Machining in a condo

[gerritv]

I recently bought a used Taig lathe to replace my Unimat DB200 that I owned since 1975. Having moved to a condo several years ago, I had to adapt to lack of workshop etc.
With the DB I mounted it on a .5" Al plate and surrounded that with removable acrylic sheets on 3 sides. This worked fairly well, except that chips would still come up over the top.

With the Taig I am trying a different approach, more like a machining centre. So far I am pleased, after some testing I need to add a shield to left of chuck as chips like to exit to the left there. The shield on the carriage does a great job of keeping the chips off the front of the work table. The photo reflect a prototype, some tidying up will get done over the next few days, e.g. to hinge the top in a better fashion. The top isn't really tall enough for use with the milling attachment but it will do for now. I will be setting the whole device onto a 17" cookie sheet with raised edges.

The lathe platform will be mounted on top of 4 silicone domes to control vibration transmission to the table and floor. I got this idea from a SDP-SI catalogue. I molded the silicone ( left over bathtub sealer) into part of a roll-on deodorant cap. Mold release was cooking oil. 3 more to make :-) It takes a few days for the silicone to set. This should enable me to work at odd hours in the day without upsetting neighbours.

The last photo shows my general shop arrangement. I bought the tool cabinet and chest locally for $72 with a load of milling cutters, parallel bars etc. The lathe fits on a shelf in the bottom, over top of a set of 6 plastic boxes that store raw materials etc. The whole machine shop can go downstairs to my locker, into the hobby room for noisy work such as fly cutting or be used in my spare room upstairs.

[Johnb]

Nice setup. And I like the idea of the silicone feet.

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Great set up. Don't overlook the advantages of the faithful old shop vac. A few well positioned hose endings can do wonders.

Whiskey

[gerritv]

My hobby space is in between the den and the master bedroom, I would have to find a stealth shop vac, which I doubt exist :-)

[nevadablue]

Nice setup.  I'm stealing the carriage shield idea. 
I hope to find some aluminum plate tomorrow at the scrap dealer, I would like to make a base from aluminum. Not much hope for something that large, but I'll find other goodies I'm sure.

Thanks for the pics. 

[gerritv]

The design of the chip shield is now pretty much finalized. I made the main shield removable so that the whole platform will fit on the shelf in my tool cabinet. The left hand shield is bolted to the headstock with a bit of Al angle.

The result is 90%+ of the swarf from regular cutting stays contained. A bit comes out the front near bottom of the carriage shield and also out the rh side which I can live with.

[gerritv]

I also finished casting the silicone isolation mounts. The third one is almost perfect, might redo the other 

Bath tub silicone air cures, when you no longer smell acetic acid the cure is complete. I arrived at a method to speed things up. Squeeze in enough silicone to come to half way point, wet your finger and level this out. Dump into hot water, repeat the hot water soak a couple of times. Several hours later, squeeze in enough silicone to come to top of mold. Level off with a wet putty knife. Leave for 2 days, then remove from mold. You might still have a bit of uncured silicone, just smear it into place.

After several days you have an excellent isolation mount. I use 3 under my mounting platform. This makes the whole thing stable. The Taig set up is heavy on the left side, not so much on the rh side which is where the single mount sits. The lathe doesn't move on the table unless I am drilling with the tail stock. But then it moved before when doing that so no change.

The result is greatly reduced noise in general and greatly reduced vibration being transmitted to the floor through the bench top. It could be of course that I have a not-so-great motor but for me the solution works.

I did a lot of machining on Sunday with no complaints from 'management' 

[nevadablue]

Nice pics. It is always good to get "no complaints". 

[peatoluser]

I really like the look of the guarding on your Taig. Although I am fortunate in that I have a dedicated shed for my hobby, it would still be nice to not have a bench sprayed with swarf. I may well use some of your ideas . thanks for posting them. I used to have my taig on the end of the bench, the pulley overhanging, with the motor underneath and to stop swarf dropping on the motor pulley I wedged a small bit of acrylic sheet in the 'square hole' between headstock and bed. I appreciate this doesn't apply in your case, but I suppose anything to keep the swarf in one place has to make cleaning up easier?
once again thanks for the pics.

peter