Protohawk Machine

looking awesome! Nothing like a place you've (mostly) built yourself

Out of curiosity - why the dark ceiling?

The wife and I played around a bit with it and to make it look like it was designed, we needed an accent surface. There were issues trying to use color to make the room look taller/longer/wider unless we used a very dark color behind very bright lights to make it look like there was nothing above the lights. We'll see if it works or not. I get not many machinists give a shit about this sort of thing, but when people see the design work my wife and I have done they say things like "it looks like it was always supposed to be that way." We've gotta be wrong in our choices one of these days!

Six of eight lights installed today (just on a breaker, not switched yet) in the high bay. Looking in from the other half of the shop it looks like there are skylights. I'm super happy with the color and brightness of the LEDs. It has a tinge of yellow instead of the institutional bright white. Gonna be a pleasure to work in here.

I *might* add a third row down the center just for kicks.



Working on some high density fixtures and some personal race car projects since I've got a slow week for orders.

All my taste might be in my mouth but I find that black ceiling gives a tomb like quality to the room. It's almost like the roof is falling down on you. There must be windows that let light in that I'm not seeing..right?

Stuart

The overhead door in the back of that room has windows, but otherwise that section of the shop is all block wall and no windows. The new LEDs seriously make it look like daylight in there, though. It is hard to capture in a picture but if I stand in the short part of the shop where I can't see the lights on the ceiling, it looks 100% no shit like there are skylights illuminating the room. They are 4000k and 8400 lumen each (not sure why I thought they were only 4000 lumen each?). Daylight bright, and very comfortable lighting to see in. No harsh shadows, and doesn't feel institutional white.

Last two lights are up and the walls are going in! Thanks to my Mom for the masonry and construction help today!



This is the darkest corner of the room:

Looks good. I like the dark tin. Matches the Okuma well.

I think it's important what your shop looks like inside. You're going to spend a lot of time in there. Might as well enjoy the view.

And I had to make sure the colors would match Okuma, Brother, Matsuura, Takisawa, Nakamura, Tsugami, Grob, Hermle... you never know! LOL

Still trying to figure out where to fly a US flag. Maybe a Gadsden, too...

More curb wall and panel went up today. Again, thanks Mom!

Have a local import tuning shop with whom I'm friendly - they stopped by Wednesday and got me going on a Porsche and a Subaru project. Have everything measured on the CMM, designed in CAD, and the programming is done and materials are here. They were buying a competitor's product and putting it into a kit they sell (their big thing is they get a car in their shop, build a kit, and dyno tune it so they can supply a base tune with their kit... huge advantage for them) and with all the SARS-CoV-2 nonsense going on their suppliers couldn't get them product. Finally the catalyst they needed to go private label. I'm going to kick the shit out of the price they were paying, and since I did the design work I was able to make it easy to manufacture in normal vise jaws, no soft jaws or fixturing needed.

looking good, always a pleasure to see an update. I can see the reasoning behind the dark ceiling. Also helps avoid the bright glare of an institutional setting.

I'd definitely add a 3rd row of lights down the center. Once you start filling that space you'll be getting shadows cast in the middle of the room by equipment/ people/ stock racks. Sometimes bright LED lights can cause problems that dimmer old style ones didn't. You could always stagger them so that they're in the gaps of the existing lights too.

I've gotten crazy busy with the CCA Racing Products side of things, and have been taking on some job shop work here and there. I always seem to do that the same day I get flooded with orders and then I'm behind before I start LOL.

Here's a part I made for my neighbor; the ISO Grid was completely unnecessary but I did want to lighten it and it is a bit of a business card since he does a lot of corporate event stuff and has a lot of customers that run businesses as well. All it does is take up the little lip between the ramp and the deck of his box truck for when they are loading/unloading the PA gear.





For CCA Racing I've done a few of these register plates now - they fit a BHJ Products O-ring tool for guys running top fuel style o-rings. The Okuma is making it stupid easy to hit tolerances. The on machine probing is a huge help as well, and the CMM is a great quick way to check things like parallelism and true position of holes, cylindricty, etc.



I've been shipping just a ton of torque plates... a few new designs as well.



And here is a project for a buddy - this part would be simple in a 5-axis and while I'm sure most folks start with 3-axis and then slowly move up... In my first year I was running 4/5/6 axis machines and now feel really limited on a 3-axis when I'm approaching the programming and order of operations. I decided to square the stock up on this one and then do a flip with tabbing. It worked really well. I still have to do a few operations on them whereas they would be done in one on a 5-axis. Someday...















Also, I have some shop updates. The steel paneling is up other then the part behind the air compressor. I'll move that down to the opposite corner (you can see the electrical drop) as soon as I get a day where I can turn the thing off LOL. Once I move it down I'll take a long weekend to finish up the floor epoxy and do some spot work, and then all the equipment will start to settle in to their final positions. Air line is going up - I'm doing a U-shape for now and then when the other half of the shop is done I'll extend it out to a full loop through both rooms. I may make the initial installation a loop and then just cut in when I get to the point of adding the other half.

Is this an actual machine shop where you are planning on making chips, or is this a MTB showroom?


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Eh, I've gotten soft in my old age. I even pay extra for VIP tickets to punk rock shows.

Seriously, though, I'm huge on having a nice working environment. It keeps me in that state of mind to fix things that are broken, clean up after myself, put things away, etc. If I ever have to work in a shop that isn't as clean as some of the labs I've worked in... well, then I may as well go back to biochemistry to make my living. It would be a lot less work and certainly a lot less anxiety!

Ox said:

Is this an actual machine shop where you are planning on making chips, or is this a MTB showroom?


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Click to expand...

The goal is to make chips go into the chip pan, not onto the floor........


That way the nice clean shop stays nice and clean.

I've been crazy busy.

Air compressor is relocated to its final resting place, air line is all up and functioning. Had to replace the auto drain on the air dryer this week as it had developed a really bad leak. Luckily just a $40 part.

My dad and I patched up some holes in the soffit and the next morning I found a squirrel trying to chew its way in... then I was further surprised by its mate running around my shop the last few days. I borrow a live trap but the problem is they are diurnal, so unless I left the shop for a while during the day (hardware store or shipping product) there was no time it would be active to trap. So, this morning I stayed home until about 1000 getting some paperwork and such caught up, and sure enough, had him in the trap when I got in. Luckily I caught it now and not in a few weeks as the female would be pretty hunkered down by that point. December is peak mating season for them.

I'll clear out the nest when I redo the North half of the shop, probably next summer.

I have had a few close months on making all the payments, but so far so good. Luckily the wife makes enough to cover the house stuff - mortgage, groceries, insurance, etc.

Rick Finsta said:

I have had a few close months on making all the payments, but so far so good. Luckily the wife makes enough to cover the house stuff - mortgage, groceries, insurance, etc.

Click to expand...

Glad to hear your making the grade! I had my best month on record in June.... it went in sharp decline from there.

I've been pretty steady until the start of December when I got crazy busy, but due to the holidays and customer shipping schedules I'm actually ending the year on a down note, and January will look artificially good I think. Moving through May should be the busiest for me and I was hoping to have a few other product lines tooled up for larger scale production. I REALLY have to get the CCA Racing website redone and have a few quotes on my desk. Time for me to pare down that decision.

Lots of equipment has reached its final destination - it is really nice having the air line up and the compressor on the other end of the shop. Much quieter.

Last thing I worked on in 2020 was a Christmas present for my nephew. I designed a tomahawk and we're cutting it together. 4140 decarb free that will get heat treated to 48-50HRc and maybe black oxide coated, we'll see. Handle will just be hickory, I think, nothing special there. We are doing it in several sessions so he can kinda see the process, not just the machine running.

He is a Chrashler fan?


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

You'll have to forgive me; I don't get the reference and Google was no help!

Old Chrysler logo


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Ahhh, gotcha! That's just an ISOgrid with no function just because I think they look cool!

ripperj said:

Old Chrysler logo


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Click to expand...

That would be the Pentastar!

Doesn't mean quite what it used to...........