This weekend, I started the major effort of cleaning and reorganizing my basement on the “clean” (i.e. non-wood shop) side.  I decided to move my electronics lab bench around, and move the mill into the room which used to serve as my storage/electronics area.  After two days of work, I’ve got the mill set back up, the relocated metalworking bench moved and I built a new shelf below, and all of the storage of computer parts, electronics junk, and the retrocomputing museum has been moved to the laundry/furnace side of the basement.

I’m undecided as to whether I will move the electronics bench again, and make the room that now houses the mill be purely a metals shop.  If I do that, I will build more benches and shelving to make a home for the forthcoming lathe and other metalworking equipment like a big metal cutting band saw.

It’s starting to come together, though.  Since I have not yet built a metal table with provisions for a proper “cage” around the mill, I quickly made a chip shield out of a piece of smoked acrylic that I had lying around.  This should help keep chips off of the bench, at least.  The CNC PC and control electronics will live on the “clean” side, on the new shelf under the main bench.

I really need to get going on finishing the CNC electronics and enclosure, as well as a manual pendant for running the mill.  I also picked up a quick project from my friend Dan, to make a nicer front panel for his Smoke-O-Tron meat smoker controller electronics.  I have a few cool ideas there, so stay tuned…

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