Stuff in the Radio Heaven workshop

[Radio Ron w4ron]

I've been on GJ for a while now mostly reading others posts and making a few
replies now and then.
This is my first post about my workshop.
My main shop is in about 1/4 of my detached 2 car garage, the rest of the
space is taken up by year tools, lawn tractor, tiller, the most space is full of
storage, boxes and boxes full of old radios, parts, vacuum tubes and other
"stuff" I can't bring myself to throw away

Since my shop space is so small, about 10'X11' I have to be really careful
about what I put in there and try to make things fit into to small space.

The first thing I'll show is my rolling base for my bench top table saw and vintage
Craftsman jointer.
The base is made of 2X4s with every joint guled and screwed using deck screws.
It had to fit a space between my stand up bench and my 2 commercial sit down
benches that a friend got me when they were closing out the electronics shop he worked in.
I needed it to hold both the tablesaw and the jointer. I also built a removable
table that fit over the jointer and serves as an out feed table for the saw.
Besides the casters on the bottom it has flip down supports that have adjustable feet, their held up by cut off piece of bungie cord that'll pull them up just by lifting up on one side.
The power for the tools comes in to a double outlet with one side wired hot for the tablesaw since is has it's own power switch. The other side is wired to
a switch mounted in the top behind the jointer to turn it on and off.
Since the tablesaw drops it's saw dust out the bottom I cut a hole in the table
top and placed a piece of masonite hardboard at an angle so the saw dust slides
down toward a cutout on the end of the table where I put a hinged clear acrylic window
so I can see out much has built up and easily open it to vacuum it out.
The outfeed table easily lifts off to use the jointer.
Below are some photo of it, more photos will follow in more posts to this thread.

 

[Radio Ron w4ron]

I have a stand up bench that holds my bandsaw, bench vise and a turntable
that holds my bench grinder, belt/disk sander and buffer.
I came up with the idea for the turntable when I started putting tools on the
bench. It's about 3' deep so there was a lot of wasted space behind the one
tool I had space for on the front edge. I made the turntable out of an old
solid core commercial grade door, I cut a disk out of it about 34" in dia. I
used a 2 1/2" forstner bit and inset 6 roller balls I got form HF, with a lagbolt
in the center for the pivot point. There's another smaller lagscrew in the
edge to act as a stop to keep it from turning more than one tune and tangling
up the power wire that goes to an outlet strip mounted on a column in the
center that also has a bench lamp mounter in the top.

The bench grinder is made of an old Cman double shaft motor that my father
bought in about 1951 just before I was born.
I used to mandril adapters on the end shafts to adapt it down so I could
mount my 8" grinding wheel and wire brush wheel.
Since it didn't come with any tool stands I had to make my own. I searched
around on the web and found a design for these, I made them out of 3/4"
birch plywood and waxed them with Johnsons paste wax.
The buffer is mounted on a pair of folding shelf supports that I've had for
years and don't remember where I got them. It allows me to flip the buffer
out so it's easier to get to since it extends well beyond the edge of the bench.

 

[Radio Ron w4ron]

This shows my shop cart that is the most used thing I my shop. I rescued it
more than 30 years ago when it was headed for the dumpster at work.
It had been a base for an old microfish machine in the data processing dept.
I put a piece of plywood fitted on the inside edge of the top. One side of
the plywood is covered with old **** carpet incase I need to protect what I'm
working on.
I mounted a fold down shopmate vice on one side that really comes in handy.
I used two heavy duty full extention drawer slides to mount a deep drawer
on one end under the top. I used an antique F.W. Williams open end wrence
that I found at the Habit for Humanity Restore as the handle on the face
of the drawer.
It holds a lot of stuff for sure. The stand up bench in the previous post was
designed to be high enough for this cart to roll under and be completely
outa the way, but I've got SO MUCH stuff I had to use the space under the
bench for my shop vac, soda blaster and 2 drawer file cabinet that hold some
of my power hand tools.

 

[Hemlock]

Some well thought out stuff there, Ron. I like the lazy Susan, great use of space.

 

[ihrescue]

and a turntable
that holds my bench grinder, belt/disk sander and buffer.

Like your productive (as opposed to lazy) susan turntable. Saw your pillow on the website photo for Lackland. Were you AF Comm?

Nice collection of antique radio equipment. I have been a radio fan since about age 7.

Recently sent a couple of emails to radio stations that I was able to pick up, but had not been able to before letting them know I received their signal in lines of the QSL process. Never heard back from them. Guess that's not of interest to the stations any more.

 

[ihrescue]

I mounted a fold down shopmate vice on one side that really comes in handy.

You have some great ideas here. Like the work-mate fold down vice. Guess you could get a hold of an old work mate and rearrange parts to imitate what you did.

Good stuff.

 

[Radio Ron w4ron]

I was originally trained as a crypto tech, when I came home to our Air Guard
unit crypto was a little too boring for me, only one machine and it never broke down
So when I got the chance I cross trained to ground radio and spent to rest
of my time helping the guys in the radio shop and operating the ground radio/MARS station.

cheers,

R-

Like your productive (as opposed to lazy) susan turntable. Saw your pillow on the website photo for Lackland. Were you AF Comm?

Nice collection of antique radio equipment. I have been a radio fan since about age 7.

Recently sent a couple of emails to radio stations that I was able to pick up, but had not been able to before letting them know I received their signal in lines of the QSL process. Never heard back from them. Guess that's not of interest to the stations any more.