My shop!

[Sharpest]

So a bunch of my really good friends pooled together and gave me a nice big check as a wedding present, with the stipulation that it be used towards fixing the roof of the shop. They are concerned for my cars' well-being . The gesture has re-inspired me to get back after the leaky roof situation. After a bit more research, I have come up with one extremely viable option and one potential option. The extremely viable option is as follows;

My first thought when I decided something needed to be done was an elastomeric coating, similar to what is used on RV roofs. These are usually around $75 for 5 gallons with varying degrees of coverage area per product. They would all be around $1000 total for enough material to do my whole roof. The problem with them, however, is that the elastomeric stuff is technically not 100% waterproof. It sheds water on sloped surfaces but if any water is held or trapped, it will *possibly* percolate through. Since the ridge of my building is cupped between the perlins for the entire length of the roof, and this area accounts for at least 80% of the major leaks, this *could* be a problem. I've looked into various methods of filling in the craters. There are a couple companies that have spray foam products that go on the exterior of a roof and are then top-coated with an elastomeric. Problem is, neither of the two I've emailed can shape it to fill in the craters and smoothly transition to the adjacent material. It basically comes out of a firehose and is applied at a uniform thickness regardless of the substrate.

Then there are silicone based coatings like this one;

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-Eter ... /205314046

They are 100% waterproof and can withstand holding water for a period of time. Down in South Texas, when it rains (usually in May & June) we get HEAVY turd-floaters for a few days with very little sparse rain otherwise. My thoughts here are to just apply this stuff to the roof as is (after powerwashing old asphalt and dirt off) and move on with my life. When it rains, the low spots will hold water for a day or two before it evaporates and that's it. The silicone is significantly more expensive at ~$225 for 5 gallons but at this point, it appears to be the most practical option. I need to measure the arc length of my roof to figure the actual surface area, which I will do this weekend (as well as mutiliate some GD mimosa trees). The building is right at 5000 sq ft so I would guess the roof to be around 5500 sq ft. This would mean material would come in around $5k, which is around my soft limit for the project anyway.

Next issue is application method. Its recommended to roll on but I don't know how well that will work on corrugated material, especially when I will likely be rolling from the ridge or edge of the building and thus in line with the corrugations. Spraying would be ideal but the manufacturer recommends against thinning and it is allegedly really viscous. One buddy suggested using a mop to evenly apply it across the corrugations. This will require more thought.

The other potential option right now is this company

http://www.thermodynamicinsulation.com/services/

Their salesman came into my trailer at work on a cold call and said they may be able to come up with something for me. I'm anticipating it being prohibitively expensive but they may know something I don't. The owner is supposed to be getting in touch with me next week so we'll see where that goes.

 

[xtremek]

A roof over your head is a big step. But getting a dry roof over your head is awesome. You've got great buds. Good luck and thanks for keeping us in the loop.

 

[Sharpest]

Finally found a material supplier that carries radiused metal panels so that option is back on the table. MBCI, their closest distributor is in the San Antonio area but that isn't a huge deal. I have a trailer. Now to get in touch with them about pricing...

 

[oldironfarmer]

Finally found a material supplier that carries radiused metal panels so that option is back on the table. MBCI, their closest distributor is in the San Antonio area but that isn't a huge deal. I have a trailer. Now to get in touch with them about pricing...

So have you tried to bend flat panels to that radius? Doesn't seem too tight. Corrugated probably better than R-panel.

 

[Sharpest]

I haven't, I just don't anticipate it bending that easily. The current roof is 4-5' pieces of corrugated "shingled" over each other with the seams sealed by some kind of tar, but if I can avoid the seam sealing part of a new material install, that would be ideal. I'm not really concerned about how it looks so I'm open to R-panel or any other type that's economical and easy to install.

 

[Sharpest]

The calculated bend radius is 35.45'. MBCI quoted me ~$10k for their Curved BattenLok panels. They are more aesthetically pleasing than I really need and that's quite a bit more than I am willing to spend. I'm looking for a dump-truck solution. i.e. ugly but functional.

Is there some kind of central reference for what kind of radius regular corrugated steel can be bent along? I realize depth of corrugations varies widely by manufacturer but I'm facing a bit of information overload right now.

I also just randomly found this company

http://www.corrugated-metals.com/curved_metal.html

and have emailed them for pricing. Buying plain panels locally would probably be my cheapest solution but there doesn't seem to be a ton of options around. The only one I'm immediately aware of is McCoys and they only carry up to 10' lengths, have angular corrugations that don't bend easily and are expensive.

 

[Sharpest]

Spent the day assembling and installing my dual franzinator air dryers.
For those that dont know, if you walk in off the street to a professional supply house (Ferguson plumbing in this case), they will f*** you in the a** with no lube on pricing. Home Depot and Lowes only carry up to 1 1/2" pipe and fittings so I had to go elsewhere for the 2" material needed for this thing. I called Ferguson and then checked McMaster Carr and they were equally outrageous on pricing. So I reached out to a local friend here who owns a plumbing company and he agreed to buy whatever I needed on his commercial account. I didnt want to inconvenience him any more than necessary so I only bought the 2" parts through his connection and got the rest of the stuff at Home Depot/Lowes on my own time. His pricing was around 1/3 of what the dickhole on the phone quoted me so yah...well worth the effort.

The franzinators go between the compressor head and tank so you have to re-plumb some stuff. I've seen the connective plumbing done with steel or copper. Steel piping requires union joints everywhere and I *figured* would be more expensive so I decided to use copper (I didnt actually put pen to paper on this so shaddap if it isnt actually cheaper). I've never sweated copper joints together so that was one more reason I decided to use it; so I could get some experience doing it before trying any repairs or modifications on my house system.

The hard part is plumbing the orifice tube inside the vessel. The original design is all welded which would be ok if you're a licensed pipefitter but I decuded to use threaded fittings. Some people have JB welded things together or ghetto rigged it in any number of other ways but I decided to go with a double tapped pipe bushing inside the 2" T fitting. The double tapped fittings arent meant to be threaded into from the back side so you're going against the NPT taper. It is inside the pressurized volume of the device so a little leakage isn't the end of the world. I am using pipe dope instead of teflon tape for all my connections so hopefully this will help alleviate any issues too.



The "orifice" portion is a ~1/4" hole in the end of the inlet tube. I cut the end off an air hose ferule and drilled it out to 1/4" to avoid blasting the air through threads.



Since the interior fitting on the double tapped bushing occupied a significant portion of the threads in the bushing, I didnt think the exterior fitting would seal adequately. So I ground off ~two threads worth of the tapered end of the exterior copper fitting as pictured so engaging threads would be larger in diameter. Upon assembly, this plan seemed to work.



I mounted the fully assembled franzinators on some super strut I had laying around. I mounted it to the compressor head and motor platform on top of the tank but due to not having much vertical seperation between the bars, the dryers wobbled quite a bit. Enough to cause stress fracturing in the copper pipe tying all this **** together. So I added a diagonal brace to the top of the units and it stiffened everything up just fine.



With the front side of the plumbing done, I turned to the back. The check valve presented a problem. The plumbing on this thing appears to be factory and the line from the compressor head to the tank is 3/8" with compression fittings on each end. The head itself is threaded for 1" NPT, which was reduced to 3/4", then 1/2" and finally 3/8" compression. I don't really get how you're supposed to cram 16+ cfm through a 3/8" line and why you would bother reducing off the head if bigger piping is available. The tank has a single 1/2" NPT port dead center on top, which was the original inlet, and a 2" threaded hole on the front-top that has an aluminum manifold threaded into it. This manifold has three 3/8" NPT ports and one 1/2" port. The inlet on top of the tank has a check valve in it with a pressure relief port.

Well, the check valve was a choke point in the system with its 3/8" compression line. So I took it out to look at and discovered the valve was hosed anyway.The spring was sitting sideways inside the valve body so it was effectively doing nothing.





The local TSC only had an identical check valve. If I'm going to bother with this thing, I want to eliminate the restriction of the 3/8" compression point. So I bought this sumbitch off amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0195UEHL8/?tag=atomicindus08-20

but have to wait for it to come in and finish putting all this stuff together next weekend. Stand by:

 

[oldironfarmer]

I haven't, I just don't anticipate it bending that easily. The current roof is 4-5' pieces of corrugated "shingled" over each other with the seams sealed by some kind of tar, but if I can avoid the seam sealing part of a new material install, that would be ideal. I'm not really concerned about how it looks so I'm open to R-panel or any other type that's economical and easy to install.

I guess I would just buy a 20 ft sheet of whatever and try to bend it over the roof to see if it wrinkles. You waste one sheet if it fails. Old style corrugated is probably the most flexible in the strong direction.

 

[Sharpest]

I finished the compressor plumbing today and took it for a test drive. I was pleasantly surprised when I didnt have a single leak (much less a blow-out) among all of my soldered copper joints (this was the first time I've ever soldered copper pipe). I took the 2" aluminum manifold off to re-seal the threads and made an unpleasant discovery in the tank.



The 80 gallon tank was ~1/3 full of nasty oily water. The drain petcock was broken off, not a great sign. Drained all the water out and then there was still a layer of heavy sludge at the bottom. It would not drain on its own so I sealed everything up and blasted it out with the compressor's pressure. Nasty stuff, hope I got most of it out.



Hard to tell tank condition from a 2" hole in the very top, hope its not too hosed. Sand blasted a small part of my trailer to try it out and it works. After filling the compressor tank from empty, each of the franzinators had a couple ounces of water in the bottom. The humidity was pretty low today (~60%) so that is pretty noteworthy. I'd say they work. I left my IR temp gun at home but just touching everything indicated the intake tubes were way hotter than the output. The tank took ~20 minutes to fill up and is really loud. Seems like its a lot louder than it should be. Some online calculator I found said it should take around 8 minutes to fill the tank so thats not a great sign but I'm going to run it until it doesnt work at all.

Also burned about 1/3 of the mimosa trees I cut down a few weeks ago because it isnt hot enough outside for my taste.

 

[sean Buick 76]

HI there,i really like these old rehab projects they really have a lot of charm and character... Keep up the good work and get that roof sorted out and keep us posted.

 

[Sharpest]

Spent the day burning tree debris and sand blasting my trailer. Of the five mimosa trees I have cut down so far, I've torched about 2/3 of the wood. The trunks are still a bit green and are taking longer to burn so I can't get rid of them very quickly. I also cut up the remaining trunk pieces to help them dry out quicker for the next burn.

Finally tried out the sand blaster. Worked pretty good but damn this compressor is loud. I measured the noise with an app on my phone and it read ~90 decibels :shock: I timed the fill up from empty and it took about 13 minutes. While blasting, it ran continuously for almost 6 hours straight. I wasn't blasting continuously as I took a break now and then to put more wood on the fire, refill the blaster vessel and drink beer. But the compressor never stopped. I gave it a break and turned it off about 4 hours in so I could now the yard and drain everything. I got about a cup of water out of each dryer, more affirmation that they work as advertised. I didn't have any issues with the blaster I would consider moisture related so I think I'm gtg there. I did have a few clogs from random schmutz in the media so I'll need to rig up a strainer to pour it through. I blasted most of the trailer tongue. It takes the light rust off quick and easy. Paint takes a little more time and effort.

The entire deck and rails are all rusted bare steel so I think they'll go pretty quickly. I used three and a half fifty pound bags of media for the tongue which was mostly painted so I think 15 bags will be enough to do the whole thing. The underside is not getting blasted, just paint. I was going to brush on some XO-rust gloss black on the blasted areas this evening but right when I was about to call it done for now, I got hit with a short rain shower. So the cleaned area will flash rust again and I'll have to re-blast it next time. Oh well. Today's work was somewhat of an experiment.

 

[Sharpest]

Today I demolished the dilapidated old bathrooms. Here’s where we started.



After taking the fixtures out;

The sink and urinal had 1 1/4 “ copper drain lines that were tied into an odd iron manifold fitting. Interesting.

Started stripping drywall off the exterior wall. The insulation seems to be a mix of fiberglass batting and rock wool. All gross and all intermittent.

Partway through the floor demo. The flooring was really well built tongue and groove pine 1x3s. There wasn’t a spec of glue on the whole thing and it has never squeaked in my life, despite the floor joist damage. A shame to ruin the T&G wood to fix everything else but there was no way to preserve it in the demo. Quality craftsmanship can still be appreciated after the fact.

I was planning on gutting down to the studs and floor joists, reconfiguring the plumbing and then rebuilding the rest. That plan is hosed. Termites. I didn’t think of or anticipate termites. This corner of the shop has been spared from water damage for some damn reason so I was hoping the wood framing would be intact but about a third of what I’ve exposed so far is compromised by termites. The boards are sorta intact but I was able to pull the drywall nails out by hand so they aint worth a damn.

 

[Mr. Tool]

Hello there fellow Texan (I live in South Central Texas) just finished reading all the post on this thread and I think it's pretty cool your attempting to restore/renovate your dad's old place.

Too bad to hear about the termites (I hate those fuckers!) but hopefully, in time, you can get it all worked out and replaced as well as the roof.

I'm sure once you get everything repaired/restored it'll all be worth it. ****, wish I had something like that left to me, you might may or may not realize it now but your extremely lucky to have something like that handed down to you.

Keep up the good work, press on and don't stop.

 

[Sharpest]

The floor joists were surprisingly solid despite how rotted out they are. The termite damage is limited to the first 3-4 feet from the wall but is pretty thorough. They're 2x6s that bear down on a length of pressure blocking thats nailed to the studs. It has held up over time but is *technically* not the right way to do it. The studs are all spaced at odd intervals too and there is no bottom plate. They are toe-nailed to the building skin perlins and go directly to the floor. No two are the same distance apart Since I have to replace some of the studs and all of the floor joists anyway, I'll go ahead and rebuild it correctly with a pressure treated bottom plate, studs on 16" centers, and floor joists supported by cripples to the bottom plate. Hopefully the rest of the lumber is intact enough to re-use so I dont have to start completely from scratch.

I was disappointed to find that the ceiling joists are 2x4s. They cross a 12' span so thats not ideal. It doesnt seem to deflect at all but I was planning on decking the top to store stuff up there so I'm tentatively thinking of replace the ceiling joists with 2x6s and then reusing the 2x4s in the walls (presuming they arent rotted or damaged). So I basically have to tear this whole piece of junk down and start from scratch.

Floor damage and old iron toilet elbow.



All of the iron drain pipes are literally crumbling and have fist sized holes all over the place. Good thing it hasnt been used in 10-15 years but poo water had to be leaking out before that.



Floor joist damage after sweeping up A LOT of turds and dirt



Stud termite damage





The studs that are cut to clear the diagonal brace are all broken from the demo because of how overcut they are. I'll have to figure something else out here

 

[xtremek]

Ouch!! That looks like a ton of work to fix. Glad to see you're still plugging away at it.

 

[Sharpest]

Since the weather finally let up today, I was able to do some stuff outside. I started by replacing a couple of sheet metal panels on the outside of the building that were badly damaged. The building has a zero easement with the Alamo concrete plant next door so my exterior wall is the boundary of their yard. Some stupid piece of **** concrete truck drivers have beat the absolute hell out of the side of my building over the years with the mixer trucks. I've known about it all along but haven't had any inclination to fix any of it until now. Since I am rebuilding the interior bathroom, I had to weatherproof the area first. I forgot to get a before pic but for the bathroom rebuild I only needed to replace two panels.



The bottom perlin was rotted out from exposure so I had to replace it with some pressure treated material but that wasnt too difficult. What sucked was the panel length. I rebuilt one of the sliding doors last year and used 10' corrugated panels from McCoys and they were perfect, so I bought three of the same ones yesterday. The interior "ceiling" height to the bottom of the trusses is exactly 10' too. Well the wall ended up being around 11' high so I had to cut the third panel in half to cover the top gap. Not ideal, especially since McCoys was closed today but its done so oh well.



There are like 7 or 8 more severely damaged panels that need to be replaced down the wall. I'll get to them eventually.



Then I did some more wire-wheeling and priming on my trailer until I ran out of primer.

Then I moved back to demoing the bathroom. I got the partition wall fully removed, other exterior wall torn down, and most of the rest of the flooring pulled up. I moved the cabinets to another storage room. I dont have any immediate plans to use them and I'm getting tired of moving them around. Oh well. I got all of the flooring that is under the cabinets in the pic removed today too and all the turds and dirt swept up but forgot to take a picture before leaving. I have a truck bed full of bagged drywall and insulation trash. Chipping away...

 

[Sharpest]

Got the ceiling and other interior walls tore down. What a pain in the ***. The termite and water damage is extensive enough that I am pulling everything down and starting completely from scratch. Here's all the stuff from the ceiling. I went up top and scooped the insulation out with a shovel and stomped the drywall off to avoid having to do it from underneath.



The 2x4 ceiling joists over a 12' span definitely had some spring in them when I was standing on the middle :shock: Then I discovered one end of the whole ceiling was just toe-nailed to a ledger board that was face nailed to the studs The other wall was framed correctly with the joists bearing down on the top plate over the studs. One more reason to tear it all out and start over. The sill plates on the two interior walls are rotted out anyway as there is no moisture barrier between them and the concrete and they don't appear to be pressure treated.





I didn't feel like messing with the electrical today so this is as far as I got.



Half of the rotted studs on this wall were so far gone I didn't even need a tool to remove them. They just crumbled and fell off.



I'll probably try to preserve and reuse in full interior wall panel and just replace the bottom foot of wood and sill plates. I have a loosely formed plan in my head to remove the bottom plates and any water damaged portions of the stud, frame up a new bottom plate with cripples for the new floor joists to bear down on, then have the old wall panel studs bear down on the floor joists with a sister stud tying it all together. I'm trying to avoid having to buy any more new lumber than absolutely necessary so being able to effectively using shorter pieces is extremely helpful in this endeavor.

Whats everyone's favorite termite frame treatment? I've been reading up on using boric acid to treat the wood before I insulate and cover but I haven't decided on a particular brand yet.

 

[Sharpest]

Gonna try filling the leaking pinholes in the roof with this stuff and see what happens. My tentative plan is to get up there at dusk with all the lights on inside so I can see light through the holes and cover as many as possible with one gallon to try it out. Hopefully it's thick enough to not run out through the holes. I may caulk them before applying this stuff just to be sure.

GARDNER-GIBSON 1/20/5570 GAL S-100 Roof Coating https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012S6GKN4/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[Maddog10]

Endless potential (and a ton of work) with this shop. I'm following. Keep plugging along and you could end up with a very nice setup!

 

[Sharpest]

Finished demolishing everything last weekend and got started on reconstruction today, beginning with the exterior walls. Due to the diagonal braces in the corner, it was tricky and time consuming. Using recycled lumber further complicated things. Having to sister material together and dig through the piles of old lumber chewed up a lot of time. Stacking/ laying the boards in order from shortest to longest helped save some time though. The bottom purlins and a few areas of the upper ones were rotted out so replacing them took some time too. The interior walls should go up comparatively quickly. The water on the floor is from accidentally hitting the exterior ball valve with the front sliding door when closing up for the day.

 

[Sharpest]

In hindsight, I could have framed the walls on 24" centers and eliminated a few studs because they really don't bear any weight but oh well, whats done is done. I'm going to have to figure out what to do with the iron vent pipe pretty soon. Its heavy and I'm not sure how it is attached to the roof. I intend to reuse the roof jack for my vent pipe if possible but replace the iron with PVC. Hopefully its a typical folded over lead jack so the pipe can slip out the bottom.

 

[Strouty]

Keep at it, I know things can take more time than you would like, but when you get something done, it sure feels good.

 

[Sharpest]

Yah, I work in construction so I appreciate every little bit of progress but doing it myself for once really makes me appreciate my mens' efforts.

 

[Sharpest]

Got almost all of the framing done this weekend. All that's left is the floor joists and door headers and I'm going to do them after plumbing. Hoping to keep the floor ~12" above the concrete so I can use full 8' sheets of drywall inside. We'll see if I can keep everything that low with adequate slope. I put the header in over the window unit opening before I remembered there will be zero weight bearing down on that wall so it really isn't necessary. Overall, its coming together well.

 

[hedgehog]

Thats a huge space with huge potential. Lots of fun work ahead

 

[Bierisch]

Just curious for any new updates? It's been coming along nicely and is definitely a good size shop for sure!

 

[Sharpest]

I sprained my ankle at work about a month ago and was laid up for a few weeks, then had back to back wedding weekends. And I work every other saturday so I haven'd worked on anything in awhile. Finally got back after it today though.

I went ahead and dug out the old iron pipe exterior upright and replaced it with PVC. Used a flexible reducer coupling to connect the PVC to the clay sewer pipe that crosses the yard. I added a clean out at ground level to potentially empty an RV black water tank if the need ever arises. I also cut up and removed the iron vent pipe through the roof. Luckily it has a plain folded over lead roof jack so the pipe just slid out the bottom and I can reuse it for the new vent.



Also got almost all of the interior sewer plumbing done.



I need one more fitting but had already been to Lowes three times today so I decided to leave it for next time. I need to figure out where in the system I need to put a sewer vent. So I moved on to the subfloor. I had to glue and screw all the joists together and then set them in place on top of pressure blocking. Will secure them next time. I set the subfloor at 14" high for two nice and ADA compliant 7" stairs.

 

[dblattack]

This is an awesome shop! Definitely the size I wish I had.

 

[remauto1187]

That 67 Camaro would look great in my garage!

 

[Sharpest]

Took a day off work and did some more plumbing today. Once I did some research and figured out how the sewer is supposed to be vented, it damn near doubled the amount of PVC I had installed. Oh well, at least it's done right now and I didn't have to undo any previous work. I also got all the cold water lines in (CPVC), ledger boards set on the walls for the ends of the subfloor and the floor joists secured in place. Will get the hot water lines done next time.

 

[ajohno]

Plumbing looks great.

 

[matt_i]

I'm enjoying your rebuild. Did you do any soil treatments to keep the termites at bay?

 

[Sharpest]

I'm enjoying your rebuild. Did you do any soil treatments to keep the termites at bay?

I intend to do something to the framing before covering it up but haven't decided what yet. I need to figure out how I am going to insulate pretty quickly too.

Took a break from the bathroom today to work on my trailer. The fabrication has been done for a while and I primed the deck a few months ago but the underside was still bare metal. So I painted the bottom today. I used Rustoleum gloss black and a $10 harbor freight gravity feed gun. About 2/3 of the way through, I had the epiphany that a siphon feed or pressure pot gun would be more effective when working overhead. I have a harbor freight siphon feed too. But hindsight is a ***** so I just finished with the gravity feed.

I used the 2 ton trolly and chainfall on my overhead I beam to lift one side a few feet in the air to allow me to easily get under it. I put some cribbing under the front corner so it wouldn't try to tilt all wonky on the jack and then shored it up with some heavy timbers. Worked like a charm.





I got about 80% of the underside done. I'll have to lift up the other side to finish it. I'll use the siphon gun next time but will have to use some rattle cans to get to really tight spots.



I sprayed some of the deck to finish off the last pot of thinned paint.

 

[HOTFR8]

Well done. You did well to paint underneath so well as I can agree it is not an easy job.

 

[Sharpest]

Got the floor and ceiling upper decking done.

The green boards are the original tongue and groove 3/4" pine floor. The overall footprint of the bathroom is the same as original but I busted the **** out of quite a bit of the original flooring before I realized I could re-use it. So between destroying some of it and selvage for the install I came up short. I filled the rest in with tongue and groove OSB drops from work. Came out pretty solid. Still have two more pieces to finish but I got tired of hunched over work for the day.

Also did the ceiling topside decking. Sucked but its done.



I also got on the roof with the intention of sealing the leaks with the silicone stuff I bought awhile back. It wont be that simple. I'm pretty much certainly going to have to powerwash the asphalt sheathing off the entire roof. The entire ridge is made of 12' long pieces of steel bent over the radius and that's where 90% of the leaks are. I think replacing only this section of the roof is a practical option and I may be able to do it a few feet at a time to draw out the labor. It will take 55 sheets of metal to do the length of the building but as long as whatever seals the overlaps isn't too indestructible I think its doable.

 

[Sharpest]

I painted the trailer deck today. I used a KBS two part coating that a friend recomended and it came out ok. This material *seemed* to spray better than the Rustoleum but my experience spraying paint of any kind from a gun is pretty limited. The final finish has a bunch of tiny bumps in it which is either fisheyes from moisture in the air or surface dirt on the metal before it was painted. I rinsed the deck off with a hose before painting so I don't think it's dirt. My Franzinators took quite a bit of water out of the air but I guess not enough. One other potential issue is temperature. I did the paint today because it was the first day in over a month that the wind was under 20 mph (actually only 5ish today) but the temperature shot up to 90. The paint directions say to not apply to surfaces that are over 110 degrees. I didnt think about that until I was halfway done and sweating. I got my IR temp gun out and the deck was a solid 130 degrees at 11 am Well that *****. In my experience a bit of heat helps cure paint faster and harder but I'm sure the people that make this stuff know what they're talking about. Nothing to do about it now though. My overlaps weren't perfect so there's some tiger striping visible but I planned on doing another coat all along once I tilt the trailer onto the other side's wheels.



I also had an ordeal trying to get the tires worked on. Three of the five tires for this thing constantly go flat within a day or two. None have punctures so I assumed valve stems. The trailer originally came with "Taskmaster" brand radial ~30" tall 16" rim tires. These are chinese ****. I've only blown one out in the last 12 years but somehow smoked the sidewall on another that is now my spare. The other two on it are 7.50-16 bias ply truck tires that are at least 15 years old. Discount won't touch any tire over 5 years old and tried to lecture me on how ****** all of these are. They have some small cracks but nothing that makes me lose sleep. So I went to another place called Pueblo Tire and their policy is even worse as they wont touch anything over 3 years old. I got pissed and was heading back to my shop anticipating having to do the stems myself when I cam across a local mexican tire shop. They were happy to work on all of them. One of the tires ended up being so dry-rotted that it was leaking air out of a crack in the bead/sidewall area. Guy showed me with soapy water and dismounted it to verify. The rest were fine. This all cost me $18. To hell with Discount.

 

[Sharpest]

Worked on the bathroom this weekend. Since there's no telling how long it will take me to finish the rest of it, I went ahead and finished off the water lines and set the toilet. I only had one joint I forgot to glue in the supply lines so that was nice. The toilet is ancient, it weighs like twice as much as the ones we put in these days. I rebuilt it with a standard kit and everything works! Now I need a sink.



I also built a chase for the electrical and installed pallet wood on the walls until I ran out of material. The wainscoat on the front will be weathered corrugated steel but I need to get a door installed before I do it so the trim will work out right.



While I was laying out the routes for electrical terminations I pulled the sub-panel cover I will be tying into. The main feed appears to be 2 or 4 gauge so I think I'll be ok with the additional load. Need to double check the NEC table to be sure. Then I found this gem.



No idea what it powers. Nothing turned off when I flipped it and it hasn't burned the place down at so I'm probably not going to **** with it.

I'm probably going to catch some heat for this one. Since I can't justify the expense of properly fixing the roof at this point, I had a dilemma with the bathroom renovation. Obviously, all my time, effort and money would be wasted if it just got water damaged down the road. So this was my solution; a high-solids content 100% silicone coating on top of the ceiling decking. The roof doesn't currently leak directly on the bathroom but who knows what the future holds. I sealed the seams of the decking with Zip Wall Systems tape. This coating is thick and has a tremendous build. I think it will work just fine. I only had enough to do about half of the decking today so I'll get some more to finish it.

 

[Strouty]

I have a couple billboards on my roof to keep the rain out.

 

[Sharpest]

Worked on the bathroom some more today. Sealed up a couple exterior metal penetrations and ran wiring home runs. The sub-panel I'm tying in to is mounted in an "exterior" wall of an adjacent office separated from the bathroom by a breezeway. So I had to cut drywall inside the office. This hole will likely never get fixed. The office suffers from the same termite and water damage as the bathroom did so it will likely be demo'd some day. For now, it'll do. I forgot my boring drill bit so this was as far as they were run today.

 

[Bierisch]

SHARPEST

I see your posting with Imgur now, might I recommend starting a album on GJ and posting all of the pictures in it then linking them here? or attaching them directly here?

Do you plan on ripping the office down and building it up again like you did the bathroom?