Nicks Man Cave in progress

[nickmckinney]

So I got talked into a new shop space that was triple the size of what I was originally thinking. I am currently moving into a stand alone 4300ft building that I locked in the lease for life at a reasonable max increase limit. I have moved too many times to want to experience it again with larger machines than those from my home garage business. No more worries about what the next rent increase is going to be for me anymore.

First thing to move was my Peterson TCM seat and guide machine. It had been delayed a few times over a week, so I had the bright idea to rent a U Haul truck since it was rated for 6000lbs and I only had 3000lbs to carry. The tie downs are rated for about 60lbs I learned, total bonehead dumba.. move on my part.

Before


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After


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And standing proud again. She is still nearly perfectly straight, lost some fins on the main motor, and totally lost the head power lift motor. We went through every single nut and bolt from the outside and made it all happy, replaced all the air locks, worked on all the bushings, it has never run better thankfully.

You should have seen us with a pallette jack under her back, 3 of us standing on it to counterbalance it all ready to jump off, and the forklift with no brakes lifting the whole thing sideways out of the truck!

 

[chuckorlando]

4300 is a nice little slice of heaven.

 

[nickmckinney]

I learned to spray nice automotive finishes at my first shop. A dream was to always have a dedicated spray area. The prior owner had already done the framing, roof and lighting. We added the walls, a set of fans and filters, and put it to use asap.



On the inside, its a bunch of small stuff I repaint for my main business.

Like new cover on this autoclave sterilizer. The one I repainted is on the bottom, these things lose their paint on top real fast as people use them as a shelf for the 270F cassette it uses. They constantly pull it out and place on top and rubbing paint at this temp over a few years and its down to the metal.

Its a picture artifact, the paint matches the plastic front perfectly in person. I paid extra to have it mixed to match and they keep the "potion" on file for me.

 

[nickmckinney]

Enco 8x30 mill

I picked this Enco Taiwan 8x30 mill up near new for pennies on the dollar, its the perfect size for a home garage IMHO. Miles better than any of the bench mill stuff, its about 900-1000lbs. I am getting a big brother for it, but this one will always stay with me as it runs on single phase, fits in the corner of the garage without too much space lost, and can do 90% of the mill work I need done (the other 10% is why the yet to be born big brother has a spot already set aside).

Biggest job I have done in this is resurface intake/exhaust surfaces on V8 heads using an Iscar 3" face mill. It had no problems doing that and keeping a good finish.



The nozzle you see on the side of the spindle is for compressed air, I am putting this on every machine now. Best $20 I have spent in a while.

 

[nickmckinney]

Picture of the wood table top, you can indicate it in X and Y to about 015



The old man still has the young punks beat



Here is the main thing its used for wood wise, we make these slots to allow toggle switches designed for metal to be attached to wood.



With this much space I set up a separate wood shop upstairs, need to get a bunch more tools in here for what we want to do.



One of the nicest presses I have ever used, if you look closely it has a 2 speed pump action. One is to move it fast, then swap to the other to apply the real pressure. I have made all sorts of jigs for this as you can see.



Crankshaft/camshaft polisher getting re-purposed. Its a 60" long belt 1" wide. Works great on a lathe to polish anything to a chrome finish.

 

[AirChunk]

Very nice.

 

[nickmckinney]

Current work in progress, I picked up a Comec/Peterson RG35 surfacer. Its basically a bench mill with no Y but a wide powerfeed X, a single speed head which will have a 13" diameter 10 stone option, a single point CBN cutter option mounted to a 13" diameter 1.5" thick (flywheel), or a 4-6" stone option with a turntable mounted to the regular table. So far we have cleaned up and lubed the head, I am going to run a new wire feed for it and waiting on that at the moment.