So....
We've decided to bite the bullet and expand our barn. Something along the lines of a 10X30 new space on the back (Without doors to the main workshop), with a chunk of that dedicated to a stationary air compressor, and a dust collector (Unfortunately, we don't have 3 phase, but 5hp should be enough for those needs). Which of course means rigid ducting (I'm thinking copper for air and PVC for dust). This really required an idea of what we had for tools, the space they occupy, and where they go to plan well. So I made a CAD model of the shop, and started playing with tool placements. In the end, we've got a floor plan I'm pretty happy with, as well as a model I can keep up to date with what we have out there as we add things.
We've made some headway in reconfiguring the actual space to match the drawings, but keep in mind it's a long term project, and we're limited in our hours we can put in. We took a weekend to run 3 new 20A electrical drops (Admittedly, with ~70 feet of wiring each, all at heights that needed ladders to access). One of them is set up for 30A (other than the receptacle). It's for the X-carve and an older wood turning lathe (Which also needs to have it's motor rewired or replaced, and some other work done). We've also moved the main workbench, built a new cabinet to replace one we've pretty much destroyed, moved the printer onto a new stand and wired that in. Over all, it's been slow going, but productive. I'm slightly annoyed at Black&Decker, for not including hanging points on their battery chargers for the Firestorm series of tools. (I don't think we have too many electric screwdrivers, just too many brands. 8 is a perfectly reasonable number
)We've also got the fixed parts of the Torsion box table for the X-carve done. Next are the clever bits, where we have a hairbrained scheme to put a set of 2 inch bore pneumatic cylinders on it, to lift the table relative to a frame with casters on it (Which will also be able to hold bins without adding to the weight the cylinders lift. Clever, I think
). I've got plans to keep updating this, but keep in mind it's a long term project. Any feedback you give will be considered, and I'll probably be working on laying out the ducts and shop air piping for a bit. The next major step is getting the actual lift system on the torsion box, which involves buying and installing 4 Bimba air cylinders off Ebay (from Bimba's account that sells off overstock, not just a random one). At the planned shop air pressure, we could put up to 1700 pounds of weight on the table, but I think we're stopping around the 800 pound mark at most, so that we can keep pressures low (~70 PSI), and not need to buy ridiculous casters to move it. As always, I love hearing comments. Let me know what you want pictures of most. Here's the good part. Pictures!
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