Well, I got to test drive the new studio setup today. It needs work. I knew it would, but it's still kind of disappointing. For one thing, I am going to have to get another chair right away. My drafting chair does not go down low enough for me to actually rest my feet on the floor (which is fine for drawing, I have a footrest under the drawing table). But I need my feet on the floor for engraving because the airgraver is controlled with a foot pedal. And I want a chair with a shallower seat, so I don't feel like I have to perch on the edge of the chair.
A side note about chairs, it's very strange for me to actually be able to roll around in them. Wood floor, neato! I must be careful, I've crashed into a few things already. ;-)
And the platform on the drill press is kinda bigger than it needs to be. It only needs to be big enough to hold the base of the blue turntable, but it's much larger than that. To be ergonomically correct (or at least somewhat close, I think true correctness may be impossible in this job) one needs to have the ball vise essentially in one's lap it seems to me. I can't quite get that close to it right now, which makes me lean too far forward in order to see the microscope. I am investigating options for reducing the size of the platform (in other words I'm hoping my brilliant engineer neighbor can help with that).
In the mean time, I met with a client this afternoon and got approval on a sketch for a small drawing. So I'm going to be cranking that out in the next few days. I'll show it in progress once I start.
9 comments:
Try a 65 exercise ball. I have one at my computer and it's great.
I thought about that, actually, but I'm concerned about mixing an inflatable ball with all the metal chips that will end up on the floor. I have one in my bedroom though, I'll try it out.
I tried it, it put me too low and I didn't like the bouncy aspect. Working under microscope = need extreme stability! So I just went to Staples and bought a chair.
I found this link for a carver's vice that you or your engineer can build cheap. It will give you tilt, and rotate, and it will fit on your drill press table. (I hope)Oh, I followed you here from engravers dot com. Your scrimshaw is amazing!
http://tinyurl.com/ylo42xg
Thanks Roger, welcome to the blog! The ball vise that I have is actually the best thing to use for engraving, I think I could do with a slightly smaller drill press platform though. I'm making do right now but I'm going to have someone take a look at it and see if it would be easy to make a new (smaller) platform.
Katherine!
I am as usual, a little confused, lol. Which part of your support are you calling the platform? Is it the part the ball sits on, or is it the part on the floor that the column attaches to? Keep up the good Work! Speaking of confused, this may be a double post, (srry).
Oh that's okay, you can blame it entirely on my lack of technical terms. ("Hand me that whatchamacallit, I need to tighten up the thingy") The platform, which probably has some other name, is what I am calling the round disc (that's part of the drill press stand) that is directly under the blue turntable. The turntable and ball vise are fine, the drill press platform (?) is a bit large.
I'm back. It looks like your platform is my drillpress table. I think I see a little lever down there below it. If it's like mine it rotates left or right or locks, and possibly tilts. I think what you need is the up and down adjust given by the crank and the column. The adjustments the table give you are already provided better by your ball and turntable. Probably the turntable will lift out. If it does, probably, there is a pipe-like protrusion that sticks down from the center of the table and plugs into the table clamp thingy.
Once you know the size of the pipe that goes into the table clamp, you can buy a pipe of the same size and get your friendly local welder to build a thing that will grab hold of the base of your turntable, Orrrr you can get your friendly local machinist to turn the table down to the same diameter as the base of your turntable. I could probably build it, but my welding is more effective than beautiful.
It's fixed now! I forgot that I forgot to post the fixed photos. Will do that...
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