Andres' Inline Tight 2-Car Toybox

[Andres]

I've loved the concept (and small doses of reality) of dismantling, fixing, designing and fabricating since playing with my first Lego set and remote control cars. I've wound up as a mechanical engineer, which I'm sure was once advertised to me as the pinnacle occupation for someone with these interests, but unfortunately the reality is that I'm basically a paper-pushing, desk jockey during business hours. My father is a (retired) high-school tech teacher, so I generally had access to some great workshops growing up, but always dreamt of having my own.

At the start of 2019 we moved into our 'the next 10+ years' home, which is in a great location, with beautiful natural surrounds, interesting architecture, etc but a very compromised shed space. After 8 years of renting while living away from our home town, I cannot put-off embracing my own workspace any longer - life's too short.

My main interest is in cars and motorbikes, but I do enjoy dabbling in electronics and audio. The space will be predominently aimed to enable working on a single project car, with the occaional soldering project or small woodworking task - although this may change with time.

As it stands at the beginning of 2020.

(Approx dimensions only)

Thankfully we also have a 3-bay carport, so the daily-drivers can have minor maintentance works and/or modifications undertaken there. I've also had tacit approval from my better half that we can build a small 'garden shed' for gardening equipment, pool chemicals and pushbikes etc.

We've knocked over renovations on the kitchens and bathrooms and given the house a reasonable amount of love in 2019, and as I've reached 'practical completion' on our front boundary fence (a priority when you have twin 4-year-old boys and a 8 month old girl to wrangle) I can now move onto trying to find the diamond-in-the-rough within my very own shed!

 

[Andres]

My current plan-of-attack is:

- repaint exposed steel framing in same 'Monument' colour as exterior
- repaint concrete flooring (or cover in some manner)
- update the lighting to LED panels
- install foilboard style insulation to walls and ceiling
- fill / fix any gaps/holes
- line walls with 9mm painted plywood
- then commence the fitout...

The fitout is the really exciting part and I've already been playing around with how I can make the most of the space available. Feedback welcomed!

 

[Andres]

Some progress has been made over the past week or so. With the assistance of my dad, we've taken a wire wheel to the old painted frame and knocked off any loose bits before repainting with a metal enamel paint.

I then bought 10 sheets of 20mm foilboard insulation (and a couple of sheets of ply to keep it from breaking on the drive home). The area I live in gets damn hot as well as pretty chilly (by Australian standards) so I'm hoping the insulation will make the space more usable at night, when I usually have free tinkering time.

For the foilboard to work best, there needs to be an airgap between the external sheet metal and the board itself. The timber rails are 50mm thick, so with a 20mm spacer installed there is the primary airgap between the cladding and the board and another 10mm airgap to the future internal lining.

Initially I was using a specific 'Aircell' foam spacer product, which was essentially a piece of foam with double sided tape pre-applied. They worked really well, but at $1each, it was going to add up fast. Instead I decided to make my own from a square of the foilboard with my own double sided tape applied.

I'm about half way through the insulation and about to move onto the plywood lining (as I can only keep one half clear at a time).