CubbyChowder
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 16, 2013
- Messages
- 175
Hey everyone, love seeing all the rad shop/garage setups in here and thought I would contribute and show what I have going on. I'm in the mood to write so I'm going to get pretty detailed on this.
A little back story to how it all unfolded, in February of 2012 I embarked on my first real car restoration project, the candidate being a 1973 BMW 2002. I was 21 years old, had earned myself a good amount of money to take on a project like this, and I was ready to learn.
I was immediately confronted with some rust issues that needed to be addressed. I did my research and purchased a Lincoln MIG welder, a bottle of 75/25 and started squirt gunning my rust problems away. After getting the hang of things and successfully grafting in some patch panels, I was hooked. One thing led to another and soon I had a full blown custom build on my hands, and I was totally infatuated with the endless possibilities of metal working. At this time I also started dabbling in furniture design.
The BMW was located at my dad's house, which was a 45 minute drive each way from my house to get any work done on it. This got old.
I had a newfound passion for metal working, and I wanted more tools. I wanted to build everything. I wanted my own space closer to home, but the idea of having my own shop seemed like an unrealistic option. It was a fun idea to toss around and dream up scenarios of me working on my BMW and building furniture with my friends around, but in the back of my mind I told myself not to take it too seriously. Then I started browsing Craigslist...
Of course everything was ridiculously priced, at least for my low income (I was waiting tables at an Italian restaurant at the time). One ad sort of caught my eye because of the relatively low price but it was very poorly written and I didn't really think twice about it, I also wasn't fully committed to this idea yet. It always popped up in my searches for the next 2-3 weeks, and I eventually decided to call on it, just for kicks. The landlord was a really friendly older man, and he told me to go check it out whenever I want, it was open. It was a 5 minute drive from my house and at this point I was pretty interested to see what it was like as I had never really seen an empty shop before.
When I first entered the vacant shop space, I turned on the lights and a pretty weird sensation came over me as I glanced around. It was a strange mix of excitement and anxiety. I was excited because I saw the potential that the place had, but I was nervous because I knew immediately that I had to have it.
When I left I acted like it was still just an idea I was tossing around, but deep down I knew the seed was planted. It wasn't really in my budget to take on another financial responsibility like this, but it held so many unknown possibilities that I justified it to myself.
In all honesty, the moment that actually fully sealed the deal for me was eating taco bell later that night and reading a hot sauce packet that stated "If you never do, you'll never know". I know it sounds cliche, but that actually happened.
The next day I met up with Larry, my new shop landlord, signed the paperwork, handed over money, made nervous/excited handshakes and drove to my new shop. This was June 4th, 2013.
It was a blank canvas, and I had the authority to make any decision I wanted. As you can imagine, the next few nights were nearly sleepless, but I slowly made some progress:
Miraculously, a week later, my dad was presented with an opportunity to acquire a free lift. The deal was that we had to tow a Mazda Miata 1000 miles north to Anacortes Washington and the lift was ours (theres more to the story, but that's the gist of it). We split the gas money and made a trip of it. The original plan was to install it at my dad's house, but it only made sense to install it in my shop, so that's exactly what we did. Here it is half installed, with my new shop couch which was way too nice to be a shop couch that I later sold and realized it had the biggest black widow I've ever seen on it:
At this point I was in full shop set up mode and was busy building work tables and shelving units:
First successful lift operation was celebrated by changing the oil in my newly acquired Toyota Pickup (I needed a shop truck to compliment my new shop!):
I think I dedicated around $3000 for filling the shop with basic tools. Money that I had been saving for a long time for the right moment, and that moment was now. Built a little hanging wall for some of my new tools:
Started buying more essential tools, like a huge air compressor:
And a budget TIG welder (First one burned out on me during my first use and I returned the plasma cutter after some terrible experiences. Buy nice tools people!):
Finally brought my BMW project down to make more progress on it. I'll be honest though, I've made barely any progress on it since this day:
Started getting the layout a little more dialed:
Things got pretty wild for a little bit...
Modified a Harbor Freight tubing roller with Swag Offroad bits and built a little stand for it:
Throughout all of this, I was also building some furniture pieces:
And some prototype custom roof racks for older BMW's, VW's, Mercedes, etc. Haven't done much with these yet but I plan on revisiting this idea soon:
Restored a 50's era Craftsman jointer and built a portable stand for that and my new planer:
On January 10th, 2014 I decided to quit my job as a waiter and pursue my shop full time. This is also when eggs and spaghetti became my two main food groups:
A friend caught a photo of me in my element:
Rearranged the back wall:
Along with doing some local commissioned work, I started building custom table bases and selling them on Etsy:
And a few custom tables that will be receiving glass tops (haven't gotten pictures of them with the glass tops yet, waiting on the clients to send me pictures):
So that's pretty much where I'm at as 2014 comes to an end. My experience in in my shop has been amazing so far. While the last year being "self employed" has proven to be a true challenge at times, where I feel guilty buying a $1.50 coffee in the morning (happens daily), it's also shown me the awesome upsides of being on your own schedule and only being limited to what you can create yourself. I truly hope that I can manage to get above my expenses in 2015 and finally be able to invest into my shop again. I have a list of tools that I'd love to own and I can't wait to start eating normal food again.
Hope you enjoyed the read! It was fun sorting through all these photos and revisiting the landmark moments in my life as of lately.
A little back story to how it all unfolded, in February of 2012 I embarked on my first real car restoration project, the candidate being a 1973 BMW 2002. I was 21 years old, had earned myself a good amount of money to take on a project like this, and I was ready to learn.
I was immediately confronted with some rust issues that needed to be addressed. I did my research and purchased a Lincoln MIG welder, a bottle of 75/25 and started squirt gunning my rust problems away. After getting the hang of things and successfully grafting in some patch panels, I was hooked. One thing led to another and soon I had a full blown custom build on my hands, and I was totally infatuated with the endless possibilities of metal working. At this time I also started dabbling in furniture design.
The BMW was located at my dad's house, which was a 45 minute drive each way from my house to get any work done on it. This got old.
I had a newfound passion for metal working, and I wanted more tools. I wanted to build everything. I wanted my own space closer to home, but the idea of having my own shop seemed like an unrealistic option. It was a fun idea to toss around and dream up scenarios of me working on my BMW and building furniture with my friends around, but in the back of my mind I told myself not to take it too seriously. Then I started browsing Craigslist...
Of course everything was ridiculously priced, at least for my low income (I was waiting tables at an Italian restaurant at the time). One ad sort of caught my eye because of the relatively low price but it was very poorly written and I didn't really think twice about it, I also wasn't fully committed to this idea yet. It always popped up in my searches for the next 2-3 weeks, and I eventually decided to call on it, just for kicks. The landlord was a really friendly older man, and he told me to go check it out whenever I want, it was open. It was a 5 minute drive from my house and at this point I was pretty interested to see what it was like as I had never really seen an empty shop before.
When I first entered the vacant shop space, I turned on the lights and a pretty weird sensation came over me as I glanced around. It was a strange mix of excitement and anxiety. I was excited because I saw the potential that the place had, but I was nervous because I knew immediately that I had to have it.
When I left I acted like it was still just an idea I was tossing around, but deep down I knew the seed was planted. It wasn't really in my budget to take on another financial responsibility like this, but it held so many unknown possibilities that I justified it to myself.
In all honesty, the moment that actually fully sealed the deal for me was eating taco bell later that night and reading a hot sauce packet that stated "If you never do, you'll never know". I know it sounds cliche, but that actually happened.
The next day I met up with Larry, my new shop landlord, signed the paperwork, handed over money, made nervous/excited handshakes and drove to my new shop. This was June 4th, 2013.
It was a blank canvas, and I had the authority to make any decision I wanted. As you can imagine, the next few nights were nearly sleepless, but I slowly made some progress:
Miraculously, a week later, my dad was presented with an opportunity to acquire a free lift. The deal was that we had to tow a Mazda Miata 1000 miles north to Anacortes Washington and the lift was ours (theres more to the story, but that's the gist of it). We split the gas money and made a trip of it. The original plan was to install it at my dad's house, but it only made sense to install it in my shop, so that's exactly what we did. Here it is half installed, with my new shop couch which was way too nice to be a shop couch that I later sold and realized it had the biggest black widow I've ever seen on it:
At this point I was in full shop set up mode and was busy building work tables and shelving units:
First successful lift operation was celebrated by changing the oil in my newly acquired Toyota Pickup (I needed a shop truck to compliment my new shop!):
I think I dedicated around $3000 for filling the shop with basic tools. Money that I had been saving for a long time for the right moment, and that moment was now. Built a little hanging wall for some of my new tools:
Started buying more essential tools, like a huge air compressor:
And a budget TIG welder (First one burned out on me during my first use and I returned the plasma cutter after some terrible experiences. Buy nice tools people!):
Finally brought my BMW project down to make more progress on it. I'll be honest though, I've made barely any progress on it since this day:
Started getting the layout a little more dialed:
Things got pretty wild for a little bit...
Modified a Harbor Freight tubing roller with Swag Offroad bits and built a little stand for it:
Throughout all of this, I was also building some furniture pieces:
And some prototype custom roof racks for older BMW's, VW's, Mercedes, etc. Haven't done much with these yet but I plan on revisiting this idea soon:
Restored a 50's era Craftsman jointer and built a portable stand for that and my new planer:
On January 10th, 2014 I decided to quit my job as a waiter and pursue my shop full time. This is also when eggs and spaghetti became my two main food groups:
A friend caught a photo of me in my element:
Rearranged the back wall:
Along with doing some local commissioned work, I started building custom table bases and selling them on Etsy:
And a few custom tables that will be receiving glass tops (haven't gotten pictures of them with the glass tops yet, waiting on the clients to send me pictures):
So that's pretty much where I'm at as 2014 comes to an end. My experience in in my shop has been amazing so far. While the last year being "self employed" has proven to be a true challenge at times, where I feel guilty buying a $1.50 coffee in the morning (happens daily), it's also shown me the awesome upsides of being on your own schedule and only being limited to what you can create yourself. I truly hope that I can manage to get above my expenses in 2015 and finally be able to invest into my shop again. I have a list of tools that I'd love to own and I can't wait to start eating normal food again.
Hope you enjoyed the read! It was fun sorting through all these photos and revisiting the landmark moments in my life as of lately.
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