Thread: M&G Tool Works

I have been meaning to make a "new shop thread" for several years.

It won't be as good as wheelieking71's thread, as loooong as ewlsey's, or the many others that were influential or inspirational to me over the years.

But it is mine... so here it goes.

I started my company as a hobby when I was a kid. After I graduated college I realized I wasn't going to make it in front of a desk and make a living at anything I wanted to do. I went back to school and got an associates degree in a trade, worked in a small shop for about 18 months and then started an apprenticeship. During the apprenticeship I was working 70+ hrs a week and would go home and work a few hours and weekends. Finished the apprenticeship, got kicked square in the balls by the employer, and turned my two weeks in. Went to work for another company developing their machining department with hopes to build it into a bigger department. I developed their CAM and machining, trained a new guy with no experience, developed a pretty good system and implemented new tooling. I enjoyed working their and liked the work, however from the beginning I was VERY upfront with the owner that I intended to build my business and would someday leave to work full time for myself. He was sad to see me go...

In June of 2016 I reported to my new job:

At the time, over half of my monthly take home was paying for daycare for these two. My wife made just enough for us to get by and all of our benefits were with her. It made no sense for me to keep working for someone else. We had been tucking away every extra dollar with hopes of building me a shop. At the time I was working out of a 16x18 two car garage. It was CRAMPED.


We got permits finalized and everything lined up and construction began!




Management making inspections

One thing I hated about the little shop was the heating bill and always being cold. The floor would sweat horribly and everything would rust. One of the BEST decisions I made was to install in floor heat.



Management was very disgruntled when they were told that the new space was not to remain open as a play area...

Looking forward to following your thread. When did you build the new shop?

M is going to be one of those very special girls. She has been by my side almost every day since I came home.

She knows tractors go putt putt, she knows the trucks take diesel and cars gasoline and...

She knows how to make a plan


Purchase the necessary supplies


Follow the plan (including how to use a tape measure)


Turn a wrench


and use a shovel

The building itself was finished, four walls, a roof, concrete floor, by September.



The first week of October, I went to Maryland for what was going to be one of Richard Kings last scraping classes. It was a great time, meet some wonderful people, learned a great deal, and got to spend some time looking around the museum.

I can say the trip weighed heavily on the car...


Learned some basic scraping


Did some work on an Abrasive surface grinder I am rebuilding (still!)


I was excited, and under pressure, to get home and get the building finished!

Nice shop, did you use the tapatalk app to post pics from your phone to start this thread? I need to start my new shop thread, have lots of pics on my phone.
Only thing I would say, is your overhead door is too short.

Big B, shop was built in 2016, though as you’ll see, it wasn’t finished and moved in till spring 2017. Heck, I still haven’t finished decorating

Alan, I use an antiquated piece of equipment. It’s like a shaper, most people anymore have rarely seen one, let alone used one. I use a desktop

Just teasing!

Door is a 10x10, which when I built the shop, was the smallest door a Mazak 720 would fit. So far it has been more than ample for my needs.

There's not many pcs of furniture that won't go through a 10x10.
And much less likely that you would be thinking of puting one in that building.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

lets see some iron in this shop. congrats looks like your starting to see the day light and living the "dream"....its out there if you want it bad enough. maybe one of these days i'll post up the long road to freedom.....I mean slaving away at the shop day in/day out.

but....it sure beats workin for the man!

Originally Posted by Ox

There's not many pcs of furniture that won't go through a 10x10.
And much less likely that you would be thinking of puting one in that building.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

It has been plenty big enough for anything I could put in the building so far. I was tempted to buy a Devlieg at an auction, but I talked to my concrete guy before hand and he gave me a VERY firm NO.

Originally Posted by ducesrwld

lets see some iron in this shop. congrats looks like your starting to see the day light and living the "dream"....its out there if you want it bad enough. maybe one of these days i'll post up the long road to freedom.....I mean slaving away at the shop day in/day out.

but....it sure beats workin for the man!

It does beat working for the man.... every once in I am tempted to go back. Days I spend not making a chip, not making a dollar, chasing orders, material, tooling, customer BS, packing, shipping, answering 10 spam calls for every customer call.

I have two friends who are both machinists. Both make more than me. Both have 401k's. Both have excellent benefit packages and paid vacation.

Sometimes it is tempting... Especially right now when work is slow (lots to do, few paying jobs)

More to come! Hoping to have some time friday to post some more pictures.

I will get the interior finished and start with the first wave of machinery.

Hopefully next week I will post the final move in and probably pictures of what the shop looks like today.

Originally Posted by Fal Grunt

I was tempted to buy a Devlieg at an auction, but I talked to my concrete guy before hand and he gave me a VERY firm NO.

If you have, or can find work that you want for a boring mill, and it'll fit through the door, go for it.

I have several pcs here that are 25,000# and up, and I'm on an old cow barn floor, that likely aint over 4" thick.
The only bad spot in here is where the silo was taken out and covered up.

Actually, I just picked a 25,000# boring mill (HMC?) column up with a 30K capacity forktruck and took it outside.
Floors still here....

If you skate your load in, or bring it in with 2 trucks, the load on your floor will be much less, and once it's on the floor and opperational, the weight per foot will not be any more than anything else.

The boring mill is not going to pound into the floor like a heavy stamping press will eventually.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Geez, sorry guys. Guess I have been busy. Today I haven't accomplished anything, and realized I had forgotten about this thread.

So let's see... we need to get some iron in the shop right? Oh, first we need to finish the inside!

Blah blah blah, electrical, insulation, walls, conning friends into helping.... we all know the story.

So I expanded from a 16x18 shop to a 28x36 shop. My wife went, yay! you will have TONS of room! I was quietly cussing wondering how I was going to fit everything inside....

First load ready to head home


First load made it home, and you can see the finished interior



Unloading the second load. It was FUN!!!


Part of the third load


Fourth load!

Now the real challenge. Move my existing shop in with the "new" equipment and get everything sorted and arranged. I essentially went from 4 shops to 1. I had tools etc at my day job, my shop at home, tools and equipment at 2 friends shops. All that was getting brought together finally under one roof!

So in this picture, you can see me moving one of my prized possessions. If you look closely you will see that the back tires are not touching the ground. When I called and "ordered" ahead of time, I asked for a 6k tow motor. Oh sure! When I showed up this is what they had. Guy says, we call it a 6k towmotor. Ok, you do understand I will be picking up 5500lbs with it? Oh sure, no problem!


My FIRST CNC coming home...


Now... where to put all this crap?!

Nice shop. Enjoying your posts. Keep em coming! Not even all that far from me.

Jeff