My dump!

[latheman]

Hi folks,

You say you like photos. Well, here are a few for you to laugh at, commiserate with, gloat over, or whatever else you want to do.

This one's taken from the rear door looking in. As you can see, what every garage should look like. (What about the car? Stuff that, it's outside where it belongs. And anyway, it's supposedly waterproof.)

Taken from the other end. The thing at the top centre is a highly technical device - a book held in place to stop the light from the fluorescent tubes affecting the photo. It also appears on the first photo, but isn't as obvious.

The most important tool in the world. Warco 220/Mashstroy C218T. 110mm centre height, 500mm between centres. 9 belt speeds 125 to 2000 rpm, three self-act speeds per belt speed, lots of tpi, metric & module threads. Just been stripped, cleaned, the odd problem sorted, relubricated and realigned. The mirror (ex-wagon mirrors, but flat) is used to allow me to look at the back of the tool post without craning over the top (you did notice the stand in the first photo didn't you?).

The second most important tool in the world. Warco MiniMill, otherwise known as an X2 clone but don't let Warco know I've said that - they don't like it. In truth, it's a bigger motor and a bigger table than the X2, but still has the same gearbox chewing problem, but metal gears from Arc Euro should stop that problem. Hopefully, the bigger motor will mean a new and better (I hope) power board so with luck that might not be a problem. Otherwise, it's a typical Chinese import - full of sand and dried out grease. Next on the list for major overhaul.

A photo of the workbench. I was going to say the main bench, but as I've only got the one.... Note the Clarke d/e 5" grinder right in the corner, the NuTool CH10 drilling machine and the s/h Record 4" vice. The yellow painted things are my drive adaptors for centre turning - an idea from one of Tubal Cain's writings, the yellow paint that is. Trouble is I really shouldn't have painted them at this time of the year.

Under bench storage area. Sorry it's a bit dark - I've tried lightening it in PSP, but it just made it worse. Maybe I'll redo it without the wideangle lens. That way I can use flash. Postscript - I've redone the photo with flash and without the w/a lens.

Storage area under the lathe. A set of drawers aquired from (not sure I should really say, even though it was legal, but may be recognisable to some people). These hold taps, dies, lathe tools, changewheels, etc etc.

Storage area no. 3. It is, after all a garage, and hence used for storing anything. Anyway, the covered area just above the red box is where lathe chucks, vertical slide +vice, T-slotted cross-slide live. Plus a lot of other tools such as hammers, drills, saws, etc etc. Notice as well the electric stuff in the far corner. I did it all myself. Obviously before Part P, and what's more, other than bulbs blowing and taking the fuse with it, I ve never had a problem in the last 15 years. That's not to say I won't have a major failure tomorrow!

Well, I went mad just before Christmas and decided to spend some money before the VAT increase. So this picture shows some of the stuff I bought. The vices are to modify for use on the miller. Couple of angle plates. couple of ali 3-sided angle plates. Small tool makers vice to turn into an adjustable one. Most of these things are as a result of reading Harold Hall's articles. There's also a load of steel in various sizes on the side of the miller. Should keep me busy for a while.

General points. A few years ago, after years of spraying everything with WD40, I fitted a couple of 10W self-regulating heaters to the lathe. No more rust, and it never feels cold. Cool yes, but not cold. I've fitted one to the miller, but have a mind to fit more. Nothing on the drill, but that doesn't rust!!! Also, I've got an aquarium mat heater under a sheet of aluminium on which the lathe chucks and other expensive stuff sit. (See above.) Again no rust.

Well, there you are, my home from home. Biggest problem is temperature at this time of the year - it's "something or other" cold, and frankly, the 2KW fan heater + 1KW convector heater can barely cope with the worst cold. Of course, in the summer, I have the opposite problem, but then I can open the doors at each end and get a draught through.

The camera is a Canon A640 10Mpx, x4 zoom lens and for the photos above, fitted with a wide-angle lens, hence the noticeable curvature in some of the photos. Trouble is that I can't use the built in flash with the extra lens's because they shade the flash and you get a n'orrible black quarter circle on the photo.

Ok, that's all for now. Laughing is allowed, and is preferable to sniggering behind the hand. And anyway, I think we should all laugh more - it's better than crying. Any questions? No? Good!

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

[Brass_Machine]

No laughing here. Your shop is cleaner (tidy-er??) than mine.

Table size on your mill is much bigger than my X2. I would be a little happier with that. How does your table size compare to the bigger TABLE LMS offers?

Back to your shop... not bad. Best of all, you have a shop 

Eric

[latheman]

Hi Eric,
Cleanliness etc.
I always try to clean up at the end of each session. Also, I have to keep putting things away as otherwise I would run out of work space, and thus be forced into it anyway.

Table size.
460mm x 112mm. Who's LMS? Hence can't answer.

Actually, there's an interesting thought about the tidiness, or otherwise. I've a lot of stuff, all over the place. But despite that, I can find anything I've got immediately, even though I doubt very much that I could tell you what I've got.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

[GOOFY063]

that place is way to neat,   you cant lose anything in there

[HS93]

Nice shop that mirror is a fantastic idea that I will pinch, since I shrunk from just under 5' 10" to 5' 1" on a good day the only way I would see theback would be if I was strung up over the lathe, fall in line behind the wife for that job!

Peter

[krv3000]

HI OMG you can see your flor 

[AdeV]

How do you get/keep the swarf out of the carpet? I glued some carpet tiles down in front of the mill (to stop the steel floor from sucking too much heat out of my feet, brrr), but now of course they're jammed full of swarf... the hoover won't pick it up 'cos it's doing the whole velcro thing...

PS: It's not a dump, it's a very fine looking Man Cave. It just needs a bit more evidence of use...

[latheman]

A few answering comments:

Obviously it was cleaned up and tidied up somewhat for the photos. but otherwise see my comments a few posts back. Note particularly the comment about having to tidy up or else I find myself with no bench space. Another point to consider is the actual space available. From a floor area of (from memory) 16' x 9', the free space in the middle is on average 4'6" x 9' which means I soon run out of floor space. Given that my eldest grandson, he of the gifted mental ability and uncanny practical ability comes over to use my stuff, two people in there end up doing the pasodoble. Which is another reason for keeping the place tidy.

Actually, there is now so little space available that I have to keep it tidy - there is little or no wasted wall space. I have even had to mount the miller on a movable trolley in order to get access into the white cupboard. Fortunately, I've no desire to obtain any more large equipment.

The floor is old carpet recovered from a bedroom after it was found to be well and truly damaged by the castors of the bed. Because it's old, and cut to fit around the legs of the benches etc it doesn't really matter what state it gets into. It's even been hit by the axe when chopping firewood! Actually, we have another carpet in the house just waiting to be downgraded....

Again, as stated somewhere above, cleaning after each session seems to keep it looking reasonable. I use a Vax Powa 4000 which at about 18 or more years old has been one of my better buys - it's just a pity that the replacement nozzle, a pattern part, does have internal ledges which makes it block up easily. The original was able to suck up absolutely anything big enough to go up the nozzle without blocking.

As far as evidence of use is concerned, this is a hobby, one of two actually. (The other is singing.) And as such it has to come after everything else, eg today I've assisted a friend with the purchase of a new printer, helped clean up after the tender ministrations of our 4 year old granddaughter (to be fair, SWMBO is suffering the after effects of one of these nasty bugs that are floating about), followed by getting the replacement chainsaw working and then cutting some wood up. By which time I've had enough for today - I am, afterall considerably nearer 70 than 60. But if you look carefully at the lathe photo, you will notice the missing paint off the back panel - caused by the chucks, chucking out all the cutting fluid etc, and although you can't see it, the marks go up the wall as well. Also, you can just about see marks on the tray caused by wear and tear. But yes, in general it doesn't look well used, but I assure you it is.

Why do I call it a dump? Well, how about I wanted to use a daft name which might create some feedback. But actually, it does seem to get used as a dump for all sorts of stuff - that is until I can get rid of it.

TTFN

Peter G. Shaw

[jim]

excellent use of space!!

[Davo J]

Hi Peter,
You have a nice shop their, don't worry about being clean as it's better to be clean and know where most things are than spend half the day trying to find something while tripping over stuff laying around. After looking at your photo's I noticed the back of the lathe and could tell it was well used.
I like your latest buys, they will come in handy, you guys are lucky over their with tooling you can get at the prices you do, because we have to buy from their and ship it over but it is still less expensive than buying from over here.
Keep up the good work, and I will look forward to seeing you projects.

Dave

[ieezitin]

Peter.

Great use of such a small space. I love those little stackable tray storage thingies.

I too like the idea of the mirror. 

Where you have that splash tray on the back of the lathe I have something similar in size and shape, but it’s made from stainless steel, I have directly overhead a two strip florescent light which bathes the machine with light and at the same time the stainless collects the unused light and pushes laterally towards me it helps a lot as my eyesight is getting worse.

What is it you make in this little heaven?.

God bless    Anthony

[latheman]

Anthony,

What do I make?

The short answer is nothing! Which then invites a lot of additional questions so here are a few answers.

First, some basic things: 1) I have no prior engineering expertise. Whilst it's true that at school I did use a die, did some brazing and soldering, and did use a metal working lathe on wood, that's all. 2) This is a hobby, and as such comes after other things. 3) I'm now at the age when I can indulge myself being retired and on a reasonable pension.

So, put all that together, and you have someone who wishes to learn how to use the equipment and has a small amount of spare time to spend on it - except that other things do have to be done, such as maintaining the house and garden etc. What this means is that I have bought the equipment with a view to learning how to use it, and if along the way I can use it to repair, or replace or adapt something then that's all to the good. But, and it's a big but, I do have lots of problems along the way, problems such as discovering that TCT tools are not the bee's knees they are made out to be. Which is why I am going back to HSS & high carbon steel (silver steel or drill rod). Problems such as drunken threads, turned steel which is anything but smooth, screwcutting under power at 125rpm (definitely not advised), and so on. All problems which any beginner has to overcome. Along the way, I've come to realise that I needed certain additional equipment, so I've built (again with various problems along the way) a simple indexer mechanism (the mandrel has 12 holes ready for this), a self releasing mandrel handle (avoids use of a mallet to release it), a filing rest (but not a particularly good design), modified a vertical slide for the 918 lathe to fit on mine, a parting off tool to Len Mason's hacksaw blade design but using an old 4" file ground down. And now I've bought all these castings etc to set myself up on the mill. Learning about accuracy, to turn parallel and to dimension (still difficult that last).

So, in essence then, I'm in it for self-education, and to make additional tooling as I go along.

Now you are probably thinking what a lot of expense for no obvious reason. Fair comment, but as the saying goes, I can't take it with me, so having spent the majority of my life being careful with money, eg camping/caravanning holidays in the UK, no flash or new cars, refusing in general to replace something just because it's old and out dated, and being careful with loans/mortgages etc I think I now have the right to spend some of the money I've saved. When all said and done, using the computer, going singing and learning about engineering all helps to keep the old brain cells ticking over.

In respect of lighting, you'll have noticed the three bench lights - one on the work bench, one on the lathe which can be swiveled through 90° to use on the miller as well, and a third on the miller (that one is a bit limited in it's adjustments). What doesn't show is that there are also two normal fluorescent strip lights on the ceiling (ceiling? Rafters actually!) mounted in a serial configuration giving 9 or 10' of light. So I'm pretty well off for lighting. But as you say, the old eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be and so for things like setting up the parting off tool which needs to be exactly right, I now use clip on lenses, and a magnifying glass.

The little storage tray thingies were bought as scrap metal from work. They would have gone to a scrap man as a job lot along with all the redundant equipment. They were actually used to hold spare components and consist of a moulded plastic divider a bit like a plastic cutlery drawer and then glued to a metal base which in turn then slides on a very crude set of metal sides. The whole device was originally designed to fit inside a steel cupboard which imparted rigidity to it. In my case it's free standing so can wobble a bit. But it does what I want and that's all that matters.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

[Jonny]

A little tip, board over the underside of the rafters. If apex roof put some insulation down as well, not only does it keep the heat in better it also keeps the noise down.
I have less working space than you.

In my shop i would give carpet less than 3 mins before smelling the burning and must put something down on concrete floor.
I did paint the floor, lasted a couple of hours too slippy when wet.

[Miner]

Latheman,
I think you have a great shop, Pretty well all the machine tools needed to make just about anything you want. It looks warm and well lit, What more does anyone need. You've obviously spent a great deal of time getting it set up for the way you work and want it.

Pete

[Stilldrillin]

Peter.
You have a great, but much too tidy workshop....... 

Your attitude towards cashflow at our age, completely mirrors mine! 

Long may it/ we, continue...... 

David D

[Davo J]

Nothing wrong with a guy spoiling himself after a life time of hard work and I hope you enjoy the hobby as we all do.
Also nothing wrong with having no projects, their are a lot of guys that just make more tools with their tools.

Dave

[DavidA]

You will have heard of the heat-death of the universe.

I find a similar situation with my wallet since I retired.

Every penny spent has to be accounted for.  I even run a spreadsheet projected into the next five years so I know (in theory) just how much I will have at any time during this period.

It can't account for the Cameron-Clegg effect though.

Dave.

[ieezitin]

Peter.

I will ditto what Davo said on tools making tools. A lot of people on here are into models or some form of hobby that require them to make some part or another, I personally don’t do either I just have a passion for machining and welding and I mainly make tooling or parts that are required for my farm.

You certainly have a lot to learn and that journey will be fun and educational to say the least, but very rewarding in the realm of self-achievement, nothing is more fulfilling to see your little piece that you have invested hours of thought coupled with diligence on your machine be produced and there before you sits the little threaded thingy, to most people it’s a simple little doodad of no consequence , but in your eyes you know every fraction of it and what it took to form it into its shape, the math alone is enough to keep the grey matter from turning blue.

I have been around this machining polava for many years, and every day I learn something new!, this site especially provides me with new free thinking ways to do stuff with so little.   In this caper be prepared to never stop learning.

Enjoy your investment.         Anthony.

[latheman]

A few more comments.

I've often thought about adding some sheets to the rafters: when all said and done the garage had asbestos sheets up there before I had them removed. Painted white it would certainly help with the lighting and heat insulation although as the south-west facing roller door is white painted steel, I'm not too sure how much a ceiling would help. But the main problem would be the loss of space. It doesn't show in the photos but some stuff does project upwards into that space. Another problem  is that of access to the electric cables as I still have notions of making some changes. But in truth, I just cant face the hassle of doing it.

Funnily enough I do run spreadsheets for the investments, and occasionally as a check on tax. I also have a huge database now going back decades holding most of my expenditure over time. Not much use really, but comes in a) when trying to work out old something is; b) how much, or how little, we paid for it; and c) when we went somewhere for a holiday. Now that the last of the kids has left (for now - it remains to be seen just what will happen over the next 12 months or so), and everything is paid off, financially we are ok, not rich, but ok. Let's face it, at our age, we're not really into new stuff - just replacement stuff.

Education and the learning curve. One of the things that gave me great pleasure was making, from silver steel, a 60° threading tool, and a three-edge countersink. Not the best I admit - apparently I overdid the initial heating, but nevertheless, that feeling of making a cutting tool that worked was superb. But free thinking ideas, yes: bogs's tramming tool, and his circular squares from tubing are two that immediately come to mind.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

[frogsuk]

I have just bought my 1st home lathe, also a Warco 220. Very well made... any info on it e.g. what faceplate will fit and any other info would be much appreciated. Love your workshop... something to aim for...

[latheman]

Hi frogsuk,

Now, I could spend lot's of time putting stuff on this forum here. Alternatively, and I think this is probably better, we could communicate via personal messages.

So, I've put a test message out to you. So if you've received it, then a quick reply to signify.

I have all the original advertising from Warco which may be of use, otherwise ask whatever you want and I'll try to answer.

I'm usually on most days.

Regards,

Peter

[frogsuk]

Thank you Peter... I got the test messages and will PM later with my questions

Kind Regards

Mike Inglis

[deepstar]

Hi folks,
hi is there any chance you  have a parts manual for your warco 220 lathe ???
any chance o fa copy
regards bill

[frogsuk]

Sorry I dont have one... What has gone wrong?

[S. Heslop]

About the flash thing. It's a common cheap trick to make a flash diffuser/ bouncer for built in camera flashes by taking an empty cigarette pack and reversing the foil inside so the shiny side faces in, then plopping that over your camera flash. The intense light then bounces through it.

It's used to make the flash softer with less hard edges (without buying expensive fancy equipment), or at least I think it is. I was a bit of a failed photographer...

But it should get the flash up and over the large wide angle lense.