MICROSHIP LAB TOOLS Building a pair of Microships has called for a substantial upgrade to my battered collection of hand tools, some of which date back to the 70's. Complex fiberglass projects call for a lot of abrasives, not to mention all the other fabrication facilities that have became necessary. The biggest "tool," of course, is the workspace itself -- a dedicated 3,000 sqft heated shop with integral benches, enclosed dust-control areas, electronics lab, fiberglass fabrication area, roll-up door, machine shop, inventory shelving, and an upstairs office and media lab. But in case you're curious about what it takes to build stuff like this, here's the tool inventory:
SHOP TOOLS Grizzly industrial air filter (2-stage recirculating) Foremost 1 HP 5/8" 16-speed floor-mount drill press with cross-slide vise Rutland belt sander/grinder Delta 4" belt and 6" disc sander Wilton vise Campbell-Hausfeld air compressor, portable tank, and 100' hose Grizzly benchtop sandblaster Foremost 10" table saw Makita 4" angle grinder Ryobi laminate trimmer (small router) Makita palm finish sander Makita cordless drill Milwaukee Sawzall Ryobi jigsaw Makita 1 1/8" x 21" handheld belt sander Bosch 5" random orbit sander Ryobi hand drill Dremel tool Dayton mini disc sander Hot glue gun Vacuum-bagging facility (pump, table, epoxy trap, consumables) Homebrew anodizing tank and power supply for quick jobs 5 "rolly carts" of different types for material handling 2 rolling boat workstands Huge pile of spring clamps and other fixturing devices The usual sprawl of miscellaneous hand tools, bits, etc.
STOCK MATERIALS AND COMPOSITES SHOP Massive inventory of stainless fasteners (but never enough) Stock bins of aluminum, machinable plastics, stainless, etc. Wood, foam core, plastic, and metal sheet stock 100-pound roll of 10-oz fiberglass, almost gone Many, many gallons of epoxies and hardeners A half-dozen flavors of filler materials Countless paints, adhesives, lubricants, anti-sieze, and other "goo" ELECTRONICS LAB Tektronix 2465A 4-channel, 350 MHz oscilloscope Amber 3501 noise and distortion analyzer Fluke 87 digital multimeter 2 cheapie auxiliary multimeters Hewlett-Packard LogicDart Datastick Mycorder (Palm-based) for analog data collection Various bench power supplies from high-precision to a 30A clunker Prototyping facilities Weller temperature-controlled soldering iron Ultratorch butane heat tools Label-printing machine Thorough collection of hand tools, probes, and so on Various computers and development systems Tons of electronics inventory (again, never enough)
OFFICE AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT Various computers (mostly Macs, plus a dual-Pentium linux system) Dayna ethernet hubs Draco Casablanca digital video editing system, with DVD writer Video workstation (various recorders, monitors, cameras) Publications: binding machine, laser printer, copier, etc Photography equipment The usual office tools OFFSITE RESOURCES We had to draw the line somewhere. Despite chronic techno-lust that keeps me drooling over machine tool catalogs, trips to Grizzly in Bellingham, and even the tool departments of local homeowner meccas, we elected to stop building up the lab and start building BOATS. As such, we depend on nearby resources for TIG welding aluminum and stainless, serious lathe and mill work, electric discharge machining, anodizing/sealing, panel silkscreening, deep inventory resources, and other "big stuff." Continuous shop enhancement is a dangerous and expensive obsession... the above list is a fairly minimalist collection of necessary tools for a techno-boat project of this scale.