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Show me where you keep your milling / lathe tools!
- Thread starter Ben17484
- Start date
20 ft one way container ?
Currently I have a draw/workbench and I keep my drill chucks / mill chuck / fly cutter / tool holders etc etc. for my mill and lathe.
I’ve seen people who build brackets to hold shelving etc and attached to their mills / lathes and many other ways to efficiently hold these common lathe and mill tooling near their respective machines.
I’m looking for inspiration from people so I can make something to hold my tooling.
Pictures please
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My tool storage systems are shown at this link:
Tool Storage Mill & Lathe
This is how my tooling for the PM935 mill and PM1340 lathe are stored.
flic.kr
I welded up this stand for my benchtop mill (RF-30 clone), set the width to fit these wood drawers I had already. Also made the steel drawer on top to fill in the 4" space remaining above the 3 wood ones. (Not shown, cover on the sides to keep chips out of the drawer slides)
One wood drawer got a false-bottom, with a bunch of holes for all my R8 tooling. Since I don't have enough R8 stuff to fill that drawer (yet!) I put some other stuff in there too, and some duplicates of collets that don't need to be there, so I have lots of room to buy more R8 junk (metric collets, keyless chuck, who knows?)
The tallest tools (chuck and boring head) barely yet comfortably fit in the drawer, which is a happy accident.
The lathe stand (below) is older, made before I had a welder, so it's screwed together from plumbing pipe, with a plywood top. Surprisingly rigid, being anchored into the concrete wall in back in several places.
The steel drawers underneath are a Craigslist find, which just happened to fit so perfectly that I had to hoist the lathe + table up slightly, and trim some of the cast iron off the plumbing fittings, to slide it in. When I lowered the lathe, it now partly rests on the steel cabinet. There is still weight on the floor flanges at the bottom of the table, but less than before, so the drawer unit is a "press fit" it actually added more rigidity to the table! That perfect fit is also a happy accident, not planned ahead of time.
It's more storage than I need for the lathe, so some mill tooling is in there too.
As you can see, there are also blue plastic bins right under the lathe, those go all the way back to the back wall, lots of storage for smaller things.
One wood drawer got a false-bottom, with a bunch of holes for all my R8 tooling. Since I don't have enough R8 stuff to fill that drawer (yet!) I put some other stuff in there too, and some duplicates of collets that don't need to be there, so I have lots of room to buy more R8 junk (metric collets, keyless chuck, who knows?)
The tallest tools (chuck and boring head) barely yet comfortably fit in the drawer, which is a happy accident.
The lathe stand (below) is older, made before I had a welder, so it's screwed together from plumbing pipe, with a plywood top. Surprisingly rigid, being anchored into the concrete wall in back in several places.
The steel drawers underneath are a Craigslist find, which just happened to fit so perfectly that I had to hoist the lathe + table up slightly, and trim some of the cast iron off the plumbing fittings, to slide it in. When I lowered the lathe, it now partly rests on the steel cabinet. There is still weight on the floor flanges at the bottom of the table, but less than before, so the drawer unit is a "press fit" it actually added more rigidity to the table! That perfect fit is also a happy accident, not planned ahead of time.
It's more storage than I need for the lathe, so some mill tooling is in there too.
As you can see, there are also blue plastic bins right under the lathe, those go all the way back to the back wall, lots of storage for smaller things.
If you have a dovetail type QCTP (Aloris, Dorian & clones), you've probably seen the 3D printed holders for those. These for example (ebay link) are $14 for a set of 4, or "Make offer".
You could screw a bunch of those into the tire on a wheel from your outdoor grill, or a bigger wheel (bicycle?) if you have more holders. Dont screw into a pneumatic tire though.
I have 7 steel card file drawer units, 8 drawers high with 12" wide drawers 4" high, they originally had dividers down the center of the drawers, but they were removed, these hold most of the mill and lathe tooling, except for a 4 drawer letter size filing cabinet which has a wooden raised platform drilled with holes in it that holds short mill arbors and adaptors for the 30 and 40 taper tooling, for insert storage, I have a couple of plastic drawer units, for the lathe, also for storage of die head chasers, For Aloris tooling I have a back bench in front of the lathe with a shelf and drawer with doors to enclose it, on the back of the bench top is a rack for the Aloris holders, on one side is a wood block drilled with several holes for taper tooling and a slotted rack for files. I made several of the back benches that serve my surface grinder and Gorton D bit grinders, all made of oak lumber with paneled doors and sides with one drawer and 1 shelf. My Alois holding rack uses 10 ga. flat metal with a 45deg angle bent on one edge to receive the holder, they are about 3" wide on the flat part so that the holders, once hung on the angled part, the flat part of the holder
rests against the flat portion, these are fastened to vertical pieces of angle iron attached to the bench top.
rests against the flat portion, these are fastened to vertical pieces of angle iron attached to the bench top.
I just keep it all in drawers now. Keeps the clutter down, something I have to work hard for in every other space. The mill is left of frame, lathe opposite the mill to the right, all in a 12'x12’ partition, so the rollaway is central to machine work.
just wanted to comment on @davidpbest documenting his shop. Should his building ever burn down, or be broken into, he has a record (maybe not fully current) for insurance. Folks, it's a great idea to do this so that you have an off site record.
But there is another risk of making it public. You are documenting where things are. So consider making it a private record. You don't want someone knowing where you live or your tools live, and where you store things. Unless of course you have a big dog that likes to chew on some unwanted intruder.
David has one of the nicest basement shops I have seen. His is constructed so well. Even the way he did his machine ingress/egress .. it's very impressive. I'm sure there are others, but David documented it, and the space he has to work and layout is fantastic. If you haven't seen it, it's worth watching his videos as well.
But there is another risk of making it public. You are documenting where things are. So consider making it a private record. You don't want someone knowing where you live or your tools live, and where you store things. Unless of course you have a big dog that likes to chew on some unwanted intruder.
David has one of the nicest basement shops I have seen. His is constructed so well. Even the way he did his machine ingress/egress .. it's very impressive. I'm sure there are others, but David documented it, and the space he has to work and layout is fantastic. If you haven't seen it, it's worth watching his videos as well.