# Techee's Shop finally completed..a 20+ year odyessy



## Techee (May 26, 2017)

I started building my shop in the basement of our new house in 1994.  The house purchase came w/ an architect, & I had a stairway built  into the basement from the garage w/ a 40" wide door.

At that time I purchased a near new Smithy CB1220 lathe/mill/drill from a retired gentleman in Littleton w/ a work bench, tooling & a lot of metals for $2,000.  Looking back, it was a considerable amount of $$ for the Smithy.

Over the years I practiced & practiced became a crude hobby machinist.

In 2003 I purchased a new Lincoln Square Wave TIG PRO welder for  $1350 & taught myself to become A passable  welder & TIG welder on aluminum. The TIG welder is in my garage w/ adequate ventilation.

In In 2015 I started to get serious about upgrading & snagged a new Rong FU ( Central Machinery 8x29 milling machine) for $500 w/ a 20 piece set of end mills.

I was finally on my way!  All these years I hesitated to buy tooling for the Smithy & now I had an excuse to step up.

In December 2016, I decided to sell the Smithy( sold for $750) & buy new South Bend (Grizzly) 10K- 28" lathe.  I had been watching the price on this lathe for a quite a while & purchased it for $3095.  Since then I have purchased a Shars drill chuck, live center, boring bar kit & some additional measuring instruments.

I purchased IGaging DROs for the X,Y & Z axes of the Mill, & X & Y axes of the lathe. After lots of practice & a huge amount of help from this site & you-tube I am now turning into a C+ level hobby machinist.

My workshop is modest  space under the study in our cluster home.  Here are some pics.

I want to continue learning & eventually give back to all of you in the community!!


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## T Bredehoft (May 26, 2017)

Good looking shop, lotsa workbench space.


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## tweinke (May 26, 2017)

Amazing how a home shop evolves over time with changing skills and project types, especially for self taught types like many of us. Do not necessarily grade yourself to low because with teaching yourself that is a pretty high learning curve in and of itself. I figure any successful project whether its a repair or a gizmo if it works that's an A if not it was just a learning exercise. Making chips and learning here from the knowledge base of very talented individuals gives us average guys a higher grade too. Nice shop by the way!


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## RandyM (May 27, 2017)

Looks like heaven to me Techee.


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## richl (May 27, 2017)

Looking Good! Congrats on taking the time and finding the budget to get along this far.


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## FOMOGO (May 27, 2017)

Very nice space. Mike


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## dlane (May 28, 2017)

Looks good , wish my shop was closer to the house. 
One thing tho, the grinder table with cardboard boxs under it could be a bad problem, 
Don't ask me why I know


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## dlane (May 28, 2017)

With living quarters above


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## Techee (Jun 22, 2017)

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the positive comments. 

I must say that I enjoy being able to design & fabricate parts when the need arises.

I just had the welder out in complete a small project.  It was rewarding to be able to set the heat range pretty accurately & do some decent welds...after doing a bit of quite accurate machining.

The other neat part about the shop is....being in the basement its nice & cool down there when kit hot outside.


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## Matabele (Jun 25, 2017)

Awesome space you have there! I havn't seen that model of lathe before (well the Grizzly variant), looks great!


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