I bought a Blum mini press M, and I have no where to put it.

[DALSAW]

Last week while I was at IWF I plunked down the cash for a Blum mini press M. I have been doing research for several months prior to me purchasing it last week.

While I did all that research I failed to research a place to put it in my shop. My shop is a 12'X16' so space is VERY TIGHT. Does any body have and ideas for some type of a space saving stand or something like that? It's comming on Tuesday so I am also in a time crunch.

[Gregory Paolini]

Last week while I was at IWF I plunked down the cash for a Blum mini press M. I have been doing research for several months prior to me purchasing it last week.

While I did all that research I failed to research a place to put it in my shop. My shop is a 12'X16' so space is VERY TIGHT. Does any body have and ideas for some type of a space saving stand or something like that? It's comming on Tuesday so I am also in a time crunch.

Easy solution: You can put it in my shop

Seriously though, I think the smaller the shop, the more creative you need to be with machinery and tool solutions - The Minipress is a great piece of machinery, but for a very specialized task - So I would consider how often you need to perform that task, to determine how often you'll need to access it.

I don't own a minipress, but typically when I do a cabinet job, I'll run all of my hinge bores, and hinge placment at once - So I would most likley leave the minipress alone for long streches of time, then really use the heck out of it for perhaps a half day. Then it's going to sit again for a month. So If it's against a wall, and there are other more frequently used tools in front of it, I could deal with that. However, you may not want it to live in front of your planer outfeed table - Make sense?

In my shop, everything is mobile - Everything is on wheels. And many tools feed and support systems overlap one another. My planer outfeed runs over my jointer. And my chop saw extension runs through one of my drill presses. I'm looking at buying a kreg foreman, and that will share my chopsaw support table as well.

Be creative, and think outside of the box - Worse case scenario, like I said, you can always keep it at my shop

Best,

Gregory

[DALSAW]

Thanks for the tips Gregory. As far as putting it in your shop, I think that it would look better in mine

[DALSAW]

Well it came today so I put the scroll saw in the attic, so its now sitting where the sroll saw was, now if I can get my Kreg foreman out of the floor I'll be good to go.

[PaulMarcel]

So I don't know what your scroll saw looks like or if it has a built-in stand, but something like the DeWalt 20" could be put on a stand with a pivoting table. Scroll saw on one side, Blum thingy on the other. I'm pretty sure those two wouldn't be used at the same stage of a project so there wouldn't be a contention. Better still, the Blum thingy and your lunchbox planer if you have one (a lunchbox, that is, not a battleship) since the flip-top table arrangement doesn't lend well for a knee-hole for sitting in front of the scroll saw.

Brian Q just described his version of a flip table in this thread. I have my miter saw on one with an empty work surface on the other side described here (my offset table surfaces might be handy for you). My inspiration for this came from the flip table I saw in "Small-Shop Solutions" book (dirt cheap and -packed- with ideas; YMMV). If that book interests you, look on the home page as I believe they have a deal where buy 2 books get a third free and several other books there have pretty good ideas for all kinds of stuff.

[DALSAW]

Thanks for the input, I have a The Complete Small Shop book, It has a flip table but the only problem with the flip table is that the Blum machine is that is 38" tall with the handle is up. It has a spring or something that keeps the handle from staying in the down position. My scroll saw is a pretty old 16" saw and it dosen't have a stand. For right now its sitting on the floor.I'm thinking on building something that would hold my mitersaw, the minipress, and my Kreg forman. Anybody got any ideas for something like that?

[Onboard]

Last week while I was at IWF I plunked down the cash for a Blum mini press M. I have been doing research for several months prior to me purchasing it last week.

While I did all that research I failed to research a place to put it in my shop. My shop is a 12'X16' so space is VERY TIGHT. Does any body have and ideas for some type of a space saving stand or something like that? It's comming on Tuesday so I am also in a time crunch.

Well Aaron, you could mount a couple of rails on the wall above a work bench (or elsewhere) and mount a sled with a shelf 90 deg. to the sled to hold the mini-press. The sled would need something to hold it to the wall rails. Maybe something with rollers on the sled that would ride inside a rail. Kind of like a sliding closet door rollers and rail.

Taking the weight of your mini-press, set up a counter balance weight with a rope and pulley then just slide the mounted min-press up the wall and out of the way when not in use. Of course pull it back down when needed. You may need to create a latch for the up and down positions. If my idea isn’t too silly, I will leave you with working out the details of construction.

[DALSAW]

Hummmm thats not a bad idea. The Minipress weighs 82 lbs according to the manual, you got any ideas for the counter balence.

[Onboard]

Hummmm thats not a bad idea. The Minipress weighs 82 lbs according to the manual, you got any ideas for the counter balence.

How much can you lift? With a latch you may be able to get buy with less than the full weight. Assuming the latch is reliable. You wouldn’t want an unexpected 82 pound visitor in the middle of working on something. As far as a counter weight that would be compact and weigh approximately 82 pounds, maybe lead, although that still may be bulky. Not sure if a spring would work (like a garage door spring), and I don’t know that I would trust it.

If it were me, I would probably get a Harbor Freight hand winch and hook that up with the rope and pulleys. You would have to be careful lowering it. That’s the value of counter weights.

Hopefully some of our community members with an engineering mind could come up with something for you. Or you can say, yeah that was a silly idea and see what others may contribute.

[Vic]

Maybe consider a flip up shelf with a couple of these http://www.atomicmall.com/view.php?id=631088

[DALSAW]

How much can you lift? With a latch you may be able to get buy with less than the full weight. Assuming the latch is reliable. You wouldn’t want an unexpected 82 pound visitor in the middle of working on something. As far as a counter weight that would be compact and weigh approximately 82 pounds, maybe lead, although that still may be bulky. Not sure if a spring would work (like a garage door spring), and I don’t know that I would trust it.

If it were me, I would probably get a Harbor Freight hand winch and hook that up with the rope and pulleys. You would have to be careful lowering it. That’s the value of counter weights.

Hopefully some of our community members with an engineering mind could come up with something for you. Or you can say, yeah that was a silly idea and see what others may contribute.

I picked it up and sat it off the back of the UPS fright truck when it came. I would like to keep the whole assembly as close to the wall as possible.

[Onboard]

I picked it up and sat it off the back of the UPS fright truck when it came. I would like to keep the whole assembly as close to the wall as possible.

So, maybe the hand winch, rope and pulleys? I say pulleys (plural) thinking that if you set the pulleys’ up properly (2 or 3) it will reduce the amount of force needed to move the 82 pound object up and down the rails. That and some lubricated rails. All the rope and pulleys could be mounted between the bottom of the sled and the wall. Just some thoughts. I certainly don't guarantee anything. You’re the engineer.

[Vic]

I did a similar thing to make a panel saw in my first shop. Of course, I was only offsetting the weight of a circular saw. I used barn door rails and wheels and a paint can full of 16 penny nails for the counter weight. Worked like a champ.

[DALSAW]

So, maybe the hand winch, rope and pulleys? I say pulleys (plural) thinking that if you set the pulleys’ up properly (2 or 3) it will reduce the amount of force needed to move the 82 pound object up and down the rails. That and some lubricated rails. All the rope and pulleys could be mounted between the bottom of the sled and the wall. Just some thoughts. I certainly don't guarantee anything. You’re the engineer.

I have to dig arond and see what I can find to rig it up. I do have an old ATV winch that I frogot about I could mount it on the wall ad use it to pull the minipress up and down.

[DALSAW]

I did a similar thing to make a panel saw in my first shop. Of course, I was only offsetting the weight of a circular saw. I used barn door rails and wheels and a paint can full of 16 penny nails for the counter weight. Worked like a champ.

I like the idea of using barn door rails and wheels. Thanks