What Do You Have In Your Workshop ?

[scaniaman]

Everything is in imperial. Perhaps you need to order again in Metric-------- should cure the tool problem.    

[Bikertov]

Oh dear - I seem to have opened up a Pandora's box with this thread, and a bit of tool envy too 

[Smoggy]

I don't need masses of fancy gear as I can step out of my front door and see where I work and have the key, an added benefit is access to a transporter van when required without the expense.

But one very useful gadget in my shed is a hydraulic motorcycle bench which makes life much easier doing the low jobs that I can't get back up from without making lots of noises.

[BroadAmbition]

What I would like is a plunge router battery powered.  Thing is no idea on size / power / make so I will be seeking advice from our own lads week expert - 'Wizard' and sometime before April pulling the trigger

Griff

[grendel]

Griff, I have the small makita battery hand router, that does come with a plunge attachment. this is only the first one that came up on my search

https://www.powertoolworld.co.uk/makita-drt50zjx3-18v-lxt-1-4-brushless-cordless-router-body-only-inc-extra-bases

though I think mine came with charger and spare battery too.

although only a small one it does seem to work pretty well. I am not sure they do a 1/2" one in cordless.

[Bikertov]

I grew up with my father having a small workshop for making model aeroplanes, boats, doing DIY etc, so it was a 'normal' thing to have at home.

So when I bought my second and 'forever' house 15 odd years ago,  I was determined to have a workshop of my own.  We did a LOT of work when we bought the house, almost demolishing it. Behind the attached garage, I had a room built with access off the kitchen/diner, that was from the outset designated the workshop, and is so called to this day.

Unfortunately, it doesn't resemble a workshop right now, and is used for bulk storage of food, cleaning and household stuff (we jokingly call it Tesco Express), a spare fridge/freezer, and general junk.

My garage is also a bit full of 'stuff', including my beloved bike, with not enough room to do much work, so even renovating the bike is challenging from a space perspective.

Tool-wise, I have only have modest collection compared to some of you guys ! I'm building up a set of cordless tools, having bought into the Makita CXT (12V) range. I currently have a combi hammer drill, impact driver, impact wrench, circular saw and multi-tool. Looking to add a jigsaw, angle drill and an SDS drill shortly. There is an old corded hammer drill, jigsaw, sheet sander, bench grinder and Dremel-style mini drill/tool.

Apart from the usual wide variety of DIY hand tools, including far too many sets of driver bits, there are automotive tools - axle stands, trolley jack, socket sets including impact sockets, torque wrench, spring compressors, ancient cylinder vacuum gauge, timing light etc. I also have a Ross-Tech VCDS Audi diagnostic cable / reader.

I have some precision tools from back in the day when I did more model engineering, electronics and model railway stuff, like my Unimat 3, a range of "numbered" drill bits, taps and dies, needle files etc. There is also various electrical/electronics stuff, like soldering irons, multi-meters, clamp meter, oscilloscope, CAT5 testers, cable tester/tracer, insulation tester, as well as breadboards and components, digital/analogue IC's

As and when I wind down from work, and get more ‘me time’ I hope to reclaim the workshop and do far more DIY, and build more of a collection of power hand and bench tools.

 

[ExSurveyor]

My workshop has more 'stuff' than I can find and less than I need

All of it is designed to mutilate wood.

I don't possess any car 'stuff' apart from cleaning gear as I have no mechanical ability or interest.

I can while away the hours looking for a tool I know I have while finding tools I don't need at the time.

The next project is to strip it out and set it all up properly.

[grendel]

Ok, you've asked for it now, I will let you see just how disorganized my workshop areas are at the moment

The engineering section

The woodwork and general section

The indoor ( electronics ) section, excuse the blurryness, I am still getting my head round a panorama shot.

As you can see, tidyness really needs to happen, sooner rather than later, just so I can get this easily useable.

[Bikertov]

On 26/12/2021 at 18:40, grendel said:

original, I have had it from new and bought it way back in the 80's, I have since bought some of the accessories, but didnt get the mill head, mainly because for a similar price I could get a whole mill that was more capable

My Unimat 3, although unused and under a dust sheet for many years now, has a wide range of accessories I got with it at the time.

From memory, I had various lathe related accessories - 3 and 4 jaw chucks, faceplate, tailstock chuck, live and dead centres, quick change toolpost, top slide, fixed steady, auto feed and various cutting tools, fly cutters etc

I also have the drill/mill pillar attachment, fine feed, milling table and machine vice, but without the spare motor, as well as the jigsaw table.

Many fun hours were spent using the lathe in my early teens making various things - and not just swarf. It also helped me in my Design & Technology O Level, as my school was not good with metalwork as they focussed more on woodwork. I even remember teaching my fellow pupils how to use the lathes there, because of the lack of teacher skills in the metal workshop 

[grendel]

I think my next 3 projects should be to tidy up various workshop areas, the one indoors and the two halves of conservatory, but I am afraid if I do tidy up, that I will no longer be able to find things.

Bah spoke too soon, my dust extraction system started making a funny noise, I was just reaching to shut it off when poof- all the lights went out, so now two of the projects have stalled and will need restarting, meanwhile the second bin bag of clothers that I found that had been kept for well long enough have been binned. and I am starting to get to useable surfaces to pile   arrange stuff that is useful and needs keeping onto rather than just the rubbish that was there.. anyway onwards and upwards, tomorrows job, dig my way to the old vax machine that was my dust extractor- I guess I should maybe have emptied it at some stage.

 

[grendel]

Ok a few hours hard work, sees me with just a pile of bits to go through, in case any small tools or components have crept in, it may not be what others call tidy, but I still know roughly where everything is, and I have space to work.

[ZimbiIV]

Far too tidy for any work being done.

Here's my tidy bench.

One of the tools I bought on the 28 Oct 1972, after the 1st 3 weeks of my apprenticeship and I had been told I was being let loose to work alone so I went out and bought a load of tools, these are all I kept when I retired 41 years later!

[grendel]

Well this is as tidy as it gets, only 2 more sections of workshop to go, however this does give me room to bring the model of broad ambition to the workbench so wiring can be done ( @broadambition ).

Amongst the debris piled up were indeed some tools, 2 small engineers squares and some drill bits, the smallest at 0.7mm

[Bikertov]

@grendel- 0.7mm drill bit ? So you do have some metric stuff 

I thought you might have number series drill bits too 

[grendel]

they were at the other end of the workspace

 

[grendel]

X

[grendel]

I also have a box of metric drill in 0.5mm steps, and a whole drawer unit with various sizes up to 12mm , and then there are the large sizes, some in Morse taper for the lathe.

[SteveO]

Ahh all this tool porn.  I just have the usual hand tools for wood and metalwork, plus a  wood lathe, a compound mitre saw, a drill press, a bench grinder and a few more bits and bobs.  I can do most things I need to with that lot. 

[grendel]

whoops, tools on offer in lidls today, an electric drill, some drill bits and a ceramic heater later and I escaped, then I went to sainsburys and spotted the heavy duty version of a henry on offer, £30 off, well that will replace the old vax I blew up yesterday. really I suppose I should bite the bullet and get a proper dust extraction system, now I have the cnc router but a hoover has dual purpose and can occasionally be bought inside to hoover the house too.

Todays task, dig out the corner containing the expired hoover, at least it will allow me to tidy that up, I think I should store other stuff there, and bring the new henry where I can easily empty it.

[Bikertov]

4 hours ago, grendel said:

whoops, tools on offer in lidls today, an electric drill, some drill bits and a ceramic heater later and I escaped, 

Damn you Grendel - I didn't want a ceramic heater, I didn't need a ceramic heater. I now own a ceramic heater 

So I will 'see' your ceramic heater, and raise you a digital hot air gun and a pair of magnetic trays (surprised you didn't spot those), along with some accessories for my mini rotary tool that I didn't know I needed.

Thanks for costing me over £50 today 

[grendel]

9 minutes ago, Bikertov said:

Damn you Grendel - I didn't want a ceramic heater, I didn't need a ceramic heater. I now own a ceramic heater 

So I will 'see' your ceramic heater, and raise you a digital hot air gun and a pair of magnetic trays (surprised you didn't spot those), along with some accessories for my mini rotary tool that I didn't know I needed.

Thanks for costing me over £50 today 

well I can trump even that, so after buying a henry hoover to replace my extract vax that had blown up, I got to thinking, this thinking ended up at axminster tools, where I was persuaded that their craft vacuum might not be man enough to run for hours while a cnc wood project was running, and ended up with the numatic NV750 vacuum, a axminster trade product,which at 3x the price he assured me i could run all day if i wished, so having purchased the adaptor to take the hose down to vacuum cleaner size, i came away with a brand new machine, and a pocket £400 lighter, so this means the henry can be reserved for indoors (or i mak move the hetty indoors and use the henry in the metals side of the workshop for clearing swarf.

the workshop has recieved  a superficial tidy to be able to fit the new vacuum.

[floydraser]

Small hammer C1969 when I was about 11 or 12. South Wigston High School, Mr Rose (Buddy), metalwork teacher. Would they allow children near a stonking great blow torch like the one I would have used to heat the rod for bending, then heat the head for case hardening? The one and only time I've ever used a shaper too.

[JanetAnne]

2 hours ago, floydraser said:

Would they allow children near a stonking great blow torch like the one I would have used to heat the rod for bending, then heat the head for case hardening? 

Not these days.

A couple of years ago my grandson had to design a clock for his technology gcse.  He designed it, the teacher ok'd the design. The teacher prepared the wood so grandson didn't get splinters, the teacher cut the parts out so grandson couldn't cut himself, teacher glued it together to protect grandson etc etc

It was at this point grandson piped up with "what you don't realise is I have just spent the whole weekend at my grumps workshop cutting up a scrap car with a plasma cutter and now I can't use glue?!"

"What's a plasma cutter?" says technology teacher 

Anyway, in my workshop there is a plasma cutter  

[Bikertov]

Elf'n'safety gone mad ...

[Smoggy]

55 minutes ago, JanetAnne said:

"What's a plasma cutter?" says technology teacher

That's one toy I've never used, oxy/acetylene,arc.mig,tig no problems but never played with a plasma cutter.

If you only have a small gas axe and need to cut a chunky plate of steel a good trick is to weld a small blob where you want to start and get it going there, once the cut has started it will carry on through the thick stuff fine.

I have a good collection of grinders of all sizes though and a chainsaw.