Bedroom Machine Shop Build

[wildo]

A bit more progress. The room walls have been painted and I put the brick wallpaper up tonight. It's a textured wallpaper and really does look like real brick. I like the warmth that it brings the room. I still need to put up the crown moulding, and paint the trim white. I'm also going to install a 20A outlet. Otherwise, the room prep is just about done.


I wrapped the wallpaper around the window opening, which was a bit of a challenge:


And I also started welding up the long bench. Not much to see here- just one leg finished. This is 2" square tubing 11 gauge and I'm stick welding it with 6013 rod. I only have a buzzbox welder and although I bought some 7018AC rods, they still don't weld well on AC. I can put down a decent enough bead with the 6013.

 

[wildo]

Good progress this weekend! I was able to finish up the welding on the main bench. Of course it still needs to be painted, but it finally started snowing here and is therefore too cold out for painting. I can do it later. The bench was designed to be three pieces so that I could get it through a tight hallway and narrow doorways of this house. I still need to order the leveling feet. The room isn't quite ready to have the bench installed, but honestly- how can I resist? I still need to put up the crown moulding, paint the baseboard trim, and install the flooring. In time...

 

[MachGeek]

Awesome design! I love the Murphy bed!

 

[tweinke]

Keep up the good work! Its been fun watching this evolve. Wish the wife would let me have my metal machines in the house. Thinking though I can not afford what it would take to make that happen

 

[wildo]

Keep up the good work! Its been fun watching this evolve. Wish the wife would let me have my metal machines in the house. Thinking though I can not afford what it would take to make that happen

Thanks! Yes, it's costing so much money. I'm just doing it a bit at a time as I can afford it.

 

[wildo]

Moving forward with this project! All of the trim has been painted (though some of it [around the doorway] still needs installed). That wraps up the last of the painting and I'm thrilled about that! I hate painting... But this project has been a good excuse to get yet one more room of my house painted. I've had this house for nearly a decade and still have rooms that I haven't repainted since I bought it. Just not a priority, you know? So yes, a good excuse to paint up another room, but glad it's done!

I decided to use Block Tiles for the flooring, which are plastic floor tiles intended for a garage floor. Chips should have a very hard time embedding, and liquids/oils won't hurt it. The one draw back that I realized after purchasing them is that installed directly over the hardwood floors- the tiles were LOUD to walk on. So I ended up purchasing some floating floor underlayment which both insulates and sound dampens the floor. A worthwhile investment, I'd say! I got the majority of the floor installed tonight, and I'll wrap up the perimeter cuts in the morning.

Leveling feet have been ordered for the bench, and I picked up the first machine for the room a couple days ago- a 4x6 bandsaw! Moving right along...

Got the crown moulding installed:






The brown border wraps around this corner of the room. The door trim has been painted and just needs installed.




Next up? Hmmm... Not sure. The lathe will be coming once my tax return hits. That'll likely be another month or two though. I'm maintaining a lookout for a sale on the HF 44" tool chest that'll go under the bench, but in all likelihood I'll probably wait for the tax return for that one too. I suppose it would be good to get the steel painted on the bench so that I can get it officially set in place for good. Ugh- I hate painting! This project will probably get put on hold for a while until the funding comes in. Perhaps I'll start on the murphy bed in the meantime, but I'm not sure. I have it designed though, so that's step one I guess.

I've also been contemplating dust/chip collection. My intention was to use a cyclone separator like woodworkers use. I need to do more research on this, as I'm not sure if the cyclones work OK with metal shavings and chips. Especially if the chips are long and stringy (aluminum). Further, I intended to power it all with a shop vac shoved off in the closet. This would make the suction hoses a good length- 10 feet or more. If anyone has experience along these lines, I'd sure be curious if there's lessons learned from your own projects!

 

[Fabrickator]

Very cool shop build and nice graphic design work. My 1/2 garage shop is shared with the wife's laundry room, so technically, it no bigger than what your doing. I've shoehorned a standing drill press, standing band saw, 60" Oliver wood lathe with a LMS Mini Mill on the bed of the wood lathe, a Grizzy G0602 lathe, roll away box and 6' bench it there with some storage cabinets

Good thing your single... no woman would put up with that! Keep us posted.

Rick

 

[wildo]

Moving right along...

The bench frame has been painted with truck bed liner paint. Turned out pretty nice and seems durable. I then drilled out all of the the 1/4" holes through the upper rails of the frame so I could screw the bench top to the frame itself. Since the bench top is 1.75" thick and the frame rails are 2" square stock, it would be hard to get a 1.5" screw in there. So I widened the holes on the lower side with a unibit.





I'm still waiting on the leveling feet to show up, and I can't actually fix the bench top to the frame before getting the toolbox installed. But I can get it all set in place and check out how it's looking. I'm really happy with it so far!



I did notice one "problem" that I didn't spot in the sketchup drawing. The dogleg bench is intended to be 30" deep just like the long bench. With the drill press sitting in the corner as planned, I'll need to scoot it pretty far towards the lathe in order to reach it. In fact, I'll have just about 24" of wasted space behind the press. This is making me consider getting a 24" deep dogleg bench instead of 30". This will allow the drill press to sit a little further back into the corner. I'll still have space behind it- but less space. I can utilize this for a cabinet or parts bins or... whatever. Anyway, I'm considering pretty strongly reducing the depth of the shorter bench to 24".



(Oh yeah- I got an awesome vintage Buffalo No. 15 drill press that I'm restoring. You can follow that project here.)

 

[FOMOGO]

Looking real good in there. I think a pair of slip on work shoes and a stiff brush for whisking any chips off yourself would go a long way toward mitigating the traveling swarf issue. Mike

 

[yendor]

I hope you placed something impervious under the tiles like a big old blue plastic tarp.
As oil will weep between the joints and migrate down to the hardwood floor.