Shops at home..
- Thread starter PrimoCues
- Start date
Not in the house!
You may get by doing minor repairs in your apartment. Chris Hightower makes some very nice repair lathes that don't take up much space. As for cue building....you won't believe the amount of dust created when you start turning butts and shafts. My shop is in an attached garage and I still have a problem with dust gettting in the house.
You may get by doing minor repairs in your apartment. Chris Hightower makes some very nice repair lathes that don't take up much space. As for cue building....you won't believe the amount of dust created when you start turning butts and shafts. My shop is in an attached garage and I still have a problem with dust gettting in the house.
Three questions you need to answer if you live in an apartment.
1.] Noise level!!!! Type of equipment????
2.] Electrical frequency with the neighbor equipment???
3.] Paint / expoy fumes level from finish on cue?? Your neighbor smell.
1.] Noise level!!!! Type of equipment????
2.] Electrical frequency with the neighbor equipment???
3.] Paint / expoy fumes level from finish on cue?? Your neighbor smell.
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Both of the above are right on
You can easily do minor repairs like tips and ferrules, maybe an ocassional collar, but to cut wood? Forget it! I sanded a couple shafts in my basement with a good shop vac and found it was crazy. I saw it was impossible to keep clean. I still have a small south bend lathe in my basement, and a mill, that is ok for the shaft work. I bought a heavy lathe and put that and a wood lathe into my garage, and even with a dust collector I track shavings and dust into the house. I am glad I did not try and do the shaft and butt cutting in my basement! You do not want to live in an area that is used to create fine sawdust, it can cause lung cancer, and it is a fire hazard that will get you thrown out of the apt in a flash! And by the way, the only way to cut wood clean is with a router...the noise is worse than the dust collector and a large lathe running combined!
You can easily do minor repairs like tips and ferrules, maybe an ocassional collar, but to cut wood? Forget it! I sanded a couple shafts in my basement with a good shop vac and found it was crazy. I saw it was impossible to keep clean. I still have a small south bend lathe in my basement, and a mill, that is ok for the shaft work. I bought a heavy lathe and put that and a wood lathe into my garage, and even with a dust collector I track shavings and dust into the house. I am glad I did not try and do the shaft and butt cutting in my basement! You do not want to live in an area that is used to create fine sawdust, it can cause lung cancer, and it is a fire hazard that will get you thrown out of the apt in a flash! And by the way, the only way to cut wood clean is with a router...the noise is worse than the dust collector and a large lathe running combined!
I do repairs in my basement. If you want to do repairs you don't need a lot of room. You do want to do it somewhere that it won't matter too much if you make a mess, because you will make a huge mess.spotless said:
If you want to build cues, you are going to need a big area that you can be messy in. You will probably want a place that has a garage door or double hung doors, because you are going to want to get some big machines into your shop. You also want it to be on the ground floor, you don't want to haul big machines up and down stairs. You will need good ventilation if you want to do any spraying, even CA (Super Glue) finishes will chase you out of the room, if the ventilation is not adequate.
Tracy
I do my cue work all in the basement....I set up a massive dust collector and it keeps the dust under control....however the noise is going to be a factor...esp. in an apartment...
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Some good advice being given here. The biggest curse I have had was working out of a small space. For building cues especially, but cue repair also. The mess is not good for the living area of a house, and a detatched area would be even better due to the hazzards involved. Even with that asside, If you are in a good area, and do good repair work, you will quickly outgrow the space, and have a big delima on your hands. When you get into building cues, you will definatly be deadlocked for space quickly. It is feasable to do tips and shaft work from a small space, but as mentioned can be a big mess to keep organized & you really don't want It in your living space. The size shop I want now would probably be bigger or the size of a smaller house By It'self.
A higher level hightower type lathe can be setup in a small space though, and does quite a bit of various repairs, so would be your best option. Good Luck,
Greg C
A higher level hightower type lathe can be setup in a small space though, and does quite a bit of various repairs, so would be your best option. Good Luck,
Greg C
Apartment
I do cue repair a few nights a week at a local pool hall and have a Hightower lathe that stays up there but also have another (Hightower lathe) at my apartment where I do wraps, etc...
I had just recently had to sell my house and move to an apartment temporarily, but can't give up my cue repair ;-) I have a 13x16 ft den area that I closed off and put down some vinyl over the carpet. My wife must love me ;-) I have three workbenches and two lathes in there (one is just an old wood lathe). The Hightower lathes are fantastic for what I do - anything big requires me to work with a local cuemaker. I guess what I'm saying is that it can be done but it sure isn't a very good way! I hope I can get into a house again soon!!!
I do cue repair a few nights a week at a local pool hall and have a Hightower lathe that stays up there but also have another (Hightower lathe) at my apartment where I do wraps, etc...
I had just recently had to sell my house and move to an apartment temporarily, but can't give up my cue repair ;-) I have a 13x16 ft den area that I closed off and put down some vinyl over the carpet. My wife must love me ;-) I have three workbenches and two lathes in there (one is just an old wood lathe). The Hightower lathes are fantastic for what I do - anything big requires me to work with a local cuemaker. I guess what I'm saying is that it can be done but it sure isn't a very good way! I hope I can get into a house again soon!!!
I have a unique cue companion. I'm really used to it and am not ready to get anything else for right now. I just started with cue making. I know the other stuff I need, but am waiting for a bit... money issues. I was thinking about the whole dust and woodchip situation, and thought about keeping my shop-vac on when I'm using the lathe, to help keep the dust down. Any thoughts?
spotless said:
Heavy chips will just drop and are no problem but you want to get the fine dust. You can get something like this
http://www.northwestpowertools.com/dustcollectors/ap200.htm
You can also build one yourself. I have a down draft table I build from a salvaged blower and a steel tool stand table. I could take a picture of it but it would not really tell you much. What I did was enclose the sides and bottom of the stand with the blower mounted inside blowing out the back. The top has a lift out section with 1/4 mesh that has a filter on it.
There is a filter at the blower and another that is in the middle so there are three filters. I like to demonstrate it when people come over. I throw a hand full of talcum powder in the air and click it on. In like three seconds the cloud of talc is gone. A shop vac will not really get the dust all that well it just makes a lot of noise.
You would have to start waving it around in the air to get the dust. Also a shop vac does not have a good filter in it. It re launches the fine dust back into the air that goes right through it's filter. You need good filtering.
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