first time a chuck has been mounted on her in probably 50 years.

There is still a lot to do, such as measure up and order a new flat belt, find a woodruff key to mount the left side train gear, and the final bearing spacer is too long, mostly as that side bearing is brand new and has been re-speced to be thicker. But she spins freely and very nicely.

Now, to clean up.

 

[bmwrd0]

A package came for me from McMaster-Carr,

And another one from an eBay seller

And now the lathe is all ready to roll, so I finished up adjusting the gear train

double checked that everything turns smoothly, and

got back to cleaning things up. I want to make sure that everything is safe, nothing is going to surprise me or trip me or anything like that before I hit the start lever.

Which I did. It needs some adjustments, here and there, but she runs!

What I should have done, if film a video. Never done that, but there is a first for everything.

 

[DaveAndStuff]

Are you going to set up a line-shaft? That would be bada**

 

[bmwrd0]

More cleaning, and now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Starting with this:


I moved the little Delta stand between the lathe and shaper, where it now holds my chargers.

I don't really like this, but for the time being it gets things out of the way until I can come to a more permanent solution. The power cords aren't in any danger here, but they are ugly and don't seem to be organized very well. But, needs must, as they say.

Now I can get a better start on my main bench:

going to this


And, along the way, I decided to pull apart and clean my three jaw chuck


Now, all apart:

The mating surfaces have been scrubbed, the scroll lubed, and all ready to reassemble

I was surprised that the inside of this chuck was a clean as it was; no chips or other metal, no dirt, and just dried up grease.

Reassembled, but, sadly, I won't be using this chuck very often, as I don't have the second set of jaws. No big deal, as it is easy enough to center in a 4 jaw chuck.

Anyway, here is the current state of the shop:

 

[Prospecter]

Anyway, here is the current state of the shop:

That's good progress. Good to pause to do projects that you can finish like the lathe chuck, too. Just keep moving forward. You'll get where you want to be.

 

[bmwrd0]

Well, I mentioned this in the general "what did you do in the shop today" thread, but it bears mentioning here. It looks like my wife and I will be moving in the next year or two. Mostly do to her looking for a new job, and there is not much at her level in a small town like this, and my health making going up stair and down more difficult. So, the last few weeks I have been on other tracks, and thinking about what to keep, what to move along, etc.

But! That should never stop us from doing projects


I picked this up at auction, it is a late '30s German AYDT single shot varmint gun. A real oddity, as it has a very heavy bull barrel and is chambered in .218 Bee. I am pretty sure the barrel is original, as it had no standard provision for the peep sights that these normally came with, but it is chambered for an American cartridge. Now, a customer could order these any way they wanted, so I guess anything is possible. But in any case, I need to deal with rust issues, and clean out all the grease that was slathered on here.


starting disassembly, and here you can really see the rust damage.


I had a couple screws really fight me, but I won in the end


the trigger assembly, and you can see how much grease there is too deal with


parts ready for a mineral spirits bath, but I am out so I will pick some up tomorrow morning.

 

[DaveAndStuff]

Well, I mentioned this in the general "what did you do in the shop today" thread, but it bears mentioning here. It looks like my wife and I will be moving in the next year or two. Mostly do to her looking for a new job, and there is not much at her level in a small town like this, and my health making going up stair and down more difficult. So, the last few weeks I have been on other tracks, and thinking about what to keep, what to move along, etc.

But! That should never stop us from doing projects


I picked this up at auction, it is a late '30s German AYDT single shot varmint gun. A real oddity, as it has a very heavy bull barrel and is chambered in .218 Bee. I am pretty sure the barrel is original, as it had no standard provision for the peep sights that these normally came with, but it is chambered for an American cartridge. Now, a customer could order these any way they wanted, so I guess anything is possible. But in any case, I need to deal with rust issues, and clean out all the grease that was slathered on here.


starting disassembly, and here you can really see the rust damage.


I had a couple screws really fight me, but I won in the end


the trigger assembly, and you can see how much grease there is too deal with


parts ready for a mineral spirits bath, but I am out so I will pick some up tomorrow morning.

If it is a single shot, what is the second trigger for?

 

[jon72vega]

If it is a single shot, what is the second trigger for?

That.

 

[bmwrd0]

It is a double set trigger. Basically, the main trigger will fire the gun, but the set trigger will reduce the sear action on the main, making it a hair trigger.

Double Set Triggers

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

Just stumbled across your shop thread Beemer. Looks like lots of cool projects are keeping you busy there. I can't imagine facing a move and the uncertainty that comes with that. But, who knows, you could end up with a lot more space for projects and to accommodate your collection. Hope to see you out and about this summer. Ed.

 

[bmwrd0]

Further disassembly and cleaning of what I am now calling Project 218.


spent a little time getting the safely back in working order.


While letting some screws soak, I started cleaning up the stock. This has some very Germanic lines too it, no?

look at that hand cut checkering! This is the work of a master craftsman.

The final parts came apart fairly easily, but one screw refused to budge, and the slot was starting to get deformed, so I had to step up my plan of attack.

I started with a #35 bit, slowly stepped up until I was just shy of the diameter of the screw head, which you can just see at the tip of the bit.

This left just enough

to unscrew with the aid of a pair of ViseGrips. After that, the old scope mount came right off. And, oddly enough, the mount was an early Redfield, and while there were some few screw holes underneath, I need to see if any match European style mounts. I am pretty sure that the barrel is original, and with no provision for any other sights this rifle is becoming more and more of a mystery.

Next up is to make a new extractor, and the parts to do so should arrive on Monday from McMaster-Carr.

 

[DaveAndStuff]

That's a nice project and a beautiful stock.

You cleaning it with turpentine?

 

[bmwrd0]

Ballistol. My shop is in the basement, so nothing flammable or stinky.

 

[Outlawmws]

Ballistol. My shop is in the basement, so nothing flammable or stinky.

Really?

 

[bmwrd0]

Really?

Nope.

If I do need to use something like that, I take it out to the garage out back, off the alley. That building is so drafty that fumes will disapate quickly, and if there was a disaster, I would be sad but not destroyed. I had a house burn down on my in college due to an idiot of a room mate, and there are few things as destructive to your life as that.

Yes, Ballistol is flamable, so I use it on the back steps out of the garage, keeping any flame possibilities away from the house. And it doesn't stink according to my wife.

 

[JuncleJohn]

I enjoy seeing your old equipment. That old gun is cool as well. Keep up the good work.

John

 

[bmwrd0]

I have been busy with some things, mostly travelling to my son's wedding, but managed to find time to work on projects. One of which is this:

That is the picture from the ad I saw on FBM, an early twenties Dalton lathe. He had it priced above my threshold, but when I got back from NYC the price had dropped to a level I was comfortable with. So, I went and picked it up.

The mast and motor mount had been pulled so it would be easier to load into my little truck,

And I pulled the legs off to make it easier on my back when unloading it. This thing weighs a quarter ton, and it needed to be delt with one piece at a time. Of course, it was filthy, as it probably hadn't been cleaned in 50 years at least, and it had been repainted. But the lathe is in remarkable good condition, with just one old repair found.

a poorly done braze of one of the back gear guards. But this thing is really neat, with lots of interesting features, such as hooks to hang the change gears from

While the other leg has a small cabinet to put the steady and follower rests in, both of which came with it.


Sadly, it is missing the outer belt guard, which is cast iron like everything else on this lathe, even the pan. There was also a housing to hold the clutch lever that would allow you to change direction if you didn't have a motor that reverses. Not sure how it works, other than there is some sort of planetary gear system involved, which I believe I have all of the pieces for. Interestingly enough, apparently the overhead motor mount cost almost as much as the lathe itself when sold, but most of them were supplied with a counter shaft that could be mounted to the wall or ceiling. I have ideas on how to take care of this as parts are rarer than hens teeth, but that will be awhile. Anyway, it is out of the truck, and in the garage to start cleaning it up:

 

[JuncleJohn]

Neat, that will make a cool conversation piece. I like how small it is, as it won’t take up much floor space. The motor mounted vertically is another cool feature.

John