Hope for basement machinists

Resolve that you're going to move the machine only an inch at a time, and it is amazing what you can do.

 
Eddyde said:
It's great to have a shop so close to home!
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My wife and I had very different reactions to a door out of our bedroom right into my 2car garage shop, as one can imagine. But after a decade of having to drive to work in my in-laws shop, I thought I’d truly died and gone to heaven. We have discussed putting a shop in the backyard but I’m spoiled now and don’t even want to have to walk that far anymore.
 
C-Bag said:
Useable is a very good word but means different things to everyone. I have long since let go of the desire for a huge shop. That is a desire not a need. 99%of my projects are smaller than a loaf of bread. And because my machine tools are there to make my custom fixtures and machines I use in manufacture neither the lathe or mill are used often at all. The proportion of time spent in the shop on either machine is pretty small. So it makes no sense to have large production style machines just sitting. It would be nice, but that old desire vs need again. My biggest need is easily accessible weather tight sheds where I can store the stuff seldom use but still need occasionally so I can free up space in the shop. That would make it usable.
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I think that is one of the hardest things to figure out, you want machines that are big enough to do anything you need to do, but not so big that you are just tying up resources (space, money, effort to move) with capacity you will never use.

A 10x20-something lathe (Atlas, SB, Logan, Import etc) is a good 12-18" shorter than most 12x36" lathes, which are themselves about a foot shorter than a 14x40. When every foot counts having a big machine when you never turn something more than 4" diameter or 12" long means you had to give something else up for capacity you don't need. Of course it is also really hard to add 2" to a lathe bed or mill table when you need that just a pinch more room.

A full size Bridgeport lists a foot print of 7x10 feet, some people have entire shops smaller than that. Some people have projects that won't fit on a Bridgeport.
 
The basement stairs for me were straight in from outside with the only wrinkle being that we have a dropped entry so the headroom at the bottom of the basement stairs is about 10”(?) less than the rest of the basement.

It wasn’t too bad to move my 12x24” (PM-1224T) lathe downstairs. I think once I’d taken the easily removed parts off it was maybe 700lbs. I do wish I’d taken it apart though, it was a lot of work to move it down in one piece.
I intend to post pictures once it’s up and running (Which is getting close!!!! Can’t wait)
 
I have a basement and a garage in Michigan. I can’t imagine putting a shop in the basement, my wife is pretty sensitive to fumes so I’d have to refrain from most chemicals or even cutting oil.

Fortunately we have an extra deep garage (one side) and she’s been kind enough to let me use what I need.

The basement is also additional living and storage space mostly finished.

John
 
My shop has been in the basement for over 20 years. It started in the garage, but even though it's heated and insulated it took an hour to recover the temperature drop every time a door was opened in the winter. Adding to that the machines would sweat profusely in the spring when the air temperature was warmer than the machines. I finally decided it was time to move everything inside where it could be used daily throughout the year.

In my case the only entrance to the basement is in the middle of the house. You have to go up 1 step from the garage to the kitchen. Through the kitchen (with an island on one side and the refrigerator on the other), through the dinette and into the family room. Then take a right turn to the stairs. There is a wall 4" away at the bottom of the staircase so another right-angle turn is necessary at that point.

Like others (including Johnny Cash) I took the machines apart and "one piece at a time" my assistant and I took them through the house, down the stairs and reassembled them. The larger machines like the Bridgeport mill, Sanford surface grinder, 25-ton hydraulic press, Sheldon lathe, Seneca Falls lathe, US Machine Tools horizontal mill, Jet drill press, and Racine power hacksaw were disassembled in the garage. Some of the smaller machines like the Startrite bandsaw, Delta/Rockwell belt/ disk sander, Black Diamond drill grinder, Greenerd Arbor press, Challenge 24x 36 cast iron surface plate, and the AMMCO shaper went down in one piece.

I did all the disassembly and reassembly and moved all but 2 pieces of the disassembled machines to the basement by myself. The 2 pieces that required help were the column of the Bridgeport (1,000 lbs.) and the motor/drive cabinet of the Sheldon lathe (800 lbs.). The only reason I hired a company to move them was the fact that I didn't have a stair climber dolly big enough to handle the weight, there were no rental units big enough to handle the job and purchasing one would have cost 4 times more than having it done.

Here's a picture of my assistant at the bottom of the stairs waiting to go back for another load of parts:
 

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projectnut said:
My shop has been in the basement for over 20 years. It started in the garage, but even though it's heated and insulated it took an hour to recover the temperature drop every time a door was opened in the winter. Adding to that the machines would sweat profusely in the spring when the air temperature was warmer than the machines. I finally decided it was time to move everything inside where it could be used daily throughout the year.

In my case the only entrance to the basement is in the middle of the house. You have to go up 1 step from the garage to the kitchen. Through the kitchen (with an island on one side and the refrigerator on the other), through the dinette and into the family room. Then take a right turn to the stairs. There is a wall 4" away at the bottom of the staircase so another right-angle turn is necessary at that point.

Like others (including Johnny Cash) I took the machines apart and "one piece at a time" my assistant and I took them through the house, down the stairs and reassembled them. The larger machines like the Bridgeport mill, Sanford surface grinder, 25-ton hydraulic press, Sheldon lathe, Seneca Falls lathe, US Machine Tools horizontal mill, Jet drill press, and Racine power hacksaw were disassembled in the garage. Some of the smaller machines like the Startrite bandsaw, Delta/Rockwell belt/ disk sander, Black Diamond drill grinder, Greenerd Arbor press, Challenge 24x 36 cast iron surface plate, and the AMMCO shaper went down in one piece.

I did all the disassembly and reassembly and moved all but 2 pieces of the disassembled machines to the basement by myself. The 2 pieces that required help were the column of the Bridgeport (1,000 lbs.) and the motor/drive cabinet of the Sheldon lathe (800 lbs.). The only reason I hired a company to move them was the fact that I didn't have a stair climber dolly big enough to handle the weight, there were no rental units big enough to handle the job and purchasing one would have cost 4 times more than having it done.

Here's a picture of my assistant at the bottom of the stairs waiting to go back for another load of parts:
Click to expand...
I can’t imagine moving a Bridgeport column down there. Unbelievable.
 
Living in the tidal plains of the SE Virginia coastal swamps, I must ask: What's a basement?
 
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