How about some Tips N Tricks specific to the small machines and home shop spaces?

[RaisedByWolves]

And here I thought I was going to be able to use the small side of the garage for my lathe and milling machine…

Sounded like a great idea. Now I am worried about chips and whatnot with the water softener, the batteries for the solar system….

Sigh

You'll probably be fine, maybe some cardboard or luan covers.

We have electrical outlets exposed to chips at work and never have an issue.

 

[homebrewed]

My machining tools are (mostly) in the basement. I don a pair of "shop shoes" that live at the bottom of the stairs, and wear an apron to keep swarf off my shirt and pants (at least the parts down to my knees). It's not perfect but better than nothing.

I had thought about using a sticky pad setup to de-swarf the bottoms of my shoes but they turned out to be more expensive than I thought they should be.

Before putting _anything_ in the basement I sealed the floor with a brush-on water-based sealant. No concrete dust and the floor is easier to keep clean.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Here's something that is not specific to small shops, but I'm in the process of setting this up, so here it is.


Plumb and setup a remote drain for your compressor. Most of the time the compressor gets stuffed in a corner or other tight spot which makes it inconvenient if not impossible to get to the drain.

You do drain your compressor periodically, right?

I take a push on fitting and install that in place of the petcock and add a couple feet of the proper size tubing with a ball valve on the end. I like smaller tubing as it will force the water higher so you can empty it into a container or some other convenient location. I think this is 5/32", but 1/8" or anything up to 1/4" will be fine.

Too big and you need too much air to get the water to flow and it makes a mess.

Ill probably run this to my sump pump, but you can do whatever is convenient for your situation.

The Ovaltine can is a silencer/filter for this one lung compressor, cuts the noise down drastically in the small space.

 

[ChazzC]

IM a Toolmaker by trade and Im just setting up a small home shop.

Machine score and lathe setup.

Mini Mill Frankenbuild.

In the process I'm finding that what I'm accustomed to doing at work and in my full size shop in the garage, does not scale well to a basement shop inside of the living quarters. Chip control to keep metal bits from migrating on my shoes got me thinking about not only this, but also to the use of coolant and WD-40 and tracking that everywhere my wife does not want it.

For example, at work or in the garage I can spray and blow whatever wherever I want without concern, but with the small space in the basement shop this becomes an issue. Chips getting blown into/onto my compressor or stereo is not ideal, and coolant use can be downright wasteful.

Small tooling only requires small amounts of coolant, so looking around I found these 2oz needle tip applicators from Micro Mark and their brand of coolant Microflow Coolant.

Having received these and mixed up the coolant I found this very handy to put in just the right place in a small amount and the coolant seems to work pretty well. I mixed in 10% alcohol with the coolant, well, because I do things like that regularly as it aids in the evaporation of coolant residue and aids in wetting.

Having a spare applicator I filled that one with WD-40 from a dead can I had in the garage.

Here are the pair on my chemicals shelf ready to go.


View attachment 454042


Not sure why the WD-40 is black, but you can see that mixed to the proper concentration I have a half gallon of coolant pre mixed and have barely used any of the pint of concentrate. 2oz of concentrate maxes a half gallon of coolant.



Another idea I had was to hang my calipers up in a dedicated spot so its easily find them when needed.

I first did this in the garage, I was forever misplacing them and they need a "Home". Yes I cut the screw tips down with an air grinder.

View attachment 454043



I also did this in the basement shop, not so much so I don't misplace them, but to keep the bench neat and them out of the way.



View attachment 454048


You can also see my little bottle of diluted Anchrolube. The big 8oz bottle was a bit unwieldly and usually applied too much once I got it flowing, so the small bottle diluted 20% is just right.

The brown stuff in the small container between the two bottles of Anchor lube is the last of the sulfated SS cutting oil known to man. I keep this stashed away for only the most difficult cutting operations where nothing else will work. It is NASTY when you get it on your hands, but makes difficult to machine metals cut like butter.




So what have you found to be helpful specific to these small spaces.

I've had my stash (9oz) of genuine Lard Oil for 50± years: a little goes a long way.

Did you also use alcohol to dilute the Anchor Lube? If so, what flavor (IPA, Ethanol, Denatured)?

 

[RaisedByWolves]

I've had my stash (9oz) of genuine Lard Oil for 50± years: a little goes a long way.

Did you also use alcohol to dilute the Anchor Lube? If so, what flavor (IPA, Ethanol, Denatured)?

Nah, just water. Still too thick for my liking so I might spill some shiner bock in there.

I got some stuff in the mail today and was putting things away when an idear struck. LMS puts their lables on the bags that your item comes in and if you carefully peel the sticker off of the bag you can save it to help you reorder an item or even categorize them into what works and what dont.

My first saved label stuck to the side of my card catalog file.

 

[ChazzC]

Nah, just water. Still too thick for my liking so I might spill some shiner bock in there.

Thanks; guess I should have checked their site first – you can dilute with water up to 1|1 (don't waste good beer!):

I got some stuff in the mail today and was putting things away when an idear struck. LMS puts their lables on the bags that your item comes in and if you carefully peel the sticker off of the bag you can save it to help you reorder an item or even categorize them into what works and what dont.

I either keep extras/spares in the original bag:

or move the label to a sturdier bag; I like the ones that Bolt Depot use for all of their hardware:

Unfortunately, lately the ;abels that Bolt Depot is using don't peel off as cleanly; but the, maybe I already have enough:

I've got another 5 or six bags full of them.

 

[woodchucker]

tracking chips up from the basement is the second biggest NO NO for milady. As mentioned, I wear slip on clogs in the basement shop and take them off at the basement stair landing.

keeping chips controlled is a big job on my open mills and lathes. Have an open top metal box to slide around the mill vice. Use lots of plastic cardboard to quickly make chip guards on big parts, just tape and clamp together.

Chips still get away. A high power shop vac is the key. Also have a magnet on wheels for steel chips.

Oh the biggest NO NO, I only did ONCE. Used milady's oven to dry out welding rod. Did you know this puts off an odor that's almost impossible to remove? DAMHIKT

Just a thought.. if you get a hot plate (garage sale or store bought ) they are cheap, you can put it outside on low, and just put the tin container the rods come in on it standing and let it heat up the rods and get rid of the moisture that way.

 

[Road_Clam]

I have an extensive tooled up basement workshop. 11x29 lathe, benchtop mill, 3d printer , tig welder. Ive learned to manage the chips well. Low SF's, and custom chip guard shields. NO air blowing. Brush chips off only. Heavy usage of shop vac keeping floor clean. Dedicated basement shop shoes only.