[Project] Over-Engineered Workshop drawers

Good afternoon all,

Now Everything is all tidy in the workshop and I have composed the start of the Workshop Wishlist, I have been looking at how to prioritise that list.

Naturally, I would love to go out and get a beg lathe and just bang it in to place. The sad reality is I don't have the luxury of space to do that. So how do I solve that problem, A-frame and a chain winch, perfect. I'm height limited though, nothing available to suit the purpose.

That's okay, I want to call myself an engineer I can make one, So I continue to put together a pencil drawing together on how I could make a strong looking A-frame for lifting and moving heavy stuff. One issue, I can't weld and I don't own a welder.....

So how do I fix that problem? Buying a welder and learning how to weld? how to learn how to weld? practice with a lot of welding. Got it.

Did a bit of research online and quickly settled on Flux core welding as my best and cheapest option for my dalliance into welding. I could buy a MIG welder and just run it gasless (and polarity switched).

So here is the MIG Welder I am looking at. What are peoples thoughts on that? could I do better or worse? what are my options, I figure in terms of welding mask, I need an auto darkening one so haven't really delved in to that market yet.

Next I need to practice welding, so how am I going to do that? I could just get two bits of steel and have at it. OR I could buy a shed load more steel and make a thing with it too. Great idea!!

The what to make was an easy decision, it is something I need doing and can easily be done with plenty and plenty of welds. The Over-Engineered Workshop Drawer System!.

Its basically 20mm steel tube welded together with a thin aluminium sheet rivetted across each layer, between the sheet and the tube will be rubberized tape to take up vibrations and rattling. Sprayed blue and filled with three columns of six rows of Gratnell Shallow Trays

Over-Engineered. Could easily be done with wood or with Ali, Plastic etc. But I would learn any new important life skills with those!

So I started with the Trays themselves...

Easy enough. Lets get doodling based on that....

Okay, If my math is correct, I should have something that works. I'm going to learn another skill tonight! I'm going to try and learn how to use CAD.....

Now. I had a google for free CAD software and after a little while I settled with onshape. I haven't used it or any other CAD software before but I did watch a ton of hours watching solidworks videos with the intention of using solid works. luckily that was kind of enough to be dangerous here. AS you can see the top view of the shelf dimensions, that will also form the base and the top.

Next I figured how to extrude some struts 85mm high....

This formed the basis of my repeatable shelf pattern What I haven't shown is that I made another extrusion after this one for the ali sheet and didn't extrude where these struts are, so the ali shelf can just slot in from top down, for each level.

Wit these extrusions I duplicated the part a bunch and transformed their positions atop each other and remade an extrusion for the top panel as it was easier than figuring out how to do it any other way. Not bad for my first couple of hours in free CAD software.... I quite enjoyed it...

I was also able to create a materials list for the job (I don't know if you can do this in CAD)

Remember. This is totally over-engineered by design. The core goal here is an opportunity to get comfortable with welding and fabrication in general.

That said, I am open to using different types of steel etc. The ali is there to stop the trays from falling through levels and i ordered an extra ali shelf so I can rivet 25mm strips down each side of each shelf to keep the trays running in their lane. 

If this project can keep drawers up with weight in, then i should be okay to do the A frame....

Edited By Rooossone on 28/05/2023 18:11:04

I would not bother with all that sheet and rubber. Fit some bar or tube front to back that the side lips of the trays can run on. You also gain extra storage capacity for each tray as there are no tubes across the tops which also stops stuff getting stuck against the tubes.

Or just get three second hand Bisley draw units and build a frame to take those. If you go for one each of 1", 2" and 3" draw heights the smallest will do for cutters, taps & dies etc. Meduim for collets and small tooling, largest for what's left. You also get a closed front so your draws don't fill with swarf and cast iron dust like open trays will.

Gasless Mig is all I use now, up to 200amps

150A isn't enough once you get some experience, I've got to do stuff until late tonite, will post my opinion then but don't go under 200Amps and 250 is better

I'm bak

Try to get one with a voltage knob, Amps knob and feed rate knob

15V upwards starting voltage, low voltage is brill for sheet

30A upwards, low amps again for sheet

Edited By Ady1 on 28/05/2023 19:29:18

I would not try to learn to weld using a cheap gas less unit. MIG if you wish, use CO2 from the local pub and .6 wire. As for 200/250A why stop there go for a 375A unit. You will NOT get 200A from a 13A plug, it will need about 21A. With small stick inverters quite cheap,120/160A, that and 2mm rods will teach you what to look for and if poor it will look it. Read up and pay special attention to the weld pool, this will show how your doing. Look at the weld as it cools, if there are bright spots you have inclusions of slag. If you blow holes turn the power UP, the metal will flow and you move on, if the power is not high enough you will dwell on the spot, there will be to much heat and - a hole ! An auto darkening helmet is good as your learning and will save you from the VERY PAINFUL condition as arc eye. If your an inteligent man you will only ever suffer from this once !

MIG welding in untrailed hands is VERY dangerous if a load bearing member. The picture shows a  trailer susspension mounting plate ! Only 6 hours after it was fitted it failed, causing a road accident, as the suspention,hub, wheel and tyre came off ! As can be seen there is almost NO penetration, the weld bead just sitting on top of the mill scale, though LOOKING OK. This was a commercially made unit,  though some  staff plainly couldn't weld. Now you see the reason for my first sentence !

Noel.

Edited By noel shelley on 28/05/2023 19:59:31

It takes a while to learn to make decent penetrating welds but the flux wire is easier than stick and miles more reliable. The downside is it costs more

Settings are everything and only experience will give you the confidence to tweak about to get things right

Don't be afraid to reverse the polarity to see if it makes a job easier

You need the 200-250A for bigger stuff, 8,10 mm. 12mm you need to cut in and build the weld

12mm is where stick takes over and big boy amps are needed

Tack weld is your friend, especially if you have to do vertical stuff and sheet

Get a good mask, don't skimp, a parweld trucolour is about 70 bananas

Welding is hard work once you start a bigger project and before you do that you'll have to burn through a few practice reels and test welds

Well worth the effort but it takes time and a lot of practice

GL

I think you're mad.

That's a lot of expensive material and time just to build some basic, open shelves. Save yourself the hassle and enrol on a short welding course. If you must build something, make a bench: four legs and two rectangles with ply coverings will give enough practice of welding stuff together that stays straight/square(not as easy as it sounds, and your shelf design will be tricky to manage that) and be properly useful. An important engineering skill is to not make things more complicated than is absolutely necessary. Important, and hard to learn!

I wouldn't consider a gasless MIG either; use a proper one, or a cheap inverter stick machine. That one you've shown looks a bit underpowered/expensive too LINK

He's right you know

You should at least start with a cut down version to see what you're letting yourself in for, then you can expand it if everything is going to plan, or not if it isn't

IF you wish to learn to weld then 20mm tube is not the place to start ! Buy a GOOD secondhand MIG machine and use CO2 - many will say it will not be good but for 25 years it was all I used and got good results on thin material as a job of work ! 0.6mm wire for thin material, not 0.8mm. Cheap migs have very poor wire feed units, bad if your skilled and almost impossible to use if learning. How do I know ? I was lucky, I started with a BOC Autolynx, one of the best smallish migs ever made (£750, in 1975) and have 2 cheap migs in the shed, both given to me by people who could not use them, I can't say I had much success either. I still have the Autolynx !

IF you really want to learn to weld then visit a local fabricator and get an assortment of off cuts in varring thicknesses and buy the best machine you can afford. It will take quite a while to learn !

Good Luck Noel

Yeah I also think thats a bit of a crazy design and having done a fair bit of mig welding I think after an hour you'll be wondering why on earth did you start that. Also if you don't as you say have the luxury of space I certainly wouldn't be filling it with shallow drawers. Things like angle plates vices rotary table won't be able to go in those drawers. I would have a third of that as shelves behind a door. But it's your workshop and your time. Also I was wondering why you need a hoist to move a lathe. If you get a myford two of you can lift it. If you get so.ething like a harrison colchester they come on a base and ca be moved by one person with a couple of broom handles and a crow bar.

Beginner tip

At first you believe that a neat weld is good welding and that's what you set as an objective, but you can see that the neat bead in the picture above was useless

The most important thing for hobby welding is PENETRATION, melt that metal and fuse it together

The blue plate in the picture would be your main difficult target because it's much harder to penetrate a heat losing flat metal plate. The edge of the second (missing) plate will melt/weld far more easily so most of your amps need to get fired right into the flat blue plate and this penetrating bead fuses with the edge of the missing upper plate

But it takes quite a long time and a lot of practice to build experience and confidence, even for non critical hobby welding

That is basically the definition of over-engineered isn't it Nick? Also likely the a close definition of madness too.

I wont lie, I am pretty dam settled on the idea of the drawers (they are a lot more useful to me than a bench and are designed for specific location in my workshop .

With that said, I was already intending to do a bunch of practice welding before I started on the drawers. What i never considered was the different thicknesses and angles etc. this is food for thought.

I have been struggling to track down any engineering tuition let alone tuition for welding.

I will have to get a 16A or higher, loop put into my workshop. I may as well couple this up with getting the 3 phase put in at the same time. But if I am getting 3 phase why don't i skip the 16A loop and just get a 3 phase welder in the future?!

As for needing a hoist, I have been put off from getting a Myford (wasn't hard to be put off my mind wasn't really in to them in the first place). Instead I am leaning back towards my original choice....

The Chester Craftsman. It has all of the features I need including the bed gap. Its right on the ceiling of my lathe budget (honestly a little past it) and it will be brand new. The issue is that this will almost certainly arrive to me in crate form. Meaning the lathe will need lifting on to it's bench and I have no way of doing that. Enter, the hoist! I am on my own so I don't have readily available man power to help with any lifting I need doing. I need mechanical help.

I have no idea if I can get the manufacturer to deliver the lathe pre-set up, I highly doubt this would be possible. I am also not very intent on waiting around for a 2nd hand one to pop up. Buying any other second hand lathe means organising transportation again through Steve @ Landylift. I wouldn't call him to Bristol from Huddersfield just to help setup a crate lathe. That would be criminally mean of me.

How would I setup a crate lathe without a hoist? a Jack and chocks? no thank you!!!

They're your resources, so go ahead. When you've built it give us a report on how it went, and what you learnt.

There's no way I'd have a rack of open trays in a workshop where material is being cut, ground, machined, welded painted or even assembled. Why not make the slides for your trays out of angle instead of tube? You'll get the same amount of welding practice, but the finished item will work better.

The idea of hanging a long, 450kg lathe from a mobile engine crane to place it on the stand on my own worries me. Having used them, I wouldn't do it. Without some means of steadying each end while moving and operating the crane, it's very easy for the whole lot to tip over. My crane was stolen, and I haven't replaced it because it takes up too much space for the infrequent use it gets. I know at least three people I can borrow one from if needed, and they're not difficult to hire.

I do agree with you about buying new instead of trying to find a secondhand machine though!

Hi jacking the thread. Maybe we ought to move elsewhere to discus the merits of this machine (A generic Taiwanese machine sold under a number of names and colour schemes. )

The Chester Craftsman is a look alike oke of my Engineers ToolRoom BL12-24, or the now no longer available Warco BH600.

IMO iit is a very versatile machine., once st up. It might need a little fettling and adjustment , but it will do a lot of jobs.

Mine came with an optional VFD fitted, which makes me lazy. This reduces the nimber speeds obtainable by belt changes / back gear to six, but mostly the belt stay in the middle groove..

I made and fitted a 80T gear for the input to the gearbox. This halved the minimum feed rate, but necessitated tapping a hole in the back of the gearbox, to resite the stud and knob. (I broke the knob but happened to have a suitable replacement available )

Have never vremoved the gap,piece.

A small mod to the Fixed Steady made the clamp bolt captive.

Having made a four way rear toolpost, had tp make the chuck gaurd removable, for working with a collet chuck.

Made a small plate to allow swarf under the chuck to be swept into one of the of the other holes in the bed to fall into the chip tray.

HTH

Howard

Cheap and new welder - I'd be tempted by Clark. They have a good reputation and all spares ready to hand at machine mart. The quality of the wire feed is important - and Clark have a good reputation there.

I switched from CO2 to proper gas and the difference was significant. If you are welding something valuable or important or difficult then get proper gas.

If all you plan to do is flux cored, then why not Stick? Stick is always handy to have.

The OP might find some useful advice on migwelding.co.uk including ways of mitigating the disadvantages of cheap machines.

We actually have a thread in here about a crated lathe being moved up a beam ramp onto its workbench

Can't remember who posted it though, there were pictures and everything and it was very competently done

Have you actually looked into the cost of having 3-phase installed if you don't already have it to your property.

I think the Craftsman may even be a bit light for a 4" traction engine but will depend on what engine you choose as some are a lot bigger than others.

Like Nick I don't like a lot of stuff stored out in the open, just what gets constant use, draws and cupboards mean you don't get covered in black cast iron dust every time you get a piece of equipment out to use it. This is what I have in my shed which may give you an idea.

Hi, as said, a crazy idea, but what you need to do when you start practising your welding, is to learn how to control distortion, because I think you might well get a fair bit on your design. You'd be better off saving your money on the welder and get some hollow tube connectors Metals 4U square tube connectors.

Like Buffer said, you may well wonder why you started it in the first place.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 29/05/2023 16:41:31

Not sure of the current situation but it used to be very common for local tech colleges to do evening classes in welding. Also some model engineering evening classes in schools and techs provides the facilities. One of the key features is that a) they showed you a number of different machines and types of welding and b) provided the consumables (gas, wire) as part of the course. Lots of people just joined the class to use the equipment for their projects.
One of our club members used to provide such classes but sadly he has passed last year.

Moving machinery with minimal resources is (for me) part of the fun of model engineering.
If you join a club there may be people to help with engine cranes and stuff, plus advice, possibly a lathe for sale as often relatives of deceased engineers ask the club for help.

3-phase. Regular sparkies are unfamiliar with 3 phase and probably not certified to wire it. You may need to find an industrial installation company.