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These photos show how the machine shop is arranged. Machining requires many tools and accessories, so it's necessary to keep everything well-organized.
This time, we splurged and bought heavy-duty base cabinets with ready-made tops, instead of using a kitchen sink base with a formed countertop, and making shallow drawers in the sink base, as we did in our former house. The drawers are full-suspension, and hold lathe and mill accessories, measuring tools, chucks, a rotary table, and a granite surface block.
The milling machine is bolted to the bench, but the lathe just sits on its rubber feet.
Screwed to the workbench backsplash are two sets of T-handle hex wrenches, one in SAE sizes and the other in metric sizes.
On the wall behind the workbench are two shelves and a cabinet. The shelves hold frequently-used tools like calipers, lathe cutting tools and holders, parallels for milling, end mills in a case machinist's squares, steel rules, and a Kennedy toolbox to store small tools and accessories.
Finally – after four years of storing short raw material in cardboard cartons, and leaning long material in a room corner – I built a wooden box that holds everything. The tall corner prevents long stock from marring the room walls. The box is constructed of ¾" oak plywood left over from making built-in bookshelves for our new house.
