Martin, I know it was a lot of work and some major headaches, but the shop turned out great! Thanks for taking us along for the journey!
Martin, I know it was a lot of work and some major headaches, but the shop turned out great! Thanks for taking us along for the journey!
I've got a spare 480 disconnect that's on a shaper for no reason. The electrician said to save it, and he'll just order up a switch since it'll be cheaper. We'll just punch a hole in the box that the rest of the switches and vfd are mounted in.
Since I never really had the SLR powered up until recently, I didn't know what the vfd was set at. It bottomed out around 48hz, and topped out at I think 80hz. Diehl told me to run the vfd at the slowest speed, since the saw didn't come with one originally, but if the motor is meant to run at 60hz, I'm just going to set it at 60 and leave it there. I wasn't real impressed with the track speed at the slowest setting, but it's adequate running at it's intended speed.
My eckstrom slr DC drive feed ran from 25 to 175 ft/min.
Can't remember the speeds the 4 position switch on my 404 makes it run at off the top of my head.
I usually run at 75ft min for most things.
I think it's supposed to be at 60 fpm at the standard feed rate. This is Diehl's bottom line rip saw and it wasn't adjustable from the factory. 60 is adequate, but most 4/4 material, especially at 13/16", I should be able to push more at 100 fpm on a bigger saw
60 is just fast enough to justify having someone tail it, but not fast enough to keep them hopping.
YOU'RE FINALLY IN!!!!! Congratulations Martin!
What a relief that must be. Plenty of space, bigger/better machines and the money hemorage should be slowing down at long last. (Well, except for that accident.)
I know you're glad this is (almost) done.
Fred
WHAT A FINE SHOP!
I can't wait to see some of the work you will make in it!
Ken
So much to learn, so little time.....
Martin, I've been following this thread for a good while now, and I must admit that I caught myself feeling really excited every time you posted a nice update. Almost as if it was my own shop that I was building! I applaud your desire to build the business. Having built a new workshop for my own business last year, I understand what it feels like when you're investing in a project that's often beyond our comfort zone (both financially and mentally sometimes, too ).
Keep us updated, please!
P.S. I run an SCM M3 multi blade rip saw. I can get glue line rip joint up to 10 feet long. I think the dedicated glue line saws such as some of the diehls like yours do better than that.
You give my shop work sanity. Love it!
Looks like a well lit and productive space. I am sure you will enjoy it.
Curious in the future to get your feedback on that planer in a production environment. I have a friend who bought the Format saw for a production setting with 3-4 guys, and he is underwhelmed by some of the design and engineering of certain parts. He said it would be perfectly fine for a hobby/low use saw, but hard use shows the gremlins.
Planers, typically are a simpler, more robust build, hopefully with no issues.
Floorplan layout is a hard thing, even more so if you are not specialized, as you appear to be, though I am sure it was still plenty difficult for you. Looks like it will flow nicely.
I'm real curious on that planer myself. As you know, I abhor new, but I was getting serious with the idea of getting a Martin or an L'invincible since I couldn't find what I wanted used, and if I'm going to spend almost $20k on a planer, why not spend a few thousand more and get the best. (It's a viscous cycle) The problem is, you need two planers. Something like a Northfield for hogging, and something like a Martin for the finer things. That ends up being a lot of money sitting there, and we don't use a planer enough to justify the expense, but we still need a nice planer. I am hoping I can be a bit more aggressive with the planer and take some load off the widebelt with drawers at least. Taking a 1/16" off in two passes hammers the belts pretty hard. I should've bought a three head widebelt.... Pounding the abrasives is still cheaper than swapping and two more passes though.
I spent almost two years I'd bet coming up with that layout. I built a scale model of the space and cut outs of all the tools. Every few weeks I'd pull it out after work and play with how things were organized. When I kept coming up with the same ideas, I called it good. Even then, it's just a starting point, some things got shuffled around. We're just a generic cabinet shop, so you build work cells and centralize the equipment that is shared amongst the different departments. That was the second biggest issue with the old shop, so much of the equipment overlapped one another that I couldn't have more than two bodies in there without tripping over each other. If I had to, I could probably run up to eight guys, but it'd be really tight and really tough to coordinate. At least for me, but a good shop foreman can make miracles happen.
Wow! And said in my most Crocodile Dundee voice/accent: "That's not a shop...that's a FACTORY!"
Congrats...you have no reason to ever leave it! hahaha!
Thats a great shop. I hope it serves you well for many years. Enormous amount of time, money and worry, etc. Hope your business grows well.
Andrew J. Coholic
Martin,
Congratulations on getting into your new space, and thanks for showing the process. Large or small, every shop has a hundred details that need to work together. This should serve you well (except that given your ambition you may outgrow it!).
When are you addding On? Lol.
Right?!?
You should've seen when most of that stuff was packed into 2500 sq/ft! It was like working in a phone booth. We'll see when adding on happens. Right now things are about just right, and I've got space to add the things that I really want to add in the short term, (short term being less than five years and hopefully the next two years). After that I don't know. I want to get this paid off before I add on. My goal is to do that in five years. I borrowed for ten, and amortized for 20, but I have no intent of making the minimum payment unless I have to. I like my banker, but not enough to give him $150k in interest. A cnc is going to be a game changer, but that isn't just pocket change to get up and running. I'm figuring $150k to make that happen, but it'll open some doors to work that I'm currently turning away. That work being anything Euro and closet systems, which I'll need another $60k(ish) to pay for. Give me the phone numbers and the capital to do it, and I could make $300k disappear in an hour pretty easily.
I'm still kinda sorta hunting for a real edge sander... Jerk :P
My baghouse is functional. That's a win. It'd had been sitting on it's side for two years in my yard, so I wasn't sure what to expect there. We even got the rotation right. It's funny how a 50/50 proposition, you're only right 1/3 of the time... I still don't have all the pipe up, that has been a massive pain. I just don't have time to hang pipe, but we're dragging around portable dust collectors from machine to machine, I'm far enough behind at this point that I just can't stop to tackle it myself. The HVAC guys are doing what they can, but every time we have a spike in temperature it becomes more of a priority to keep the other zillion customers screaming that their house is too hot, happy. Unfortunately, I get that and I know no level of whining will change it, so I shut up, and give them crap when they're here. "Don't worry, I'm just trying to carve a living out here...."
This was a shocker. I finally pressurized the compressed air system. 1 leak. As in one. Right by the compressor where the main line goes into the after filters. There's around 600' of pipe hanging on the ceiling, and there's no way there's less than 100 connections. This was my first time playing with that aluminum pipe too. I was ready for things to go boom when I opened the valve. Being an anal retentive psychopath about procedure pays dividends once in a while. I can't say enough good things about the Prevost product. It was expensive, but it went easy, it looks good, and I don't expect any reason for it to not perform.
Last edited by Chris Padilla; 07-19-2017 at 3:46 PM.