Kind of a placeholder page, lots of photos, sorry about the load times. We're working on a better gallery system.
There'll be more posted here before too long, but for the moment, here's a quick writeup of a recent project:

	I needed a stand for my Lisle Drill Grinder, and decided that, instead of the usual pipe welded to an old car rim (already had some of those, they're getting replaced) I'd build a stand that actually looks like a proper, factory tool stand. I briefly pondered a design, and decided on a column made of 4" square tubing, with a tapered square base. I dug through my materials stack and found a likely chunk of 10-ga hot rolled. Not being one for CAD or trig, I made a cardboard pattern that gave me the base taper I wanted, and cut four sections with the plaz.
	Once they were tacked and partially welded, I found a strip of about 1/2" material that had been sheared from a sheet of  16-ga, bent it in the appropriate places, and tacked it to the lower edge. This gave the base the room for some rubber feet, and made it look more like the old cast iron stands we used to see in the 50s.
	A few passes with an angle grinder, then an air  sander, and it was time to weld the column on. A couple of light tacks, a quick check with the level, and then a full weld.
	The baseplate had already been cut, and came with the grinder (bought used) so I just needed to clean it up a bit with the air sanders, and tack it in place. I was happy with the height and the look, so it was time to finish it. Sorry about the crappy photo- the mill and boxes behind were distracting, so I roughly blurred it away. I was in a hurry.
	Now, I wanted a place to set drills, gages and dressers, so I decided I'd add a tray, about belt height on the column and fitted in the right side "corner" of the grinder base. Again, I found some leftovers from the shear, and just hand-formed something that looks about right.
	Then it was a simple matter of setting the "outline" on a piece of scrap 22-ga, scribing it closely, cutting it out with the Beverly-clone shear, and tacking it into place.
	After a full weld, skipping around and giving it time to cool so it wouldn't warp excessively, I fabbed three mounting tabs, and drilled the column for 10-32 machine screws. I decided not to tack or weld the tray on, as I might decide to change, move or enlarge the tray in the future.
	A quick test fit, and three allen-drive countersunk stainless screws from the parts bin, and it's looking good. It's not terribly sturdy, but it's also not designed to have more than a few drills or a couple of adjustment tools on it.
	Time for some feet! More rooting through the scap bins located some 1/4" bar, and a few moments with the plasma cutter got me four triangular mounts. Three of these were drilled for 10-32 and tacked into place (using the rubber feet as a rough depth guide) and the fourth was drilled for 3/8-16 and tacked in somewhat higher in the base.
	The "feet" are just 1-1/2" black rubber furniture feet from Home Depot. They have a thin steel washer molded in, with a hole in the center for a screw. They worked great!
	The odd corner got it's foot mounted to a chunk of thin scrap strip, bent into an appropriate angle, and located over the 3/8" hole. It's located pretty firmly, but still allowed to float up and down a little.
	A hole drilled through the base allows an allen wrench to pass through to a 3/8-16 setscrew. This presses down on the movable foot, to compensate for an uneven floor. That gives me a wider foot and somewhat better stability than a triangular foot of the same dimensions.
	Now, the grinder's a bit heavy, and the stand is thinwall steel, so I decided to add some ballast. I'd considered pouring some mortar or concrete in, but I had this chunk of 5/8" plate that wasn't doing anything... A quick pass with the gas-axe into two roughly even pieces, a relatively light tack (in case I change my mind) and it's now well balanced and very stable.
	Since I was going for the molded/cast look, I used a little Bondo to fill in the base-to-column seam, and to lightly fill in some of the various dings and scraes from the grinding.
	Some sanding, and a few licks of spot putty, and it's ready to paint.
	First two coats are Rust-Oleum light grey "Industrial" primer.
	Then I tried the Rust-Oleum "Light Machine Grey". It was both much too light, and also, as seen here, a little on the green side. Not what I had in mind.
	So I switched to the "Dark Machine Grey", which turned out to be a very close match to the grinder itself, which is what I was hoping for. Two more coats of that, some impatient drying time, and here it is. Works perfectly. Not that there's really much way a simple stand can "not work", but it's firm and stable, looks like a real machine tool stand, and places the grinder at the perfect height for working (almost a foot higher than any of the benches.) I liked it so much, I made two more to replace the pipe-and-old-rim stands on the bench grinder and buffer.

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