Recent content by HappyCamperIV

Balusters: After the posts and rails, I started on the stainless steel wire rope balusters. This was a kit I bought on Amazon. It came with the turnbuckles, thimbles and crimp-rings. Just add the wire rope and you have all the parts. It was quite reasonable as compared to a conventional...

I'm with you wasfast, I will certainly try small, hidden areas before I try anything major. At this point I am planning on just living with it. Should it ever need re-doing, I will just do the whole thing if the test spots work out. I'm sure, like you were getting at, the longer I wait, the...

Hand rail: Oh dear! This turned out to be quite a big job. I wanted to stick with the industrial look theme so I went with 4X4 vertical newel posts and 1-1/2” emt conduit hand rails. I drilled the posts to accept the 1-1/2” conduit rails, but the holes needed to be pretty precise or a large...

My local Repcolite paint guys tell me that you can paint oil base over latex if its fully cured. It's been 6 months ish, so I'm pretty sure it's cured. If it's glossy they recommend a light scuff with a Scotchbrite pad prior to painting the oil base. Tempting to try I guess.

I think so C F, The black was painted last February and it still has that slight tackiness to it. Feels kind of like a soft touch paint or something. I spoke with my local paint guy (Repcolite) and they tell me that it will steadily get less tacky for about the first 6 months, but after this...

Finishing up the stairs: I applied three coats of semi-gloss black latex. I really liked the look, but this was a mistake! The latex doesn’t cure very hard, it always has a slightly “tacky” feel to it. It’s easy to touch up and it really wares quite well, but I just don’t like the tacky feel...

On to the treads: I chose 2X12’s each cut to 42”. I rounded the edges with a 3/8” round over bit and settled in for a couple of long sessions of sanding. I chose a cherry color stain and then I applied three coats of hardwood floor urethane. I sanded lightly in between coats and I used a...

Stairs Cont: I didn’t want to have supports mid way along the stair stringers. I was a bit nervous about the “springyness” of the stairway with only the outside two stringers and no center support. I came up with the idea to sister the notched stringers to an uncut 2X12. This gave me a...

Stairs, I knew I wanted something a bit special for the stairs. The total rise was about 10’6”, quite a big climb. I liked the industrial open riser look, but the design done by the lumber company engineer was not like that at all. I decided to redesign the stairs from scratch. I chose a...

Good eye TX4runner! That pic was taken last night. It's not done up there by any means, but it's coming along nicely now! Some of the guys I work with and I have a monthly meeting there, we call it the "Board of directors meeting" What that really means is a good excuse to get together and...

Lights, After the decking was installed, it got really dark under the mezzanine! I waited for a sale on linkable LED shop lights. It didn’t take long and a version of what I was looking for popped up. They were 4 foot, 3700 lumen, off brand lights for about $14 usd each. I bought 12 of them...

Decking time! The decking on top of the 2X12’s is 3/4” OSB sub-flooring with tongue and grove joints. The decking is attached to the 2X12’s using construction adhesive and nails. I started along the front edge on top of the beams and worked my way back. The only tricky part was lifting the...

Up goes the mezzanine structure: I enlisted some help for setting the beams (Good friend and my son in law! Thanks you guys.) I attached a logging chain to a couple of the roof beams and used my block and tackle to lift the beams onto the posts. The beams are a Glu-Lam construction. 1-3/4” X...

Thanks for the kind words C F! It's been a lot of fun getting it this far. I have really enjoyed the process.

The Mezzanine: After lots of planning, sketching and thinking, we decided to add a mezzanine to the rear of the shop. The idea was to build a “hang out” type area up there. I was thinking a man cave and the boss was thinking living room. Those details will be all worked out as time goes by. I...