Another dungeon...

John Dow

Former Member (at his request)
Messages
535
I'll have to borrow Stu's shop name for this one. I'm thinking of hanging some manacles to complete the look.

First we have the entrance to this dungeon. Don't get too close to the breaker box, its scary. Actually, the wiring throughout is pretty scary. This is also, conveniently, the area of major leaking if we get more than an inch or so of rain. Always put the service entrance where the biggest leak is.

Next is the alternate entrance, and the means by which I got all that heavy stuff down there. You guessed it, a homemade elevator! Its a simple arraignment, big motor and gears for the up direction, little motor spinning the opposite direction to overcome the friction in the gears and thus go down! At least its only an 8' drop.

Next is a general view into the shop, standing in between the stairs and the elevator. The whole room is something like 3000 square feet. Maybe its 6000, I can't remember now. Anyway, its big. Lighting sucks though.

Walls are made of local stone mortared together, I think as an inner and outer wall, with concrete poured in between. The floors and ceilings are also poured concrete, which explains all the drips on the wall there, giving it a nice damp look, even when its dry.

Next is the daily use workbench. Picke it up in a junk store for $100 and added a vise. There's also about 25# of lead screwed to the underside to try and weight it down a bit. Still needs to be 200# heavier for real planing.

Next is the never ending project. Everone got one of those? Good.
This thing will one day be a workbench, with a nice heavy top, and drawers for tools below to give it some ballast. I think I've been working on that for 3 years. Or mostly, not working on it. The whole cabinet will be painted the same green as the panels.

Next is the finish storage area. Lots of little jars with Waterlox in them. I've had really good results buying a gallon and filling little jars as full as I can. I had it last several years in my garage/shop in Tucson without gelling. Down in the cool, dark basement, even the opened jars last much longer than they did in Tucson. Of course, that heat was really nice when it came to applying the oil.

And now here's my nice old planer. Weighs about 600#. Nice old, bullet proof iron.

Followed by a jointer of similar age, that some misguided soul painted the worst green and red he could find. Thats the one with the screwy motor that I took apart to clean without indexing the direction reversing plate to the fields. Took a lot of trial and error to get it to start cleanly after that.

And completing the tour, there is the chopsaw station. I'm wondering how long I'm going to have to spend moving things on and off of that bench before it would have been more efficient to just build a nice saw bench with lots of drawers and cabinets in it. Probably got a coupla years yet.

So why do I put up with this dungeon? Its huge, and it only costs $75 a month!
 
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Great tour, and you have a Dungeon Complex compared to mine!!

Love all the old iron, nice to see some Delta GREEN :D

$75 a month? Great, can you do any modifications?

I know your power is not the greatest, but I'd add a bunch of lights, NOW!!!

Nothing sucks more than working in the dark, at least add a bunch of task lights.

Good tip on keeping the little jars of finish!

Cheers!
 
neat ol` basement john! i spent a couple years in a friends basement...7` ceilings! really makes me appreiciate what i have now.......thanks for the tour! tod
 
WOW Another Iron head!

An older Unisaw with what looks like a bullet motor??
Old Delta jointer with the highly desirable cast iron base.
PM-100 planner
Can't tell what the bandsaw.
An Elevator!

Man, thats a neat shop.
But I would have to ad some lights for sure!!
 
Nice tour John :thumb:

So is your dungeon under an old industrial building? Store?
 
One more...

The outside. The building is an old general store, closed in the 1970's. The current owner bought the family home behind the store building, and got the store with it. There's even the town fallout shelter at one end of the basement where my shop is. Modifications would be ok with the owner, but I'm not sure I'll be in there long enough to bother, as ultimately the plan is to build a shop closer to the house.

Jeff, the bandsaw is a General 590, so its not old iron, but its built like it. You know those have a threaded hole at the top right at the balance point for super easy lifting. I had it half assembled the hard way before I figured that out. There's also a Powermatic lathe (model 90? I forget), but its one of the goldies. I left my South Bend drill press with a friend in Tucson, as the splines were too loose for me and would chatter horribly with a big cutter or hole saw, still it was painful to let go. Next time I'm there, I'll go take a picture of the Oliver jointer in the shop I worked in (oh, the ecstasy! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: )
 
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