Sunday, January 23, 2011

Setting up Shop (Shop 2.0)

You may have already seen my last blog where I went to St Louis to get my tools and such... if not here's the link: CLICK ME

Now comes the part where I take everything out of the boxes and figure out where to put it and what to do with it. As I'm going through my boxes I'm finding things I forgot I had... and I'm taking other things and putting them in boxes to go someplace else.

View looking from the garage door into the shop.

As you can see, I'm starting to get it all put together where I can actually begin to use tools and build things. I have already used the lathe and mini-mill to make parts to build some components for the benches I've constructed.

Getting things put away neatly so I can actually find them when I need them!

I still have to make a pegboard frame for over the lathe so I can start putting all the calipers and such in plain sight where I can grab them as I need them... but overall the shop is coming together faster than I had thought. I already had one visitor from the Austin Hackerspace come over to learn how a lathe works.


Here is a quick look around the shop... nothing fancy... just a short video to give you an idea of my progress.


Anyway... that's my progress as of January 23, 2011. It's getting late and I think I'm going to have a bowl of cerial, get comfortable, and relax a bit before bed. It's been a long and tiring day!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Jerry and EBo's Most Excellent Adventure

I moved out of my old house almost three years ago... and moved to Texas with Eve almost two years ago. During that time I have not had a workshop because everything was packed in storage in St Louis.

I'm not one to sit and watch TV all night, and since I work on the computer all day, at night I get tired of siting in front of the computer. Needless to say... I have been driving Eve crazy because I haven't been able to build stuff and be creative.

But thanks to EBo from the hacker space... all that changed when we made a last minute dash to St Louis to get my stuff. How was the trip? Have a look for yourself...



I'm in the process of sorting and setting it all up now... I feel a lot better having a shop again!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

After the Fire... rebuilt and operational.

Eve was cutting some materials and left the LASER unattended... that was a bad move, it caught fire and did some serious damage. (See my previous blog on that one.) Anyway... she ordered the replacement parts and assisted be with getting the laser cleaned up for the rebuild. The parts came in by 12:30 and we had the laser operational by 5:30... I even had time to go to my robotics meeting. http://therobotgroup.org

So... here is this week's video of the repairs... if you wanted to see the insides of a laser engraver you will like it. We are testing out new engraving methods now... gearing up to hit the craft fairs this spring.



I'm also planning a trip to St Louis to bring back some of my tools... that will be great... I'm driving Eve nuts because I have no way of building some of the ideas I have... more on that as it develops.