Hi Stuart,

I like your idea of recycling, I too used second hand materials for my old lathes bench. Old kitchen tops seem to work well for workshop benches, I use a piece under my new milling machine. .Any possibility for some pictures of your solution.

Regards

Thor

George, that "problem" has been addressed on this Forum ad nauseum.

Personally I do not have that problem I am pleased to say.

I'm happy to recycle/reuse/repair anything. I have already listed some of my withdrawals from the tip. One of my worktops is offcut kitchen top, the lathe is on just 3/4" mahogany faced chipboard – but it a mini lathe and the top is only a foot with with a frame of 3X2 underneath. Another bench is 3/4" ply but ssems to function as storage, and my electrical bench is a cheap chipboard desk with a second top 6" above the original.

One of my stepsons has started work as a kitchen fitter. I've already asked for a solid granite cutout from where a sink goes to replace my suspect surface plate.

He is accumulating large offcuts of scary expensive worktop In the garage is a decent offcut of granite composite faced kitchen worktop I have my eye on and another of oak blockboard which I think he plans to use in his boat.

Neil

I also have a bench partly made up of kitchen side.

.

Ah … but it's a different "Cost Centre"

MichaelG

Yes, that was my thought too. Free plus ten grand for a new kitchen.

Hi, I think my best summit for nowt that I've ever had (financially that is) is my garage/workshop. It started off with the floor which was an old loading ramp for fork trucks to load up containers which are carried on lorries and also those big container type lorries. It got scrapped because the insurers would not insure it because the supporting structure was in need of serious repair which would have cost more the a new lighter duty and manoeuvrable one.

Even had free use of transport to bring it to site. The pad of concrete was free and delivered as well. The framework was next, which was a disused and rather tiered old mess room that lived it's life in a quarry.

The semi-circle angle irons originally held the roof on, which was corrugated iron. If you look at the picture closely you can see the sides were made of four frames, two each side bolted together but I had to set them apart to match the length of the floor. I had to replace all the joining plate along the bottom as they had well rusted away and also made new plates to hold the new roof angles on. There is another picture in my general photos album which show the side more clearly for those who are interested. The semi-circle angles are used here manily to carry the runners for my lifting gantry.

The sheeting covering the final framework was also free, as by the time I got to this stage there was a lot of scrap sheeting removed from a processing plant, due to corrosion where the were fixed to the purlins. Also had some metal window frames given me as well. The only major thing I had to buy was the paint.

Regards Nick.

Edited By David Clark 1 on 24/02/2013 10:32:04

Hi Nick

I thought i was doing well when I fished a 90volt 1/2 horse DCPM motor out of the scrap bin.

I have lashed up a test rig from a 110 volt building site transformer to give me 55 volt lumpy DC. Sometimes it works and sometimes it trips a 16amp circuit breaker so I suspect a shorted turn. If I try to stop the shaft from turning I can't feel a loss of torque so may just mark the position where it trips out the breaker so I don't try and start it there.

Cheers Michael

Hi Stuart, thank you for that esteemed high award, but I forgot to mention (it was getting late) that just when I needed to rig the workshop up permanently with electricity, the electricians threw about 20 meters of 10mm four cored armour cable my way when they ripped out a redundant supply. As my workshop is about 12 meters away from the house it made the paint quite cheap really.

Regards Nick.

He,he, I got caught by that one about 25 years ago. Found a bundle of about 20 rods at an East London flea market. Picked them up at 20p a pop and was hugging myself with glee all the way home. Of course when I took a hacksaw to them the brass coating came off like orange peel!

Ever since then a magnet has formed part of my 'fossicking' kit.

Joe

> I've not heard anyone use "fossicking" for many years

Ditto! Used to hearing it in a botanising context.

Neil