Shop Tours

My Last Workshop.

comments (7) June 22nd, 2011 in Shop Tours        
oldwindowguy oldwindowguy, member
thumbs up 25 users recommend
The shop building is designed for a cold climate with long winters, heavily insulated with south facing windows and white pines for a windbreak on the the north.
The SE corner is the toolroom and loading dock.  Pratt & Whitney engine lathe, Reid Brothers tool grinder, Yates American planer.  At 3800 lbs the lathe put to the test the A frame hoist and my 1985 F250.
The stock prep area.  Beach table saw, Northfield jointer, DeWalt radial arm saw, Davis & Wells band saw.
The SW corner has my workbench, built a bit at a time starting in 1975 or so; a small Yates American shaper that mostly does endwork, and a small Delta shaper.
The shops grand old man is the Baxter D. Whitney double spindle shaper, built between 1918 and 1925.  I rebuilt it extensively in 1987.  Motorized spindles are switched electrically to run at 3500 rpm off line frequency or about 8500 rpm off a GE 5kw 150 cycle frequency invertor.  Right side is a conventional shaper.  Left side works like a small side head sticker with a shop built fence.
The shop building is designed for a cold climate with long winters, heavily insulated with south facing windows and white pines for a windbreak on the the north. - CLICK TO ENLARGE

The shop building is designed for a cold climate with long winters, heavily insulated with south facing windows and white pines for a windbreak on the the north.
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Shop Specs

  • Location: Hurley, Wisconsin, USA
  • Size: 1450sq. ft.
  • Type: Detached
  • Focus: General
  • Heating/Cooling: propane fired infrared

Retired millwork engineer builds a workshop on a retired dairy farm in the Penokee Hills and fills it with retired machine tools.  My tools of choice were built by and for American industrial craftsmen of the 20th century--built without compromise to machine tool standards, built to last forever.  I watched, and helped, as industry evolved beyond hand powered and hand guided machinery and these became obsolete.  I picked up a few as they crossed my path, and now we just putter around.

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Comments (7)

Briggs Pletcher Briggs Pletcher writes: Shop Envy!

Nicely done.

Posted: 5:59 pm on January 14th

Zepfb Zepfb writes: you have a serious shop, I can't image how you installed all that heavy equipment. Good luck in retirement. watch out todo list
Posted: 8:52 pm on December 6th

Tom_the_Toolmaker Tom_the_Toolmaker writes: Wow! I'm impressed. Awesome wood machines and a metal lathe and surface grinder to boot. Excellent setup.
Posted: 4:39 am on August 6th

powerdiamond powerdiamond writes: I really admire your shop. It just strikes me as what a real shop should look like. Especially with the older iron machines. Your layout looks to be perfect. Congrats
Posted: 7:57 am on July 11th

kerfwerks kerfwerks writes: My heart goes out to you as you obviously have a serious addiction to old cast iron. But, as I know of no 12-step program aimed at curing this dependence, let me say "turn on, tune in and cut up".
Posted: 9:22 am on July 2nd

Ejc Ejc writes: Blessings to you !

Enjoy your retirement !
Posted: 7:22 pm on June 24th

Kitfox Kitfox writes: AWESOME...¡¡¡¡
Posted: 10:43 am on June 24th

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