# New Shop (a work in progress)



## Entropy455 (Nov 3, 2012)

Here&#8217;s various pictures of my shop. Note: it&#8217;s a work in progress. I&#8217;m still getting things situated and put away. The garage is 40-ft x 60-ft with 16-ft ceilings. The slab is 8 inches thick, 4000 psi mix. I have 400 amp electrical service running to the garage, with the house connected as a 200 amp subpanel.







Here is the TIG Welding table that I built. It&#8217;s constructed out of 3/4&#8221; plate steel. It&#8217;s roughly 3-ft by 5-ft, and weighs about 500 pounds. I use it for running my Lincoln 275 TIG welder, with water-cooled torch, and 100%argon shielding gas.






Here is my weld platen (also called an acorn table). I purchased it used from a shipyard in Tacoma. It&#8217;s 5-ft x 5-ft, and weighs 3080 pounds. I had to build the stand. The table is nodularcast iron, and the stand is ordinary strength mild-steel. The I-beam is part of a gantry crane that I built. (You&#8217;ll see it in the next picture) I purchased a milling machine that weighs over 7000 pounds, and it was beyond the capacity of my forklift. The crane lifted it easily.






Here&#8217;s the gantry crane in action. The mill is a horizontal Milwaukee. The crane is point-loaded with about 7500 pounds in this picture.






Here&#8217;s a better picture of the horizontal mill. Next to it is my most recent purchase. It&#8217;s a WW2 era Milwaukee vertical mill. This one is a little under 4000 pounds.






Here&#8217;s another shot of the vertical mill. This was an old US Navy mill, and a community college in Washington state picked it up back in the 80s. I recently purchased it from the college when they sold it to make way for new CNC machines.






Check out the original WAR-FINISH paint job. This machine was procured and paid for as part of a batch-purchase, that was approved by congress in support of war effort against Germany and Japan.






 I put the large machines in the middle of the garage. My thinking is that I&#8217;ll drop the power down from the overhead. My other option is to use extension cords across the floor, which I really don&#8217;t want to do. You can see the TIG welder in the background. It requires a 150 ampere, 240-volt breaker!






Here&#8217;s my storage shelves. You can also see the50-ton press that I built. And a nice WW2 Radial engine. It's a fully functionlal W-670. I've also got the prop hub.







Several of my machines run on three-phase, and I&#8217;m in the progress of building a rotatory phase converter. I picked up an old 10 horsepower concrete cutting saw, which was nicely equipped with an industrial 3-phase motor. The power panel box behind the lawnmower will house the starting and run capacitors, as well as the electrical contactors. I will post pictures of the phase converter construction process, as they become available.






Here&#8217;s my small lathe, and my medium lathe. I&#8217;ve also got a large lathe (12-ft bed) but it&#8217;s not setup yet.






Here&#8217;s my car lift. It&#8217;s rated for 9000 pounds. It will lift everything but my army truck.






And here&#8217;s my army truck. It is a 1984 American General M923. It is rated to haul 20,000 pounds in the bed, while also pulling 30,000 pounds on a trailer. These are the on-road load ratings. The US Army cuts the load ratings in half for off-road military use. It&#8217;s 6-wheel drive, and weighs 21,600 pounds empty. I purchased it as surplus from the Fort Lewis US Army Post. It runs and drives great.






And on the topic of heavy iron. This is my bulldozer. They made this model from 1939 to 1945. Over half of them were sent to Europe during WWII to construct airfields, and most never came home after the war. It has a 6-71 Detroit diesel, and will push with 28,000 pounds of force. It weighs just over 20 tons. Despite its old and rundown appearance, it still runs!






I built the gantry crane to straddle the car lift. My thinking was that it would take up less floor space. In the spring when it warms up, I&#8217;m going to paint it blue.








More shelves







Here&#8217;s a picture of my awesome wife. We met in Engineering school. Yes, she&#8217;s a degreed Mechanical Engineer also.






Another garage shot.






Another shot.







Here&#8217;s my band-saw and belt-sander. I&#8217;ve got the air compressor tucked back in the corner. I&#8217;ve also installed an oven for baking welding rod, and preheating castings for welding. I&#8217;ve also got a kiln for heat-treating, but it&#8217;s not installed yet.






And lastly, this is the Cannon that I built for celebrating the 4th of July. This is the largest gun an American citizen may privately own, without obtaining special permits. I do not fire projectiles. It's only for making a few big bangs on the fourth!


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## ProdEng (Nov 4, 2012)

Awesome workshop!  What do you plan to make?


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## Herbiev (Nov 4, 2012)

Should be a nice workspace once it is all set up. Plenty of room.


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## kvom (Nov 4, 2012)

Nice!

Just don't be posting any pictures of tiny wobblers   We want to see BIG models!


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## Tin Falcon (Nov 4, 2012)

Wow nice digs man.
Tin


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## Bastelmike (Nov 4, 2012)

That shop is fantastic, congratulations.

The horizontal mill looks like a horizontal boring mill with movable spindle, right? Didn't know yet that Milwaukee built boring mills too.

Mike


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## kvom (Nov 4, 2012)

I like having a compressed air source at my machines, so if that's the case for you then the mills' positions need to take that into consideration.  If you keep the RPC and machines close together than perhaps one long extension cord will work well until you're sure of final positions.


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## sunworksco (Nov 4, 2012)

Lucky you ! With an engineering wife, to boot !


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## Beachside_Hank (Nov 4, 2012)

That shop is beyond nice, for many its only a fantasy that will never come true, so enjoy.


  I spy a DeWalt radial arm saw in the background, a model 7740 with a frame 350 motor if Im not mistaken. I restore DeWalts and those are the best machines out there, heres a link to one just like it I used to make a home improvement project: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU2fEdGwD84"]DeWalt[/ame]


They can be tricky to align properly, I have a method I developed over the years that makes it easier to get it dead on in rip and crosscut mode: 
Align


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## skyline1 (Nov 5, 2012)

Hi Entropy 455

Awesome workshop with kit that size you will be making models at 1 : 1 scale I presume. 

Regards Mark


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## stew (Nov 8, 2012)

HI,
WOW, That is an AWESOME Workshop. It looks like it would be great Place to Work in and with  plenty of Room to Boot.
All The Best Stew


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## ZipSnipe (Apr 22, 2013)

Sweet shop and hot wife!!!  Life is good !!!!!


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## ConductorX (Apr 23, 2013)

I was wondering about the 8" slab until I saw the Deuce and the Dozer.  Awesome shop.

"G"


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## Wagon173 (Apr 23, 2013)

I'm totally jealous of that 923!  So many fond memories of taking them boonie crashing in germany!  It looks like you've built yourself a beautiful shop though!  Are those shelving units bolted to the floor or structure or are they free standing?


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## Entropy455 (Apr 25, 2013)

The pallet racking is similar to the type Costco uses. I purchased the racks used (in good condition). The uprights were originally 20 feet tall. I had to cut them down to 14.5 feet, as my trusses are only 16 feet above the floor  plus I needed some clearance to open my garage doors.

The cross-beams are just under nine feet wide, and are rated for 5200 pounds. However because I live within an earthquake zone, the manufacturer recommends that I limit the maximum loading to 4000 pounds per shelf. I couldve purchased higher load-rated beams, however they are taller by several inches, and ultimately reduce shelf-space capacity. Besides, my thinking is that any pallet load over 4000 pounds should probably be on the floor anyways. . . .

The shelf uprights are anchored to the slab with concrete studs, one at each foot. There is no mechanical connection between the shelves and the building. The shelf cross-beams are spanned with 2x6 lumber throughout. And oh my gosh did it take a lot of wood to populate the shelves!!!

The 5-ton was my second best purchase. My best purchase ever was my forklift. I dont know what Id do without it!


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