Hi, I’m Paul, I live in the countryside of Normandy. The 135 on my username comes from my Massey Ferguson 135 tractor (another on going project, though still usable in the yard and fields). Like quite a few people here whose posts I have read, I am retired. I am here for learning and sharing ideas with like minded souls.
Retirement has allowed me to pursue my workshop interests at a deeper level, having bought the lathe, mill and 4 x 6 bandsaw to restart learning to machine metal, something I last really did when I was an apprentice. Despite my career having been in engineering at a professional level I have always been hands on and built up an extensive range of tools to cover many aspects of life, restoring houses, building barns, LandRovers, tractors, farm machinery etc. I even do some welding of plastics. Being a tooloholic is just one of those things I suppose, one can never have enough and they do get used.
Living on a hobby farm with horses means there is always loads to repair and make. A lot is in wood, for which I have worked in at home most of my life. One of the challenges when not being able to have separate workshops is having wood and metalworking machinery in the same shop. My workshop leaves a lot to be desired being a post-war concrete block constructed cow-shed (cows long gone before we were here) complete with sloping floors and slurry gutter. That is quite useful when torrential rains flood the yard and overcome the ditch. The water flows down the gutter and out again!
The lathe and mill are Chinese of course and unlike many western branded Chinese machines mine had the makers name left on, Sumore Machinery. My machines are very similar to those I see when I look up references to Precision Mathews to understand what some US members are discussing. Think Blondihacks type machines. I went for the biggest I could afford and fit in the shop, the lathe, a SP2129 being 290mm dia x 700 between centres and 38mm through the bore. The mill is an SP2217-IV with a table of 840x210mm. Neither have DROs and the mill has no auto feed (another project to come). Welding gear is AC/DC Tig from Rtech Welding, an Rtech plasma cutter, an Italian MIG set I have had for years and oxy/acetylene. The TIG I am trying to relearn. When my business was young I used to do the TIG on small stainless pressure vessels with a massive old Lincoln. Until I started to relearn I had forgotten how much I hated TIGing mild steel! Aluminium is on the to learn list as I only had a few gos at that.
The 4x6 bandsaw has been invaluable, its not the first I have had; that would have been about 40 years ago. Though very similar, the current one is way better, it cuts straight and the blade stays on. I have started doing mods to this, Frank Hoose/ Mike’s Workshop type mods.
On the CAD front I was an AutoCad user, 2D only, leaving the 3D to my design team. These days I am bit by bit getting to grips with learning solid modeling in FreeCad. I don’t want to go the Fusion route as I am Ubuntu based and have had too much of AutoCad’s pricing over the years. Opensource suits retirement budgets much better.
Machining projects at the moment are centered around tool making/machine upgrades and mods. Serious lathe work is out of the question at the moment as I need to finish some mods to the shop and then get the lathe’s stand reasonably level (the sloping floor problem) and do the alignment. Most turning I have done so far has been making repair parts so precision has not been a big problem; but it will be! The mill however is on a very solid bench I constructed for it and runs great.
Retirement has allowed me to pursue my workshop interests at a deeper level, having bought the lathe, mill and 4 x 6 bandsaw to restart learning to machine metal, something I last really did when I was an apprentice. Despite my career having been in engineering at a professional level I have always been hands on and built up an extensive range of tools to cover many aspects of life, restoring houses, building barns, LandRovers, tractors, farm machinery etc. I even do some welding of plastics. Being a tooloholic is just one of those things I suppose, one can never have enough and they do get used.
Living on a hobby farm with horses means there is always loads to repair and make. A lot is in wood, for which I have worked in at home most of my life. One of the challenges when not being able to have separate workshops is having wood and metalworking machinery in the same shop. My workshop leaves a lot to be desired being a post-war concrete block constructed cow-shed (cows long gone before we were here) complete with sloping floors and slurry gutter. That is quite useful when torrential rains flood the yard and overcome the ditch. The water flows down the gutter and out again!
The lathe and mill are Chinese of course and unlike many western branded Chinese machines mine had the makers name left on, Sumore Machinery. My machines are very similar to those I see when I look up references to Precision Mathews to understand what some US members are discussing. Think Blondihacks type machines. I went for the biggest I could afford and fit in the shop, the lathe, a SP2129 being 290mm dia x 700 between centres and 38mm through the bore. The mill is an SP2217-IV with a table of 840x210mm. Neither have DROs and the mill has no auto feed (another project to come). Welding gear is AC/DC Tig from Rtech Welding, an Rtech plasma cutter, an Italian MIG set I have had for years and oxy/acetylene. The TIG I am trying to relearn. When my business was young I used to do the TIG on small stainless pressure vessels with a massive old Lincoln. Until I started to relearn I had forgotten how much I hated TIGing mild steel! Aluminium is on the to learn list as I only had a few gos at that.
The 4x6 bandsaw has been invaluable, its not the first I have had; that would have been about 40 years ago. Though very similar, the current one is way better, it cuts straight and the blade stays on. I have started doing mods to this, Frank Hoose/ Mike’s Workshop type mods.
On the CAD front I was an AutoCad user, 2D only, leaving the 3D to my design team. These days I am bit by bit getting to grips with learning solid modeling in FreeCad. I don’t want to go the Fusion route as I am Ubuntu based and have had too much of AutoCad’s pricing over the years. Opensource suits retirement budgets much better.
Machining projects at the moment are centered around tool making/machine upgrades and mods. Serious lathe work is out of the question at the moment as I need to finish some mods to the shop and then get the lathe’s stand reasonably level (the sloping floor problem) and do the alignment. Most turning I have done so far has been making repair parts so precision has not been a big problem; but it will be! The mill however is on a very solid bench I constructed for it and runs great.
