My original shop was (is) in the basement of my parents' house (getting the tools in there was quite the ordeal, and I don't look forward to getting them out), and consists of a 9x42 Bridgeport j-head milling machine (which can be seen on the left), a 10x29" South Bend Lathe (not visible), 14" Walker-Turner Bandsaw (on the right, behind one of the bikes), and various support and measuring tools. This was my primary machine shop, where I did nearly all of the projects on this page, up until ~October 2010.
The shop has been cleaned since these pictures were taken. Keeping the shop clean was very difficult while in college, since I was either in blitz mode to finish a project before leaving for school again, or I was just trying to get all the machines bundled up with rust-preventative to endure the 4 months of storage.
Current Machine Tools
For the my home shop, I am on my third milling machine and second lathe. They are adequate for most general work. I like them enough that I plan on keeping them, even when I have more space and additional (hopefully nicer) replacements (update June 2011: I still have the machines, after acquiring more space and much nicer replacements. See "Main Shop" page).
For high-precision or extremely complicated jobs, I have access to the better quality (and larger) machine tools at my former work, including the cnc lathe, vertical machining center, and cnc waterjet.
9x42 Bridgeport J-head Milling Machine
This was my go-to for all milling, drilling, reaming, and boring needs. The head is a step-pulley head which I bought rebuilt in 2007. It's still one of my favorite Bridgeports to use, because it is so smooth. No power feed or DRO does slow things down, however.
On the table is an SPI knockoff of the class Kurt AngleLock vise, 1HP variable-frequency drive (VFD) (the white box on the left) and a 10" Kearney and Trecker universal dividing head.
The body of the machine is from the mid-1950s. The table and knee ways were in decent shape, showing original flaking, but the "y-axis" ways had lost a way cover and showed significant wear and scoring. Furthermore, the gib was severely worn and had been shimmed at some point in its life. Using a micrometer across dowel pins, I measured at least 0.003" of wear in the center of the crosslide ways. As such, i re-scraped the ways to within 0.0003" along their length at Hund Machiney in Oakland. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the process, but needless to say, getting to flip a 2,000lb chunk of iron upside down using a bridge crane is both surreal, scary, and good fun.
I prefer the step-pulley head over variable speed heads because the VFD allows infinite and easy speed adjustment without stopping the machine anyways, and the variable speed heads are louder, vibrate more, and require more maintenance.
10x29" South Bend "Heavy Ten" Lathe
This lathe was bought in 2004 off of craiglist. While the spindle bearings were severely out of adjustment, there was almost no tooling, and the bed was pretty worn, I am still quite happy with the purchase. Based on the serial number, the lathe was made sometime in 1958.
I rebuilt the lathe in highschool, including fixing the spindle bearings, planing and re-scraping the bed, and scraping in the crosslide and tailstock. The test bar I cut when I finished was of uniform diameter to within 0.0003" over an 8" length. I would consider that a success. (The picture below is a link to the rebuild writeup)
This lathe is light enough for 5C collet work, while still being rigid enough for general turning. Since getting my 13x32" Nebel (3600rpm, 5hp spindle, 3800lbs), however, the South Bend really only gets used for jewelery and small, light jobs.
14" Walker-Turner Bandsaw
This bandsaw only has one speed, which is only suitable for wood and aluminum. Eventually I'll retrofit a gearbox onto it to slow it enough for steel. Walker-Turners are rigid enough to handle it, that's for sure.
First though, i need to do some safety updates. The drive belt is completely unprotected, and the on/off switch is broken, so it can only be turned on or off by plugging or unplugging it. Luckily it is the most infrequently used tool in the shop.
Measuring and Support Tools
Machining requires significant support tooling. The machine tools are the most obvious requirement for a shop, but alone they do nothing. A milling machine without all of the support equipment is like having a full kitchen range without any utensils, pots, and pans. Furthermore, without a full range of micrometers, indicators, surface plates, gauges, and reference blocks, a shop cannot check, let alone qualify the accuracy of its work.
It takes ages to acquire all of this tooling, but pictured is a bit of what I've picked up in order to facilitate basic work.
The toolchest to the left contains most of my fragile precision measuring tools, as well as some of my more valued cutters.
The photos below are clickable and show captions when enlarged.
Metal (Ingredients)
I like to keep my work small, to keep materials costs down. Pictured is my "materials drawer" where much of my metal is kept. Aluminum is in the foreground, while brass, bronze, titanium, and steel are in the background.
Old Machine Tools
Early on my taste in machine tools was less discerning, and my budget smaller. Some of the tools I no longer have pictures of, but my first lathe was a 1918 13x36 South Bend, my first mill a 9x40 horizontal mill from 1895 with a vertical conversion head from circa 1942. My second milling machine was an Atlas benchtop horizontal mill, which had simply too small of a work-envelope and too-little tooling to be useful. It was cute though!