Above 1200 Sq/FT LilScorpion’s Fab Space

[larry4406]

Nice fab!

When you take the computer stand apart for powder coating, determine how to use the monitor's arm for the cable management.

 

[slodat]

Matt- I know you know my thoughts on Shop Sabre’s computer stand solution. You’ve come up with a really great setup! Nice work!

 

[zanyad]

Damn, that's nice!

 

[loganb]

Gorgeous work as usual... Thank you for sharing!

 

[lilscorpion]

Nice fab!

When you take the computer stand apart for powder coating, determine how to use the monitor's arm for the cable management.

Yeah, cables need to be managed. I've ordered a tig torch wrap (thingy) and plan to do exactly as you recommended. Some of the holes on the back-side are for threaded inserts so I can attach dual purpose shields/cable supports coming out of the case...

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

I was reading the computer compartment sections and saw the last photo and thought, what about the monitor? I should have known better. You never miss a piece. Great setup.

 

[lilscorpion]

this evening I wrapped up the machining of the drawer fronts and the front side machining of the second half of the kitchen cabinet doors. Op1 cuts the profile of the shaker style door, chamfers, and profile.



I then cut the excess off with a trim router. The pile grows quickly.



I’ll be in paint/finishing mode very soon.

 

[jake28]

Always impressive, thanks @lilscorpion for sharing.
Two questions:
1. What is your solution for work-holding the doors on the CNC?
2. Having just looked at your 3d printing set up posted in @sakurama 's thread, do you run filament from a filament dryer straight to an X1C, or dry it and then load in the AMS?

Many thanks, and apologies if you've answered these questions elsewhere.

 

[lilscorpion]

Always impressive, thanks @lilscorpion for sharing.
Two questions:
1. What is your solution for work-holding the doors on the CNC?
2. Having just looked at your 3d printing set up posted in @sakurama 's thread, do you run filament from a filament dryer straight to an X1C, or dry it and then load in the AMS?

Many thanks, and apologies if you've answered these questions elsewhere.

Fixturing the doors on the table - I used the table to machine holes 4” apart and installed threaded inserts into each.



Then cut some stops in a variety of sizes and lengths on the plasma table and bent them in the press brake.



After squaring the fixture sheet on the table using calipers, and zero’ing the machine on the bottom left corner, I’m able to clamp blanks that are slightly larger than the desired door into the fixture and let ‘er fly.



It’s not perfect but along with the vacuum of the table itself, it does clamp it good enough. I do need to add some clamps bottom left tho. That corner has lifted just a tad bit a few times.

3D printing - I have filament dryers and I’ve tried printing both ways - dry then print, print without drying…I can’t tell a difference. My theory is it’s because I’m in Colorado and it’s dry enough already. For this reason I now never dry then filament and have no issues.

 

[LeonardY]

Nothing uses D’a anymore.

All my Christmas wreaths do. Last one season. Along with my old Mag lights

 

[lilscorpion]

All my Christmas wreaths do. Last one season. Along with my old Mag lights

Your wreaths use D batteries? I thought my wife’s wreathes were heavy…

 

[LeonardY]

Your wreaths use D batteries? I thought my wife’s wreathes were heavy…

It keeps them from knocking around in the wind.
I have to admit that I like the battery operated ones. They have a timer and I don't have to run a cord to them. I am considering swapping the lights in the garlands to battery ones.

 

[rmack898]

Holy **** Matt,
I just spent 2 days reading your thread, wow! Every time a see a pic of the drawers in your shop of garage, the voice in my head says
"Woodmar" cabinets. I had so many questions in reading your thread that I'll have to go back and find what it was that I wanted to question.

I recently started down my own gridfinity rabbit hole and thats how I found my way here. I never thought of myself of being OCD but your plier drawer, so neatly organized with pliers with both red and blue handles would drive me nuts so maybe I should reconsider how I think of myself.

I'll be following along from now on.

 

[jake28]

@lilscorpion supremely helpful, thank you. As always, you’ve given me plenty of noodle on and new tooling to consider.

 

[lilscorpion]

Holy **** Matt,
I just spent 2 days reading your thread, wow! Every time a see a pic of the drawers in your shop of garage, the voice in my head says
"Woodmar" cabinets. I had so many questions in reading your thread that I'll have to go back and find what it was that I wanted to question.

I recently started down my own gridfinity rabbit hole and thats how I found my way here. I never thought of myself of being OCD but your plier drawer, so neatly organized with pliers with both red and blue handles would drive me nuts so maybe I should reconsider how I think of myself.

I'll be following along from now on.

“woodmar”, into ‘26 with a new super-phrase, love it!!!!

 

[lilscorpion]

Walked into the shop and my freakin grease gun dropped all over the floor. Hate ‘em



I had greased up the machines last week and left it hanging on the shop cart. Only 5 days and all down in the crack now.



Guess it’s time. Had started a model in Fusion so I dug it up



The design centers around PVC pipe and a few fittings. The idea when I was attempting to figure out what to do with some PVC that was left over from a few other storage strategies I had in my last shop for shorter lengths of aluminum and plastics. The fittings were purchased tho specifically for this project about a year or so ago.



I could just glue them together and adjust the metal bracket to make it all go together without additional work but what fun would that be. For the grease gun, tube and a drain I decided to machine all the features off of all the pieces before they together.

Glued the threads piece into the pipe adapter and the chucked this pert up in the lathe



And turned it down so it could fit inside the tube and removed the flats



Machined the inside of the large tube so the adapter could now fit into it



And I have an assembly like this

 

[lilscorpion]

The next part is for the hose end of the grease gun and uses the small tube and another clean out fitting. Same idea, turn off the features



And machine so it can interface with the small tube.



Just a simple slip fit



Over to the plasma table and cut out the profile of the bracket out of 11ga cold finish steel.





And to the press brake and then final assembly. You’ll notice that in the model the grease gun sits in the holder right handed (which I am). In a last minute adjustment I decided to reverse the part and make this one left handed given where I want to install it.



Dirty hands makes for dirty PVC. Fairly easy to build and finishes fairly cleanly. May someday modify the file to work with the OD of waste pipe which comes in black. For now 5 more will work just fine for holding (and prevent leaking all over the floor) my grease guns. Hopefully no more, or at least contained, messes.

 

[HogDude]

The next part is for the hose end of the grease gun and uses the small tube and another clean out fitting. Same idea, turn off the features



And machine so it can interface with the small tube.



Just a simple slip fit



Over to the plasma table and cut out the profile of the bracket out of 11ga cold finish steel.





And to the press brake and then final assembly. You’ll notice that in the model the grease gun sits in the holder right handed (which I am). In a last minute adjustment I decided to reverse the part and make this one left handed given where I want to install it.



Dirty hands makes for dirty PVC. Fairly easy to build and finishes fairly cleanly. May someday modify the file to work with the OD of waste pipe which comes in black. For now 5 more will work just fine for holding (and prevent leaking all over the floor) my grease guns. Hopefully no more, or at least contained, messes.

What's the part number? I think I need to order one....

 

[lilscorpion]

What's the part number? I think I need to order one....

I’ve thought about making limited runs of stuff. The “once it’s gone, it’s gone” manufacturing model. If I did/do, I’d need to remove the unnecessary machining steps to make these easier to assemble. Maybe wouldn’t look as nice but now that I re-look at the pics maybe machining just isn’t necessary.

 

[M.Brane]

I just hang my guns from the tension handle with a mat underneath. This is next level 5h1t.

 

[jake28]

@lilscorpion always impressive.
Question: how do you bend the tab at the bottom of the tube, that you screw through. Can you adjust the brake for that small an area?

 

[lilscorpion]

@lilscorpion always impressive.
Question: how do you bend the tab at the bottom of the tube, that you screw through. Can you adjust the brake for that small an area?

Yes. It’s kind of a non-intuitive trick and would have been a neat one to show. I couldn’t find a pic or video of someone else doing it so I’ll have to do one for you and post it.

 

[lilscorpion]

Last night I knocked out another little last step of a project I started about a year ago. I had made a counter top insert using a Foreball Tools DIY welding table top.



Up till now, ive more or less used it as a place to store stuff, usually welding fixtures,



I haven’t welded on it yet because the holes would allow embers, sparks, etc to fall into the top of the cabinet where I have a munch if 3d printed bins.



I needed to space the top up 1” to get it flush with the counter top. I’m using 3/4” square tubing and 1/4” aluminum as ann additional spacer to accomplish this. To mount the top to the square tube, measured the tapped holes machined into the top



Programmed and drilled them into the tube to match the two different spacing.



I had to turn the heads on the 3/8” bolts to get them to fit in the tubing but they fit nice.



Now for the chip/dust trays…I cut and broke them to fit between the spacers with a fraction of wiggle room to make it impossible for sparks and splatter to get around them.



A little easier to see conceptually on the cabinet.



Counter re-installed



If these ever fill up it’ll be a lot.



Read to weld!!

 

[old_smokey]

This has been a supremely enjoyable couple of days, reading your thread from start to present. There are so many interesting and beautifully executed projects here. Following!

 

[slodat]

Last night I knocked out another little last step of a project I started about a year ago. I had made a counter top insert using a Foreball Tools DIY welding table top.



Up till now, ive more or less used it as a place to store stuff, usually welding fixtures,



I haven’t welded on it yet because the holes would allow embers, sparks, etc to fall into the top of the cabinet where I have a munch if 3d printed bins.



I needed to space the top up 1” to get it flush with the counter top. I’m using 3/4” square tubing and 1/4” aluminum as ann additional spacer to accomplish this. To mount the top to the square tube, measured the tapped holes machined into the top



Programmed and drilled them into the tube to match the two different spacing.



I had to turn the heads on the 3/8” bolts to get them to fit in the tubing but they fit nice.



Now for the chip/dust trays…I cut and broke them to fit between the spacers with a fraction of wiggle room to make it impossible for sparks and splatter to get around them.



A little easier to see conceptually on the cabinet.



Counter re-installed



If these ever fill up it’ll be a lot.



Read to weld!!

It must be a sickness because the first thing I thought was to use a piano hinge on the far side to put a flat sheet metal cover over them and use them for drawers

 

[lilscorpion]

@lilscorpion always impressive.
Question: how do you bend the tab at the bottom of the tube, that you screw through. Can you adjust the brake for that small an area?

Out of dumb luck, YouTube dropped this in my feed (presumably because I was trying to find it couple days ago?? AI…)

Fast forward to 27 seconds. This is exactly how it works.

 

[lilscorpion]

This wall organizer has been bouncing around in my yard for a while now…I use a soldering iron quite a bit and previously I stored it in a drawer or on a shelf in a cabinet.



The multiple wires, how the unit sits on the counter, and the iron, makes taking it out and getting it set up kind of a pain. I tend to leave it out if I’m in a project that needs it and sometimes it’ll stay on the bench for weeks before I bother to put it away.



The idea is to make a bracket to hang this goofy shaped unit on the wall so it’s out permanently but also out of the way. I didnt take pics making it because I figured it would take me a few tries and I could snap pics on the final version. Oddly, I nailed it on the first one so this will be more of a walk-thru than build.

The wall bracket is designed to make the unit sit flush (it’ll make sense in a minute).



The additional holes in a semi-circle allow me to angle the unit if I end up wanting to put it in the corner (I’m thinking so over on the shop side). The base gets rivnuts to make adjustments easier



There’s a little bracket integrated to mount the iron holder that came with the unit so it can live on the wall with the unit..



The bracket is angled so the display is at eye height instead of tilted up (tilted up makes sense for the unit if it’s sitting on the bench but no sense on the wall).



mounted to the wall. This angle makes it easier to see the window in the bottom of the bracket which allows the unit to breathe where the unit has a built in vent on the case for cooling.



The the angles of the bracket match the soldering units nicely.



Here’s where it will live for now, up under the cabinet and out of the way.

 

[larry4406]

Nice work!

Question - with the metal back splash is there any potential need to ground it for safety?

 

[LXCam]

Out of dumb luck, YouTube dropped this in my feed (presumably because I was trying to find it couple days ago?? AI…)

Fast forward to 27 seconds. This is exactly how it works.

Dear Santa……..

 

[M.Brane]

Nice work! I would add a heat shield above the iron holder to keep from discoloring the bottom of that shelf.

 

[rmack898]

What gauge is the material you're making all your fixtures and brackets from?

 

[lilscorpion]

Nice work! I would add a heat shield above the iron holder to keep from discoloring the bottom of that shelf.

Great idea!!

Second thought as im doing stuff: I’m curious about how much heat there is when the machine is on high. The point of the circular wire around the holder is to allow the heat to dissipate safely so I’ll check into the laser and see what it gets to just as an educational moment to see if the manufacturer was thinking already or not. Regardless I may add a shield because its an easy safety against the shop going up in smoke.

 

[lilscorpion]

Nice work!

Question - with the metal back splash is there any potential need to ground it for safety?

Hm. Never thought about that but interesting point. Could easily ground off if the electrical on that wall. Will do. A very good idea!!

 

[lilscorpion]

What gauge is the material you're making all your fixtures and brackets from?

Depends in the weight bearing of the bracket/organizer. Most are 14ga but for heavier things like the grease gun holder I up it to 11ga. I could probably get a way with 16ga on some stuff but I’ve decided not to stock a lot of 16ga just to keep scrap, nesting, drops, and cost simplified where I can. Tho…there’s not much difference between 16ga and 14ga from a cost perspective.

With regard to weight bearing - a part formed out of 16ga or 14ga and a few tack welds is probably strong enough for all of the organizers. That said, I’m intentionally choosing to not have to add welds if I don’t need to. One less op given the negligible cost difference is an optimization that I value even if it may not actually make sense from some other angle…

 

[lilscorpion]

Need to get the counters finished up in the garage (speed shop) side, decided to focus on them today. I’d already made the laminate counter for tender t wall of the garage but left room for a steel counter. To get it mounted I needed to make a frame to mount it. This is the 3rd steel insert/counter I’ve made and each with improvements. Last time I learned that I can’t make them the exact same length as the top because the inconsistency in flatness of the wall can make perfect a mess. So this time I’m making it 1/4” smaller intentionally.



I’m going to add threaded inserts so I can mount a vise if I want. When I cut out the top on the plasma, I drilled holes for the vise which I can use to center the mag drill bit.



Combining the precision of the ShopSabre’s drill head and carbide cutters on the mag drill makes cutting precise homes for the vise base easy.



All four in less than a couple minutes



I’m using 1” x 2” rectangle tubing to space the 3/q6 top vet the cabinet but it’s about 3/16”
Shy of the laminate surface. Last time I made one, I used 1/4” aluminum to get kinda close.



This time I wanna do better and get closer to flush. Instead of 1/4” plate, I decided to make some 3216” spacers out of steel.




They make more sense seeing the installed.




These spacers help transfer/focus the load where the cabinet is the strongest. I added spacers that will space up the top while being focused load where the cabinet is the strongest.



In the front the spacers help distribute load on the sides of the cabinets.



And the back, where the cabinet sides mount to the wall.

 

[lilscorpion]

The idea is to match the counter with a 1/8” steel bull nose to increase the strengthen of the leading edge of the counter but be dimensionally the same as the laminate counter top.



With the top located, I got the vise location set up so I could weld the nuts underneath making mounting the vise much easier



A little MiG weld should keep them in place and make it easier to boot the vise down.



Tho I designed it all in Fusion360, I missed taking into account the nut under the counter. Managed to get it done.



Getting closer. It’s all locked up now, just need to remove one more time to countersink all the holes amd install the rivnuts



Prepared for the flat head bolts



Rivnuts…



Finally.



Top installed with hardware now

 

[lilscorpion]

Last step, install the vise.



Cleanest one yet. I like that the top aligns with the base. Makes for cleaner lines. Whatcha think?



Before I call it a night I decided to clean the welding table so it’s ready in the morning to move on to the next project. Give it a good scrub with some white scotchbrite and WD40 and let it set for 10 minutes



And then buff it out with paper towel. Haven’t been gentle with it and the dragon scale coating is holding up fairly well. Better than I thought it would anyway.



Good to go, gonna call it a night.

 

[Jgaz]

Whatcha think?

I think it’s next freaking level, like every other project that you do.

In your last pic I see a broom careless leaning against your fab table.
Does this mean there‘s a “billet broom hanger” on the project list?

 

[lilscorpion]

I think it’s next freaking level, like every other project that you do.

In your last pic I see a broom careless leaning against your fab table.
Does this mean there‘s a “billet broom hanger” on the project list?

Damn it…yes. Broom, dust bucket, and ladder racks are in the future. I’ve been putting them off because they’re not **** but I’m damn tired of knocking them over and/or moving them constantly. Thanks for reminding me.

Edit: not billet.

 

[lilscorpion]

Had plans to work on the kitchen today but one of the pieces needed to make requires powder coating and is too large for the little single oven…so I abruptly pivoted back to the tripple oven upgrades. About 3 years ago I had started adding a blower motor and return to the oven Then I did t have the plasma table nor press brake and was making every bit by hand and it was taking me forever to do what now seems like simple little things.



I started by hole sawing down into the center of the top of the oven for a 4” duct.



And made a cover to hide my fabrication indesgressions. Drilled and installed some recents to hold on to the blower motor. This cover will have a high temp silicone gasket between it and the wood and between the blower and the cover to help seal things up.



The motor installed




Up until this point I felt like I was flying but the hard part was next, the ducting. I spent maybe a few hours modeling it changing it up maybe half a dozen times. Just couldn’t get it to lay out like I liked. Ultimately I got there tho. This is duct has the most complicated pieces I’ve ever made on a press brake.



It’s fully enclosed and fully sealed with aluminum tape. like how it turned out.



This fan is about 150 CFM so it won’t blow nearly as hard as the fans in my big oven do but it will still cycle the air 10.7 times per minute or once every 5-6 seconds.

Tomorrow night I’ll get the lower duct installed and cut into the bottom of the oven. It’ll look something like this



Should have the remaining parts by Tuesday or Wednesday.