Geek's Garage

[Geek]

Edit: photo June 10, 2017



Original post - May 2015:

I've been inspired by many of the great setups featured here on GJ and I thought perhaps I should attempt to give back a little. It isn't anything special by some of the standards of amazing spreads around here but it will be my account of what works for me as I try not to break more things than I fix.







My wife and I bought a home at 8000ft in the mountains of Colorado almost a year ago now. The house has both a 2 car garage ("her garage") and my detached workshop - 24x28 with a 12 foot wall height and 16 foot peak.



This thread will journal my shop build, our adventure in mountain living, and perhaps some of the projects I dabble in to keep myself out of trouble..



This photo was taken outside my shop yesterday - May 10th:





For those who are ADVrider members, I'm the same "geek" that has hung out there for the past 10 years:







...and Adventure Riding is a big part of the reason I spent 11 years in the immigration system getting a green card (from Canada) to move to Colorado.





My property does present a somewhat unique set of issues - the house and shop are literally on the side of the mountain .



The house:





We have all kinds of erosion issues that I'm learning to address and then there is our steep mountain driveway that I'm still learning to cope with



Here's a video of my driveway - the accident occurs in this video at exactly 2 minutes

The driveway wouldn't be such an issue except for the fact that my vehicle of choice is a 1-wheel-drive Mercedes Sprinter van which really doesn't like going up it in the snow as you can see in the video above



This thread will likely include a bunch of Sprinter content. I bought my 2011 Mercedes Sprinter new in 2011 as a plain empty cargo van and have been building out my "ultimate adventure van" ever since. It was a plain white cargo van:





Which in its current iteration looks more like this:







It now contains a queen sized bed, beer fridge, 330ah of house batteries, plastidipped exterior, etc - and I built the interior out of 80/20 aluminum extrusion.



Overhead cabinets in the van:





Did I mention we live at 8000 feet?



Living up this high is an interesting experience. We have less atmosphere than there is at sea level so you can get winded just walking up the driveway. It is great when flat-landers come to visit. They think we are nuts because "there is no freakin' oxygen up here!" (direct quote from mother-in-law )



Then there is the weather...



This photo was taken 3 weeks ago - April 17th, 2015.

We got just over 3 feet of snow in 24 hours.



..and it melted out within 48 hours



Not to give the wrong impression - I'm loving every second of living up here. We feel truly blessed to have achieved our dream of "living in the mountains". I took this photo of my wife and dog playing here in our neighborhood this weekend:





So on with the thread...



I don't claim to know what I'm doing and I promise to post my screw-ups as much as my successes. I hope this thread will grow into something that has some sort of value as a pay-it-forward for all of the stuff I've learned here.



cheers and thanks,

Edward



p.s.I always appreciate constructive criticism and advice.



...next post: The shop.

A picture from the shop right now:

 

[xtremek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

With an intro like that, who wouldn't want to follow along? Especially with your big "accident". Count me in for the big ride along.

 

[Horror Business]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Very interesting, I look forward to more of your posts.

 

[coby65]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Great start!

Gonna have to figure out a 4x4 solution for the sprinter or a good plow for the driveway. ��

 

[schultzy]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

I told him that on the "other" site. Hope he listens!!

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Hey don't make fun of my little plow!

It only took 5 1/2 hours to clear the driveway last snowfall
I knew I was in trouble when I was stuck before the back of it cleared the garage door

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

View of the shop from the backyard:








When I was shopping for the house I used a map-based search engine as I knew the area I wanted to live in - with the second search criteria being a workshop (which isn't very easy to find in the mountains) .

This place popped up and I called my realtor. We ran over to have a look and the first thing I did was pull out a tape measure and check how tall the shop door was (I need to be able to get a van that is almost 10 feet tall inside).

It was tall enough!

When we opened the door this thing was inside:




I tried to get it as part of the deal but they wouldn't throw it in

I called my wife right away:
"I found our new house! It has a shop big enough for the Sprinter to go in!"
"Cool! what is the house like?"
"I don't know.. I haven't been in the house".

So we scheduled another visit the next day with her along to go inside the house - she liked it - 30 days later it was ours

Test fitting the Sprinter:



We were coming from a 3 bedroom apartment and I had three one-car garages. I was beside myself just thinking about all the space I had to work with in comparison:

The empty shop:


The empty 2 car garage:


...and the empty workshop under the house:


...but of course when you start filling it all up with your ****, you find out you don't nearly have as much space as you thought you did.

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

So It Was Determined (polite way of saying it) that the external building would become my shop. The 2 car garage would become my wife's garage (and our extensive gear closet) and the downstairs workshop would be rebuilt into a studio and home theater.



Somehow I convinced her that I needed to do the shop first - because I need the shop to do the other stuff right?

First task: just get the shop functional.

The goal at first was just to take all of the existing **** I already owned in the old garages and arrange it into a somewhat functional form so I could start the plethora of projects that needed tending.

The shop had a single light bulb in the center of the ceiling (complete with a piece of twine to turn it off and on) and one single 120 outlet and one single 220 outlet over in the corner. I noticed the house has the shop's breaker listed as "trailer garage". I think the old couple that lived here just used the space as parking for their RV over the years (and that cool old dump truck).

...but it did have electricity and 220 volts even!

All the wiring:


the lightswitch (the string):


I built a work island out of scrap wood, put my existing counters and such down the west wall, and hung some fluorescent lights I had from some strings. Wired the entire thing with a bunch of extension cords off the single outlet and had things set up well enough I could get to work on the Sprinter.

I considered this Version 1.0:




I emptied the Sprinter out for our move (I made its interior modular/removable) and began work on version 3.0 of its interior build





I was in heaven. For the last few years I'd been building the Sprinter in a parking lot (as it didn't fit in my 1-car garages)... having to waste a huge amount of time setting up, tearing down, being put off by weather, etc.

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

For the next few months I used the shop for a bunch of small projects in the house and working on the sprinter, motorcycles, mountain bikes, etc when I could.

It was functional although not set up the best.

Then I got sidetracked...

Mercedes' commercial paint *****.
Everyone knows it.
All Sprinter owners whine about it - "Whaddya mean my $50,000 van is rusting?".

I never thought it would happen to me - but last fall I started to notice rust flecks.
Ugh.

Seriously? A vehicle built in 2011 is rusting in 2014?

Mercedes can fix the problem - the rock chips on the hood don't rust because there is a special primer underneath it - but whomever the bean counter at MB that decided they only needed to use that primer on the lower half of the front of the vehicle should have his ****-kicked.

The rock chips above the windshield and the rock chips on the rear door (I drive on dirt a lot) were clearly starting to rust

Did I mention I drive on dirt a lot?

So I decided before winter arrived I needed to take on a new project and do something about the rust...

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

I worked in an aircraft paintshop as a teenager so I considered painting the van myself.
The 4x4 Sprinter had just been announced so the thought occurred to me that if I do decide to trade in on the 4x4 the original van color has more value for resale (especially the boring white work van color).

One thing led to another and I decided to plasti-dip the van. The plastidip would "freeze" the van's paint at its current state - stopping any rust progression and basically sealing the paint in a giant rubber bag. Plastidip is basically "liquid rubber" (the kind you dip tool handles in) that has been thinned into a spray-able form. You can spray it on your vehicle and then whenever you want it just peels off.

The cold weather was quickly closing in up high so I decided I better get after it if I wanted to spray it myself while I was still within the spray specs.

I decided I wanted to "do it right" instead of a just a quick spray-bomb job so I got after it removing the side panels, trim, etc so I could spray underneath them and then detailing the body work exactly like we would detail an aircraft before we sprayed it (my fingers still hurt ).

Random pics from the project:






....do you see what's wrong with that last photo?







yeah... I was painting in the ****** dark. doh!
I had to close the garage door (my light source) during the painting .. and my couple of fluorescent lights on an extension cord were NOT adequate.

...but in-spite of myself I did get it done 2 days before the cold arrived and it didn't turn out half bad





...now it was time to do something about the lighting situation (cart before horse anyone? lol )

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

So the shop had a breaker box with 1 out of 24 breaker slots used - lots of room to expand

I started by wiring in 6, 20 amp circuits.


and 86,000 lumens of lights would make my next painting experience more pleasent



Here you can see the breaker box behind the door as I pull stuff away to put 5 outlets in on the west wall at counter top level



For now all the lights are hung temporarily until I get time to insulate and drywall.. then I'll permanently mount them to the ceiling. They are wired into 3 switched rows - so I can just turn on the row over where I'm working if I like.

The dropped 7th light is over the work island:


...and this is where I ended up as my setup over the winter.


I considered this Version 2.0 of the shop.

...but now Spring has arrived and it is time for Version 3.0

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

I'm out of time for this evening (I'm trying to get this up to where I am currently ) but here are a couple of teaser pics from this spring:











cheers,
Ed

 

[JustinS]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

love it!

 

[Dinasaurkiller]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Exciting times bud-
Who's paw print was that??
Sprinter looks cool-I've been thinking about one as a 'work' van for some time now- 5 cyl. Diesel(?) Thinking you really need that 4 wheel drive!
Harsh environment out there-
Be safe-
Please keep posting!

 

[Playwme]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Awesome. The location, the van, the KTM, the shop. Hell of an introduction and I can't wait to see more.

Have you thought about a diff locker and LSD for the van?

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

schultzy: what's your adv name?

dinasaurkiller: A bear that came up the cliff, walked around my shop, and continued on up the mountain behind us. I have some wildlife cameras that should arrive this week so I hope to get more footage of him.
We also have a mountain lion living around our property (I suspect he dens on the edge of my land which has a big rock escarpment full of caves).

re: Sprinters:
2006 and older were known as T1Ns. They were 5 cyl diesel.
2007 and newer are NCV3s (new concept van 3) and are a 6 cyl tubro diesel.

I keep going to back and forth on the 4WD... I'd take about a $17k hit moving to one. I could buy a winterbeater 4x4 and still have a lot of play money left over for that much.

Playwme: I would love to have a limited slip rear end but I don't know of one that is available. The built in system tries to pulse each brake independently to get traction and it doesn't work well at all (I just turn it off and keep the tires moving).

The Sprinter has an active stability control system and everything is canbus'd talking to the computer so it doesn't like when you mess with things - which may be the reason nobody has made one. There is a company that makes a 4x4 kit (out of domestic parts) that sells for about $20K - and they had to override/bypass the computer for safety reasons.

 

[dubber]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Great intro! I dig the dip job on your van, looks great. Very unique spot. I'm a fan of those lights as well. Love how they are expandable.

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Sidetrack for fellow motorcycle guys:
Here are some of the bikes / phases I've gone through in the past few years:

76 R90/6

2012 KTM500XCW

2006 KTM950 Adventure

2006 Husqvarna TE610

2003 BMW F650GS (wife)

1999 DR350 (wife) - she also had a TTR but I can't find a photo of it.

BMW K1200LT

GSXR1000

R1

...a bunch of other sportbikes and then there were all the race bikes over the years

...and tons and tons of random dirtbikes.. etc etc

but I digress

These days I prefer Adventure riding

This photo was taken at 12,000 feet - up hill from my house:

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Back to the shop.

I find as I'm getting older my tastes in shop setup are changing.

It used to be I loved having tons of shelves where I could put stuff so I could see/grab what I needed easily.

These photos from the old shops show this:




...but something has tripped in my brain recently and the clutter is now driving me nuts.
For me, Version 3 of the shop is about getting organized and reducing clutter.

A few week ago I decided to spends some money on organization and start working toward what I consider my "perfect setup" as opposed to a "functional setup".

This was the shop a few weeks ago:









...and then a sale happened
teaser:

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Wow, that turned out fantastic! How is the plastidip holding up?

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

I grew up around old airplanes:

My Father restored WW2 aircraft for a living. I grew up spending weekends holding things like landing gear doors in place while he would cleco and rivet. When he passed away a few years ago I inherited his tools to add to my own tool collection. I really don't have a use for most of his tools, but it was the only thing I was left to remember him by, so I keep them. Everybody needs 65 pairs of tin snips right?

One of the last aircraft he restored:

So this means I own a bunch of tools. I know this is a forum full of folks who own a bunch of tools ( ).

That said I'm a hobbyist. As much as I'd love a SnapOn Envy or Proto box, I really can't justify the expense for my occasional usage.

So for the past few years I've been using a small Husky box (the silver box you see in the old shop pic above), which as worked fine except it doesn't hold 1/50th of my tools. So my tools have been in bins and boxes on shevles - making it very frustrating to try and find a tool I used once in a blue moon (and hence isn't in the "tool box").

So like many here, I looked toward Harbor Freight. They offer "more box for the buck" so to speak, and I was going to buy a few of their boxes except that Black Friday of last year I saw Home Depot put their workbench on sale for $199.

Wow.. considering the cheapest HF box was more than that, it was a heck of a lot of storage for $199.

So I had decided I would see if I could wait for next year's Black Friday sale to see if they put them on sale again. If I couldn't wait I'd go with the HF boxes.

Then a couple of weeks ago I just happened to look at the HD website on a Saturday morning and it said "Spring Black Friday Sale!". I glanced through and sure enough! They had the boxes onsale for $199 again!

I jumped in the van and headed to the local store:

2 hours later I had the inspiration I needed to being Version 3 of the shop

 

[aka Larry]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

I thought you were going to say you were adding that ball turret to your garage. Now _that_ would be cool!

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

So basically, for $1000 I got Twenty Feet of tool storage.



...and it fit perfectly into the design I have in my head for the shop!

This was a big step toward getting organized.

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

So I now have a means to get the tools organized.

This lead to wanting to get "project materials" organized.
In reality I had everything somewhat organized (I bought 100 tupperwear bins years back - as you can see in the "old garage" photo above) and I would organize assemblies into stacks of bins - but the bins themselves being out on regular shelving was bugging me. They still count as clutter.

So the following weekend I went and cleaned a couple of Lowes stores out of 6 foot tall storage cabinets:


...and over the next couple of hours my wife and I got really good at putting them together





...which meant I could now start cleaning off the shelves and organizing the contents into the cabinets.

This is what I've been upto the last couple of weeks.
Taking stuff like this:

..and the contents of the shelves and benches:


...and making it disappear into the cabinets:





The organization and de-cluttering is by no means done, but at this point it is done as far as I can do it because I need to get the drywall and paint done before I can do the next phase.

...and those last two photos lead to my current and next objective.

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

So now I'm somewhat organized, I need to put the horse back in front of the cart and do a few fundamentals that should have been done long ago

I need to drywall.
To drywall.. I need to insulate.
To insulate... I need to install the windows how I want them.

...and that's where I'm at today.

Windows.

I went to the Boulder ReSource (a place where you can buy used building supplies - including a large collection of windows) the other day looking for my first window. I found a somewhat new vinyl window that was ok and had pulled it out of the pile and was analyzing it when a guy walked up to me

This is the window I was looking at:

"Is that a 5x5?" he asked
"Yeah it is."
"You know, I have a brand new one sitting at my house that I never used. If you are interested I'll make you a great deal on it. It is a lot nicer than that window".
"Sounds great!"

So we hopped in our vehicles and headed over to his house a few minutes away.

He pulled out the window - brand new - still had the price tag:

"Looks great! How much?" I asked
"How about fifty bucks".

I handed the man $50 and we loaded it in the van.

The best part of the story? The used vinyl 5x5 window I had in my hand when I met the gent was $85

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

So now I have this 5x5 window... I need to figure out exactly what I want.

The shop is on the side of a "cliff" so to speak, and the view from the west side of the shop really is nice...

This is the view during the last snow fall:


So I'd love to be able to enjoy it while working out there.

I fired up Sketchup and this is what I've come up with:

The 5x5 window is going to be centered on the back wall's space:


Basically where it is propped in this photo:


Then on the west wall with the view, I think I'm going to do 4 two foot tall by four foot long awning windows centered on 6 feet height (so going from 5 foot to 7 foot vertically).
They'll be above the line of toolboxes.




....at least that's the current plan.

 

[Dennis Cavallino]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Subscribed, cheers from below sea level.

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

One of the things about living up here is that I just can't pop over to the hardware store for a random bit as I used to be able to. This has made it really frustrating to need a small bit, know I have one but I can't find it.

For whatever reason the system I'd been using:


Has also triggered my "clutter gene" in my head and has to go.
Along with bins and bins of random bits like this:



So hoping to better organize random bits so I can find them, combined with wanting to de-clutter more, sent me to harbor freight the other day when they had their organizers on sale again for $9.

I couldn't resist and bought a bunch of them




I started out by putting them in the cabinets - but I think I might actually build some type of rack to hold them so that this cabinet space is available for other stuff?



This is still to be determined.. but I have some ideas post-drywall.

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Last weekend I built a heated cabinet.
I'm going to cross post this here just for part of the thread - I had given the heated cabinet its own thread here on GJ.


***paste***

A couple of years ago we had a good freeze (an extended period of -20 temperatures) and after it was over I was saddened to find that of the 16 lithium batteries I had in the shop about a dozen of them were dead and would not take a charge. (Yes I know how to bypass the protection circuit and attempt to force them to take a charge but that is not the point of this post )

So I decided to build a heated cabinet to keep this from ever happening again.

The key components are a ThermoCube:


and an industrial heated floor mat:


Then I threw some foam I had laying around into the cabinet to somewhat improve efficiency.
I'm going to add another shelf to the space for usable "warm space" but this gives the idea:


Basically the switch for the heated floor mat is on all of the time and plugged into the thermocube.

The thermocube turns the electricity on if the temperature drops below 35°F and then turns it off at 45°F.

So when the temperature starts to get down to about freezing, the cube triggers, the heated mat turns on and heats the cabinet. The mat runs at 90 watts which heats it to a maximum of 130°F. Once the temp in the space is above 45, the electricity is cut and it starts to cool. Repeat until the cold spell is over.

Should solve the issue of ever having frozen battery failures ever again and I can stop schlepping batteries from the house to the shop (which is what I did all this past winter - never failed - every time I didn't bother to bring one out I had to run back in at some point and get one ).

I'm going to do some testing and if this works well I think I may in fact insulate this entire cabinet and also keep things like wood glues, paints, etc that are temp sensitive in it.



Just thought I'd share in the hopes that it might help someone as I have learned a bunch reading on GJ about lightbulb cabinet solutions, etc. that other's have posted

cheers!
Edward

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

...and this brings us up to now (finally! )

Saturday morning I did an oil change on the 950:


Figured out why my heated grips weren't working:


...and here is how the bike sits at this very moment as I try and figure out why my speedometer isn't working (pretty sure the sensor is gone):





...to be continued!

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

dubber: thanks! Which lights are you referring to?

Gentle_Ben: The plastidip is actually holding up much better than I thought it would. Except for a few "high wear" locations, it looks as good as the day I sprayed it. I'm going to be doing touch-ups on those locations here in the next couple of weeks and I'll detail how I do that with lots of before and after pics. One of the cool things about plastidip is how easy it is to repair.

aka Larry: That B17 belly turret is awesome - though I couldn't fit my left leg in the thing - LOL. I used to have some cool old airplane parts I carried around as "keepsakes" but I got rid of them a few years ago just because they were taking up space and had zero useful value. I'll just have to suffice with the huge collection of photos I have of the various warbirds over the years

Some random pics:

This pic is cool because it is one of the rare times the B17, B24 and B25 were all in for service at the same time:

 

[ADSR]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Very cool pics!

 

[KojiKP]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Love this thread! Definitely gonna have to keep tabs on this one.
Are you using a TrailTech unit on your KTM? I just had a speed sensor go bad on my dual sport.

 

[schultzy]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

My ADVrider name is the same. I have been following along over there. We close on a house June 1st with a 4 car garage. My sister asks me questions about the house
"I dont know, but its got a 4 car garage!!!!"

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Excellent post. Thank you for giving us a look into your garage and van!!

 

[Denwood]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Now this is an introduction! A unique location, great story, and cool van. I grabbed a few of the Husky boxes for the same reason you did. Looking forward to your progress on the thread.

The heated cabinet is exactly what I need. I looked up the thermocube to see if it would be ok where there may be flammable vapors. Any ideas if there is a thermal spring/contact in it? If so, it may generate a spark. The heated mat is perfect. I've stored latex paint in my basement to avoid the freeze issue...your cabinet solution though is perfect.

 

[bonecrrusher]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Man badass setup, van, and pics!

I really like the line of Husky benches - I might have to look into another table...

 

[somgaet]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

I started out by putting them in the cabinets - but I think I might actually build some type of rack to hold them so that this cabinet space is available for other stuff?.

Why not use one of the many tool chests that you have and designate it as storage for them? Remove the yellow bins from the case and ditch the separate cases.

 

[Geek]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

KojiKP: Although I have used the trailtech on various bikes in the past; the Adventure actually has a really nice speedo so I've not felt the need to upgrade/replace it. The bike has about 40,000 miles on it and apparently the sensors (down by the wheel) do eventually wear out. I've only lost speedo and odo -the rest works - so I suspect this is the culpret.

schultzy: congrats on the new garage! woot!

denwood: That is a really good question - I do not know what the activation mechanism is (I can't imagine it is anything too fancy for $11) but I should probably find out before I go storing paint thinner & the like in that cabinet!

somegaet: That is a great idea! It would make finding stuff so much easier too... just pulling out a drawer and looking down into the cups. Unfortunately all five tool chests are already full. As are the kobalt cabinets. I think the next time the chests go on sale I may pick up two more
Once the windows and drywall are in I am going to be putting the matching kobalt overhead wall cabinets above the windows will which add another bunch of storage.

...that and I need to figure out how to build a snowtire rack 10 feet in the air to get them out of the way.

 

[sd171]

Re: Geek's Garage @ 8000ft.

Your space is great!

...that and I need to figure out how to build a snowtire rack 10 feet in the air to get them out of the way.

Once you have built your tire rack, here is a method to get your tires into and out of it. It works great for me while standing on a ladder.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4427705&postcount=63

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