Woodworking Project Kitchen and Bar Area

[cbmkr]

Here is a pic of the Kitchen & Bar area i did in my basement, Bar is 144: long and has rear serving and storage counter. i have done a lot of these in the past for customers in the midwest.
All oak raised panels, the top arch area over the sink area required patterns to be made for each piece , as this is required to run them thru a wood shaper is you just don't happen to have a CNC table in your shop.Takes about 12-16 man hours to get the bar done making parts and doing assembly , finish takes about 2 days , if you do it right
Works out nice when we have friends and family in from out of town and from Germany. A good place to relax and have fun.

[redbeard]

Here is a pic of the Kitchen & Bar area i did in my basement, Bar is 144: long and has rear serving and storage counter. i have done a lot of these in the past for customers in the midwest.
All oak raised panels, the top arch area over the sink area required patterns to be made for each piece , as this is required to run them thru a wood shaper is you just don't happen to have a CNC table in your shop.Takes about 12-16 man hours to get the bar done making parts and doing assembly , finish takes about 2 days , if you do it right
Works out nice when we have friends and family in from out of town and from Germany. A good place to relax and have fun.

Looks nice, you must do a lot of them if it only takes you 12-16 man hours. I'm sure it would take me twice that long(even if I did have a shaper).

[cbmkr]

No so much a lot of bars, Just cabinets kitchens and custom furniture . I am 56 now and but bought my first tools when i was 11 and have not stopped building things yet. i just don't get in a hurry anymore due to health issue's. But my shop is very well setup and most machines are dedicated to one operation, I have 5 ,3 hp wood shapers and 1 ,5 hp, 1 extra 3 hp machine for weird setups and specials . Most machines are already setup with fixtures and quick change tooling. I learned a long time ago that the amount of time you lose doing tooling tear down and setup will pay for another machine very fast. I also run a 15 hp phase converter and use the more powerful 3 phase machines to make quick work of jobs and use less power. Anyone with a small shop can save a lot of money buying the 3 phase equipment and running it on a dedicated 3 phase converter and breaker panel for a fraction of the cost of comparable single phase machines. Drill presses, lathes, and milling machines bring a lot less money at auctions if they are 3 phase power instead of single.

[MoparCar]

I envy you having the room for both woodworking and metal working equipment. I used to live in Wisconsin (grew up there) where everyone had some land and a nice big shop off the house or back yard. I moved to the Denver, CO area years ago and you can't just buy land unless you are way out east away from your work, etc. Everything is in your garage or basement! All subdivisions unfortunately with no land and restrictions on what you can build. Do you have any pictures of your shop?

Very nice workmanship. Thanks for showing us!

[Brian Ski]

Anyone with a small shop can save a lot of money buying the 3 phase equipment and running it on a dedicated 3 phase converter and breaker panel for a fraction of the cost of comparable single phase machines. Drill presses, lathes, and milling machines bring a lot less money at auctions if they are 3 phase power instead of single.

You are sure right about that... Interesting story... I built a phase converter probably about 10 years ago... I used it on a tire balancer. It would spin the tire and when it would slow the tire down it would slow down and then speed back up. Never stopping??? Hmmm... The motor on the phase converter would slow down and reverse. I picked up a larger motor for the phase converter and everything was fine. Nobody can use 3 phase unless they have a shop wired for it, so the machines are usually a very good bargain if you want to dig into a phase converter.

[cbmkr]

You are sure right about that... Interesting story... I built a phase converter probably about 10 years ago... I used it on a tire balancer. It would spin the tire and when it would slow the tire down it would slow down and then speed back up. Never stopping??? Hmmm... The motor on the phase converter would slow down and reverse. I picked up a larger motor for the phase converter and everything was fine. Nobody can use 3 phase unless they have a shop wired for it, so the machines are usually a very good bargain if you want to dig into a phase converter.

The hmmmm and reverse is from one of the three legs of power being down, the motor could have been bad, Little thought if you wire a 3 phase motor to single power , put a pulley on it like and ol time rope start mower that you hand winded, If you energize that motor with power and pull the rope it will start and run, when it runs it will generate power to the 3 leg of the motor probably about 170-185 volts.

If anyone is interested i can post a drawing for a converter we build to just run on a single machine. I am not any kind of electrical engineer but have made a lot of these and learned this doing service and repair in our plant years ago.

PS: One little note of thought most single phase motors have capacitors on them 3 Phase do not, the capacitor on a single phase motor starts that 3 leg of power that is in the motor.

[cbmkr]

Thanks , I told my wife if the start building to close i do not know what i would do.it is nice to have the space,we lived on another farm close to here for 18 years and started with a 24x24 building which made it to 24x44, After selling our business and starting a new one we built a new place ( We almost went to Monroe Wi to work for a customer of ours Monroe Truck Equip) and thought i had built a large enough shop, Wrong from 1994-2000 more room was needed , so it built another building attached to the original , lets add 50 x 60 w/a 16' ceiling, and make one side have a loft 60' long 12' wide lots of places to pile Stuff. So now it is full but it's time to get rid of stuff we do not need and put things like tractors and campers in another place for the winter.
I use a lot of pallet racking around the walls and leave the bottom open to park atv's mower ect.

[Rambozo]

I used to use my big lathe as a phase converter for the rest of the shop. It had a 10HP motor and I added start and run caps, so it would self start. I never needed the full power on that lathe, so I could still use it. Most of the time it would just be shifted into neutral to let the motor provide power for some of the other shop equipment. Worked great for a number of years. Don't have it anymore, and now I use a VFD on my mill. They make good 3 phase equipment into great. Variable speed, braking, lots of extra features out of a plain old 3 phase motor.

[redbeard]

No so much a lot of bars, Just cabinets kitchens and custom furniture . I am 56 now and but bought my first tools when i was 11 and have not stopped building things yet. i just don't get in a hurry anymore due to health issue's. But my shop is very well setup and most machines are dedicated to one operation, I have 5 ,3 hp wood shapers and 1 ,5 hp, 1 extra 3 hp machine for weird setups and specials . Most machines are already setup with fixtures and quick change tooling. I learned a long time ago that the amount of time you lose doing tooling tear down and setup will pay for another machine very fast. I also run a 15 hp phase converter and use the more powerful 3 phase machines to make quick work of jobs and use less power. Anyone with a small shop can save a lot of money buying the 3 phase equipment and running it on a dedicated 3 phase converter and breaker panel for a fraction of the cost of comparable single phase machines. Drill presses, lathes, and milling machines bring a lot less money at auctions if they are 3 phase power instead of single.

Nice to have the dedicated equipment, I have a Shopsmith http://www.shopsmith.com/markvsite/index.htm and the changeover time is starting to be more of a factor as time goes by. It probably wouldn't be so bad if I worked from plans, but as a plan/fit/build as you go guy, it does slow one down considerably. It is one of the reasons I didn't go with a multi-process Everlast machine.

now I use a VFD on my mill. They make good 3 phase equipment into great. Variable speed, braking, lots of extra features out of a plain old 3 phase motor.

Isn't it nice that high power IGBTs are around now to make cool stuff like that?

[Brian Ski]

The hmmmm and reverse is from one of the three legs of power being down, the motor could have been bad, Little thought if you wire a 3 phase motor to single power , put a pulley on it like and ol time rope start mower that you hand winded, If you energize that motor with power and pull the rope it will start and run, when it runs it will generate power to the 3 leg of the motor probably about 170-185 volts.

Well the Hmmm was me thinking... Hmmmm.... The Balancer would reverse the phases to get it so slow down. Problem was the motor did not have enough inertia to stop the wheel before back spinning it... I either needed a bigger motor or a flywheel on it... I went with a bigger motor...

BTW I went with a motor starter circuit with a capacitor start and run to jump the motor... Been working great for a long time. I guess they say the more motors/equipment on the 3 phase line the more stable your 3 phase power will be.