Shop Machine Roll Call

Rick Marchand

Rick Marchand

Donkey on the Edge
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Jan 6, 2005
Messages
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I sometimes get jealous when I see these "shop pic" threads with all the great machines. Grinders, lathes, mills, tumblers, etc... :(

Once in a while, I will come across a very primitive shop and I get a sigh of refief. It is definately a personal choice, but I worked in the Tool & Die industry for almost 15yrs and stepping away from all the technology and measurement was a welcomed change. I think I would really like working in one of those traditional Japanese Swordsmith set ups. A forge, anvil, some hammers and hand tools just sings to me. Alas, there is still a bit of machinist in me and I can't help but drool over shops like Joe Caswell's and Jonnymac's in the recent "show us your shop" thread.

My current shop(albeit, temporary) is a traditional shop in disguise. I am not sitting in a hole in a dark room with a coal forge and a trough of water(my back is probably thankful for that.:)) but I try to keep things as simple as I can. For me, there is nothing better than making something with minimal tools. Smelting my own steel is a goal.

Anyway, everybody has their own way of doing things... hi-tech cnc mills or a rock and a mudpuddle... how do you go about it?... but more importantly what do you use?

Pics are welcomed but since there have been a few shop pic threads kicking about recently, I figured that listing your equipment was good enough.

I'll start the ball rolling. My meager machinery list includes...

-Grizzly Knife Grinder 1015
-(2) Bench grinders, one with scotchbright wheels and the other with a felt buffer.
-Floor model drillpress
-SC Big Knife Kiln, 24"
-Steel bandsaw
-Dremel tool with cable extention
-Table top drill press in the leather room
 
I'll play:
Highly modified KMG
Grinder in a Box
12" disc sander
9" disc sander
Powermatic vert metal cutting bandsaw
Enco 4x6 horiz/vert bandsaw
Index knee mill
3 drill presses
Evenheat oven
Surface grinder
Cobra stitching machine
Blasting cabinets

And the most important...800watt stereo
 
Well, I'm just starting out so this list will hopefully be growing but it covers all of the bases pretty well except for HT.

Pheer Kb327 belt grinder
Harbor freight 12 speed benchtop drill press
Bench grinder with buffing wheels
Wood cutting bandsaw
Sawzall with metal cutting blades

A great big can of elbow grease and files and sandpaper to go with it ;)

I think I may get a metal cutting bandsaw soon but what I have is working pretty well.
 
Hey Rick,

I hope this makes you feel better. My work area measures 5'x16'. My 1 car garage, or should I say dungeon, is stuffed with a wood shop on one side and my knife shop on the other. If I want to use the wood shop I have to move my 2 Vintage BMW motorcycles that are crammed in there too.

My machinery list includes:
Band Saw
Floor standing drill press
TW 90 Belt Grinder (My big splurge)
2 Buffers made from electric motors from my fathers knife shop

I'm contemplating selling the Beemers for some additional equipment.

A shop with a window would be nice too.

View attachment 315701View attachment 315702View attachment 315703
 
I am still one of the simple shop guys

GIB 1.5hp with kbac-27
bench top drill press
Porta band saw mounted upright
1930s metal lathe.

My forge is still in the work in progress stage and i am saving for a mini mill
 
Hi all,

Im transforming my 12' by 10' shed into a knife shop.
So far Ive built a work bench L shaped 2' by 10'.
Ive got an old 1/2 HP Delta Motor for something
a KMG clone NW grinder halfway together with a 1HP Leeson 1725 rpm single phase.
A wood vertical bandsaw
Some files and a hack saw.
Almost finished putting in a 60 amp sub panel and some lights:)
 
TW-90 Grinder
Van Sant Ent. - 2"x36" grinder
Central Machinery - Benchtop Drill Press and Bandsaw

I have a 24" Paragon kiln but shop is not wired for it yet

Thats about it.
 
William Schrade said:
Hey Rick,

I hope this makes you feel better. My work area measures 5'x16'. My 1 car garage, or should I say dungeon, is stuffed with a wood shop on one side and my knife shop on the other. If I want to use the wood shop I have to move my 2 Vintage BMW motorcycles that are crammed in there too.
Click to expand...
It helps, bud:p:thumbup:

I am sometimes afraid that one day my wife will come out, nail my shop closed and ship me off! I just hope it's somewhere I can still get good steel.

My "crate"...
IMG_0060-4.jpg
 
I am glad to see this thread as I pretty much have at my home shop the same as you Rick, however I have a lot of wood working tools from when I was making custom hybrid longbows for sale. I had to stop the business because my filtration system was not good enough to catch all the fine dust from the exotic woods and carbon I was using.

NWG which I did weld ;) 2hp 220v leeson motor ( it was NIB and free!)
Steel bandsaw
wood bandsaw
craftsman 6x48 sander with 9"disc grinder
SC 24" ht oven with home made pid set up
numerous packs of shop roll from 150 - 600
Floorstanding drill press
10" table saw with an abrasive wheel
Arbor press
150 lbs anvil & 70 lbs anvil
several spindle sanders
100yr old hand turn blower with the coal forge attached
numerous vises and a post vice.

The other shop is an hour away and was going there once or twice a week to forge the blades then bring them back to the house to do the rest.

2 trip hammers 25 and 50 ton
2 burr kings
paragon
dragons breath forge on cities gas main
floor press
about any forging hammer or tong you can imagine.
 
My setup contains:

Pheer 2x72 single speed
35 year old buffalo vert/horizontal bandsaw
(4) buffers
HF 1x30
Wire wheel and stone grinder
delta drill press
delta wood planer
Homemade Ron reil forge
Small rr track anvil
And the most important piece in the shop---- a working vice;)
 
Bridgeport vertical CNC machining center
Romi vertical CNC machining center
Dynamatronics vertical CNC machining center
Vectrax 17X38 CNC knee mill with vacuum hold down
Bridgeport knee mill
Yang 12" slant bed CNC turning center
Enco 12" lathe
Brown & Sharp surface grinder
Lindberg Blue heat treat oven
Lincoln 400 amp square wave TIG
Vibratory finishing system
Hypertherm plasma cutter
Bliss stamping press
KMG grinder

...all mostly in a single car garage. What do I win?
 
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Grizzly 5015
wood cutting band saw
table top drill press
foredom
table saw
10" royobi planer
washer and dryer (cleans knives well, but got in a heap of trouble from the wife)

ric
 
Ive built about half or more of my tools, almost all the rest were garage sales, pawnshops or craigslist.

2 homebuilt 2x72's
1 2x48 that will be converted to a 2x72 when i use the rest of the short belts
4x36 belt/ disk sander
1 big and 1 small home built propane forges
3 anvils, 250lb, 100lbs and a rectangle of steel set in about 400 lbs concrete
42 lb rusty style power hammer homebuilt
Metal bandsaw
Wood bandsaw
Floor drill press
Bench drill press
Post vice
Machine vice
2 hard wheel grinders
Buffer
Hand held drills
Just picked up a handcrank, prtable coal forge
Misc tools, tongs hammers files
Arc welder
Oxy acetelene set


All of this in a two car garage where i spend most of my time
 
I started in a condo garage with a forge, shop-built air hammer and disposable Craftsman grinder.
I actually got a lot done with that set up including a Sutton Hoo sword (ala Scott Lankton) with 8-bar core.
After only doing sole authorship PW projects for some years, my priorities began to change.
It became about making tools that will be used/abused and that represent the best value for the $ that I could deliver. That meant getting things done efficiently.
So I had to farm out or add capability. Adding capability is more fun. :thumbup:

Here's a partial list of tools that come to mind:

2012 Haas MiniMill2
2012 Solidworks/HSMworks
Lots of tooling for Haas/inspection tools, etc.
Tormek sharpener
Bader BIII
Porter Cable 6x54 (from the '40s), but converted with VS DC motor
Miscellaneous shop-built 2x72 grinders
Surface Grinder/2x72 belt conversion
BurrKing Mod. 600 in VS
Forge (natural gas)
Salt pots (natural gas) 2 high-temp, 2 low-temp
Mankel 150lb anvil, hammers/tongs
1925 50lb Little Giant
50 ton automated forging press
40 ton Heller ironworker (brake/shear/punch)
2007 Doringer cold saw
Powermatic Bandsaw (converted for VS with VFD)
Lapmaster 15
2 Sweco FMD-1LR "finishing mills" (24-inch tumbers)
4 Foredoms
Diprofil FDP-R die profiler
3 "digital" kilns of various sizes
Cheap Rigid-brand drill press
Ingersol-Rand 80gal. 2-stage compressor
General 3 phase (for Heller and other 3-phase-only tools) by 20 hp inverter/VFD piped through shop
Lincoln Tig

I just got rid of a bunch of stuff (air hammer, 2 large hydraulic actuated grinders, etc.) to make room for the Mill. :(

Looking to add a Sunnen hone and CNC lathe next year (if business holds).
There's literally no room, but that's what the living room is for, right?:D
 
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Nice lists

I have
KMG and a homemade 2x72 both with 2hp 3ph that run off the same VFD
10" wheel, 8" wheel, small wheel with a bunch of wheels, flat and 36" radiused platen
A disk with a 1hp and vfd that runs a 12" on 1 end and a 9" on the other
a small blast cabinet and 2 5hp compressors that have their 30 gallon tanks connected and one is sett to a lower pressure so only kicks in when needed.
A Grizzly 2hp round column mill with a 2hp 3ph and VFD and a bunch of tools
A Grizzly 11x24 lathe
1 medium drill press and a small one that just sets
4 dremel tools one in a drill press stand and one flex shaft.
A home made 5"x5"x 22" HT oven with a programmable PID
A modified toaster oven with a PID
2 homemade gas forges
150#, 76# and 50" anvils
small and large arbor presses
2 Portabands one mounted in a stand
a cheapo metal band saw
a Sears 14" wood band saw
Lots of 4 1/2 grinders
Several end grinders on set up to mount on the lathe tool post
More junk than you can shake a stick at
A Miller XMT 350 welder with a tig rig and a LN 25 wire feed
Several cutting torches and lots of bottles.
Some of the pieces for a hydraulic forging press which is high on my do do list after I finish the house and shop expansion.
 
Heres mine, I'll throw in some pics, just because we all know we like to look at pictures. :D

table top drill press

homemade coal forge

Ellis 6-HT propane forge


Lincoln ac/dc 250 (w/tig rig)

DSC08950.jpg




140 LB Trenton

DSC08206.jpg




Dewalt portaband mounted vertical (great choice if you need a cost effective bandsaw, cost me a little over $100, and it's a powerhouse)

DSC07312-400.jpg




Wayne Coes 2x72 grinder w/ vfd (this photo is from when I just set it up, it's not that clean anymore)


DSC06552.jpg





Then of course multiple hand tools, and miles of sandpaper.
 
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OK I'll play too.
20'x20' insulated, 40,000 btu Modine plumbed into city natural gas
Grizzly 7x12" lathe
Sanborn compressor
Grizzly Tabletop column Mill
Vacuum setup
Full size Rockwell hardness tester
K O Lee surface grinder
Bader B3 with all the wheels from 1/4" to 14"
Square wheel laying on its side 2 7/8" drive wheel, single speed
(and pretty much wheel sizes from1/4" to 1 1/2")
Old olympic Square Wheel (1977) full speed -profiling.
Cone Loc drum sander on a variable 1/2 horse motor
Baldor 407B 1 horse buffer.
Blast cabinet
16" floor model drill press.
14" dewalt wood bandsaw.
Evenheat oven- 18"
Tombstone AC/DC stick welder
Full size oxy/acetylene set up
Tippman Boss stitcher
3/4 horse cutoff wheel setup
Another sanborn compressor
Center island----
409AN South Bend lathe.
1 1/2 horse homeade wood lathe.
4x6" metal cutting bandsaw.
6"x48" Sears sander with 9" disc.
3- 9"variable reversing discs, 2 ea.@1horse, 1 @ 1/2 horse
7 1/4" craftsman table saw.
125# Trenton anvil
I'll include my Riccar sewing machine because I sew slipcases on it
(even though its in the basement)
Sad as it is, even one more minor machine and something would have to go.
Ken.
 
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Wow, some serious machinery here!

I'm a rung on the lower end of the ladder.

A Ryobi 12" Variable Speed Bench Top Drill Press
Craftsman 12" Wood Bandsaw
Harbor Freight Portaband
Wilmont LB-1000 still in pieces waiting to be put together
Craftsman 2x42 grinder
Woodcraft Slow Speed bench grinder with buffing wheels attached
Sharp Shop Machine
Dremel
Homemade Vertical Forge with Muffler for HT'ing
Assorted hand tools such as grinders, drills and saws
 
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