Happy Holidays!

Because of the holidays and some other distractions, I've made little progress in the shop over the past few weeks. I'm definitely not complaining - Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year.

That being said, I feel that I've done enough that an update is in order, so... Here we go!

Car Door

The door handle broke on the misses car a few weeks ago, forcing her to use the outside handle to get out of the car. I "repaired" it... twice... to make it usable while we waited for the replacement. The first time I just used some nylon wire ties to reconnect the end of the cable to the handle. They promptly broke thanks to the subfreezing temperatures we were experiencing at the time.

That's a top quality item right there.

For my second attempt, I removed the entire handle with the bandsaw to make room and replaced it with a loop of 14 gauge copper wire.  As you can imagine, the boss was not amused - but it did the job while we waited for the replacement.

Luckily (for me), the replacement showed up and I put it in last weekend.  I've become an expert at removing the door panels in this car. I doubt I can put that on a résumé, though.

Wainscoting and Three Phase

As I've said before, my immediate goal for the shop is to get the back walls finished up. This will allow me to get started on installing my three phase wiring, and give me finished wall space for stuff to sit against. Who doesn't love pushing stuff up against walls?!

Throughout the weeks leading up to Christmas, and between wrestling the door panel on the car, I was able to get enough wainscoting and trim installed to allow me to hang panels and run some conduit.

I received my three pole breakers and receptacles late Friday - just in time to help the boss prepare for a craft show (she makes and sells handmade signs and Christmas ornaments).  I had made her some ornamental sleds a while back, so we wrapped them up among other things. Most of Saturday was spent trying to sell said crafts. It was a decent turnout, but much to my chagrin, my sleds didn't sell.

Still waiting for a home

The enclosure that houses the contactors and capacitors for my phase converter will be mounted to the wall between the single and three phase circuit breaker panels.  The idler lives underneath the stairs. I figure it will keep the noise down, and keep it out of the way. 

The three-phase panel and the converter are all surface mounted, so a pair of 3/4" thick battens were attached to the wall beneath them. This allowed me to mount everything securely without having to worry about lining anything up with the studs.

Single and three-phase panels, and future enclosure for the
phase converter. I really need to clean or repaint that cover!

Once I had everything spaced out and mounted, I removed the empty enclosure and replaced it with my temporary prototype enclosure. It's made of plywood (don't worry, I grounded it 😁), and is only there until I can get the holes cut in the metal enclosure for the voltmeters and start/stop buttons.

With the load center mounted, it was time for some conduit. I'm using 3/4" EMT for all my runs. I once heard someone say that no one should ever run 1/2" EMT since 3/4" is practically the same cost and has almost twice the cross-sectional area. That seems to have stuck with me.

You can see the bottom corner of the
plywood RPC enclosure here. Don't judge!

The left section of conduit runs around the perimeter of the shop and makes its way under the stairs.  The 10 horsepower idler is connected to the end of this run with flexible metal conduit, and it's all filled with four 10 gauge THHN. The fourth conductor is a dedicated ground. Relying on the conduit as a ground is just asking for trouble, so I'll be running ground conductors for All My Circuits™ (bonus points for anyone that gets that reference).

The middle section of conduit is currently empty. It heads to the far end of the shop and will eventually service the drill press and horizontal mill.  I'm still wrestling with exactly where these machines will live permanently so it may be a while before the other end of this run is completed and filled with wire.

The short section to the right is there temporarily so that I could both check out the new table saw, and balance my phase converter. When the new saw officially replaces the old one, I'll run some conduit up and across the ceiling to keep the cord off the floor.

Balancing the voltages on this phase converter took a while longer than I expected. I'm sure it could use some more tweaking, but I'm happy with it for now. With the table saw running unloaded, the voltages are all within about ±3% of each other. We'll see how they do with a heavier load on them - I may have to order some more run capacitors.  If there's any interest, I can expand farther on the phase converted from a design and build standpoint - just let me know in the comments.

Table Saw

Little helper cleaning out the new saw

The saw fired right up and it runs like a champ. There is a bit of what sounds like bearing noise coming from the saw, presumably from the fan end of the motor. I'll end up kicking off the drive belts at some point so I can pinpoint the noise.

Even with the crappy blade that was in it when I bought it, I can tell it has substantially more power than the delta its replacing. On a related note, if anyone's looking for a great saw at a reasonable price - I know a guy.

I'm really looking forward to building up the surrounding table so I can set this thing up and start using it!

Anyway, I'm just wrapping up day two of eleven of my Christmas / New Year break, so with any luck, there will be plenty updates coming.

Merry Christmas, happy new year and thanks for sticking around!

Ita been a while

A lot has happened to me and my family in the past year and a half since my last post.  For anyone that doesn't know me, we lost my father to cancer about 14 months ago. As a child, he exposed me to using both my mind and my hands to solve problems, and is the reason that I do what I do today.  He was a great man, and I couldn't have asked for a better father, teacher or friend.

Obviously, It took time to get my butt back in gear (generally, and especially in the shop), but I think I've finally gotten back into the swing of things.  In the past few months, I've made some incredible headway in my shop.  Unfortunately, I neglected to take everybody else along for the ride.  So, let's play ketchup. Catsup? Catch up?  Yeah, catch up...

My shop (the building itself) has been occupying most of my free time lately, but its nearing completion. With the exception of one 2' section between two overhead doors, everything has been insulated, drywalled and painted.  When its all finished, the bottom 2 - 4 feet of the walls will be covered in wainscoting made from laminate floor, and the tops will have 4 rows of french cleats.  Everything else will be trimmed in 2 ½ x ¾ douglas fir.  I wanted the ceiling to be somewhat flexible (so that I can add/modify stuff up there), so I ended up ripping 4' x 8' sheets of melamine coated hardboard into large ceiling tiles, and suspending them on the bottom flanges of the wood I-beam ceiling joists.

My immediate goal is to finish the trim and cleats on the back walls.  Once that is complete,  I'll be setting my phase converter back up and running EMT and 14 gauge THHN out to where all the 3 phase machines will sit.  This includes a Hermle horizontal mill, a Delta Rockwell radial drill press, a Logan model 200 engine lathe (currently single phase, but will be converting), and (drum roll, please) my new table saw...

In the midst of removing some surface rust from the table

I just picked 'er up Wednesday.  It's a 1950 Delta Rockwell 10" cabinet saw with a 3HP motor - which should run circles around the Delta contractor saw I've been running for the last few years.  This thing also has a Biesemeyer style fence (branded Powermatic) with a 52" rip capacity.  She's missing the front door and the motor cover, but luckily there's a company in California (www.bellplasticsfabrication.com) that makes plastic reproductions of these parts.

To make the most of the saw and fence, I plan on making an extension table with a router lift, sitting on copious cabinets.  It'll probably end up being 4' x 8' or so.  I'll probably also end up making a 4' x 4' or 4' x 6' outfeed/assembly table on locking casters - complete with cabinets underneath.  Obviously, this is still all up in the air until I start building.

With any luck, a new to me 60-gallon compressor will be the next addition.  I traded a small MIG welder for this compressor with a friend of mine.  I should be picking it up in the next few days and will be placing it under the steps.  I ran the electric for the compressor before the drywall went up, so it should just be a matter of plugging it in.  Also under these steps live the idler for the phase converter (10 hp) and the dust collector.  I wanted to keep all the noisy stuff out of the way and behind a wall.

Also on the horizon will be moving my dad's tools into my shop.  A few of the smaller power and hand tools have already migrated, but there are still a lifetimes worth in his old shop.  There is also a truckload of stationary machinery that will be finding its way here.  These include a 6" jointer, 14" bandsaw, wood lathe, hollow chisel mortiser, contractor's saw, miter box, and a drum sander.

This seems like enough for now.  I'll be sure to provide regular content in the future.  Please leave questions in the comments section, and let me know what you'd like to see more of.  I really would like to share what I do with anyone that can learn from me.