# More Organization



## BROCKWOOD (Oct 19, 2021)

This has been a tough project - but I've finally turned the page. Table came in a lot I won back in February. Didn't arrive until later. Got busy derusting the bare surface then adding a lower shelf right away & adding weight - so much weight that the solid rubber tires failed. Somewhere along the way my back acted up again - so surgery no 2. A friend brought the table outside, turned it over & cut the old casters off. Then my grandsons learned how to drill holes in steel & mounted the new tires (1600 pound capacity ea). Grandsons flipped the table & re-derusted the surface. Then it was just a matter of reassembling the lower shelf & erecting tool organizers. 2 rows for NMTB50 tool holders & the endcap that organizes both Van Norman 2 & Van Norman C collets. More to do - but such a milestone I had to share! Yes, back surgery complete & feeling stronger, more energized.


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## mmcmdl (Oct 19, 2021)

I took two days and re-arranged the garage this past weekend . Nothing left , but alot came in . One of these days I'll be somewhat organized , but at this point I don't know in what decade that will happen .


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## C-Bag (Oct 19, 2021)

Good job. I don’t know why true organization is so hard for me. I often feel like I don’t have all the pieces or vision to solve the problem so a particular mess seems to just stay until the right solution comes along. Then it’s getting to implementing it.

Part of the problem for me is I’ve spent a lot of time just trying to get something organized and it ended up being a disaster. Seems worse as I get older as it really has to make sense or i can’t find it and that’s worse then knowing what pile it used to be in.


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## mmcmdl (Oct 19, 2021)

In 2 weeks or so you'll start seeing pics of the piles that have accumulated in the basement and garage as part of my clean out process .


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## woodchucker (Oct 19, 2021)

my biggest problem is finishing. I get 95 % there, and can't figure out what to do with the 5%... and it festers, and I move it from one place to another, back.... rinse ... repeat.


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## BROCKWOOD (Oct 20, 2021)

I don't believe 'organization' is ever truly complete - at least not if new new tools / stock / projects / jobs are coming in. My shop is a 2 car garage that shares space with car parts & automotive equipment - so, I have to get creative with my organization. It has taken several friends to help move things around - I could only point where as it was. Let's see. Spare room cleaned up. Drafting table (3' x 6') moved from the woodshed which also has a lot of car parts. Then a 4' x 6' shelving unit full of car parts left the garage to take space in the woodshed. That made room for this workbench. All of my NMTB50 arbors & tool holders were on the garage floor, so making the rack for them on the new workbench seemed a no brainer. After that the collet rack just made sense. I saw where a guy here on this forum had the drawer space to mount a board & cut holes for a collet organizer. Very nice, simple & practical! I just don't have the space, so going vertical was my best solution - though more difficult to make. Overall a fun - though brain racking - project. 

This was my 1st exposure to sine errors. I usually plan out whatever I want to make on the computer using Paint. It's not fancy, but scaling is easy with the X & Y Pixel counts. Looks like this.




Couldn't get those numbers to work for a layout, so I drew it on the drafting table & glued that to the board. Cut that out & was finally in business. Living is learning & where there's a will:  There IS a way!

Drafting table for grins.




If you dream it, you can make it!


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## C-Bag (Oct 20, 2021)

In my 2car shop I’m down to filling nooks and crannies. I have an alley underneath my portable mill table that wasn’t wide enough for a parts bin until I got the solution. I picked up a really HD 3 stage slider years ago but it wasn’t long enough to fit across the mill cart but I remembered the aluminum channel that was given to me in a recent deal. It is the perfect length to support the slider so I can mount the parts bin sideway along with my ringroller and store a motor. And be able to get to each easily. I got the slider and channel mated but now need to cut a piece of old table top for the top of the slider. So close, but got production work to do first….


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## woodchucker (Oct 20, 2021)

C-Bag said:


> In my 2car shop I’m down to filling nooks and crannies. I have an alley underneath my portable mill table that wasn’t wide enough for a parts bin until I got the solution. I picked up a really HD 3 stage slider years ago but it wasn’t long enough to fit across the mill cart but I remembered the aluminum channel that was given to me in a recent deal. It is the perfect length to support the slider so I can mount the parts bin sideway along with my ringroller and store a motor. And be able to get to each easily. I got the slider and channel mated but now need to cut a piece of old table top for the top of the slider. So close, but got production work to do first….


damn it man... pics....


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## C-Bag (Oct 20, 2021)

Yup, I know the rule, too much blah blah, not enough pics   But it’s just the channel and slider in the hole right now. So I figured when I finish the final bodge I’d post pics.


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## projectnut (Oct 20, 2021)

BROCKWOOD said:


> I don't believe 'organization' is ever truly complete - at least not if new new tools / stock / projects / jobs are coming in. My shop is a 2 car garage that shares space with car parts & automotive equipment - so, I have to get creative with my organization. It has taken several friends to help move things around - I could only point where as it was. Let's see. Spare room cleaned up. Drafting table (3' x 6') moved from the woodshed which also has a lot of car parts. Then a 4' x 6' shelving unit full of car parts left the garage to take space in the woodshed. That made room for this workbench. All of my NMTB50 arbors & tool holders were on the garage floor, so making the rack for them on the new workbench seemed a no brainer. After that the collet rack just made sense. I saw where a guy here on this forum had the drawer space to mount a board & cut holes for a collet organizer. Very nice, simple & practical! I just don't have the space, so going vertical was my best solution - though more difficult to make. Overall a fun - though brain racking - project.
> 
> This was my 1st exposure to sine errors. I usually plan out whatever I want to make on the computer using Paint. It's not fancy, but scaling is easy with the X & Y Pixel counts. Looks like this.
> 
> ...


Is it just me, or is your drafting machine upside down?  I have the same machine on a 38" x 72" table.  I would find it difficult to work around the horizontal track and machine if it were in the same position as yours.  For the record I'm left handed.  I just learned to draw with the machine in the opposite orientation.

Here's a picture of my board and machine:


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## BROCKWOOD (Oct 20, 2021)

Nice table & setup projectnut! Yes, my arm is upside down on account of the table being a street sign just leaning against the wall. When I do get around to making a proper tilt mechanism, I'll have the option to put the arm on right side up. I too am left handed. I've grown to like having this orientation.


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## brino (Oct 20, 2021)

BROCKWOOD said:


> Drafting table for grins.





projectnut said:


> Here's a picture of my board and machine:



I love those!

I bet anyone of us could sit down at it and immediately know how to draw something!
No going to a cad software publishers site and looking for a how to PDF document or on-line forum to ask a question.
No youtube videos required for training.
No trying to remember which friggin menu path a certain command is buried in.
No having to remember which cryptic little icon someone dreamed up for a particular function.

......and best, the manufacturer cannot force you into a yearly subscription fee or shuffle all the menus/features with a new update!

I guess my age is showing.....or maybe just my Fusion-360 frustration!

Ignore me, carry on.

-brino


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## C-Bag (Oct 20, 2021)

I got one of the old really nice huge draftsman tables from the engineering dept at work. Most of them they just stuck outside when pc’s came in. The most sad was a hydraulic lift table that would go from a desk the standing height. It got set outside and all the internals were junk. Never did find out what happened to all the machines, probably in the scrap bin.

I sometimes wish I had that table but I can’t justify the room and as like all flat surfaces in the shop it would be covered in unorganized orphans inside of 5min. It’s why I limit myself to my welding table/hydraulic lift and my other portable workstation table. I HAVE to keep them clean or I don’t have anyplace to work!


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## woodchucker (Oct 20, 2021)

projectnut said:


> Is it just me, or is your drafting machine upside down?  I have the same machine on a 38" x 72" table.  I would find it difficult to work around the horizontal track and machine if it were in the same position as yours.  For the record I'm left handed.  I just learned to draw with the machine in the opposite orientation.
> 
> Here's a picture of my board and machine:


yep, looks upside down, but maybe he is a leftie, and the gantry is in the way.


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## pontiac428 (Oct 20, 2021)

I can get anything I want out of solidworks, but nothing is as quick or as conceptual as putting a pencil to paper.  I'd love to have a nice drafting table again.


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## C-Bag (Oct 20, 2021)

pontiac428 said:


> nothing is as quick or as conceptual as putting a pencil to paper


This is why I have a stack of graph paper tablets out in the shop. One 3/4 view with dimensions tells me everything in just a few minutes.


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## BROCKWOOD (Oct 21, 2021)

C-Bag said:


> This is why I have a stack of graph paper tablets out in the shop. One 3/4 view with dimensions tells me everything in just a few minutes.



Oh, but of course C-Bag! Only mine is a stack of IBM print paper gathered from my job in 1985. We were so wasteful in those days. Every print job included a blank page at the beginning & at the end just to account for the track feed. You might remember it; it's green & white bands each a measured 1" tall. I amassed about a 4' tall stack of this triplicate (plus carbon paper) trash LOL!!! Price was right.

Now my drafting paper is a similar story. It's 'C' sized Blueprint paper, a whole 200 pages still in the light sensitive  package that somehow got exposed - or degradated due to age. Once I'm told to throw it away .......... it's fare game! Only thing is that after 41 years it's fragile :-(


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## C-Bag (Oct 21, 2021)

Mine all date from the mid ‘90’s when I was working as a fabricator in two different packing houses. The first one I cleaned and modded the whole house and put in cat walks and a control room. I did all the ordering from a metal supply so I got to be good friends with the divers. That company was smart, they didn’t just give out calendars once a year, they gave out graph paper tablets in two sizes with every order I did. So I grabbed them. I did that whole packing house layout on those tablets freehand. Mostly just notes so I could wrap my head around how much and what sizes I needed. There was next to zero waste.

The second house the maintenance dept did the ordering so I raided their stash because nobody there needed them.

I ended up at one of the manufacturers making the equipment used in those packing houses and used a bunch of those tablets to do design updates. Those went directly to the fab dept and that got me thinking how to tell them exactly what I wanted on one piece of paper. Making clear drawings for others is the best way to hone your drawing skills.

At that time the engineering dept was a mess as they had been trying to implement this huge program that had been an ongoing project for over 5yrs and was obsolete and another guy was wanting to do the exact same thing in Excel. Generating huge sheets of plans that meant nothing and most of the clowns on the floor didn’t pay attention to anyway. So the guys in fab used to laugh at me when I’d give them a small piece of graph paper and say I need these parts. We got it done though.


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## matthewsx (Oct 21, 2021)

I have my dad's old portable drafting table, should break it out and start learning how to draw.

But, I also have a CNC project mill needing finished too....

John


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## BROCKWOOD (Oct 21, 2021)

C-Bag wrote: "... At that time the engineering dept was a mess as they had been trying to implement this huge program that had been an ongoing project for over 5yrs and was obsolete and another guy was wanting to do the exact same thing in Excel. Generating huge sheets of plans that meant nothing and most of the clowns on the floor didn’t pay attention to anyway. So the guys in fab used to laugh at me when I’d give them a small piece of graph paper and say I need these parts. We got it done though."

Yeah we would mark up our engineering prints in red to show corrections. It was referred to as bleeding on it. LOL. One day some bigwig walks in on me as I'm studying prints n checking my work. This was my 1st 'green' station complete start over upgrade where I was in charge of & responsible for everything. He didn't introduce himself or even say hello. He looked at all my bleeding on the print & started with, "So, you've decided to redesign the whole thing?" Them's fighting words to me even if coming from a stranger. My response? No Sir. I don't have time for that. However, if you compare this page you are looking at to others referring to this same system you will see that the DC+ & DC- are directly tied to each other & I didn't see how that would work. I lit into a long list of similar issues that I had to overcome. By the 1/2 hour mark he is trying to crawfish out the door. So I corralled him back behind the panels with another 30 minutes of errors. I felt he was whipped on enough & it was evident he was not going to be of any use with solutions. So I ended with. "That's another hour closer to the deadline & nothing accomplished. He didn't even say Bye when he left.

Another humorous moment. An engineer on an 8 phase project got the whole order of operations completely backwards. It fell on me to implement his plans in reverse order. This was a big year long project.  At 1 point in the conversion, the plan included using the DC+ of 1 source & returning it to the DC- of a different source. An easy fix really. But, I couldn't help but call the engineer. I can hear him flipping through schematics & in a quiet voice saying, "Oh $h*t, Oh $h*t, Oh $h*t, Oh $h*t, Oh $h*t." I had heart & asked if he was ready to hear the solution! When he heard that he was spared having to solve the issue, I could almost hear him looking up & saying Thank You to our God above!


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## C-Bag (Oct 21, 2021)

BROCKWOOD said:


> "So, you've decided to redesign the whole thing?" Them's fighting words to me even if coming from a stranger. My response? No Sir. I don't have time for that.


LOL! The last company I worked for was my last wage slave tour and it was almost like dying. You know where your whole life flashes before you, but in this case it was my whole career as a mechanic and always totally divorced from the design of the things I was tasked to work on and somehow make a living from that. So here I was in the belly of the beast so to speak working for the very outfit that I'd been working on their equipment and in many cases cussing their stupid machines. 

But I was lucky to get to fix something that I had experience on that literally nobody in this huge company had a clue about. And got to work with the two engineers who appreciated me and I them. But it was an insight into that world I never would have gotten. 

I'm not sure but out of probably 40-50 guys in assembly only two of us ever went up to engineering and asked WTH? My favorite was at the height of their silly spewing of nonsensical "prints" that basically were every possible permutation of the conveyor and the irrelevant parts were crossed out. It was 4 huge pages, and everything was crossed out. If I wasn't so fed up with all the stupidity it would have been hilarious as I went to the engineer, who then took it to the applications engineer, who took it to IT, who then took it to the head engineer, who then took it to the CEO, who just shrugged. I'm not sure but I think that finally killed the stupid prints. Its kinda like a headache you don't know exactly when it goes away just that it's gone sometime later.


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## C-Bag (Oct 21, 2021)

One of the things that really sunk in for me is I don’t really operate creatively in the digital world. My excuse is creativity is right brain and the whole computer thing like Brino so aptly described is so left brain. I don’t switch hemispheres quickly or easily. 

So my hats off to those that can somehow hold that idea in their head and go through all the contortions(for me) of dealing with a program that I’m sure is made by a totally left brain engineer for left brain kinda people.


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## tq60 (Oct 22, 2021)

A left handed machine like that is a bugger.

Ours came with great table and vtrac machine but left handed.

Flip over like above makes it right handed maybe.

We found A barrel of machines in the basement of an antique store in Bakersfield and found identical to ours but right hand complete for 10 bucks.

Same model we used in high school so.e time back.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk


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## BROCKWOOD (Nov 3, 2021)

This part is done. Now on to folding up sheet metal for clamp set extras!


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## BROCKWOOD (Nov 22, 2021)

So, this is a wrap on this project. Folded up my kit for tool clamp extras. Pics should be enough to justify something better than clamping between arbitrary pieces of steel & forming with a hammer.


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## woodchucker (Nov 22, 2021)

my first look, I thought the box was much bigger, took me a few to realize it was the black box.  Nicely done, I like the stepped risers.
your shop looks well organized.


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