Hope for basement machinists

[StevSmar]

…would have to have a ventilation system and air scrubber…

I was doing some woodworking last night and my wife was banging on the floor because she could smell the linseed oil I was using for finishing… I can see a ventilation system being in my future (need to upgrade the furnace to a sealed combustion chamber first so I don’t induce backdrafts). I’d just dump the air outside and pay for the heating costs, so I wouldn’t be scrubbing air.

My question is has anyone moved a shop OUT of the basement and what’s your thoughts after that. I dread moving because of the weight of everything in my garage. If I had to move it out of a basement. I’m dying there!!

When I was moving the 700lb lathe into the basement I winched it up a bit to see what it would be like. It went up about as easy as it went down. Though I do have a straight stair run.

 

[StevSmar]

....I threw some pictures up to make Dave jealous.

Wow, that’s a great gantry crane you have there!!!

 

[kiwi_007]

There are some well equipped basement shops throughout the world, if you really want a shop most seem to make it happen.
When I moved in here many years ago I had a lathe, mill, tools etc that needed to befitted in the basement, the basement did have a full size garage door, although a bit lacking in height and was at the back of the property from the street, and to get access to the garage door you had a 85deg and 90deg corner to negotiate on a fairly steep driveway.
The basement had mostly a dirt floor with about the area of a single car garage covered in asphalt that wasn't level.
After digging out some dirt I had a 5" concrete slab poured about the size of a single car garage so I had somewhere to put the mill/drill and lathe.
The next stage was to put everything else into storage for a while, then fit some pfc to either side of the bearers for the floor joists in 2 places and remove 3 concrete piles and part of a support wall and install a single wooden pile.
This enabled 87 tonne of dirt to be dug out a concrete block retaining wall and a new concrete floor poured.

In one of the photos you will see the dirt floor was approx 400mm higher than the existing concrete floor, that dirt floor had to be dug down 200 - 400mm lower than the existing concrete floor.

 

[Charles scozzari]

I get it, you just want me to cut my wrists. just kidding, have you completed your shop???? If not please do. thanks

 

[Ischgl99]

+1! This is exactly what has been burning a hole my brain. It’s one thing to go down but what about back up? In my instance going down my steep short driveway has been a real pucker factor.

My shop is in the basement and my wife asked me that question, I told her that is her job after I die . She said if I add any more machines, that day will be coming very soon! I guess the surface grinder needs to wait for her to start traveling for work again

I have an outside Bilco door entrance with concrete steps to the basement, very easy to skid up the equipment and use a flatbed wrecker to get them down. Last driver said it should be pretty easy to use the winch on a traditional wrecker to hoist them in and out. The PM1236T and Burke Millrite were both done skidded and lowered in with a flat bed, took less than a half hour each time to get them in. When we were looking for houses, my requirement was a basement I could use as a shop, and this was the best we found in a house we wanted. Pretty much all the houses around here have either a Bilco door entrance, or the attached garage is on the basement level with easy access to get equipment in. We saw one house that had a 40x40 detached shop with 15’ ceilings the owner used to restore trucks, would have been perfect, but sadly neither one of us liked the house.

 

[dkemppai]

Having built a couple of shops in basements in the last 20 years, I hope this is my last! Lessons learned were applied to the new house. Although it isn't really well organized (yet), and even the Bridgeport isn't in it's final home (yet, or even repainted!) you can get a feeling for what's here.

For me, machine tools belong in the basement. In our part of the world going from -30F to 90F seasonally is too hard on things. Inside, they're safe, warm, and dry!

We couldn't build a walk out on this property. It just wouldn't work. So the next thing was the ability to lift machinery in and out. That's done with access from the garage into the basement. Stairs are removable and lifted with the same chain fall used to move the equipment. Trusses were designed to bolt an I beam below them. Lift capacity is 4000lbs although the factor of safety is pretty high on that, so should be able to handle more if necessary. Stairs are mounted on a large french cleat on the wall, and moved out of the way. In general this didn't add much cost to the build, other than the 30' I beam and hardware to hang it. By planning early, the builders were able to accommodate everything wanted without changing the bid.

Access to the stairs is done through a 4 foot steel door with handicap threshold. If it won't fit through there, it isn't coming in. The Bridgeport is standard weight. I think the big surface grinder is close to the Bridgeport in weight. The router table is close to a ton. The lathe, maybe 1200lbs???. Everything else is easy in comparison.

The only real splurge was having the floor shot blasted before epoxy was applied. This is a pretty thin epoxy, so the shot blasted texture shows in places. However it's great for these old machines that like to mark their territory, just wipe it clean.

I'll find out how easy it is to remove stuff this spring. The Bridgeport is coming out for a paint job shortly. Dirty stuff (grinding, welding, wood work) happens in the outside garage. That's where the this machine will get cleaned up and checked out.

Maybe the only thing I would change would be to make the garage slightly deeper, and widen the 4' door some. But other than that I have no complaints. It's not like machines are moved in and out daily.

 

[C-Bag]

wow. how cool is that!

 

[woodchucker]

@dkemppai well done. looks like a good start.

 

[StevSmar]

@dkemppai that is really impressive!!! I love your access from the garage to the basement.

Not sure I’d like exercise equipment in my workshop, the sound of the ellipticals being used would make it hard to use the lathe (tongue in cheek of course!!!)

 

[Dabbler]

very impressive shop.