It's Finally Time: Build That Machine Shop!

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Hi All,

I have finally been able to commit to putting together a machine shop in my garage / basement space. We moved into a new-to-us house late last summer that was originally a split level which means that the ground level basement has full height ceilings. There has been an entire second floor addition, so the basement doesn't need to be used for living space. When we decided to buy the house, I told my wife "the basement and garage are mine, you can have the rest." She was all over that, responding "as long as you mow the lawn, you got a deal!"

Jump ahead to a couple of months ago, and work was getting really bad. I came home one night real late, and my wife showed me a stocked beer fridge in the basement and told me "you're miserable. Build that machine shop and get happy!" Ya, I made the right choice with her.

So this is what I have. Single car garage at ground level. Near the rear of the garage, I put in double 36" wide doors that open into the utility room.

I knocked down a wall that then leads into the basement, forever now known as the shop. The layout is L-shaped, leading away from you and then jogging right.

The place is a mess because I've pushed everything to the edges so that there is room for the riggers coming on Friday. I have a couple of large machine tools that I'm putting in, and I would appreciate opinions on where to place them. Tools that need fairly permanent homes: Rockwell radial arm drill press, Bridgeport 9" x 42", Clausing 5448 lathe, CNC tabletop machines with enclosure.

My Kennedy toolbox setup is about 105" long, so I like the way it fits on the wall I have it against now. The Kalamazoo horizontal bandsaw can go almost anywhere, maybe back in the garage even.

I'm thinking the Rockwell drill press goes on the slate near the chimney, which will fit it pretty nicely.

Bridgeport could go on either the wall adjacent to my Kennedy setup or in the corner where those hand clamps are. Do you guys think a mill would be good in a corner or would it eat up too much space?

I'm thinking the Clausing goes on the wall to the right of the chimney.

The CNC enclosure? Who knows, that thing is big. Maybe kissing the column and jutting out in front of the Rockwell?

I'd love to hear some thoughts on layouts. Let me know! Thanks guys.

 

[VWPORSCHEGT3]

lets put this simply..... I hate you.... lol .... or is it a YOU ****!

 

[Thumper68]

Best thing to do Is to lay out the whole space on graph paper to scale than make paper cutouts of all the equipment and move them around until you like the way it looks, make sure that you make cut outs of the longest stock that you will be using as well and make sure there is clearance.

Once it is all set trace around each cutout and label them and make severl copies and have them ready for the crew.

 

[Thumper68]

Oh and "you ****"

 

[nine4gmc]

Lucky man... I'm jealous!! For layout, I use google sketchup, it's free and you can download things like machines and tool boxes or draw them yourself and scale them into your projects.

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Haha, thanks guys. I'm continuing to look at the layout tonight. Riggers arrive in the morning with the Bridgeport and the Clausing. I'll post updates tomorrow.

 

[saabman]

You have a nice space. I have a machine shop in my basement. To make the space "larger", I fabbed permanent dollies that the smaller machines sit in. I store them along the wall, and pull them out as needed. My lathe, CNC mill, and drill press do not move.

 

[Nelkcots]

Looks like a great place to work! Can't wait to see it all set up!

 

[Ryf]

-You ****- and Great score (on the wife, the house setup is nice too) is that flooring wood or linoleum?

 

[Falcon67]

Nice. Love the Rockwell, that's a cool tool. I put my mill in a corner and I think it takes up less space than on a flat wall. Gives the table a place to move and the table doesn't eat as much area. I had a jog in the corner created by the compressor closet, so that helped me decide. BUT - it's on wheels so I can change my mind later. The Griz is about the same space hog as a 9x49 Bp.

For that kind of space and wife deal, the lawn would look like Augusta National.

 

[zkling]

Very nice setup

I can tell you're a machinist. You only have Kennedy boxes.
BTW, you are not allowed to work on cars with those.

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Alright, update time. I went out and met up with the riggers to pickup the Bridgeport and Clausing this morning. They were Craigslist finds - the son of a gentleman was selling them to pay for his dad's medical bills. Luckily, the rain held off during the move.

Riggers had both machines on their truck within 20 minutes. The trailer was cool in that the rear axles acted like a dolly and actually hydraulically slid forward so the tail could be lowered.

Unloading at my place. Rockwell is already staged in the garage, Bridgeport is next to it and the lathe is coming in.

The parquet linoleum tiles are really brittle and we ended up ripping several. Rockwell in place on the old slate hearth.

Lathe in place. I pulled up the tiles underneath.

Bridgeport in place on Unisorb leveling pads. This is the first time I have used them, and they are pretty slick.

All level on the Bridgeport.

The guys at Interstate Rigging were great. They were one of only two companies who would entertain the small job. They worked with me on the price by keeping the date flexible so they could fit it in a hole in their schedule, which knocked off a good chunk of the price. I'm so glad I made that move instead of the 30-pack-and-buddy route.

It's been a great day. I'm pumped. It's coming along!

 

[Falcon67]

Good looking machines. BP CNC? Dang, you're living well in the machine department. My china mill will do that level thing - in at least one spot.

 

[Radio Ron w4ron]

WOW, I am extremely jealous, I would love to have that much space for a shop attached to my house. It would be SO nice to be able to go down to the shop when I can't sleep in the middle of the night...
I love your machine tools, a great shop is on it's way.
Please keep us posted.

 

[Cryptic1911]

Well done!

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Hey guys, thanks for the nice replies. It's funny to go to my wife with a proud face and tell her that people on the internets are telling me that "I ****." She's a little confused as to why that makes me happy.

Falcon, the mill is a BP with a ProtoTrak Plus retrofit, best guess is circa 1992. They put a scale on the quill too, so at the very worst it's a nice 3 axis DRO and at the best I'll be able to drip feed it G code for 2 axis CNC over the serial line. I like the looks of your mill setup, nice and tidy. I see a VFD mounted on the wall. That's next for me to get that mill going.

Zkling, I'm not a machinist, but i play one in my shop. Seriously, that's probably the best compliment an engineer like me can get. I actually have a couple of Craftsman rollers and TSC service carts for other duty in the garage and working on the cars. The entire Kennedy setup was another Craigslist find. I traded a Playstation and an old Nikon DSLR for the whole deal. Oh, and it was full .

I'll turn my attention to the Clausing in a little while. Oh, bonus when I quickly went though the boxes of parts today - there's a closet closer! Not sure if it is complete, I'll have to look at it a little more closely. Headed out of town for a week so there won't be many picture updates.

 

[samthedog]

Well done. Your garage is a "real" workshop in my opinion. I have a similar space but haven't posted anything new for a while.

My lathe is from the same bloodlines as yours since Colchester supplied machines for Clausing. Here is my thread:

another machine shop

I am in the process of maximizing my floor area as I have a woodshop and machine shop in one double garage. You run out of space fast.

Paul.

 

[bullnerd]

"so at the very worst it's a nice 3 axis DRO and at the best I'll be able to drip feed it G code for 2 axis CNC over the serial line."

I have an MX2. Nothing wrong with that system. I put programs right onto a floppy from mastercam, runs fine. I removed the Z axis reader,just gets in the way.

Very nice setup you have there.

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Sam, nice shop you got there. It's nice and clean.

Bull, ya, I think the Plus I have will take in G Code, but only a few hundred lines.

In other news, I went ahead and put in an order with Glacern Machine Tools. I got their 6" premium vise, drill chuck, ER32 collet chuck and 45 degree facemill. Nice guys to deal with so far. Looking forward to seeing the quality of their tools. I'll post pics when they arrive.

 

[Kevin54]

Hey guys, thanks for the nice replies. It's funny to go to my wife with a proud face and tell her that people on the internets are telling me that "I ****." She's a little confused as to why that makes me happy.

Falcon, the mill is a BP with a ProtoTrak Plus retrofit, best guess is circa 1992. They put a scale on the quill too, so at the very worst it's a nice 3 axis DRO and at the best I'll be able to drip feed it G code for 2 axis CNC over the serial line. I like the looks of your mill setup, nice and tidy. I see a VFD mounted on the wall. That's next for me to get that mill going.

Zkling, I'm not a machinist, but i play one in my shop. Seriously, that's probably the best compliment an engineer like me can get. I actually have a couple of Craftsman rollers and TSC service carts for other duty in the garage and working on the cars. The entire Kennedy setup was another Craigslist find. I traded a Playstation and an old Nikon DSLR for the whole deal. Oh, and it was full .

I'll turn my attention to the Clausing in a little while. Oh, bonus when I quickly went though the boxes of parts today - there's a closet closer! Not sure if it is complete, I'll have to look at it a little more closely. Headed out of town for a week so there won't be many picture updates.

Nice setup. I ran ProtoTraks where I retired from and they are a piece of cake to program and run. It looks like the BP is in really great shape too.

Looking forward to seeing some more pics as you get it along.

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Update time. I got in the vise and tools I ordered from Glacern Machine Tools today. I was impressed with their packing job. The boxes were heavy cardboard, stapled and secured with reinforced packing tape. The big box on the left has the vise and the smaller one on the right has the other tools.

Packing peanuts inside for cushioning. The paperwork was inside a plastic bag with some stickers, nice touch.

All the parts laid out.

ER32 collet holder with integrated R8 shank and collets.

Drill chuck. I like the feel of it, very smooth. The jaws come together very well.

Face mill and inserts.

Here's the box for the vise. Nice packing job, the foam doesn't allow the interior box to move around at all.

Interior box had the vise and accessories like hold downs, handle, t-slot keys, etc. It also came with an inspection card.

The vise is pretty nice. As I understand it, the casting is made overseas and Glacern does the grinding here. I like it, but if I am going to be picky, there was one tiny spot where a piece of paint had chipped off from a rough casting area and one ground edge hadn't been fully broken, but that's really trying hard to look for something. It feels solid and smooth, no rust on it at all. So far I'm really happy with Glacern's stuff. I'll mount the vise on the mill tomorrow and hopefully I will be making chips in a few weeks (still have to sort out a VFD for the spindle motor)!

 

[Montysmith]

surely you have put a good amount of efforts into the making of your own choice machine shop and defiantly the result is well reflecting through the images you have posted here..

 

[Kevin54]

Did you already have the Bridgeport or was it a recent purchase? And if you don't mind me asking, what did you have to pay for it? I'm looking at a real decent B.P. with a 2 axis ProtoTrak retrofit, but one servo is shot in it right now. The guy that has it, is going to go all over it and it should be finished up right after the holidays. He's asking $7000 for it. It's a little more than I want to pay, but I know what a ProtoTrak retrofit cost. It's not cheap.

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Did you already have the Bridgeport or was it a recent purchase? And if you don't mind me asking, what did you have to pay for it? I'm looking at a real decent B.P. with a 2 axis ProtoTrak retrofit, but one servo is shot in it right now. The guy that has it, is going to go all over it and it should be finished up right after the holidays. He's asking $7000 for it. It's a little more than I want to pay, but I know what a ProtoTrak retrofit cost. It's not cheap.

I just acquired the BP and the lathe with tooling from a Craigslist find. We settled on $5400 total for both machines and the tooling, which I was very happy with. I know a friend who had to have one servo drive replaced for a ProtoTrak and it cost him about $1500. There is an outfit here in MA who specializes in ProtoTrak maintainence and repair. I think they are called PMM Associates: http://pmmassociates.com/otherservices.html. I plan on calling them once I get a VFD setup for the spindle motor.

 

[vr4joe]

Really cool machinery! What kind of projects to have have in mind in the near future. Looks like I have a local GJ guy for any machine work.

Can't wait to see the final layout!

 

[zkling]

Did you already have the Bridgeport or was it a recent purchase? And if you don't mind me asking, what did you have to pay for it? I'm looking at a real decent B.P. with a 2 axis ProtoTrak retrofit, but one servo is shot in it right now. The guy that has it, is going to go all over it and it should be finished up right after the holidays. He's asking $7000 for it. It's a little more than I want to pay, but I know what a ProtoTrak retrofit cost. It's not cheap.

Depends on what proto track controller is on it and the condition of the base mill. That sounds a bit high to me personally, unless everything is absolutely pristine. A good retofit takes quite a bit of parts to do properly.

 

[Kevin54]

I just acquired the BP and the lathe with tooling from a Craigslist find. We settled on $5400 total for both machines and the tooling, which I was very happy with. I know a friend who had to have one servo drive replaced for a ProtoTrak and it cost him about $1500. There is an outfit here in MA who specializes in ProtoTrak maintainence and repair. I think they are called PMM Associates: http://pmmassociates.com/otherservices.html. I plan on calling them once I get a VFD setup for the spindle motor.

At that price, that deserves a great BIG......YOU ****!!!!!!!!

Depends on what proto track controller is on it and the condition of the base mill. That sounds a bit high to me personally, unless everything is absolutely pristine. A good retofit takes quite a bit of parts to do properly.

When we had the two Alliant mills retrofitted, which an Alliant is a Bridgeport clone, and this was maybe 12 years ago A two axis retrofit using the MX2 items...at that time it was around $17,000 for each mill. We were shopping around to either get the Z axis retrofitted on one of the mills, or to buy a three axis mill instead. The problem was the ceiling height in our Toolroom. The Toolroom was in the basement of an old building, and we only had a tick over 7' for ceiling height, but between the support beams (they horizontal beams were 16" apart) we had 8' between the beams. Every mill we looked at was too tall, so we settled on a 3 axis QuickCell made by Southwestern Industries. The 3 axis was right at $25,000. The retrofit, if we chose to have it done to one of the Alliants was $12,000 just to add the third axis.

We had the hard drive go out on one of the mills, and Southwestern Industries wanted almost $700 to replace it. We went out into the boneyard where all of our old computers went to die and robbed the 3 1/2" floppy and replaced it for nothing. I like Southwesterns stuff, but my God they are expensive. Just for the CRT alone was almost $1500 for it, as we had to replace one on our 3 axis.

The one I am interested in is the two axis, and the Bridgeport has been very well taken care of by the looks and feel of it. The scraping of the knee on both the horizontal ways of the knee where the table rides, and vertical ways on the column are pristine. When I looked the mill over, there was no slop in it. I ran the table all the way to the left and all the way to the right and then tried to move it back and forth by hand to see if there was any play in the gibs, and all seemed good there. He's supposed to have the servo in and installed right after the holiday coming up. If a good three axis would show up though, I would forgo the two axis for a three axis. If I buy the two axis, I seriously doubt that I could afford to have it turned into a three axis. That is unless I decide to sell the Lagun mill I have now. But I've been kicking around the idea of keeping it for simpler things. Just like yesterday, I had to kick the head around on a couple of compound angles just to remove some screws out of an exhaust manifold.

But to Murphy......you got a hell of a deal for sure!!!!

 

[bullnerd]

I've been running mine on a phase-o-matic for five years.The guy I bought it from ran it the same from new.

Paid 3k,then the guy realized his mistake and asked more for the second one he was selling.

Southwest has great tech guys,I've used them in the past.

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

If a good three axis would show up though, I would forgo the two axis for a three axis. If I buy the two axis, I seriously doubt that I could afford to have it turned into a three axis.

I'm not sure how your area is, but I have seen about one retrofit Bridgeport type knee mill in the $4-5k range come up every 4-6 weeks. I also see lots of smaller VMCs from the late '80s and early '90s coming up quite often for cheap money ($3-7k).

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Update from today. I had a little time to spend downstairs, so I trammed the head to the table and installed the vise, then indicated the vise. I was hoping to use the new Pro Tram tool I got from Edge Technology Products but it was damaged in the box. I just used my Interapid to put it all in place.

 

[Kevin54]

I'm not sure how your area is, but I have seen about one retrofit Bridgeport type knee mill in the $4-5k range come up every 4-6 weeks. I also see lots of smaller VMCs from the late '80s and early '90s coming up quite often for cheap money ($3-7k).

Around here, just about all you find in a three axis is from the used machinery dealers and they go for around $15,000+ That's just a price I can't swing right now on a set income. Once in awhile, you will see one for sale from an individual, but the price is still way up there, or basically it needs a ton of work. I did see a TREE 3 axis for sale a while back, and the price was reasonable, but we had two of them in our Toolroom and ended up scrapping them out because you couldn't get parts or support for the older CNC's of that brand. I figure if one pops up for a good price, I'll take a serious look at it, but if it doesn't happen, it just wasn't meant to be I guess.

Update from today. I had a little time to spend downstairs, so I trammed the head to the table and installed the vise, then indicated the vise. I was hoping to use the new Pro Tram tool I got from Edge Technology Products but it was damaged in the box. I just used my Interapid to put it all in place.

Is the spring busted inside or is the stem just maybe jammed? Did you try to push down on the stem from the top? I would have imagined that you did, but thought I'd ask.

Oh, and I don't remember whether I mentioned it before, but you have a great place to work in. That's a nice setup in your basement.

 

[bobadame]

You've got some really nice tools there. Congratulations and good luck to you.

 

[VWPORSCHEGT3]

im not jealous of that collet setup , not at all.... not .....at... all.... why do i wanna cry?

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Around here, just about all you find in a three axis is from the used machinery dealers and they go for around $15,000+ That's just a price I can't swing right now on a set income. Once in awhile, you will see one for sale from an individual, but the price is still way up there, or basically it needs a ton of work. I did see a TREE 3 axis for sale a while back, and the price was reasonable, but we had two of them in our Toolroom and ended up scrapping them out because you couldn't get parts or support for the older CNC's of that brand. I figure if one pops up for a good price, I'll take a serious look at it, but if it doesn't happen, it just wasn't meant to be I guess.

Is the spring busted inside or is the stem just maybe jammed? Did you try to push down on the stem from the top? I would have imagined that you did, but thought I'd ask.

Oh, and I don't remember whether I mentioned it before, but you have a great place to work in. That's a nice setup in your basement.

Keep hunting on what you want. You may even open up your search area and be able to figure out a transport option, like a flatbed trailer and a weekend.

The spring is busted on the indicator. It moves through the travel just fine, but won't spring return. I emailed Edge and they already responded with another indicator on its way.

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Thanks for all the positive responses. Looking forward to getting to use everything.

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

I've been busy with work lately and we were on vacation, but here's a small update. I ordered a VFD and some associated components from Automation Direct. They came in on Friday. I'm going to start putting together an enclosure for it as my next step and then I can make some chips!

Did anyone add active cooling to their VFD enclosures?

 

[Murphy'sSidekic]

Here's the latest update. I decided that I wanted some sort of way to contain chips from the mill so they stayed around the mill and would be easier to cleanup. I looked at commercial curtains and dividers, but they were way too expensive. I searched the forums and didn't find much, but luvit had a mention of using welding blankets hung from the ceiling to divide his space, and that seemed perfect. So, I put together my own solution using Harbor Freight welding blankets and a steel cable suspension in a three-sided configuration.

My basement shop has a suspended ceiling. I started with four pieces of 80/20 I had in stock and cut them down to 12". I tapped two of the pieces to 5/6"-18 (the hole in the end of the 80/20 is the tap hole size for 5/16"-18) and left the other two as they were.

I mocked up the layout and then drilled two clearance holes in each of the joists at each location. Bolted each section of 80/20 to the joists, plumbed them as best I could, and then cut the ceiling tiles to fit around. I now had four posts sticking down from the suspended ceiling.

Next, I secured a turnbuckle to each of the posts that had the tapped hole. These were the ends of the "C". Then I put in an eyebolt using some L brackets into the other two posts. I strung up some stainless steel cable and tensioned the rig.

Now the easy part. I used three of the 8' x 6' welding blankets. They already have grommets in them, so I just used some carabiners to string them up, overlapping the joints. In use, I pull slide them out and go to work. When I'm not using the mill, I push them back and it opens up the shop a bit.

Pretty cheap way to go about containing the mess. I may do a single blanket behind my lathe and maybe another area like this one in the garage for actual welding.

 

[Kevin54]

Nice job on the chip containment. You may want to get rid of that mat though. We tossed away hundreds of that style at our shop in lieu of going with solid mats. The mats with the holes will hold all of your chips, and when you pick it up to clean it, the chips are still stuck in the mat and all around it.

Once I get around to it, I think I am going to go with a VFD like you have, so may have some questions. I run a phase converter now and my Lagun is a belt drive. With one arm that I can't raise up, I can't change my speeds to where I want at times and have to get the wife to help me. I'd really like to eliminate having to do that.

Just curious, when you say you are going to drip feed a program to your mill. Any reason for that? Once you have your program coded, you should be able to send the complete program over to the mill without drip feeding it. The Prototrak 2 axis should be more than enough to hold a large program. That way it frees up the computer for other things while the mill is running. I don't know how long you've had your ProtoTrak, but Southwestern Industries have online manuals you can download if you don't have one for yours. If you haven't done it, look in your manual about calibrating the ProtoTrak "X" & "Y" movements. I found on the ones we had, that it was good to do it a couple times a years. Over a period of 6 months I found that ours would be out up to .005 in each axis. Not a lot for as much as ours were ran, but still enough to get into trouble with some things.

One other thing to you may want to do....if you open up the panel box on the side of your mill, you will see a disk drive in there. In it, there is a 3 1/2" floppy. You need to back that disk up. What's bad with the older retrofits, they use the 3 1/2" floppy drive and disk to run the mill. The disk is a boot disk and has to remain in the drive for the mill to run. Hardly anyone has a 3 1/2" drive anymore. Every computer today has a CD drive and USB ports but no 3 1/2". Another thing too, if you don't have a 3 1/2" drive, if you get a chance, shop CL or go to some computer store and get an old computer that has one and set the 3 1/2" drive back, just in case the one in your mill ever goes bad. We lost ours to power surges. We had (2) 2 axis mills in the toolroom and had to replace the 3 1/2" drive in each mill. Southwestern Industries want $600 for the drive. It is no different nor is it anything special than the 3 1/2" drive in any older computer.

If you ever have any questions about the ProtoTrak, let me know and I'll help you out all I can. We had the (2) 2 axis ProtoTraks that were retrofitted on our mills, then we bought a new 3 axis called a QuikCell. We were having some problems with some of our programs so I worked closely with Southwestern resolving the issues and found out how really simple the hardware is on the mills and what to look out for.

Hopefully before long, I'll have the same setup as you do now. I looked at a 2 axis retrofit on a BP that I'm almost positive I'm going to get, once the guy replaces one of the servos, which I found out that the servo is a proprietary part of Southwesterns that cost $1500 for a replacement. Ouch!!!!!

 

[jeffmoss26]

That is an awesome setup for a home shop! I am quite envious. We have quite a few Bridgeports here at work.
How much power do you have down there?

 

[luvit]

hey there, i like how you made that corner with your curtain. is that where you store the curtain, just slide it to that curved corner?
I never slide mine open, yet.