Re: 4 car garage/workspace down-under
It's been a busy couple of weeks so here comes another varied post of garage adventures!
The bike storage shelf is complete now, and hung on the wall via a french cleat
So back to the Lathe! (apologies for the horrible phone pictures)
I cut up some thin aluminium sheet as spacers for the feet
Bought a cheap chinese level...A little aluminium foil was used for precision spacers also
Can't be too dissapointed with that.....
This was my grandfathers lathe (sadly he passed away roughly 2 years ago), Herless SSB-10BS, Tiawanese made in the 1980s, probably a re-branded shun shin and also very similair to the grizzly 4003g in some ways. Good quality, very well maintained and organised.
My grandfather was an excellent engineer, building multiple down scaled and full size steam engines in his spare time.
I wish more of his practical engineering knowledge was passed on to me, but slowly i'm learning more and more each day about machining techniques and understanding what all of these tool bits and pieces are used for.
Lubed all the orifices and chucked up a bar
First i threw in a piece of aluminium bar, not sure if it was the tool bit or aluminium but it looked HORRIBLE. changed tool bits and didn't get much better.
I ended up throwing this piece of brass in and it came up beautiful!
I assume the piece of aluminium i picked up was just of very poor quality.
Next little project was starting my tool drawer. I know what you're thinking, buy some drawer slides and make a few drawers.
I'd like to think that not just any drawer will do....i want the biggest most ridiculous tool drawer.
Hard to find heavy duty drawer slides at a reasonable price
So i bought a pack of 100 skate bearings off ebay
Drilled and tapped some holes
Welded/Bolted into the side of the bench, cable ties to hold the drawer
Base of the drawer welded, yes it's about 2.2 meters long (7ft)
It rolls quite well! and I've only used less than half of the bearings
I will fine tune the system later on, still cost me less than half of a cheap drawer slide.
So a mate of mine came by last weekend with a smoker he picked up for free. It's a stainless steel keg split in half on an old school table.
I welded some extensions on the legs for extra height, re-mounted the keg and we got a little carried away with the exhaust damper......
This was a set of S54 ebay headers that weren't even close to fitting on the engine properly (don't buy cheap ebay parts guys!)
Originally i planned on only using one of the header tubes....but you have to admit it looks alright
During the week with permission of the Mrs (Not sure how i managed that!!) I bought a shell for my "Project Car"
Years ago i decided i wanted an E36 with an LS V8, very un-original these days i know, but no matter what....i'm going to see this through.
I bought an E36 coupe shell years ago but it was missing too many parts, it would have taken too much time and money to find the missing parts and rebuild it.
In the interest of getting sh*t done, I bought a '92 325i with a blown head gasket, in the colour i want (Alpine White 2)
Yeah it won't be the ground up rebuild i first imagined, but it's relatively easy to strip parts for weight reduction in my mind.
Before the Aussie dollar crashed and burned, i bought these CCW wheels second hand from the USA 2 or 3 years ago.
These are dishes i could clean all day long....
I should probably mention now that if you have ever come across the Vorshlag E36 Alpha car which was the basis of their LS swap kit....you might be feeling some deja vu..
Yes these are the exact same set of wheels, with the exception of 2 centers which have been replaced.
Serious fender modifications required to fit 17x11's
Ideally this will become a simple reliable car for spirited drives and the occasional track day.
Neat work on the saw bench too, really dig that too 