My own 'Mahal
- Thread starter JakeKohl
- Start date
I'm not sure what the deal was with those photo links - the links to the photos worked correctly but something was wrong with the embedded image. I think I repaired them all! Thanks for checking in!
I do hope to finally get the tile down this year and maybe get started on some cabinets and storage solutions.
Not much construction has moved forward in the garage since the last update, sadly. I've been inundated with personal projects that have taken priority and restructuring our home business. Here's a short shot of a few of the major projects that have taken place since then.
2016-02-19_02-53-23 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
2015-07-20 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
20140930_200529 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
20140706_181504 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
20150302_170702 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
20160130_160903 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
20160130_161850 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
20160214_183146 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
20150131_113405 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
20150207_184933 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
20150207_185629 by Jake Kohl, on Flickr
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It's been a while! After a lot of growth and growing our home business and lots of hobby stuff being wedged into an overcrowded schedule, I decided 2020 will be the year of the garage. I'm finally moving toward completing the vision I had for this space. I bought a small Axiom 2'x4' CNC two years ago and found some success making/selling parts and signs off that unit and I knew all along that I would want to upgrade to a 4'x8' CNC at some point. Opportunity came knocking with a friend who buys/sells from industrial auctions and I acquired an older, but lightly used, ShopBot unit. It needed some upgrades and I first thought I was going to fix it up and turn it around for a buck but I was pretty impressed with it's relative accuracy and decided to keep it. The problem was that I pushed all my tools to the side and plopped the behemoth smack dab in the middle of the garage thinking it would only be there temporarily before I resold it. Now that I decided to keep it, it needed to be placed in it's final home but I certainly didn't want to move it before I had the long-since-planned-and-purchased tile installed on the floor under it. Once the router is in place, it will start making all the cabinetry that will go through the shop. The tile project finally started a couple of weeks ago and it feels good to be making some pretty big improvements toward finishing the place and getting the shop back in good working order.
Since I'm going with a 24"x24" through-body porcelain tile and a 1/16" grout line, and a goal of near 100% thinset contact/fill under the tile for rigidity (I rarely make it easy!), the subfloor needs to be very flat - and it's not. Each 12'x12' pad between relief joints is dished out with a variance of about 5/16" with the most severe slope at the relief joints and the walls. I ground down the high spots with an 8" side grinder and a diamond cup disk (dust collection shroud worked very well) and filled with self-leveling compound. This took an entire weekend and a couple of week nights to complete. On the next slabs, I'm going to lean toward more leveling compound and less grinding to make this a little easier.
Next up was my $100 craigslist tile saw. It was cutting like garbage. The blade would oscillate as soon as it touched tile and cut erratically and chip the edge. A new $39 arbor and $60 blade later and it's making super crisp and straight cuts.
Next up, fill the relief joint with backer rod and some cheap caulk - this is mostly just to keep thinset from getting into the relief joint. The tile will NOT be laid over the relief joints so the slabs can continue to move. This will leave a 5/16" space between tiles on pads and that gap will be filled with a grout matching caulk - again, to allow movement.
Schluter ramp profiles installed on the tile where it goes under the garage door.
And one (of six!) slabs is now tiled. These tiles weigh 18lbs apiece. They're heavy. It took four 40lb bags of thinset to do this section. My knees and hands are pretty raw this morning but I'm really pleased with how it's turned out so far. As far as my tiling skills go - I'm absolutely a novice but getting faster and cleaner. I have a good bit of cleanup to do on this section tonight.
Since I'm going with a 24"x24" through-body porcelain tile and a 1/16" grout line, and a goal of near 100% thinset contact/fill under the tile for rigidity (I rarely make it easy!), the subfloor needs to be very flat - and it's not. Each 12'x12' pad between relief joints is dished out with a variance of about 5/16" with the most severe slope at the relief joints and the walls. I ground down the high spots with an 8" side grinder and a diamond cup disk (dust collection shroud worked very well) and filled with self-leveling compound. This took an entire weekend and a couple of week nights to complete. On the next slabs, I'm going to lean toward more leveling compound and less grinding to make this a little easier.
Next up was my $100 craigslist tile saw. It was cutting like garbage. The blade would oscillate as soon as it touched tile and cut erratically and chip the edge. A new $39 arbor and $60 blade later and it's making super crisp and straight cuts.
Next up, fill the relief joint with backer rod and some cheap caulk - this is mostly just to keep thinset from getting into the relief joint. The tile will NOT be laid over the relief joints so the slabs can continue to move. This will leave a 5/16" space between tiles on pads and that gap will be filled with a grout matching caulk - again, to allow movement.
Schluter ramp profiles installed on the tile where it goes under the garage door.
And one (of six!) slabs is now tiled. These tiles weigh 18lbs apiece. They're heavy. It took four 40lb bags of thinset to do this section. My knees and hands are pretty raw this morning but I'm really pleased with how it's turned out so far. As far as my tiling skills go - I'm absolutely a novice but getting faster and cleaner. I have a good bit of cleanup to do on this section tonight.
automobiliben
Well-known member
Jake, I'd be interested in seeing some details on the ShopBot! After a couple moves since SC, we are now settled into Milwaukee and loving it. I have came into usage of a 4'x8' ShopBot in exchange for storing it. Been using it a fair bit lately!
It's an old PRS that was converted to a PRT control system at some point before it got to me. I have a number of improvements that I'll be building/installing on it once I get other things in order - namely, an entirely new Z-axis with a water cooled, VFD driven, spindle...rewiring with energy chain on all axis, and improving the dust collection. Mine also came with a single phase 7.5hp roots vacuum pump for the hold down table - and it rocks!
When I first got it, I immediately built an improved vacuum distribution plenum designed in a 4 zone radial pattern instead of the traditional square grid and it far exceeds the hold down forces that the OEM of the vacuum pump spec'd out.
More ShopBot photos here:
https://flickr.com/photos/teamseacats/albums/72157688882395793
Got a bit more done on the tile. Discovered that one of my control joints was wonky but managed to make it up even with the minimal 1/16" grout line I'm using (not recommended). My tile corners aren't "perfect" in this section but they are a reasonable compromise to having tile span areas of the control joint without a full isolation barrier.
And, man, I had hoped to focus more on being "clean" in the installation at this point and while I definitely got faster, I was not cleaner. The dust collector closet added a lot of cramped space and mahem to the cuts and mess. ;-). It will take a good bit of scrubbing but the lipage is at a minimum.
And, man, I had hoped to focus more on being "clean" in the installation at this point and while I definitely got faster, I was not cleaner. The dust collector closet added a lot of cramped space and mahem to the cuts and mess. ;-). It will take a good bit of scrubbing but the lipage is at a minimum.
Still cranking away on the tile. It's slow and it's going to take a while but it's getting to the point where I can really start to see what the final product is going to look like and it's nice!
I got the second (of 6) concrete pads tiled and grouted and started the process of moving my CNC router to the completed area where it will live. Since I have a garage door on each end of the building, and the router is essentially double ended, I placed it at the back-yard door so when I have a large sheet-goods project (cabinets, etc.), I can just back my truck up to this door and load sheet goods right out of the truck onto the router and the resulting parts flow into the shop.
The 220V 50amp 6AWG service line was fished through the wall (that was a job), through the upper floor/ceiling, and stubbed out in the main electrical panel. I left a spare piece of conduit running up above the panel and accessible in the old attic - that kept me from needing to cut any holes in the wall over the sub-panel.
Before the router was going to be placed on the tiles, it needed proper foot-pads. The router came stock with nothing but inverted 1/2" carriage bolts for feet. I had previously snagged some heavy duty equipment foot pads out of the trash but the threads were massive at 24mm and it would take a lot of modification to get the router frame to accept those. So, instead, I lopped off the threaded portion from the ball ends, turned down the carriage bolts from the router, and welded them to the foot pads. The batteries died in my auto-darkening welding helmet - so I did these welds with my eyes closed...seriously. I'm not great welder by any means and this certainly wasn't my best work - but it's sufficiently and hardly visible.
New foot pads installed and I had the help of two good friends and some borrowed equipment dollies and we jacked and inched the router up ontop of the tile and dropped it gently into place.
I got the second (of 6) concrete pads tiled and grouted and started the process of moving my CNC router to the completed area where it will live. Since I have a garage door on each end of the building, and the router is essentially double ended, I placed it at the back-yard door so when I have a large sheet-goods project (cabinets, etc.), I can just back my truck up to this door and load sheet goods right out of the truck onto the router and the resulting parts flow into the shop.
The 220V 50amp 6AWG service line was fished through the wall (that was a job), through the upper floor/ceiling, and stubbed out in the main electrical panel. I left a spare piece of conduit running up above the panel and accessible in the old attic - that kept me from needing to cut any holes in the wall over the sub-panel.
Before the router was going to be placed on the tiles, it needed proper foot-pads. The router came stock with nothing but inverted 1/2" carriage bolts for feet. I had previously snagged some heavy duty equipment foot pads out of the trash but the threads were massive at 24mm and it would take a lot of modification to get the router frame to accept those. So, instead, I lopped off the threaded portion from the ball ends, turned down the carriage bolts from the router, and welded them to the foot pads. The batteries died in my auto-darkening welding helmet - so I did these welds with my eyes closed...seriously. I'm not great welder by any means and this certainly wasn't my best work - but it's sufficiently and hardly visible.
New foot pads installed and I had the help of two good friends and some borrowed equipment dollies and we jacked and inched the router up ontop of the tile and dropped it gently into place.
Brian R
Well-known member
Welcome back, Jake. That tile looks awesome.
The 35amp roots blower vacuum pump on my CNC router exhausts 150 degree air (at a pretty good rate). I had planned to put in a drier exhaust vent through the wall so I could plumb the exhaust through that during the summer when I'm running the A/C but coming through the garage door would be a much straighter/cleaner routing of that flex tube. Do you guys have any good automotive exhaust through-door vent systems that you would recommend?
Brian R
Well-known member
I used a system made by Crushproof and sold at AutoZone. They have various sizes of hoses and adapters for through garage door or wall.
My side-hustle job has been going gangbusters and consumed every spare waking moment for the last couple of weeks. I'm heading to Bulls Bay north of Charleston for a fishing weekend this weekend on my Hewes, getting caught back up on business the next, and hopefully cranking away at more tile around the weekend of Feb 14. It's a grind!