CNCCookbook: Workshop

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Workshops and Machines

This page is about my small workshop and I'll also want to walk you through some of the excellent workshops others have created. There is a lot of inspiration to be had there.

I'm usually behind the camera, but I thought you should see it really is me running the machines!

My Home Shop

As I write this, my shop is about the size of a 2 stall garage, though it is not laid out as such. I have a small room (actually slightly smaller than one stall) where the machines live that is adjacent to my garage. The garage itself is three stalls wide, but my show borrows an additional single stall of space at present. Of course it is in constant need of organizational upgrades, and so it is a work in progress like a lot of shops.

I build all sorts of things in the shop, but mostly tooling. Aside from tooling I've done gunsmithing, automotive, PC customization, and whatever strikes my fancy. When you have a machine shop in the garage there isn't much holding you back!

The best feature so far has been the wall organizer system which is bar none the nicest help to getting organized I have yet seen. In fact, I'm going to wind up blowing the budget putting this stuff in a lot more places than I had originally planned. Still, a well organized shop is a happy, clean, and neat shop, or at least it could be if I would keep it so. Hmmm.

Most of these pictures are a bit dated. There's a lot more junk in the shop, the wall organizer system is loaded with goodies, and I desperately need to give the shop a thorough cleaning followed by rephotographing everything. Too many other projects ahead of that pious effort though!

Floor Plan

Above is the general layout of the machine room. The door at lower right opens onto the big garage. There are several machines in the room, including a lathe, a mill, a bandsaw, a tool grinder, and a drill press. There is an area dedicated to layout, with a granite surface plate as well. There is a fantastic view of Monterey Bay right out the windows. Very inspirational!

Wall Organizer

That red wall organizer system works as well as it looks!

This cool product can be found at WallOrganizer.com. I had originally intended to install ordinary pegboard, and was looking for a site that had tons of cool pegboard accessories. This stuff is much better than pegboard! With it, you can really organize your shop nicely. It's not cheap, but I thought it was worth every penny. The panels are galvanized heavy gauge steel, and can be had in a variety of colors. I like my "Racer Red" because it matches a lot of red accents in the adjoining garage. A variety of accessories are available, and the panels accept normal pegboard items as well. So far I have exclusively been using the slots, which seem a lot stronger.

I started with their deluxe workshop kit and some extra panels. You will find it isn't enough, but it will get you a prototype to help you plan the remainder of the job. In other words, it has a smattering of all their basic wallboard fixtures that you can play with to decide what kind of layout works best before ordering more.

Measurement and Layout Area

The Measurement and Layout Area with Surface Plate...

There are a lot of specialized tools involved in measurement and layout, and I like to keep them all together where they can be organized. The center piece of this area is my granite surface plate with digital height gage. If you don't have one of these, you're missing out because they really expand your capabilities for precision and are not all that expensive. I don't know what I'd do without the gadgets in this end of my shop.

Small Parts and Cutting Stock Organizer

Parts and Material Storage Rack

Any home shop accumulates a ton of little bits and pieces that need to be organized as well as needing to organize the raw materials. My brother and I built this rack from hardboard and pine in a quick few hours with a circular saw and dado blade. The idea was to create small cubbies that are perfect for the small plastic parts organizers you see on the far left. It's a very efficient utilizer of space that gives me a lot of capacity. Of course the red matches the wall organizer and looks good in the shop as well!

Label the plastic parts organizers on the top and side...

Here's something else I started doing that saves me a step. I keep my hardware in the organizer boxes by size. I find it saves me time if I keep the tap and die in the box instead of in the tap and die set:

Taps and Dies are kept with the hardware for easy access. Eventually I'll keep the correct bit for the tap there as well when I get some extras.

PC and CNC Mini-Router

Lathe

Industrial Hobbies Mill and Drill Press

A manual mill...

And a CNC mill...

Tool Boxes

Two toolboxes are full of tooling for lathe and mill. Gray boxes on left are a stack of Huot holders for drill bits, end mills, and taps. The desk organizer on the left keeps the little bits straight, and the plastic box is one of several I use to keep parts together for projects that are in progress.

Welding Station

A welding station I built on top of a rolling tool chest.

Machines I Have Known

	Machine Lathe Notes, tips, modifications, and reference materials for the machine lathe. Mine is a Lathemaster 9x30.
	Milling Machine My notes, tips, modifications, and reference materials for my Industrial Hobbies milling machine.
	Measuring and Layout Measuring and layout are the foundations for precision.
	Welding Kit Welding Kit. I've always liked that English turn of phrase, which does not mean "some assembly required", but rather, "here's all my welding related stuff." I've picked up a nice Miller Tig on eBay, an ESAB plasma cutter that is probably too powerful, and an oxy-fuel rig I've had for years for heating up stubborn rusted stuff I needed to get loose. I took two semesters of community college course of welding self-enrichment, which I enjoyed tremendously.
	Other Machines Drill press, grinders, buffers, air tools, and bandsaws: Oh my! And don't forget Blanch, the mini-Blanchard "swing" grinder I got to use as a surface grinder until my shop space can be expanded enough for a regular surface grinder.

Home Shop Hall of Fame

What consitutes a Great Home Shop worthy of inclusion in the Hall of Fame? These are photos and short bios I've collected during my Internet travels of fellow home shop machinists that I was really impressed by. Hopefully they don't mind the hero worship!

Note that there are many more great home machinists I list on my web links page. It isn't that those on this page are better machinists, but rather that they presented their workshops and it is those shops that really appealed to me. Some of the great machinists never show a photo of a shop, so it would be hard to credit them here. I wish someone would publish a coffee table book about great home workshops, similar to the Ultimate Garages book which I enjoyed so much.