A shop finaly, 34 x 36 !

[boing]

Will be closing on my first house at 4pm on Thursday! Has a single car attached garage and 1225 sq. ft.shop in the back yard, oh and not that I'am slob but there is no HOA. I'll post some pictures once I have the keys to the new locks I've installed.

House sits in Woodland Park CO @ 8500 ft., has a killer view of the north face of Pikes Peak.

Short background grew up in Fort Worth Tx, moved to Colorado in 02 an I,ll never look back.

I love metal fab specifically rock crawlers, & I would like to some day achive desert racing fab skill. Love building and wheeling rock crawlers (is what's in our backyard; currently I am building 78 FJ-40 for some mild to heavy duty wheeling) also love desert racing I will gradually start building a race truck at some point in the future (in the mean time I will just continue chasing and pitting for two of my friends.)

That being said I have fair amount of tools (not that we ever have every thing we want right?) and I consider myself a novice to intermediate fab guy an a very good wrench (not that I don't still ask questions from time to time...)

I also hangout on several other boards have thick skin, love constructive criticism (how we learn), and I don't offend easy so bring it!

Oh and nice to meet you!

 

[Goobzilla]

Awesome, can't wait to see pics! Colorado is a hard habit to break, I grew up here spent 20 years away and JUMPED at an opportunity to come back last year. Now I wonder why I waited so long

 

[boing]

Front of the house, on the right side you can see that you have to pull around to the back yard to get to the shop...

Beside the house looking at the North Face of Pikes Peak, edge of shop is on the left.

The shop.

Inside the man door looking into the mess, the house is almost squared away so I'll start organizing the shop soon. You can see the Radiant tube heater being installed (it is now finished).

Next up is going to be some lighting!

 

[haugy]

Nice digs man. Congrats.

CJ-7 crawler here. Are you on Pirate?

 

[Benw455]

Welcome. Nice house and shop.

 

[boing]

Nice digs man. Congrats.

Thanks!

CJ-7 crawler here. Are you on Pirate?

Right on, I am mostly a chevy/toyota guy however the more I get into wheeling the more I realize that it doesn't matter once they are all tube... And I have owned a couple YJ's, & an XJ (uni body, barf) along the way!

I love Commando's and CJ's after that I dont care for them to much... Where are some pictures of your beast?

I am on Pirate as "boing." here is my current project...

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=907560&highlight=

Welcome. Nice house and shop.

Thanks!

 

[Even 11]

Cool House, Very nice shop too! I lived in Woodland for about 10 years and am in the springs now. Thanks for sharing, Let us see how it all goes together when you can!

-Dane

 

[boing]

Right on, now that the heater is in I am going to move on to lighting. The shop has some old t12's in it so I am going to convert it to T8's. After that I need to address insulating the ceiling... It will take some time but it will get done.


I work in the Springs so I commute, alot of the guys that I hang out with live out east (Falcon, Calahan) so I do quite a bit of driving...

 

[Harleyguy]

Congrats on the new place.

 

[PCO6]

Beside the house looking at the North Face of Pikes Peak, edge of shop is on the left.

NICE! I hope you have a good sized window on the back of your shop!

 

[John in OH]

Nice location .. enjoy! Just wondering .... what is the ceiling height of the shop? Is it a pole barn or stick frame construction?

 

[onewaydave]

ditto PCO6. I'd have a hard time getting things organized just looking at the mountains. Kansas doesn't have too many mountains to look at.

Dave.

 

[boing]

NICE! I hope you have a good sized window on the back of your shop!

No it doesn't have any windows, but I do walk outside all the time and stare...

Nice location .. enjoy! Just wondering .... what is the ceiling height of the shop? Is it a pole barn or stick frame construction?

My only gripe with the place is the the cieling height its only 10'5" which isn't terrible just not as tall as I would like. (Would have liked to put in a lift some day, but dont know if I will with the low ceilings. Also its stick framed.

ditto PCO6. I'd have a hard time getting things organized just looking at the mountains. Kansas doesn't have too many mountains to look at.

Dave.

I am not a fast mover to start with, but the pine trees and mountains certainly dont speed me up ...

 

[SteelArt]

Nice shop and view

 

[boing]

Found a killer deal on a used Ingersoll Rand Type 30 (3 phase)...

Kind of opened up a can of worms though, because I want to build a 3 phase converter (15 - 20 hp) however I have a home built shop with hardly any amperage (thanks previous owner)... So now I am talking to the power company to find out how much it will cost to get a 200 amp drop at the shop. Will be talking with a friend that's an electrician to see what he will charge to drop in the service panel and mast. I am thinking of keeping the lights and sockets on the house's 110, then running the welders, compressor, and 3 phase off the 200 amp... unless somebody has a better idea...

 

[boing]

Lighting is 3/4 the way complete, still have another two rows to put up. Picture was taken off of ambient light ( camera is mildly zoomed by accident)...

Still a mess in the shop but I am getting more stuff put away...

Have a friend coming over to bid the electrical, power company has a drop on one side of the shop that isn't used so I can have it hooked up for 70$

 

[Boyd Who]

Looks nice, and great that your power needs will be handled for so little $$.

 

[ddawg16]

View *****....and your garage is too small....but since your a fellow former Texan....I'll take that house off your hands.......

Like you, I left Tx back in 88....never looked back.....Lived in Hurst.....

All joking aside....nice place.....and view....

 

[red baron]

That a killer place! I love Woodland Park area too. I was born in Colo Sprgs, but grew up in Green Mountain Falls lol!

 

[Even 11]

That a killer place! I love Woodland Park area too. I was born in Colo Sprgs, but grew up in Green Mountain Falls lol!

It really is a small world, but it takes the intraweb to help us find each other! lol

-Dane

 

[boing]

Looks nice, and great that your power needs will be handled for so little $$.

Thanks, just got done talking with my friend that's an electrician he said it should be about 800 all said and done...

View *****....and your garage is too small....but since your a fellow former Texan....I'll take that house off your hands.......

Like you, I left Tx back in 88....never looked back.....Lived in Hurst.....

All joking aside....nice place.....and view....

I would expect no less of a fellow Texan...

That a killer place! I love Woodland Park area too. I was born in Colo Sprgs, but grew up in Green Mountain Falls lol!

Right on, Green Mountain Falls is an awesome area also, we looked there and cascade, just couldn't find a place with a shop... I love Cascade!

It really is a small world, but it takes the intraweb to help us find each other! lol

-Dane

True story, its kinda ironic...

 

[boing]

Well thought I would bump this thread as I have been busy working on the shop in the last couple of months....

Finished lighting several months ago 5 rows of 5, its plenty bright, happened to look at some lighting threads on this board before I bought the fixtures, you can still listen to the radio (I need some background noise).

Also got the panel installed month before last, last month got it inspected and hooked up to the pole so I have untapped 200amp sitting in the box.

Today I just bought a 30 HP 3 phase converter from American Rotary, did a lot of searching/obsessing and finally settled. Once it arrives I'll start on the outside enclosure for both the idler motor and the air compressor. Would like to complete this project before the summer's end.

My buddy just won an auction for an old 3 phase lathe (with tooling) so I picked up his old shop smithy for free! I spent the last two nights cleaning it as it has been used hard for the last 3 years... 2 scotch bright pads and a roll of paper towls and its still a dirt ball, I dont have any after cleaning pics though...

 

[justanengineer]

Nice shop. Be careful of acquiring machinery or you may find yourself working in the driveway, or adding onto the shop before you know it. Is that an old Hobart stick/tig combo I spy in the corner in front of the engine hoist?

 

[boing]

Nice shop. Be careful of acquiring machinery or you may find yourself working in the driveway, or adding onto the shop before you know it. Is that an old Hobart stick/tig combo I spy in the corner in front of the engine hoist?

Thanks, Yes it is an old Hobart (1965 I think; still have the original manual) picked it up through some horse trading, It welds aluminum very nicely. If I get into Tig heavily I'll probably buy a newer unit. The beast is heavy, have had to use the cherry picker to load and unload it...

 

[justanengineer]

I know all about the weight of those machines, but even the newer transformer machines are about the same size. I have one amongst my tools back east, but honestly cant remember the model either. I bought it at a farm auction for $100 just because of the vintage look and especially bc of the "steering wheel" adjustment knobs. I havent tried it for tig yet, only just found a vintage tig pedal that fits it 3 wks ago, but its one of the smoothest running stick welders Ive ever used. Personally, if you want to get into tig anymore than that machine will do you for, I would keep it and just augment it with a portable inverter for more mobility and thinner materials.

 

[boing]

Yeah I picked it up because it welded aluminum so well, however I also love the look (refrigerator with steering wheels). A friend of mine has a Syncrowave 250 and it hands down welds cleaner on 4130 (probably more modern pulse technology). That being said I'll probably keep it around until the shop has to much junk in it, at that point I'll thin the herd... However I am a long ways from even having the shop fully setup, let alone being full of junk...

 

[boing]

Got everything unpacked, 695 lbs. shipping weight. American Rotary 30hp 3 phase inverter with remote panel. The piano dolly was already broken however this isn't doing it any favors...

Motor

Panel

 

[boing]

Once my rebuild on my drill press is complete, I'll start working on building a small attachment to the shop to mount the air compressor & idler motor. Sooner than later, I anticpate starting week after next...

 

[boing]

Well it took longer than anticipated to finish the drill press however its been done for quite awhile now (even got to use it the other night).

Drill Press thread...
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107514

Well I started digging the retaining wall out by hand, took me about an hour to remove the dirt (24X24X24) so I called a budy asked him to come down and help me since the thing was 28’ long. He shows up on Friday with his old skid steer & twenty minutes later…

Once he loaded up the skid and was gone for the day, I started poking around and found that there was yet another layer of timbers just below the dirt, so I dug them out and pulled them out by hand…
After much debate about pouring the concrete myself I found a local guy to do it for almost what it would have cost me to do it. (Rent a plate tamper, sand, form up, and 2 yard minimum…) That and they made it look 100% better than I would have…

Now I just need to load the timbers into the bed of my truck and hall them off to the dump… Will start framing & decking it up within a month or so...