Outfitting a small shop

J

John Frankl

Joined
Oct 16, 2001
Messages
1,917
Hello All,

I will be setting up a small shop in my basement for stock removal,
finishing, and assembly. Fortunately, all hot work can be done somewhere
else. Anyway, I am wondering what you all think about what equipment I
should get first (and later) and what precautions/systems I should have in
place for clean air.

Thanks,

John Frankl
 
Hi John!

I lost sound in PalTalk last night and got booted, so I'm sorry I didn't hear what you were saying. I do believe I heard you say you just had a daughter before I lost sound...CONGRATULATIONS!!! :D

The first thing I would not want to be without is a variable speed grinder with a glass faced platen. You have great control with one and can do most anything.

If you're going to do all your hotwork elsewhere, will you have a grinder to take off the scale from your blades? I've found that a little 4-4.5" angle grinder saves a lot of belts to just remove that initial scale.

Secondly is a very sturdy bench with a vice. I have one of those $40 Harbor Freight combination machinist/pipe vices, and with a small fixture I built, I can use it to get to ANY angle on a knife. I will try to get a picture of it and email it to you. I hate to be without it.

A drill press, would be in close third with a metal cutting bandsaw.

A filing fixture for guard shoulders.

A sanding plane of some sort for hand sanding things flat. I now have my surface grinder running, and I still use that sanding plane a LOT. I will try to get a picture of it too.

The issue of clean air is a big one...especially when in a basement. One of the most effective answers seems to be putting in a squirrel cage blower that can exhause debris from your grinder and such, straight outside. The only problem with this, is that it also exhausts your warm shop air.

If you were to rather go with a dust collector, Penn State Industries makes some really great collectors and you can get the extra fine micron felt bags from them as well.

It would also be nice to have an overhead air scrubber. Penn State also has one at a reasonable price.

Sorry to ramble John, but beings as I equipped my shop in a fairly short manner and very recently, a LOT of this stuff is still fresh on my mind.

Best of luck and congratulations again!!! :D
Nick
 
Good advice Nick.
Having a basement shop, I just wanted to add a few comments. Be sure you room is well sealed. You don't want the odors and dust (you can't get it all) to migrate to the rest of the house. A good dust collection system is optimal, but a shop vac will suffice. Those air scrubbers are pretty expensive. I made my own, using a simple box fan, some scrap 1" wood, and the high micron 20 X 20" funace filters. Using some hooks, I hung it from the ceiling. You'd be surprised how much dust it collects in a week. Even though I wear my mask at all times in the shop, it has made an incredible difference in the air quality of my shop.

Brett
 
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