setting up my workshop

[meancoyote]

I plan to build windmills, pedal power stuff, and other things. First I need to set up my workshop, this is what I got so far. Im looking for suggestions on how to improve it for bike building.
prolly will do most of my work here, its a metal table with a chopsaw and vise,
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a63/meancoyote/100_4131.jpg
this is what I have for drilling, milling and turning,
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a63/meancoyote/100_4129.jpg
my grinders,
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a63/meancoyote/100_4130.jpg
my forge,
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a63/meancoyote/100_4132.jpg

[meancoyote]

I also have a press and welding stuff,
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a63/meancoyote/100_4133.jpg
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a63/meancoyote/100_4128.jpg

[nzvet]

Im looking for suggestions on how to improve it for bike building.

meancoyote - considering my bike workshop consists of:
a wooden table
a vice
a set of files
a hacksaw
and gas bottles,

I couldn't see how I would possibly improve yours! Am sooooo jealous!!:D. You're undoubtedly set up to turn out some magnificant creations. Well done!

Best regards

[gbbwolf]

You don't want to see my workshop. Seeing how it consists of an angle grinder, a 4 inch vise, a hand drill,a borrowed mig welder,and a concrete pad to work on LOL Trash cans hold all my cut up bicycles I use for parts.
And my shed is maybe 6 feet wide by 4 feet deep. I am so jealous.

Wow I'm depressed now LMAO

[n9viw]

Wow, nice pics! I want to be you when I grow up! :D I like the forge particularly, something I'm looking forward to setting up at my new digs (once we move there). Nice layout to the shops, too- room to move around, but things close to hand, too. A question: why more than one drill press? Also, what make is that multimachine, and how do you like it?

My shop, unfortunately, doubles as storage (it's technically a 2 car garage, but it hasn't had even one car in it for years now), so it's rather crowded. Not a lot of floor space when it's taken up with three wood stoves, two motorcycles, a diesel engine and drivetrain, engine hoist and stand, my non-functioning Linde VI-253 GMAW, four bicycles, and several piles of bike frames, wheels, and various parts.

As for the amenities, I have my SMAW, 6" rotary swivel vise, hand and bench grinders, reciprocators, two 20-gal compressors, hand drills, a table saw, and various hand tools. I also have 32 square feet of workbench space, although most of it is just a repository for stuff I forgot to put away or worked on and then had to leave unfinished. :">

Future plans include a good GMAW, tubing bender, press, and some sort of mill/lathe/shaper setup. I'm leaning toward the Gingery Scrap Workshop, but might try one of those HFT multi-machines if I'm feeling daring.

[SirJoey]

Wow, nice setup, Coyote! Looks like you're ready to go into business! Must be nice!

http://64.136.20.22/1280460_l.gif?download=1

[Doc Hollywood]

What about getting a plasma cutter?

[Patrike]

Hey MC

:eek: You d@&& well better build some nice stuff -- with all that setup you have no excuses -- can't wait to see what comes out of there !!;)

Later
Patrick

[meancoyote]

What about getting a plasma cutter?

Its on the list, but Im kinda poor so I will prolly get a oxy/fuel setup first. Ive been keeping an eye on craigslist for one though. I also thought of getting a tube bender and notcher too. I orderd the gingery book about building a bender off amazon, along with bicycle builders bonanza. cant wait to read them. anyone got plans for a tube notcher?

[meancoyote]

You don't want to see my workshop. Seeing how it consists of an angle grinder, a 4 inch vise, a hand drill,a borrowed mig welder,and a concrete pad to work on LOL Trash cans hold all my cut up bicycles I use for parts.
And my shed is maybe 6 feet wide by 4 feet deep. I am so jealous.

Wow I'm depressed now LMAO
Im jealous of your concrete pad. I would love a flat place for layout work.

[gbbwolf]

I'll bring my wheel barrow and some bags of concrete lol we can swap....
Concrete is easy just need to make forms and level them out.
If you form it yourself and get some concrete in bags.
I could do a nice 10x12 pad for less than you would think.

[Pagan Wizard]

WOW!!!!! I wish I had that kind of space to work with. Compliments of my brother, I can't even walk in my own friggin garage. :mad:

[meancoyote]

A question: why more than one drill press? Also, what make is that multimachine, and how do you like it?

The reason for more then one drill press, is so I can have them setup to do 2 different types of work at the same time. The plan is I can have one setup for notching while the other can still drill. Also the speed range of the presses are not the same, the bigger one can drill as slow as 120rpm, but the small one can only go down to 600rpm. The multi-machine is a Smithy midas 1220, I did not really pic it out, I orderd the catalog from the company, my wife saw me looking at it and ordered it for me as a surprise, I would have ordered a seperate mill and lathe. I do like the machine though, as a lathe it is very good, the mill is ok. They both work as advertised, the only issue is the time to go from milling to turning or turning to milling. I do like that it dont take much space, and the costomer service is much better then harbor freight. If you mostly do lathe work, and just some milling, it is good. I have a milling atachment for the lathe, and I use that alot more then I use the actual mill.
http://www.smithy.com/product_home.php?cid=23&scid=24&pid=1014

[Patrike]

I did not really pic it out, I orderd the catalog from the company, my wife saw me looking at it and ordered it for me as a surprise, I would have ordered a seperate mill and lathe. http://www.smithy.com/product_home.php?cid=23&scid=24&pid=1014

Nice -- Space for my hobby is hard to come by so that would by a nice unit to fit at the front of the garage if I put that thing over there, through this crap out, move that stuff over here......

My wife and I have an understanding - she doesn't try to guess what tools I like and we stay married-a simple and loving relationship:p

Patrick

[savarin]

I am soooooooo jealous. She who must be obeyed will not release the funds for a 3in1.

[mvk2604]

Tube Bender

http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/tube-bender/tube-bender.html

[TheKid]

Unless you could find most of the steel to build that bender, it will cost more to buy the materials than to buy one. I saw that site a couple of years ago and thought it was great, until I saw the cost of the materials.

[Richie Rich]

I have to vote with TheKid on that one. Kinda pricey.
I'll stick with my yard sale bender. Simple and cheap.....just like its owner. :rolleyes:

http://tinyurl.com/6foz8r

...Richie >>

[TheKid]

I also found it's a lot cheaper to go to a local muffler shop to have larger size tubing bent for you. I needed a 4' long piece of 2" tubing bent at both ends, and they charged me 10 bucks. Anything else I needed bends on were smaller and I just used my EMT benders. I bought the 1/2", 3/4" and 1" hickeys at a garage sale for 5 bucks for the 3 of them.

[Richie Rich]

'Kid'...do you like the hickey better than the curved conduit bender? I've never tried a hickey, but it looks like you could make a sharper radius bend with one. Just wondering.....

....Richie >>

[TheKid]

I thought they were all hickeys. I don't remember seeing an EMT bender that wasn't curved. Live and learn.

[Richie Rich]

Yeah, they're actually two different animals that do the same thing.
This is a 'Hickey'.....

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/100/259281656_d66c0b3fb1_o.jpg

"Every day is a Learning Experience" :)

......Richie >>
.

[TheKid]

I don't have hickeys. I have the curved type. Those hickeys look like it would be easy to crimp the tubing.

[locolarry]

I used to get and give a different type of hickey in high school:rolleyes:

[mvk2604]

The reason I posted the tube bender plans page was to see if someone could reverse engineer a cheaper way of doing this. A hickey tends to crimp tubing and benders seem to avoid it more by moving the tube around the form. But my understanding may be flawed in that some of the material I use is tubing as opposed to pipe.Which was brought to my attention when I was going to buy an hydraulic bender from HF. Tubing and pipe are sized different. Not much but maybe enough to throw a kink in everything. And it could be I havent worked enough with the material to learn the tricks....(bending too fast, too slow ....) (Or I dont know DOO-DOO.. which wouldnt surprise me either... LMAO.):)

[TheKid]

It's stilll pretty easy to crimp tubing in a hydraulic bender, especially the cheap ones. The dies don't last forever, and even if you have your tubing bent at a muffler shop, their dies may not be up to par. Some won't buy new dies, because muffler pipe doesn't have any stress on it, and a little crimp or imperfection is no big deal. They'll wait until it's absolutely necessary to replace a die. Again, I'd only go there for bending tubing larger than 1" EMT, but I learned to ask first if their benders leave crimps.
The advantages of a hydraulic bender are speed and ease, and unless you plan on usig it often, it just doesn't pay, unless you could find one used at a good price.

[Richie Rich]

A few years ago, I built a home-brew hydraulic pipe bender. A rusty bed frame, a leaky bottle jack and some old skateboard wheels and I was in business. The only thing I bought online was the curved arbor....

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/95/243372951_da50098bf0.jpg

It works great for thick walled tubing or heavy pipe, but it crimps EMT tubing. An olde-tymer showed me how to prevent crimping. Fill the tubing tight with packed fine beach sand and cap the ends with wooden plugs. The tubing can't crimp or kink due to the sand occupying all of the space inside.

It does work...!!

.....Richie >>
.

[AtomicZombie]

Nice system!

Brad

[TheKid]

I have plenty of bed frames. Now all I have to do is find a jack. I'm assuming the wheels from a floor jack will serve the same purpose, or I'll look for a skateboard too. I guess I'll have to buy the die, unless I could make one from a bent piece of pipe. I like that sand idea. Thanks for sharing.

[Richie Rich]

The skateboard wheels are a bit soft, but that's all I had in the "Junque Pyle" at the time. I'd suggest harder wheels if you plan on rolling your own bender.

The die came from Harbor Freight as a replacement item for their bender.

.....RR.....

[TheKid]

I went there, but when I searched for the die, they only showed whole benders. I did manage to find a die that bends up to 1 1/2" square tube, but it costs $80. I'll stick to cutting and welding square tube. I'll look into the round tube die further when I need it. At the moment, 1/2" conduit is all I'm planning to bend, and that's quite easily done with the EMT bender.

[Richie Rich]

Kid....click here....

http://www.harborfreight.com/manuals/38000-38999/38024.PDF

Note that there's an 800 phone number on the first page for replacement parts. Scroll down to the parts diagram for the bender and tell them what size 'bending die' you need.

As I recall it was less than 10 bucks.

.....Richie...

[TheKid]

Thanks Rich. Will call.

[Patrike]

The skateboard wheels are a bit soft, but that's all I had in the "Junque Pyle" at the time. I'd suggest harder wheels if you plan on rolling your own bender.

The die came from Harbor Freight as a replacement item for their bender.

.....RR.....

Yes -nice unit. I dare say that the black trolley wheels you can get at HD would do the job.

Later
Patrick

[Naic98]

I have a HF PIPE Bender, if you want to bend TUBING without kinking on a PIPE Bender you must shim out the die to match to OD of the tubing you want to bend. It is a matter of how the stress of bending is applied, my experience is that filling the tube with sand does very little. I am in the process of building the Gingery/Lindsay Tube Bender, you make the dies out of steel backed hardwood.

[Richie Rich]

...my experience is that filling the tube with sand does very little.Sorry to hear you didn't have much luck with the sand trick. I once worked in a factory where we made water purification equipment for ships (a fancy name for a 'still'). We're talking "BIG" here, with huge square storage tanks lined with sheets of tin to maintain purity and big enough to stand in. This was decades ago before we had the nice mechanical benders we have today. The giant coils started off as pieces of 2 or 3-inch diameter copper tubing about 30 feet long. We'd stand them vertically and cap the bottom with a wooden plug. Then, a guy would pour fine sand into the tube while a couple of other guys would tap the sides with wooden blocks to make sure the sand settled and was packed very tightly. Then, the top was covered with another wooden plug so that the tube was solid sand with no spaces. After that, the coiling process began by hand and it worked quite well but was very labor intensive. Since we're not bending the EMT into coils, this method should work successfully for bike frames. The important part is that the sand has to be packed solid.

.....Richie >>
.