What's going on in your shop?

in the midst of packing it all up........:sad: relocating and last move...........man 'o' man accumulated a lot of stuff over the past 16 years....
not all bad though once the grunt work is over a nice new shop is underway and will be built with all the comforts of my personal spin on an ideal knife shop.....
feel free to add your take on ideal"ness" ...........now back to packing :sad:

I'd seriously consider LED shop light's for you new shop, I just replaced a couple fluorescent fixtures with LED's and I couldn't believe the difference.
 
I'd seriously consider LED shop light's for you new shop, I just replaced a couple fluorescent fixtures with LED's and I couldn't believe the difference.
Did you get the bulbs or the 40.00 4 ft light? I have 3 of the 4 ft LEDS and its amazing. A 4th one is centered above the grinder for now.
 
Hey everybody. I'm new to this forum though I've been making knives for a year or so. Here's a few pictures of my shop and the batch I got finished up this weekend for heat treat. Hope to learn a lot and possibly contribute what I can!
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Did you get the bulbs or the 40.00 4 ft light? I have 3 of the 4 ft LEDS and its amazing. A 4th one is centered above the grinder for now.

I got them at Rural King for $29.99. their 4' fixture's without bulbs, it's just double rows of the yellow looking LED gizmos.
 
Here was my weekend project. What look like scratches are from were I applied oil. It only took one blade sitting over night and getting rust spots before I started oiling them before locking up the garage.
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I'm redesigning my knife. I lost the old CAD file when I did some computer upgrades. I tried to make changes on the fly when I was making a knife and that resulted in disaster. My stuff needs to be right from the beginning when doing a folder so I'm starting over.

Still needs quite a bit of work but it's getting there

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Ongoing shop overhaul. Taking forever and eating up $$$! I'm ready to start on some wiring so I've been shuffling around tools trying to find the best layout. This pic is of a smaller "room" at the back that I plan on doing the majority of knife making in. I'm going to put all the wiring in exposed conduit, commitment issues :)

Question for you guys with dust collection: how dust free can you get a grinder to operate? I don't want a mess on nearby machine tools and I hate wearing a respirator. Is it possible to have near perfect dust collection? If so, what dust collectors do you guys have? I've been shopping, but there are tons out there.
 
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I'm using the bigger dust collection system from Harbor Freight. I started out with the little one, and it was a huge improvement over having nothing, but for a just little more money the bigger system is infinitely better for several reasons. The little one has a brush motor and I wore the commutator out in a year. It became a maintenance headache and I finally just pitched it. The bigger one has no brushes, is a whole lot quieter, the bag/separator system that comes with it is so much better for catching fine particles, and the vacuum blower also has two inlets for plumbing multiple tools. There is just no comparison.

http://www.harborfreight.com/2-hp-industrial-5-micron-dust-collector-97869.html


Running a dust collection system has virtually eliminated grinding dust in my shop. I still wear a respirator when grinding, though. When I take off my respirator I can smell / taste the metal or wood I was grinding and those are the tiny particles that will kill you over time. With the dust collection system the dust doesn't collect anywhere in my shop other than the immediate grinding area because particles ride the belt and get slung off. I use a paint brush to brush the area around my grinder into the dust collector when I'm done. When I say area, I'm talking about a one foot area around my grinder.
 
John, I just looked at that dust collector and the specs say 20 amps. that thing doesn't really draw 20 amps does it ?
 
John, I was wondering... I'm sure you have one main dust port right under your bottom wheel to catch most of the dust. Would it help if there was an additional 2" Y or so with a port right on the drive wheel to catch the stuff that travels with the belt. Trying to plan my setup, so I've got a big closet of sorts framed out that will hold my new compressor and a dust collector. It's on the opposite side of the wall from my 2x72, surface grinder, and sand blasting cabinet. That's really the only tools it will be used for, with maybe a dustpan port down on the floor. I'll probably put a T in before the filter so in nice weather I can just exhaust it straight outside.
 
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