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Target Tool and Machine, my shop story

ewlsey

Diamond
Joined
Jul 14, 2009
Location
Peoria, IL
I've been meaning to do this for some time now. I kicked around the idea of a blog, or facebook, but I really like this forum. I spend way too much time here, but I get so much good information.

It's hard to say where my shop really started, but I will try to do this is roughly chronological order.

I will try not to Wrustle everyone and leave you hanging.
 
A seed is planted

Here are some pictures of my first "shop". This was decidedly a home shop. At the time I was living in the Columbus, OH area. I was working for a large automotive OEM (use your imagination) doing engineering work. This was my first job out of school and my first "real" place where I could have my own equipment. Machining was just a hobby and I had no interest in making money.

The first machine I ever bought was a Walker Turner drill press. Humble beginnings.

I soon picked up an Atlas 12x36 lathe and cleaned up an painted it. I know this machine is taboo, but I really liked it. I had all kinds of accessories for it and made a lot of things with it.

Lathe for sale 002.jpg

About this time I was attacked by the CNC bug. My only exposure to CNC was a tiny Emco Meir training mill that I was allowed to use in college. I never really figured it out, but I could program it to spot drill parts accurately so I could drill hole patterns.

I began reading about EMC2 and Linux, as well as Mach 3 and other DIY CNC systems. I was determined to find a candidate and do a retrofit. Soon, I picked up a Dyna Mechtronics DM2800 from a tool and die shop that was closing. The machine was in great condition, but had been used to cut graphite electrodes. I rolled the dice anyway, and it turned out to be a nice machine.

I put the machine in my garage and got to work retrofitting it. The original control on the mill was called a SKIP, or single key input. This was a proprietary control made by Dyna Mechtronics. It used a conversational language, but was very limited. As I recall, you had 100 lines of code. You could only see one line at a time on the screen. The spindle speed was variable, but not programmable. The Mach 3 control fixed all of those issues.

Mill 009.jpg

I was given an old Emerson band saw with a Ridgid sticker slapped on it. I don't know if anyone can relate, but this is one of the only machines I have come across that I truly hate. I recently replaced it and I am thrilled to never use it again. I never got the hydraulic feed to work right, the blade guides were broken when I got it, and the blades would always pop off the wheels under heavy cuts. I tested and tweaked and adjusted and never got it right. I hate it.

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Here is the whole thing. I had a really nice selection of hand tools from my time as a truck mechanic. I had a lot of fun in that little shop.

Shop 001.jpgShop 002.jpg
 
Time to get serious

Time to fast forward a few years. Despite great pay and benefits, and access to tons of "cool" things, I was miserable working for a huge company. All of the rules and regulations and the drudgery of a constantly repeating work cycle had me climbing the walls.

I was really into CNC machining and decided to make it my profession. I managed to talk my way into a manufacturing engineering job at a good size aluminum foundry here in the Peoria area. It was a welcome change of pace and a really good fit for me.

But, just because you spend all day in a huge, well equipped machine shop, that's no reason not to set up your own shop. I began scouting for a bigger space than the garage. I found 1500 square feet with very flexible terms, but not much to work with. I was on my own to fix the place up. The bones were there, but much work was needed.

I never took a decent outside shot of that shop, but it's just as well.

I had all of the equipment from my garage shop, but I decided I needed some "real" equipment. So, I turned to the practical machinist board. Member dsergison was selling his Tree J325 mill and I couldn't beat the price or logistics. He even delivered it.

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I picked up a decent lathe the following summer. It's a Chinese affair, but at 16x40, I don't think it counts as "home shop".

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The forklift is a Clark with a 3800 lb capacity. I know I've lifted more than that with it. I use it daily and would not be without it.

I also picked up some decent welding equipment. I have a Millermatic 200 MIG and a Dialarc 250 HF with a cooler that I cut down to fit it.

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Later I added a nice Victoria drill press, and a not so nice Covel grinder. I never used either of these machines at this location. I'm not really sure why.

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More pics of this shop.

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At this point, the shop was growing to be more than a hobby. Since I was paying rent, electric, and phone and internet, I decided I should try to make some money. That was easier said than done.

I registered the business and got all of the tax things squared away so I could write off the equipment purchases. I started tooling up in a serious way and managed to track down some work.
 
A business is born

I decided from day one that I did not want to be the "home shop" guy working for beer money and dealing with hobbyists. So I had a real problem on my hands. I wanted to work with companies that were open 8-5 and I was working my real job at that time. I had access to my cell phone and the internet and it sort of worked.

I did not want anyone at my day job to know about my shop. I kept everything a secret. I never used any equipment or tooling from work for my own shop. My hope was that some day down the road, my employer would be a good customer, and I did not want to make them mad. I did use their CAM software for my programming, because I could take the dongle home with me. I never asked if it was OK, but no one ever said it wasn't ;).

One of the first decent jobs I got was making some assembly fixtures from 304 stainless. I didn't know much about stainless at the time, but I soon got a real lesson.

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Anyone who works with stainless can probably feel my pain. Now image that I made these on a Tree J325 with no flood coolant, no guards, and no decent CAM software. I didn't have any way to program an HSM type tool path. This meant a lot of .05 deep cuts to rough out all of the posts. I did eventually rig up a crude guard and flood coolant system which helped considerably.

I think I made about 8 of these of various designs. Each has at least 2 parts. Most required some work with an EDM which member dsergison was able to do for me.

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I believe I peeled off a full 55 gallon drum of 304 stainless chips on that old mill. What a mess it made.
 
Haha I knew this thread was coming and im going to get in nice and early before it hits page 20!

Thanks for showing us your shop and telling us about yourself ;)

keep it up everyone loves these shop threads
 
Thanks for taking the time to give us your shop bio. It is always inspirational to see the development of the shop of one of the Titanium members.

I'm excited to read more and the photo documentation is a happy bonus.
 
I too will be staying tuned for more.

Figured Id comment on that nice looking table. Neat idea having the vise out there, so you can really get at both sides. And that steel plate looks like you stole it off a tank. I cant wait for a piece like that to land in my lap...well you know what i mean.
 
Figured Id comment on that nice looking table. Neat idea having the vise out there, so you can really get at both sides. And that steel plate looks like you stole it off a tank. I cant wait for a piece like that to land in my lap...well you know what i mean.

It looks like I planned it that way doesn't it...

That table was actually a base for some kind of custom machine. The factory retooled and it was thrown out. If you look close, you can see that the lower legs are smaller than the rest of the frame. The original table was only about 24" tall. I cut the original feet off and slid a smaller tube inside the legs to make them longer. I added leveling feet as well.

The top is 2" thick blanchard ground plate. It was cut in that odd shape, so I mounted the vise on the overhang. It's a beast.
 
I'm HIP!

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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
A fork in the road

Where did I leave off?

My shop was going along just fine and so was my day job as a manufacturing engineer. We picked up a lot of new equipment at my day job including an HMC and a big VTL. That was my first 4 axis experience and I was loving it. I started to really focus on workholding and fixtures. It got so that I was designing all of the fixtures.

Working in a production shop is a lot different than working in a job shop. I've said it before here, but the foundry where I worked had 5 VMCs, a drill tap machine, and an HMC. We had one Kurt vise and it sat on the shelf most of the time. Everything ran in a dedicated fixture. Holding onto complex castings can be a real bitch. We had some hydraulic fixtures, but mostly manual.

The other thing about castings is that they very often have to be leak tested. Leak testing is another big head ache. The best way is with a pressure decay machine. This is a computer system that monitors pressure. It requires some fancy equipment and very tight fixtures. It's out of the question for anything but high volume automotive parts (20,000+ annually). For lower volume stuff, shops do a bubble test. The casting is charged with low pressure air and the whole thing is dunked under water.

I got really good at designing and building fixtures. It is still one of my favorite things to do. I also did production programming and time studies. Production work follows a pretty well set process. At times it can be very repetitive.


Work life was pretty good, but my personal life was becoming an issue. Like many problems, mine involved a girl.

I got engaged and was intent on getting married. The problem was that she lived 2 hours from me. She had a job as a teacher and really didn't want to leave it. So, I decided that I would quit my job and move in with her. I figured I could find work doing about the same thing I was doing. I had a lot of stuff in my shop, but I had moved it once before, so that was no big deal.

It wasn't perfect, but it was a plan. I gave my employer 2 months notice and started making plans. They wanted me to train a supervisor to take over my job. I set about buttoning up any jobs I was working on.


About one month after I gave my notice, and one month before I was set to leave, my fiance was laid off from her teaching job. Fuck. I had already given my notice, and my job was set to be filled.

So, we were now both set to be unemployed and still living 2 hours apart. Time for the backup backup plan. I took a few days to weigh my options and came up with a half ass plan to take my shop full time. I had a little money saved up, and enough tools to be dangerous, but my shop was not really ready for prime time.

I knew that I needed a real VMC. I wanted a 40x20 travel minimum. That kind of machine was not going to fit in my shop. So, I called a realtor.


In the space of one month:

We decided to stay in Peoria, where I had many more shop related connections.

I sold the Tree mill and the Dyna Mechtronics mill.

I bought a used Haas VF3.

I found a new shop that was double the size of my old shop (3000 ft).

I bought a seat of Solidworks.

I boxed up everything at the old shop and got ready to move to the new space and start a life of self employment.


Stay tuned for pics of the current shop!
 
Looks great so far...

I think that you said you gathered alot of the tooling before you quit, that is what I wished I had done more of. I put together a way overkill hobby shop, but an under tooled real shop. I just thought I had alot of machines/tooling. I could have easily doubled my consumables and measuring tools and still not have enough. Did you find this to be the same for you?

I wonder what the statistic is of shops that have started from loosing the day job.
 
I think that you said you gathered alot of the tooling before you quit, that is what I wished I had done more of. I put together a way overkill hobby shop, but an under tooled real shop. I just thought I had alot of machines/tooling. I could have easily doubled my consumables and measuring tools and still not have enough. Did you find this to be the same for you?

Tooling is one of those things that take forever to build up. I have a ton of measuring equipment and machinist tools. I bought out the tools of a retired tool maker and the tools of a CNC operator who left the trade. I combined those and had a pretty good setup.

Where you really spend money is on consumable tooling. I have about 50 cat 40 tool holders, and two cabinets full of cutting tools. However, I still find myself ordering tooling for most jobs that come in. I think it will be like this for a while until I settle into a kind of repeatable pattern of work.

I buy things and upgrade equipment as I can afford to. I'll never be one of these people who buys things intending to keep them forever.
 








 
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