Cooper Heavy Industries: One guy's garage

[57plymouth]

Back in 2001 I built this 30x40x10 pole barn with a carport off the side. I've been using pretty hard ever since. The roof is insulated, the ridge cap is a skylight, it has a 200 amp service off the main house, water a phone. It's nothing really special, but it has some major work flow problems.

First, some pics.

That's really the good...

 

[57plymouth]

Here's the bad...

As you can see, organization is a major problem.

I also have a rafter issue. The rafters are right over the doors, preventing me from running the doors up at a 45 degree angle, so the doors have to be closed when I have a car on the lift.

My plan is to get some new storage shelves going.

Get the compressor outside in a hut to move the noise.

Build a steel workbench for fab work.

Set up the maple top bench with a removable point to mount my ammo reloading equipment.

Move the alignment machine out of the way somehow.

Find a way to put some light under the lift.

Improve the service cart. Improve the tool chest which is incredibly overcrowded.

Add more overhead light.

Add more fans. It gets over 120 degrees inside during the summer. I have a torpedo heater to keep me warm enough in the winter. This is South Carolina after all.

Get a few real fire extinguisers.

Put a first aid kit over the sink.

Build/buy/barter a blast cabinet.

Finish my welding cart. This project I started last night. Yes, it is a cut down grocery cart. When I'm done I should have exactly zero dollars invested in the project.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

 

[warmpancakes]

gonna need more pictures on the forward look there

 

[clutch93]

Good looking shop you have there! Looks like you have a pretty good plan to get things cleared up and make some more usable space. Couple of recommendations,

1. Go through everything as you organize, if your like me and probably most of us on here you'll find you have a bunch of stuff you don't actually want or need taking up space.

2. Didn't see too much of this, but while organizing make dedicated places for non automotive items. ie. camping equipment, house paint, etc.

3. Consider the Harbor Freight tool box everyone on here seems to like. It's a pretty good size box to help take the load off your current one and the price is right.

4. I have no idea how to fix this, but I'm sure someone on here will have a great idea for the door/lift issue before summer hits. 120 deg = no bueno. I understand, I'm in bakersfield, if I couldn't open my door when I was in the garage in the summer, I would never go out there.

5. Consider cabinets as an alternative to shelves. Yes they are sometimes more expensive, but if you do some craigslist hunting you may be able to score some relatively cheap. This creates the illusion of less stuff, because you no longer see it.

6. Oh and last but not least, put the wheels back on the scout, that poor thing needs to be driven!

 

[JC23]

On clutch93's number five (above), I'd put those cabinets up above the bench deck. Look around and you'll see a lotta room that ain't being used. That's all your secondary storage.

And while you're making/buying and hangin' those cabinets, look at widening the rack that's right by the man door to make it deeper, taller and hold more. Again, the taller stuff is for not-too-used stuff.

And as long as you're rebuilding that rack, how 'bout building some overhead racks/shelves for above those three doors? Lookee all that unused space!

Must be nice to not have to insulate. haha Good luck and please keep us informed! You have a great space and it just needs a tune up!

 

[57plymouth]

The 57 was my first car, and it's been in my family since it was new. The original owner, my great grandmother, also built the house I live in.

The Scout is a project I'm building for a "customer." He's a friend of my father, and he's paying me to get it up and going. It is a long way from running.

I like the ideas. Keep them coming. I never thought about cabinets over the workbenches. But that is worth some effort. How high should I reasonably go with storage on the entry door wall without being too high for practicality? Remember that the bottom of the truss is at 10 feet.

 

[FJ 432]

Personally, I love your garage.

I understand your issue with the rafters being over the door but could you extend the garage door tracks so that they're raised another foot or two. It appears that you have the clearance. So raising the 45 degree angle up high enough to give you more clearance for your lift. Then use a 1/2 HP door opener to raise it higher. I worked with a garage door guy on my garage and you just need to find someone who thinks outside the box.

Nice Scout BTW.

 

[MartyO]

Love the Plymouth and the fact that it has been in the family since day one makes it SUPERB!!!

 

[jktruck150]

Now that looks like a well used space! I like the BSA sign too, plus the scout, plus the jeep, but what is under the cover? Also, at 120 degrees, you are far south, where abouts?

I think shelving as said before, will be your best friend. That way you can get all that stuff off the ground!

 

[57plymouth]

but what is under the cover? Also, at 120 degrees, you are far south, where abouts?

The shop has no shade, so it's like a big steel heat trap in the summer.

Under the cover is my wife's first car. And yes, you read that right.

69 RS/SS Camaro

Here's the before...

 

[demographic]

Could you insulate the place?

Keeps it cooler in the summer and warmer in winter so its a win win situation.

 

[csp]

With the height of that building I'd be utilizing pallet racking. Store all the bulky items, like the beer kegs and engine blocks on it, along with all of the stuff piled up around the Camaro. You can also keep the bottom shelf with pallet racking high enough to keep tools like welders, parts washers, etc. you use fairly regularly underneath it.

Like someone else said, you could move your door rails up a foot or two to get some more space under the door with a car on the lift.

dougmac's pallet racking as found in this thread: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76341

 

[rquackenbush]

Cool garage, and good advice. I guess the only thing I can add / emphasize is to go vertical. You have a very tall workspace. The more you can take advantage of that upper area, the less you'll have on the floor.

You could even hook up a "librarian's ladder." in conjunction with some tall palette racks. That way you can have less often used stuff up out of the way, but it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to get to it.

You've probably seen the storage solutions that are basically a suspended platform that you can crank down... If you don't raise your door tracks, you could put some above the doors for some more storage of lesser used items.

In my garage I use a lot of clear totes for related power tools. That way, it doesn't waste a lot of space and I can just grab a tote and bring it with me wherever I'm working. It also keeps everything pretty organized.

Good luck and post pics as you make progress!

 

[57plymouth]

I like the pallet rack idea. Someone gave me a set of shelves, you can see them in the first picture in front of the closest bay to the camera. (bay 1) They look like the ones pictured above, so that must be what they are.

The question I would have is that if I were to buy a set that are pretty tall, which sounds expensive, how would I load the unused stuff up there? With the exception of the beer making brewpots (made out of kegs) and the soft top for the Jeep, the stuff I'd want up high are heavy. i.e. the spare motors and transmissions, the cherry picker, the motor stand, etc. Am I being too obtuse to see the obvious? Does pallet racking show up on Craigslist often? I'm a Stay At Home Dad so my budget is minuscule.

 

[MartyO]

I like the pallet rack idea. Someone gave me a set of shelves, you can see them in the first picture in front of the closest bay to the camera. (bay 1) They look like the ones pictured above, so that must be what they are.

The question I would have is that if I were to buy a set that are pretty tall, which sounds expensive, how would I load the unused stuff up there? With the exception of the beer making brewpots (made out of kegs) and the soft top for the Jeep, the stuff I'd want up high are heavy. i.e. the spare motors and transmissions, the cherry picker, the motor stand, etc. Am I being too obtuse to see the obvious? Does pallet racking show up on Craigslist often? I'm a Stay At Home Dad so my budget is minuscule.

I use the pallet racking in my home and business shops and love it, but I have fork lifts at both places.

 

[csp]

Put the larger, light bulky stuff up high and the heavy stuff down low via the cherry picker.

I see pallet racking fairly regularly on craigslist and at a local auction company that does a lot of industrial auctions.

I got lucky with the sections I have. One is only 32" deep, 8' tall with four 8' wide beams to make two shelves. I bought it at a garage sale for $15. The other sections are 48" deep, 8' tall with 8' beams (three uprights so 16' total) also with two shelves. I got those sections for $75.

 

[rickairmedic]

I agree with the others I see 2-3' between the rafters and garage door tracks . A highlift setup for the tracks would let the doors go up even with the bottom of the rafters . I had a highlift done when I had my new garage door put in and I gained almost 2' with the door open and still had room for the opener above it ( barely as the opener is maybe 2" from the ceiling . Look on craigslist for old metal kitchen cabinets also put adds in the wanted section of craigslist for them . I put a wanted add on my craigslist for old metal kitchen cabinets and 3 weeks later had a guy contact me who had more cabinets than I could use all I had to do was come and get them FREE .

Rick

 

[EuroVt]

Gotta see / here more about the Scout.

 

[57plymouth]

I finished my little welding cart project. I made it from a shopping cart, some scrap metal and some leftover paint.

The Scout is a 67 with the 196 engine. It is in for everything. I'm still working on the brakes and getting the motor ready to fire. If the motor runs okay, the owner does not want to rebuild it. We'll see when I get it running. Then its a paint job and an interior refreshing. Here's the build thread on that project:

http://www.justih.org/Binder-Bench/showthread.php?t=15545

After talking it over with management, i.e. the wife, I'm thinking of building a platform about 7 ft off the slab in the corner over where the spare motors are now. That's between the drill press and the wall, near the poster of the Cobra. I may make it L shaped and go all the way down the wall over the shop sink and parts washer.

I put a wanted post up on Craigslist for cabinets, and did a search for some. I also have a lead on a heavy desk that a buddy is using for reloading. He wants to get rid of it when he builds a new bench, so I may take that and use it for reloading and small work like carbs or distributors. I can put it under the platform, with some lights mounted under the platform.

Thoughts?

 

[Scuderia-F1]

Nice shop you have there, with a little organizing it will be awesome.
That welding cart you made looks nice too.
But most important, I like the Swedish flag!

 

[57plymouth]

A good friend of mine gave me that flag. He was working here for a few years and is back home in Sweden.

 

[z28snksknr]

I'd recommend some storage containers for all the loose parts if you don't want to do cabinets. I see a lot of shelf space with single items sitting next to each other. You could probably reduce that down to 1/3 of the space if it was in some large storage containers instead. Make those shelves between the man door and the garage door twice as deep, and they can be half as long - there's 1/2 that wall reclaimed.

I also see very limited work surfaces. Perhaps a large work table that doubles to store all the infrequently used shop equipment and scrap pieces underneath it? Even if you made a metal welding table the same height as your workbench and put them together, that's a large work surface with a lot of storage space underneath

Create a dedicated workshop area and group the drill press, toolbox, parts cleaner, welder, hydraulic press, etc. in that area (the corner where the drill press and engine hoist are located looks to be a good location for that). That should keep the clutter out of your workspace and open up otehr walls for storage.

All this being said, I wish I had a place that nice. I'm stuck trying to fit all the same stuff into an attached 2 car garage

 

[57plymouth]

I will look into some sort of bins. I have some milk crates laying around, they would be a good place to start I suppose. I know one person bought some tubs from Ikea, any other good choices for something durable?

The shelves between the man door and the garage door can't go double. There would be no room to open a car door if I did that, so the single is the way to go. The problem with the shelves I have in there now is that if they are set double, like the other side of the man door, there is a three inch gap in the middle. The shelves came out of a library that got remodeled, and they are open in the middle. That makes stuff fall through. For example, the bucket of hose clamps slid into that gap this weekend, and dumped all the hose clamps. Any thoughts on cutting some thin ply, like louan or masonite to cover the shelves and make them solid? Or should I just go to tubs to slide over the gap? I can definitely imagine how I can compact stuff to take up less space in tubs. One for carb parts would empty nearly a whole shelf alone.

 

[milner351]

Pallet racks make a huge difference - you can put lots of heavy stuff on them and adapt them to hold specific items - I've had three outboard engines hanging off one shelf, and plan on adapting a stock rack for pieces of steel, pipe, etc. under the bottom shelf, instead of starting from scratch or using the wall for structure.

I got sort of light duty pallet racks when a nursery went out of business - they are similar to the gorilla racks HD sells - I have lots of stuff on them as well - but keep the engine parts, etc, the compressor, and clean burn furnace on the pallet racks - which I got used, wire wheeled and brush painted with tractor enamel.

 

[banzaitoyota]

Nice Shop, I'm down by Williston so you are pretty close

 

[57plymouth]

Thanks for all the advice so far. Trust me, I am reading every post over and over to glean all I can.

I have a buddy that works at a chemical plant bringing over a pallet tomorrow. I have a crazy idea to make storage boxes out of it. He has a bunch of them I can have if my plan works. I will post pics if it works. If not, I'll hang my head in shame.

This weekend I will start measuring for a catwalk / loft area. Then I can price the lumber and start saving money to build it.

Any advice for quieting my compressor without moving it outside? I am contemplating moving the compressor to the loft after I build it, but I'd have to quiet it down.

 

[z28snksknr]

Any advice for quieting my compressor without moving it outside? I am contemplating moving the compressor to the loft after I build it, but I'd have to quiet it down.

Some people have touted good results with just extending the intake outside or just making it longer with pipe to quiet down the intake air noise. If a dedicated shed or closet is not in the mix, an insulated box to cover the compressor head and motor may be an economical option.

I'm a big fan of dedicated storage shelves that are elevated and out of the work area.

 

[daveroy]

ON the garage doors... you can't go up at a *45 cause of the rafters... ok... but could you go almost straight up the walls and then horizontal right below the rafters? Then at least you would have as much lift with the doors open as possible??? You could even maybe shorten the horizontal part of the track quite a bit; cause the door would only have to be lifted till it cleared the opening! That looks to get you another 4 or 5 feet (hard to tell from the photos).

Note: I'm not a garage door guy, so I might be all wet on this!?

 

[57plymouth]

Since someone asked, the carport is 12 wide, and 30 deep.

 

[57plymouth]

So, dredging up the past now that I have some extra coin from a part time job...

I'm starting on this little project on Thursday. I will be moving the Scout out of the garage to get a bay to stage out of.

Step one will be to move everything off the wall with the windows. I will be cutting down some old book shelves I have in the barn from an office my Dad demolished a few years ago. They will be made into cabinets on either side of the windows. The doors will be made from the pegboard. Inside the cabinets will be the stuff I use all the time, but is still small. For example; RTV, glue, tape, PB blaster, small oil cans, etc. The pegboard will be for my most commonly used hand tools like the hammers, mechanic stethoscope, scissors, etc.

From the support beams on either side of the windows will be a new built in place workbench 20' long. I'm working on plans, but I want to use 4x4's for the legs, 2x4 dado'ed in for the shelf, and 2x6 dado'ed in for the top. The surface will be 3/4 plywood. The legs will be at least every 4 feet. Hopefully that will be stout enough for a mechanic's workbench. The middle area will be left open to accept a Harbor Freight tool cabinet. Hopefully I can get the coin up for one this summer.

I have more of the grey shelving units. I will be moving the alignment machine and putting two more rows of shelves parallel to the one in that corner. The uprights will be notched with a portaband to accept 2x6 boards, then a 3/4 OSB deck will go on top. That will give me a roughly 9x10 loft area for bulky stuff.

A friend of mine gave me a set of pallet shelving that is roughly 8' long that will go where the engines are in the corner. I'm going to scrap the 318, put the transmissions and the 454 under the shelves on the dollies they are already on.

The grey workbench will go over on the wall near where the Cobra poster is. That will get a new sheet of masonite for a smooth work surface, and it will be my reloading and small detail work area. The vice will be moved to the new workbench. I will hand some sort of florescent light over that bench.

I plan to add six more florescent tube lights to the rafters.

I still really don't have a great idea for the doors.

 

[Dustoff 35]

FJ in post #7 made a good call on the overhead door solution. Extend the straight track further up the wall and relocate the curved section closer to your ceiling. This will keep the door, when opened, closer to the ceiling and will give you more overhead space for the lift. It will also improve lighting in the area over the lift / bay as the door will not be blocking as much of your overhead lighting fixtures.

There are a few threads around where this has been done...

I plan to do this in my attached garage when I replace the doors in the spring. I presently have 5-6 feet of open space between the garage door header and the ceiling in the garage.

 

[Hemihead2]

It's been mentioned a couple of times about changing the way the garage doors open. I had the same problem and did what was mentioned here - a high lift system. My shop is 12' to the rafters so I extended the vertical tracks upwards to where the doors, when open were just under the rafters. I went a bit further and replaced the standard garage door openers with Liftmaster jack-shaft openers. The result left a completely open ceiling area, no interference with the lift and no open garage doors blocking any lights. Here's some pics -
Before

After

Jack-shaft openers

 

[57plymouth]

Plans changed. The wife stayed home from work and watched the kid, so I started the workbench. Photos tomorrow.

I'll be calling around about modifying the garage doors.

 

[K2Orion]

My welders also ride in a "recycled" shopping cart. Works for me.

Build a mezanine(sp?). Basically an open second floor along one wall. Like a balcony. I'm sure if you search it, you'll find examples on this site.
Make it 8' wide by the length of the wall. Storage up top, work space underneath. Make the bottom of the joists 8' ish. Then you'll have room under for workbenches, blasters, washers, and all the cool stuff that doesn't utilize the 10' height. Hang a few lights to light work spaces. You can access the top with stairs, but that eats floor space. Or a ladder, but its hard to carry bulky or really heavy stuff up there. Build shelves as tall as you can, 4' long, 16" or 24" wide perpendicular to the exterior wall. Then you still have a 4' walk.

Pallet racks are nice if you have forks on something and can palletize stuff. But if you don't have a forklift, they are really just deep shelves.

 

[Victorymike18]

The poster before me pretty much said the idea that I was going to contribute. It looks like you may have enough vertical space to build a mezzanine for parts storage, while having a workbench or additional storage beneath. I'd limit it to small or lighter parts, in bins, and setup a steep ladder or stairs to access a narrow walkway that runs along the shelves...

That's a really nice garage, and you have a ton of potential for improving the layout.

 

[LSU]

After looking at the photos of your garage and others, I'm not sure I'm worthy to post ideas on this project since you seem to have it under control but . . .

Somewhere on the board I saw a thread about building shelves in the dead space over the garage door. I'm talking about the area on the wall about the garage door when it is closed. On my garage there is some dead space up here and I'm going to build a shelf for storage of stuff (stuff I'm sure my kids will find when I'm dead and say "Why did Dad keep this stuff?")

The temp in your garage need to be addressed. I suspect come May you're going to be wishing you worked on this issue.

I think the welding cart is a very cool idea.

I can't tell how you've got your air lines run but would be interested to hear a little bit on this.

I'm enjoying reading the thread. Please keep posting pictures.

 

[57plymouth]

Workbench framed up. After clearing the wall, planning the bench, buying the materials, and building the frame, I was too tired to cut the top. Twelve hours is enough for one day.

While I was in the barn hunting up some materials, I found this rascal hiding in a corner. I think I'll clean it up and put it back in service.

 

[57plymouth]

I can't tell how you've got your air lines run but would be interested to hear a little bit on this.

The way I've run my air lines is not recommended by this forum.

 

[Mr. Welsh]

PVC? Definitely not recommended.

 

[57plymouth]

I'm planning to replace my air lines. Patience...

20 feet of rock solid work surface. The framing is 4x4 legs, 2x4 for the shelf and 2x6 for the top. The tops of the legs are morticed for the top framing to sit on. The cross pieces under the top are sitting on joist hangers. Every joint is screwed and glued with construction adhesive. The top is glued down with construction adhesive and screwed in place. The top is made of 3/4 plywood. I can't decide if I should double it or leave it single thickness. The top is level every direction, which took a lot of work for my poor carpentry skills to get right without shims under the legs.

I'll start on the cabinets to go over the workbench tonight. We'll see how far I get. I'm not a fast carpenter by any stretch of the imagination.