Do it once, do it RIGHT...MANLAND

[VairKing]

I mostly lurk here but lots of influence here has led me to my ultimate shop. Its done now, and I will go straight to the finished product. If you feel like reading read all this otherwise just look at the pictures.

Three years ago while looking for my first home to purchase, I stumbled upon my current “Compound.” The first thing that sold me was the barn, 32’ X 75’ with a 6” concrete floor. I almost bought it without inspecting the house. My wife wasn’t as impressed when I called her to tell her I had found the perfect barn, and oh yeah, there’s a house too!
A 3 car garage attached to the house keeps the 2 daily driver cars plus the best running fun car out of Manland, and a garden shed keeps the lawn toys separated from the car toys. This is necessary!
The pole barn was completely empty with no electricity yet, so one of the first upgrades was 100 amp 220 volt service. The shop you are about to see is the second one I have built in this barn, hindsight is 20/20 and it’s never big enough. (Especially when I decided to turn an old fire truck into the ultimate Car Hauler) I decided to just pull out all the stops, go way over the top, and “Do it right, do it once.”
1400 square feet was left unfinished “pole barn” and has cold storage for all 3 Corvairs, the fire truck and a 10x20 tent I use as a paint booth. The total finished area is about 1000 square feet. Most of it is 14’ to the ceiling, and the space under the mezzanine is 8’ to the ceiling. The shop is completely insulated and drywalled, and PEX tubing inside a new concrete floor provides very nice heated floors, with help from my outdoor wood boiler. Three A/C units and 4 ceiling fans take care of those hot summer days, when you just HAVE to get something done out there.
The place is seriously wired. Duplex 110v outlets every 6 feet, and a 220v outlet on every wall. An American made 2 post lift sits in the center of it all, and makes Corvairs even more fun to work on. The American made 25 CFM 2 stage air compressor has its own sound insulated room, and when running is hardly noticeable. (A green CFL bulb outside the room tells me when the power to the compressor is on, so I don’t forget to turn it off!) Three hose reels provide air power at every corner, and retract out of the way when not in use! A full set of stairs goes up over the mezzanine, but it’s just storage up there, with 5’ ceiling height. A hammock high above is perfect for afternoon naps, or friends who might be having trouble at home.
Three 5’x5’ windows grace the north wall, mounted as high as possible let in tons of natural light. Under the lift, 6 drive over lights were installed flush with the floor. These are awesome when a car is on the hoist, I can leave the flashlight in the toolbox. High efficiency fluorescent lights are very plentiful above, and there isn’t a dark spot in the place. Running water and a sink that will hold a 5 gal bucket were one of the best things I added, clean hands when returning to the house makes a happy wife.
One wall has an “Offerings to the God of Speed” shelf, which contains all sorts of broken Corvair pieces parts, most of which are from learning the “Hard Way” with my V8 Corvair! A few “Holy” pistons, smoked camshafts, and decapitated clutch disks make for great conversations. I seem to be constantly adding things to the shelf!
A professional DJ stereo is hard wired into the walls, so when that great song comes on I can really crank it to “11” A computer picks up WIFI from the house keeps the internet (and Craigslist, mostly!) at my reach. A 12’ long marker board takes up space on the north wall, and is great for organizing projects and drawing diagrams. All toolboxs, cabinets, parts washer, etc, are mounted on casters. Everything can be wheeled out of the way for cleaning or whatever.
A large mig welder, plasma cutter, drillpress, sander, grinder, buffer, and steel welding bench make up the fabrication corner, while real countertops, a powder coat oven, a microwave, a glass top table made out of Hoosier slicks with seating for 4, and the beer fridge reside in the other corner. The fridge you ask? It’s a 1954 Philco, I restored it inside and out, its GM Torch Red with 6 coats of clear, and holds two 5 gallon kegs of beer!

 

[VairKing]

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[VairKing]

More pics

 

[VairKing]

And the most important tool in the shop, without this nothing would get done, or maybe its because of it nothing gets done, but the Beer Fridge!

 

[Bull]

Wow. Your setup is of the kind that makes me feel like my little barn is a lawnmower shed!

Kickass place you have there.

 

[djjsr]

VERY nice!

Love Corvairs.

 

[leanburn]

ive never heard of these drive over lights, can you elaborate ?

 

[D.J.]

OK tell us about the Firetruck and nice looking folding attic ladder you have there, did you salvage it off of the truck? Hopefully you didn't just scrap the pump from it!

 

[scuba0459]

Where is the CO2 tank for your kegerator. In a few days I will finally get to posting some pictures of my garage but I still need to build my Keezer.

Very nice.

Albert

 

[wilb1976]

I love the beer fridge. Ive never seen those size kegs. What size are they?

 

[930dreamer]

Very nice, love the corvairs.

 

[fergus]

Any man who has his own firetruck is okay in my book. Carry on.

 

[strnge]

Sweet!

 

[colt zantop]

nice place! who needs a house when you have that!

 

[y20dth]

I like the offerings corner. Burt Monroe, right?

Kinda makes it ok to have an engine failure now an then...

 

[omr]

awesome shop ..

that garage door next to the lift leading to where the cars are parked seems very odd to me ..

 

[illmatyk]

Awesome shop! Really digging that table and that fridge you made!

Question tho, with your toolbox right next to the lift, doesn't that get in the way while you are working or do you move it else where while you work?

 

[Kevin54]

Definitely some jealousy here on my end

Very cool place you have indeed How about a couple of pics of the rides?

 

[VairKing]

ive never heard of these drive over lights, can you elaborate ?

I designed them myself sortof. Garrots garage has a picture of a garage with them, but no info. You can buy the real deal somewhere online for around $500 per light fixture. I was not interested.

I bought these cast aluminum landscape lights to start with.

http://www.affordablequalitylighting.com/docs/outdoor/in_ground/pg455/index.html

I machined off the grate so my plexiglass cover would sit flush on top of the glass lense.

Then I found that a reglular toilet flange would hold them if I machined some of the inside diameter out. So thats what I did, set the toilet flanges in the concrete and ran direct burial wire to each of the toilet flanges (Maybe I shoulda used conduit time will tell) THESE ARE WIRED TO THEIR OWN GFI, if anything bad happens the power is cut. I made 1/4" plexiglass covers to go over the lights. Heat is a bit of an issue so they can't be on for hours on end, or the plexiglass gets soft. Maybe I could make something other than the plexi but they work pretty good. I have about $250 invested. They passed a 4500 lb vehicle driving over them, havnt tried the 14,000 lb firetruck but then again it wont fit between the lift posts so I guess I don't have to worry about that.

 

[VairKing]

OK tell us about the Firetruck and nice looking folding attic ladder you have there, did you salvage it off of the truck? Hopefully you didn't just scrap the pump from it!

The firetruck was a craigslist score a buddy and I went in on together. The price of the truck was too cheap to be true, and the truck was in fine shape. Its an '86 C8000 Ford Cabover, with a 3208 turbo CAT and Allison automatic. When we bought it it had 10,000 miles on it.

Yes we scrapped the pump. We could not find anybody to buy it. And we tried hard to sell it to someone who would use it.

We took most of the fire apperatus off and changed it to a flatbed. Not an easy task but was pretty fun. We changed the rear end from a 5.12 to a 3.73 and put some lower profile tires on it, so it cruises down the highway with ease. At 65 mph hauling 3 cars it gets about 12 mpg which is way better than the way we used to do it, each of us using our own seperate pickups.

 

[VairKing]

Where is the CO2 tank for your kegerator. In a few days I will finally get to posting some pictures of my garage but I still need to build my Keezer.

Very nice.

Albert

5lb CO2 sits in the old "bread drawer" under the fridge. I made an oak cradle to hold it. This pic is from when I was still test fitting it so nothing is hooked up but its where it ended up being.

 

[VairKing]

I love the beer fridge. Ive never seen those size kegs. What size are they?

They are 5 gallon Cornelius (Corney) Kegs. They are used by home brewers a lot. If I don't have any beer brewing in the basement I can stop by my local microbrewery and get them filled. No bud light in this Manland!

 

[VairKing]

awesome shop ..

that garage door next to the lift leading to where the cars are parked seems very odd to me ..

Its the only way to get large items from one side of the barn to the shop. Especially when there is 2-3 feet of snow outside! It is also handy when working on the firetruck, I can open that door and wheel my tool box right to where I am working.

 

[VairKing]

Awesome shop! Really digging that table and that fridge you made!

Question tho, with your toolbox right next to the lift, doesn't that get in the way while you are working or do you move it else where while you work?

I usually roll my box and that green table next to it right near where I am working, at least within an arms reach. Castors my friend, everything is on castors

 

[PurdueSD]

Super cool setup, i absolutely love the divided work space. Very well thought out.

But why is it so clean? hah

 

[Boosted1]

That is a first for me to see. A trans jack mount attached to your engine hoist? Looks like a good idea to save space.

 

[NASTYZEN]

Sweet place you have! I love the offerings corner. But you may find that you will run out of space quickly!
I had never seen those in ground lights before.That's brilliant man!
Oh and nice Corvairs.....well everything.

 

[vortex]

A lot of great ideas here!
Big fan of the beer fridge, that's one right up there on my 'to do' list for when I build mine

 

[illmatyk]

I usually roll my box and that green table next to it right near where I am working, at least within an arms reach. Castors my friend, everything is on castors

Ah ok, that pic makes alot more sense to me now!

 

[VairKing]

Just a little update, just got done digging 2 trenches out to the old Manland, one from my house (400 feet) supplying water pressure to 1st an outside frost hydrant, and 2nd the inside of the shop for the sink. The 2nd trench runs from my woodshed/boiler room to the shop,(200 feet) it contains pex tubing for hot water from the boiler for the heated floor. I decided to let a spray foam contractor blast foam around the PEX tubing, the guys over at hearth.com swear this is the way to go, better than any tubing you can buy. Also going in these trenches will be direct burial quad shield coax (400 feet) and direct burial cat5 (400 feet, will the signal reach? we shall see! The wifi is patchy at this distance) Time to put the front blade on my little cub cadet and bulldoze all the dirt back in, but I am going to be nice and toasty this winter!

 

[bassman]

Love the marquette engine anylizer, my father had that same one in his shop back in the day. Like you're speakers and brackets too. Very nice garage!

 

[socapots]

love the in floor lights man.
Not sure how things worked out with the Internet over the 400 feet of cable.
But if it didnt. I am pretty sure you can get modem/receivers (there is a proper name for them) to take the signal over longer distances.

 

[JimVonBaden]

For the heat issue with the floor lights, when they burn out replace them with high power LED lights. They make them that plug and play with those fixtures! Should last nearly forever, and less heat, though not NO heat.

Jim

 

[TAMPAGT07]

Ohhhh man......I'm jealous, I always wanted a Fire Truck....That's it, I say we Occupy VairKing's garage until he "Spreads the wealth." Nice place and toys....

 

[groundcoat]

What instrument do you play? Only a musician would use that type of speaker (on the wall).

 

[BSK]

nice fire truck conversion!

 

[SixStringMadness]

Also going in these trenches will be direct burial quad shield coax (400 feet) and direct burial cat5 (400 feet, will the signal reach? we shall see! The wifi is patchy at this distance) Time to put the front blade on my little cub cadet and bulldoze all the dirt back in, but I am going to be nice and toasty this winter!

400+ feet is over the limits of Ethernet, although it may work the speed will be down. If it is not sufficient, there are multiple options. SHDSL.bis modems (will act as an Ethernet extender with one at each end, but very pricey for your application) will get you reliable speeds although not 100Mbps. Also, with the growth of IP video in the CCTV security industry, there are a couple manufacturers making Ethernet extender/converters that utilize coax and will extend to 600 meters. YES, 600 meters. Look at http://www.veracityglobal.com to find those

 

[gurudel]

They are 5 gallon Cornelius (Corney) Kegs. They are used by home brewers a lot. If I don't have any beer brewing in the basement I can stop by my local microbrewery and get them filled. No bud light in this Manland!

I think you overlooked the PBR, which I assume is for your friends. My other hobby is beer as well as garages, glad to see both in one spot! (kind of why I am even working on my garage is for my homebrew setup).

 

[andersen24]

400+ feet is over the limits of Ethernet, although it may work the speed will be down. If it is not sufficient, there are multiple options. SHDSL.bis modems (will act as an Ethernet extender with one at each end, but very pricey for your application) will get you reliable speeds although not 100Mbps. Also, with the growth of IP video in the CCTV security industry, there are a couple manufacturers making Ethernet extender/converters that utilize coax and will extend to 600 meters. YES, 600 meters. Look at http://www.veracityglobal.com to find those

To add onto this post, it may be too late, but I had a run of 660' from my main house to my shop. I ended using fiber optic with two media converters. I spent right at $300.00 for the MC's and to FO. You can look here for them, this company is AWESOME to deal with! http://www.boxfire.com/medconv.html Call them and they will get you the cost for the FO.....

And by the way - AWESOME FRIGGIN BUILD!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[VairKing]

The internet works great. I don't do a lot of downloading or uploading, mostly cruise the net check my email and watch youtube videos. I was a little worried the signal wouldnt carry but it seems to be just as fast as any of the computers in the house.

I like the idea of LED lights for the floor, I may have to buy one and see if its bright enough.