My Workshop / Garage

[wbrian63]

My house has a run-of-the-mill detached 2-car garage. When I bought the house in 1991, that was more than enough for a car and a small woodworking setup.

In 2000, I started a complete gut-remodel of the house, and in the final stages of finishing the work about 1.5 years later, I discovered it's not possible to build a 8' tall cabinet in a garage with an 8.5' ceiling. The cabinet was for my entertainment center and was to house a 35" direct-view television.

I found and rented a 17x40 space about 5 minutes from my house, and up until January of 2010, this worked fine. I began to realize that even 17x40 with an additional loft at the back of 17x6 and a loft at the front of 17x12, that I just didn't have enough room.

An opportunity to rent a much larger space came along and I took it. Fortunately, my former landlord agreed to buy all of the improvements I'd made to the old space, so "all" I had to do was pull all the equipment out.

The new space is 24 x 51, with a 15' eave height on the north side and a 18' eave height on the south side. (It's 1/2 the depth of a 100' wide x 75' long building). The space needs a lot of work, but that's part of the fun.

Here are a few pictures of what things looked like as we started construction:

This is a view looking north from the southwest corner.

Here you can see my buddy Tin working on repairs to the overhead door. We ended up replacing the bottom section entirely. You can also see the scaffold we built to install the lights, and it will later be used when we start closing the space in.

The next two pictures are views looking south. You can see some of the lights we've installed, plus a few more across the back that we had to remove later. The car in the distance is Tin's 94 Acura Legend project car. It has a 6-speed manual transmission which is a very rare option. He's got a real nice '95 Legend coupe with a good motor but it's automatic. Once we get the space finished, we're going to transplant the manual into the later model car. But I digress.

You can see to the right that the space is not fully enclosed. The primary tenant in the building used to occupy this space as well, but downsized and rented this spot out for years. He's a tightwad and never fully divided the two spaces.

More in the next posting...

 

[wbrian63]

As I said before, this is a woodshop / garage. This is a fully functional woodshop - I've got a Delta Unisaw 5hp table saw, a big cyclone dust collector, italian-made bandsaw, horizontal drum sander, 15" drill press, 12" Hitachi sliding compound miter saw, etc. etc. In the previous space, I ran all of the dust collection and vacuum system exposed along the walls. Sawing wood makes dust - dust loves to cling to horizontal surfaces, making the job of keeping the shop neat a pain in the ****.

The new space has a wood floor, which I've elevated 7" off the concrete - 2x6 joists sitting on 2x4 pressure-treated blocks spaced about 18" apart. This allows me to run all of the piping for the dust collector under the floor, and also much of the piping for the vacuum as well.

Here you can see the floor going down and some of the piping in place.

The piping for the dust collector is 6" dwv pvc pipe. The piping for the vacuum system is 2" dwv.

Remember that I also called it a garage? I like to work on cars, and so does Tin. We don't need a lift, as the main tenant in the building is an auto repair shop, and we've got access to lifts whenever we need them. But we do need to drive a car into the space.

Solution - 2x12 planks cut to fit between the floor joists. 14.5" long fits between 16" centered joists just fine. To make sure we don't actually put any weight on the 2x6 joists, we cut 2x6's approximately 5.5" in length, 4 per joist bay. They're screwed to the joists grain running up and down. The 2x12's sit on these "legs" with the top of the 2x12 right at the top of the 2x6 joist. It took quite a while to cut everything, as there are subtle variations in the level of the slab that had to be accounted for. I think there are 14 joist bays with these blocks, x 2 paths.

Here's a picture as the floor starts to go down. We used 3/4" tongue and groove plywood. Expensive, but makes for a wonderful floor.

Here's more pictures of the floor as we finished it up. You can see some of the penetrations in the floor for the dust collector and vacuum.

More to come...

 

[wbrian63]

The back of the space has a 16' deep loft. The left half of the loft is clear space below for the planer, sander, drill press, router table, etc. The right half of the space below is a 12x12 room for finishing work, with 2 closets at the back. One holds the dust collector and vacuum, the other is for storage and the air compressor. Both of these closets will be heavily insulated for noise, but will still have plenty of ventilation for the equipment.

Here are some pictures of that structure going up:

You can see at the right hand side that the wall that was once there is no more. There were a bunch of shelves there when we moved in that the previous tenant had abandoned. I figured they'd make great storage, but when we started taking them apart, we discovered they were what the wall was attached to... We'll have to build a pony wall and reattach the sheet metal later. Right now, it's convenient not having the wall.

The floor of the loft is 2x12" joists spaced 16" on center. The beam across the open area is 3 2x12's "glue'd and screw'd".

Here's a view of the loft deck in place:

And here's a view from the loft down into the space below:

More in the next post - it's getting late...

 

[66 GMC Truckin]

Looks awesome! I think I'd be tempted to build the divider wall all the way to the ceiling between the bays. That'll be one nice wood shop when you're done. Can't wait for more pics and updates.

 

[Steve from Socal]

Looking good.

Steve

 

[classic gary]

that's a LOT of wood/work for a RENTED space ?!!

 

[wbrian63]

We've got a 4 year lease at a below-market rate. The landlord is Tin's dad, and we do lots of favors for him...

Eventually, I'll have a place where I can build a proper building. Our lease allows us to retain and remove everything we add to the space, so long as it doesn't penetrate the exterior of the building. So, the only thing we'll lose when we eventually move is the vent stacks for the dust collector and the finishing booth fan.

Everything we're doing here is with screws - no nails. It'll all come apart the way it went together, although I'm really not looking in that direction. I'm looking forward to just being able to use the space...

Oh - and we've already erected walls between the spaces - I've just not had time to post those pictures.

 

[warrenlord]

looks brill, good luck with the rest looking forward.

 

[eborcim]

Nice framing and construction! What is the advantage to running the dust collector system under a raised floor...is it the physical limitation of the equipment design? Or maybe the workflow of your shop..you know progressive movement from station to station?

 

[wbrian63]

In the previous shop, I ran it above the floor, along the walls. I had one span from the wall over to the table saw area.

None of this was particuarly a big issue - I ran the pipes about 8' off the floor. The biggest problem was the pvc tends to build a slight static charge when the weather is really dry (which it seldom is here on the Texas gulf coast), and that makes the dust in the air cling to the pipe.

I'm getting older, and my lungs are becoming more sensitive to breathing stuff I shouldn't. Having the pipes under the floor means one fewer horizontal surface for dust to settle on = cleaner (or easier to clean) shop.

I wanted to do this in the previous shop, as I had a wood floor there as well, but I was paranoid about clogs. In 6 years of fairly regular use, I never had a single one. Dust collectors are not likely to clog, unless you do something profoundly stupid since they're directly attached to machinery that produces sawdust and wood chips. Hard to ingest something that's big enough to clog a 6" pipe.

The vacuum system is a bigger risk, but the few times I had trouble in the old shop, I just connected the exhaust to the pipings and whatever was stuck was blown out.

I recently read that the best way to prevent clogs in vacuum systems is to use a short 90 at the entrance to the system, and long dwv-type connections in mid flow. That way long things like pencils, wood strips, etc, get stuck at the inlet and not downstream somewhere.

You do lose some flow by doing this, but I think I'm gonna try it.

Finally, another advantage is that it makes for a tidy-looking shop...

 

[rieferman]

That floor will be nice on your legs and back I bet.

I'm taking my first woodworking class starting on monday, with the goal over the years to hone my skills to the point where I can make furniture for others as a side career. That's a long way away though, in the meantime, I just want to make bunk beds for the kids, rockers for the porch, desk for the wife, picnic table for my folks etc. etc. etc.

Anyways, all that to say this: looking good, I'm really interested to see more.

 

[wbrian63]

To continue:

We went shopping for doors to put on the finishing room and the closets. I really wanted to get a pair of exterior metal doors for the closets, as the external weatherstripping and threshold work well for noise control. However, these doors were on sale at a whopping $29 each. We got all 4 doors for the price of one of the exteriors I had in mind. I'll figure out something else for noise control. They're builder-grade mdf, but they're pre-primed and already hung, so that's a real timesaver.

In front of the doors is a stack of lumber I got from my great uncle. He was a rancher and a hobbyist woodworker like me, but not on the same scale. In his later years he didn't do much more than make nick-nacks for christmas gifts. He'd always talked about all the different wood species he had squirreled away that "some day" he was gonna use. He passed away in his early 80's without ever using any of that wood. My uncle and I uncovered much of this in his barn. When we found it it was like striking the mother lode. I told my uncle - "I've got good news, and bad news... The good news is that I've got space to store this. The bad news is that I've got space to store this..."

There's a lot of unique stuff in that pile. Heart redwood - amazing grain, ZERO knots - I've got a couple of 2x6's that are 12' long and very light - straight as an arrow, plus a 1x6. I've got a couple of hard maple slabs with amazing grain - perhaps 12" wide x 10' long. I've also got a TON of tongue & groove pine siding. These boards are 4" wide and 16' long - not a knot to be seen. They came from a house his parents lived in and where he was raised. When he came back from WWII, he built them a new house (the original didn't have running water, indoor plumbing or electricity) and they demolished the original. These boards are from that building. Maybe I'll use them some day - they've got tons of character, and when planed to remove the paint (which has probably got lead in it...), the grain is tight and straight.

Anyway - the point is that we had to move this lumber into the space as there was no room where we're storing all the equipment. Then we had to move it out of the space to put the floor in, foolishly stacking it on the lumber we had delivered for the construction. Then we moved to the space adjacent to ours with the assurance from our landlord that it could stay there for as long as we needed. One week later he asked if we could move it as he needed the space it occupied, so we moved it back into the space to where it is in the picture, and then we've finally moved it up on top of the loft to GET IT THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!!! It's about 60 individual pieces of wood.

To continue -

We've built walls all the way from the floor to the ceiling. We've elected not to insulate the walls since we're only exposed to the outside on the north. I may splurge for "cool deck" for the walls - the foil backing will help retard heat, which is our number-enemy.

My first idea was to build the walls using 2x4-8', joined with a scabbed-on piece of 2x4. We can get 2x4-16', but they always look like spaghetti. 2x4-16' is also available, at twice the cost. The problem with idea #1 is that the pitch of the building isn't consistent (bad construction job), and the floor undulates somewhat, which the wood floor follows to a large extent (we didn't try to level the entire floor - it wasn't really necessary and would have been a huge undertaking), so we'd install the sole plate, mark it for 24" centers, install the cap plate against the bottom of the roof joists, plumb above the sole plate. Then each 2x4 group had to be measured and cut and toe-nailed into place. It took an entire day just to do one wall from the front of the loft area to the front of the building - about 35-feet. Here's the result:

We've still got to go back and put some bracing behind the wall to tie the studs together and back to the purlin on the building. The **** wiring you see in the picture is for the space adjacent to ours. That tenant, thankfully moved out last weekend, so we can pull the hack job wiring out.

When we started on the west wall, Tin suggested that maybe we should just build a "wall on top of a wall". I wasn't keen on the idea, figuring it was going to use more lumber, but the more I thought about the potential speed and stability, the more I agreed. When I figured out the actual board usage, we actually only used 2 more 2x4's for the same length of wall. The same length of wall on the west side went up in 4 hours instead of 9+. Here's the result:

We've already braced it to the purlin, and it is rock-solid. With the cap/sole plate in mid wall, we only needed to brace in 4 places. The other wall will probably require a brace at every other stud.

Access to the loft is going to be via a folding stairway on the east side of the shop. The only place I could find to put my band saw was right at the edge of the loft along the east wall. For clearance, I really needed it to be out from under the loft about 3 feet. That made it impossible to have the stair there, so I figured I'd just put a 4x4 landing on the face of the loft. Makes it possible to have a swing-out door instead of swing-in, etc. As I was drawing the plans, I figured I'd support the landing on the east by attaching it to the studs, maybe doubling a couple up for extra stability. On the south, of course, it would abut the loft header. For the west side, I thought I'd just cantilever the supports out from the loft joists until I realized you can't cantilever through the header... I don't want a post on that outside corner - it will right in the way of the saw. So I came up with the idea to get a 1/2" thick x 4" wide piece of bar, cut it and weld it to form an upside-down L. A buddy did the welding for me, I just drilled the holes on a radial-arm drill at one of my customer's shops. We took 3 studs, alternating the ends to form a solid beam. Attached 2x4 x 18" plates to each end with screws and put it in place in the wall, screwing through the plates into the sole and cap plates. Then we bolted the support through the beam:

Once we built the landing and attached it to the loft header, the wall and bolted it to the steel support, it is amazingly solid. I can stand on the outer corner and my 250# frame causes barely a dip in the height. We're going to add a brace from the 2x4 beam back to the building structure for good measure, but this idea came out nicely.

Behind the wall studs, you can see some of the piping for the vacuum system.

To be continued...

 

[wbrian63]

We're working on the electrical for the space, and that is slow and tedious work. Tin is a capable helper, but electricity isn't his thing, so I have to provide exacting instructions.

Since this installation is inside a metal building, we're using armored 12/2 cable for the 110v circuits. I elected to run the 220v leads in conduit, which will allow me to upgrade the wiring if my equipment upgrades in the future require it.

The breaker panel is in the open area under the loft. Fortunately, the space behind ours is where the main gutter is for the entire building, and there are several vacant fused disconnects present. The sub panel in our space is a 125a box, but we don't need anywhere near that amperage. The last shop was wired with a 60a box, and we never tripped a circuit. The larger panel allows for more circuits to better divide the load. I detest having lights dim when I start up my chop saw, for instance, so it will be on a separate circuit. We're wiring everything up before bringing the mains in, which I much prefer, especially when dealing with armored cable.

I'm trying to put plugs everywhere I think I might need them, plus a few more places where I'm sure I won't need them.

Here, you can see the panel and some of the conduits running to it. The rat's nest is the circuits I've pulled into the box but have not yet terminated to the breakers and bus-bars. I'm intent on spreading the loads out evenly across the legs, and for that I need to wait until everything is pulled into the box.

This conduit run is for a 220v circuit should I ever get to replace my 110v planer with a proper commercial unit.

The finishing room will have a single light in the center, and 7 4' t8 florescent lights mounted vertically on the walls around the room. Each lamp will have its own switch so I can get light where I need it.

The big panel on the floor is the automatic transfer switch for the 14kw generator I bought for my house right after Hurricane Ike hit. I didn't want to re-wire my entire breaker panel to accommodate this transfer switch - the panel is inside the house. I opted to buy a master transfer switch that's large enough to handle transferring the mains where they come in at the main disconnect outside.

Anyone need a 125a Generac Automatic Transfer switch with included cirucits?

I'm not the best with a conduit bender, but I discovered a link on this site to an article written by a vo-tech college prof that finally explained in understandable detail how to properly bend conduit - much better than the small pamphlet that came with my benders. The work I've done since these pictures were taken is far better than my first efforts.

The wiring that's present in other parts of the building is a complete hack job. You can see the meter can at the back of this picture. It's for a sub panel in my landlords space. It's no longer metered separately, but pulling it out would be way too much work, so it stays. Unfortunately, that means we have to build around it. The white metal plate is covering another meter connection that has the internals bridged with solid wire...

I've verified that the wiring in the main gutter and in the panels connected directly thereto is of good quality and properly sized. It was put in when the building was erected and under the watchful eye of City of Houston inspectors. These other wiring jobs were done under the table... The only saving grace about any of that **** is that the actual electrical loads for my landlord's shop are very low. A few 220v car lifts, a compressor and a few (way too few) florescent lights. He has no heat and no A/C.

For what I'm paying for rent, I'll just insure everything to the hilt. Nothing in any of the boxes looks like it's been overloaded, so I think we'll be OK for now.

When we started building the space, my landlord told me "when you start on the electrical work, let me know - I've got a good electrician" I thought to myself, "yeah - I've seen your electrician's work - I'm not letting him anywhere near my space..." What I really said in response was "thanks very much - I think we've got it covered..."

This weekend should see the end of the wiring. I've also completed the piping for the air compressor, so that's out of the way.

More after this weekend's efforts.

 

[Nighttrain]

wbrian, very nice build and description w/ pictures! I am in a similar build as yours. 40x60 metal building which I am framing in a lot of walls. I also mostly do wood work and when I was building the garage I was considering under slab PVC for the dust collector but just could not decide on where to put the machinery. I’m glad I didn’t because my floor plan has changes at least a dozen times. With your ideas I am now considering doing a raised wood floor in the back section of my garage where the woodshop will be.

In a former garage I had the PVC up on the ceiling (this was in Michigan) I had to run a ground wire through the entire pipe and connect it to each piece of equipment. Are you looking at doing that here? I’m now in Texas and was wondering if I needed to do that again. I know there has been a lot of discussion about this and the chance of a spark going through the pipe. I know that you motioned planning the old pine, and the chance of a nail in that wood hitting the planner blade could cause a spark. (by the way that pine is worth a ton of money, here in Austin they want $12 lf for that stuff.)

I thought it was funny how you had to move the wood several times. I always try to plan on only moving material the least amount of time as necessary. It never works; I end up moving everything a dozen of times also.

Keep up the good work and I think you owe Tin a beer for all his free labor.

Keep the pictures coming.

 

[wbrian63]

I ran a ground wire in my last setup, and it ended up causing problems that I didn't know I had until I took the system apart.

Specifically, where the wire exited the main trunk at the DC to be grounded to the DC housing. 2 or 3 years ago, I had a project to make a decorative cedar fence. The fence used 4x4 posts and rails, tenon'd into the posts. The fill between the posts was lattice - 1"wide x 1/4" thick - made by planing 2x stock down to 1" and ripping lots and lots and lots of slats. Where the rip was close to the edge of the board, it produced a lot of loose connected fibers. Those were sucked down the throat of the saw, or pulled in by the blade. Into the DC they go, but get hooked under the wire right at the entrance to the DC.

I had noticed over the last year or so that the DC performance didn't seem to be as good as it was previously, but I chalked that up to needing to replace the cartridge filter.

The fibers caught under the wire were obstructing about 30-40% of the inlet to the DC.

I read dozens of articles on the web prior to deciding to not ground the pipe. The basic consensus was that in a hobbyist installation like mine, the chances of producing a spark are rare, especially given the high average ambient humidity levels here on the Texas Gulf Coast. Additionally, even if a spark did occur, again, given that this is a hobbyist installation, where generally only one machine is being serviced at a time, that the proper density of dust necessary to support combustion was not likely to ever occur.

Now - the vacuum system, that's another story with sparks. I used it one cold winter day to vacuum the walls of the finishing room in the old space. Used a brush-end adapter on the hose, and the static charge formed on the pipe fed up my arm and made the hair stand on end up to my elbow. I made the mistake of coming within 6" of a piece of conduit on the wall and got a solid "pop" as a lesson. Elbow was the exit point and that joint ached for several hours afterward. The velocities involved with vacuum systems are far higher than with DC's - but they're relatively safe because the volume in the pipes generally won't support the density of dust particles necessary to support combustion.

Of course, if I'm wrong, after the explosion, I'll wave to you as I pass overhead of Dripping Springs...

Here's one of the articles I used as justification for not grounding the new system:

http://home.comcast.net/~rodec/woodworking/articles/DC_myths.html#inside

My general approach to "raw" wood is to use my horizontal drum sander to prep the surface - it doesn't care much about nails, although they are hard on the abrasive. At least it doesn't have blades to chip. The bigger problem I have with old wood is the grit that collects in the knots, and how hard the knots are. I've nicked plenty of planer blades on old knots.

My mother used to berate me for picking stuff up and setting it down. She'd say "your pants are on the dryer, go hang them up in your room" - I'd pick them up, transport them to my bedroom and lay them on the bed. Then later, after I got chewed on for "handling it twice", I'd pick the pants up and hang them in the closet. I guess that training has made me loathsome to move parts more than once, especially when it's a huge stack of lumber...

My uncle lives in Austin, BTW. Has lived there since he got out of college and went to work for IBM. Retired about 7 years ago after 30+ years on the job.

Thanks for the compliments - we're headed back to the shop tomorrow and Sunday for more fun.

As for Tin, he gets full use of the shop whenever he wants. We do lots of projects together.

 

[John Dillinger]

I am looking at all of that framing to raise the floor and I am wondering the price difference between raising the floor and cutting and patching the floor?
When and if you move with PVC pipe you could cut the pipe off and fill it with concrete or is there language in the lease that prevents you cutting the floor as well as the outside walls?

JD Former resident of Lake Jackson TX.

 

[wbrian63]

I really never thought about cutting the floor. My previous shop had a wood floor out of necessity, having in its previous life been a wash bay for heavy equipment, complete with the required muck pit and a heavily sloped floor.

Standing all day, or for any length of time on wood is far better than concrete, so I probably would have put 2x4 sleepers and plywood anyway.

I probably could have cut the slab if I'd asked. All I would have needed to do, as you noted, was to fill the pipes with grout when I vacated.

The flooring was about $18/sheet, and it took 37 sheets for the ground floor. The framing was another $400 or so. So, in approx figures, say $1100. I'm sure the one-day rental of a heavy duty self-propelled concrete saw would have been far less, and we could have easily trenched in the 80 or so feet of piping required.

 

[wbrian63]

Update:

First thing on Saturday, I took the opportunity to pull all the circuits that were added by the previous tenant next door that is now gone. Talk about hack-job wiring... The main feed was a 50a circuit with 2 #6 and 1 #8 wire run in 1/2 conduit. It was 1 #6 red wire, 1 #6 white wire taped black at the ends, and 1 #8 white wire for the neutral. Ground? fugeddaboutit. I couldn't pull the circuits back out of the conduit. Had to take each section apart at the couplings and work the wires out that way. The wires were so tight in the conduit that in several places the outer skin of the wire, where the gauge, rating, etc info is printed was peeled back and bunched up between the other conductors...

They used bx in all the interior circuits, but most of the connections to junction boxes used emt couplings with electrical tape wrapped around the end of the bx... The sub panel was Square D, a brand I do like, but none of the connectors on top were tight. They actually were the right type of connector for BX, but all they did was knock the blank out of the box, thread the collar onto the connector and stuff the unsheathed bx leads into the box...

That's all gone, and for my trouble, I've got about 50' of misc-length 12/2 bx, about 75' of pretty mangled #6 red and #6 white, and a similar length of #8 white, plus a nice 5 space (10 circuit) Square D lugs load center, complete with breakers.

We also completed bracing the east wall. We've still got to build the wall to the right of the door and tie it into the east wall, but have put that on hold until the door operator arrives later this week.

Adding this bracing made me regret even more not building this wall the same as the west wall, which is a more typical wall-on-wall design. This wall is still plumb and flat across the face, but it just looks sloppy, in my opinion. We started by taking some nice flat 2x4's and marking them 24" on center. Those were attached to the back of the studs at a point even with the upper purlin. This gave us the opportunity to make sure the stud spacing was the same in the middle (more or less) of the wall as it was at the top and bottom. Then we took some short sections of 2x4's and bolted them to the purlin and screwed through the horizontal 2x4 into the bolted blocks. The wall is now rock-solid.

Of course, the fact that the structure looks like a$$ will be covered by the sheathing when it starts going up next weekend (hopefully).

I don't know what kind of structure I'm going to need behind the operator to support it properly. In a "normal" garage, the door track is attached to the inside surface of the wall. In a commercial application, the door track is attached to the back of the door frame, and the "wall" is the exterior of the building, forward of that plane by about 10". The walls to the right and left of the door are more-or-less flush with the front edge of the door track, so I'm going to have to do some custom framing to provide a place to mount the operator.

Here's the door operator we purchased:

http://www.liftmaster.com/consumerweb/pages/productmodeldetail.aspx?modelId=834

According to the specs, it will handle doors up to 14' in height, 18' wide or 180 square feet. Our door is 14x10.

Until recently, I hadn't messed with a garage door opener since the early 90's when I installed my trusty Genie screw 1/2hp screw drive at my house. I replaced it recently with one of the new Genie Xcelerator models, which is a very nice unit.

These new quasi-commercial units are a marvel. The wall control has a clock and thermometer in it. You can also activate a motion sensor in the wall control that will turn on the light, which is wirelessly activated - just plug it in anywhere in the garage and go through a simple learning process and it will function with the opener. The opener even has a electric dead-bolt lock that attaches to the track above one of the rollers. When the door closes, the bolt is extended into the channel to block the door being raised, automatically. You can even add laser parking guides to the opener if you need such things...

I think I'm going to adapt this feature to power a couple of lights outside the door. I don't need lighting inside the space, there's a 3-way circuit that allows control of the main lights from adjacent to the man door or the main door, and it's not a garage anyway.

On Sunday, family activities cut in to the schedule, but we still got the wall framed for the front of the loft.

This is from my Good Friday work -

I forgot to get pics of the recently completed piping for the compressed air. There are 7 drops, 3 along the east wall (one for the drill press and 2 for other uses), one inside the finishing room, and 2 outside to the right of the finishing room door - 1 about 8' off the ground for my primary hose reel, and one below it for other uses. There's also one poking up into the loft, but that's a just-in-case branch. All of the piping is sloped about 1/8"/foot so condensate won't collect, and each drop has a provision for a drain valve, which will be a 1/2" ball valve for easy maintenance.

I'm confident of my copper sweating abilities, but I'm still going to cap all but one of the ends and pressure the system with air to make sure there are no leaks.

I was discouraged to discover that 1/2" female copper to 3/8" female ip adapters aren't available. I'll have to settle for a 1/2" x 3/8" galv bushing to attach the quick disconnects. I made sure to get the kind of disconnect where you only have to push the male connector in and it latches. Those kind of connectors are horrible on hose-ends, but wonderful on the wall - no two-handed attachment required.

 

[WhatThaFrig]

Color me extremly jealous! Nice work and write up.

 

[Indy_500]

Nice work! awesome!

 

[Motown 454]

Nice work its going to be a great work space.

 

[wbrian63]

Thanks - it's coming along nicely.

A possible "oh ****" today. The sheathing is starting to go up. Decided against drywall, as someday we'll probably want to take all this and go elsewhere - hopefully to something owned and not rented. Went to Home Depot to buy the first batch of sheets - and last week it was $8.74 for 7/16" 4x8 OSB. Today - it's $10.50. Gonna need about 200 sheets to complete the build - that's an extra $175.00 that could have been spent elsewhere...

Anyway - finally got the balance of the north wall framed out. Had to leave a block out to allow for the installation of the door opener. Once we get it set, we'll frame in behind it.

Adjusted the piping to allow for the Quincy air compressor - the inlet to the pipe was too close to the floor.

Cut out part of the ceiling structure in the finishing room to allow for a 48x40 lift. In the previous shop, I had a electric crane on a powered trolly that ran on a 4" I-beam to allow me to lift stuff up to the loft. Taking that sucker down nearly gave me a hernia and heart failure as I was just sure something was going to give at the wrong moment and the sucker was gonna fall. Cool as that setup was, it was not very fast - the I-beam followed the pitch of the roof to allow for maximum lift height into the loft, so the trolly was controlled by a 90vdc gear motor and a looping chain, which was really slow in and out. After reading some about of the fellow board member's hoists for attics, etc, and visiting U-tube to find other examples, I think I've come up with a workable design that will allow for better transport of items to and from the loft. Didn't get any pictures of the framing adjustments - but it's just a hole for right now...

Also started sheathing the walls. We'll do one side of each wall around the equipment rooms, then put the insulation in before sheathing the other side.

For ventilation, I think I'm going to put a grille at the bottom of the wall and one at the top on the other side of each room. For the little I use the space and equipment, convection ventilation should be good enough, I would think.

I know one thing for sure - putting up OSB is a LOT harder than sheetrock. With sheetrock, I put it in place loosely, then grab the trusty rotozip and cut out the holes for the boxes. Doesn't work that way with OSB, so it's measure and cut, put the sheet up and figure out where you screwed up, take the sheet down and adjust the cut and put it back up again...

Also did some roof repair to get rid of some pesky drip-drip leaks and one monster leak over in the same corner of the building as the electrical panel (eek). Today, we got a real gully-washer of a rainstorm, and all of the leaks have been sealed except one we forgot about. It is nice to have a dry shop...

 

[Nighttrain]

wbrian,

Did you mount/attach the studs to the purlins? I am looking at framing my wall with the studs actually flat against the purlins and driving metal screws into the purlins. I have an L-bracket running along the floor, a purlin at 4' and the next at 7' then the next at 11' with the top at 16'. Only issue I could see is running the wire. I would have to run the wire behind the studs and not through the studs as you did. I plan on placing the studs 24" oc just flat against the purlins and not perpendicular as in a traditional wall.
Your shops coming along nicely.

 

[wbrian63]

I chose not to attach the studs to the purlins for a couple of reasons.

1) Doing so would have made the shop another 12" wider, which, surprisingly would have increased materials costs and waste by about 10%. An even 24' wide makes everything come together with little waste.

2) This building was put together with used materials, and some of the walls have a visible bow to them. I like things plumb and straight.

3) The quality of 2x4 stock is simply ****, even when paying a premium to get "#2 or better". We purchased 175 2x4x96 studs (meaning cut to exact length, as opposed to 2x4x96 which can be anywhere from 96 to 96-3/16". About 20% of the stock have bowed noticeably across the wide dimension of the board, just sitting in the pile waiting installation. Others have bowed while in place. As the sheathing goes up, we can correct this with extra bracing or a little kind persuasion. If you install the 2x4's on the flat, you won't have any control over this once the walls are up and sheathed.

You can still do the installation on the narrow side - just get 4" carriage bolts and go through the wide edge. Or, if the perlins are wide enough and you have a right-angle drill, you can drill a 3/16" hole and use a deck screw from behind.

Possibly with your close spacing there may not be an issue. We're not as lucky - there's 1 fewer purlin in the same space as where you have 4.

Good luck.

Regards

 

[wbrian63]

Update from weekend of April 25/26:

Insulation installed on walls surrounding closets for equipment. The ceiling is roughly 8-6", so the insulation doesn't reach the bottom, but that will allow me to provide proper convective ventilation without having to burrow through the fiberglass (at least at the bottom of the wall).

Couldn't figure out an easy way to insulate the ceiling above the closets. The joists are 2x12 on 16" centers, so there is a massive cavity to enclose that's criscrossed with BX cable, conduit, copper pipe for compressed air, PVC for the vacuum system, etc. Finally dawned on me that blown-in insulation would be the way to go.

Over the past several years, we've done some massive remodeling at Tin's folk's house, gutting and rebuilding the master bedroom, master bath, guest bath and the youngest daughter's bedroom. These jobs involved removing all of the sheetrock, which meant dealing with the nasty 30-year-old blown-in fiberglass insulation. We kept putting off reinsulating the attic hoping to finish the entire remodel and reinsulate all at once. However, time and money have run out on the remodel for a while, so we just bit the bullet and insulated. Home Depot has a machine you can rent that allows blow in of fiberglass insulation. 10 bags = 1 day's free rental. We needed 8 bags for Tin's folks and 2 bags for the shop. We put blocking plywood in each joist bay at the edge of the closet wall. In that block (which was loosely fit), we drilled a 2-1/2" hose, large enough for the hose of the blower to fit. Took less than 30 minutes to completely pack each joist bay with insulation. Unfortunately, no pictures...

Installed more sheathing - it's going up nicely.

The ceiling is in in the finishing room. The hole will be the lift up to the loft - 48"w x 40"d. I've still got to trim out the edge of the OSB where it overlaps the hole and install some blocking at the top of the wall to enclose the "lift shaft".

Cutting in holes for outlets and ceiling boxes sure is a PITA with OSB. With drywall, I just use my trusty Rotozip. I've got a 1/4" piloting bit I can use for rough work like doorways, but it's too big and cumbersome to do work like this. So it's the tried and true measure, mark, measure again, cut and hope method... This one turned out spot-on. I won't be showing some of my first efforts...

The interior of the closets is completely done.

Friggin' OSB is up $4.00/sheet in the last 2 weeks!!! We're gonna need about 100 sheets to complete this job. There's $400 (+tax) we didn't need to spend...

Next weekend = more OSB. Once we get the ceiling done in the machine area, the walls go much faster. I'm looking forward to getting the space closed in.

We've also got to do some tweaking to the garage door to get it operating smoothly so we can install the Liftmaster 3800. I'm anxious to see this puppy in operation.

More to come later...

 

[wbrian63]

Update for work done 05/01 and 05/02.

Last week, while sheathing the inside of the finishing room, I noticed that our tripod-mounted dual-head 500w halogen work light was beginning to flicker, a typical sign that a bulb is going out. When I turned around to check, it looked like someone was using an arc-welder in one of the lamps. It was sparking blue and there was a puddle of molten metal forming at the end of the bulb. The switches for the lights had long since failed and been bypassed, the t-mount for the lamps had broken off the tripod and been rigged back into use - the cheap-o lamp was ready for the scrap heap.

We replaced it with this:

Found it on eBay for a reasonable sum. It's a 175w metal-halide unit, and BOY IS IT BRIGHT. As advertised, it won't burn you if you touch it, which is more than I can say for the old halogen unit. Very happy with the new toy, er - tool. I wasn't sure about it not having a cord, but I like that when unplugged, there's no cord to mess with. All my other lamps with cords still require an extension cord, so no big deal. It appears to be designed for the long-haul. Instruction manuals even state that it should be turned off for at least 15 minutes every 24 hours...

We finished sheathing the inside of the finishing room, the ceiling of the equipment room, and the north and west walls of the equipment room. We fully insulated the space on the south wall - we've got a mechanic's shop on the south side of our building, and his cheap-o Husky compressor is right by the wall. Today was the first day with all the insulation and sheathing up, and it has made a huge difference in transmitted noise.

As typical of OSB, we're having issues with the alignment of the panels on the horizontal seams where they span between studs. Have decided to just buck-up and put 1x4 backers between each stud. We're working too hard to have the end result look more like **** than OSB does in the first place...

Ceiling of the equipment room - you can see some of the insulation going in on the south wall:

I'm getting pretty good at cutting the holes for outlet boxes, have only scrapped one piece so far, and many of my cuts go up the first time with no "adjustments" - however, I really miss being able to use my roto-zip on sheetrock. I won't miss not having to tape and float 100+ sheets...

I know I'll appreciate having plugs everywhere, but now I'm questioning just why we couldn't have a bunch of extension cords...

South and west walls of equipment room:

We're starting on other parts of the sheathing. We should have the balance of the place fully sheathed in 2 weeks - if we can afford the seemingly constant price increases for OSB. It's up ANOTHER DOLLAR since last week.

We bought 50 sheets this weekend - this is just one stack of 30:

When we started this project, we could have purchased 15/32 B/C sheathing for around $13/sheet. Decided on OSB, because it was $5/sheet cheaper, and we'll need 100+ sheets. Now OSB is more than B/C was when we started, and B/C is nearly $20/sheet!!!

Thank goodness we're nearly finished...

On another thread I spoke of my purchase of a 18v LiIon Milwaukee 1/4 Impact Driver and my disappointment with it's power, even compared to a 5+ year old Dewalt 14.4v tool. Well, I returned the Milwaukee and got a last-years model Makita 18v LiIon. Boy is that tool a hoss... Came with 2 3.0ah batteries and a "smart" charger. Charger recharges even recently-used batteries in 22min's and plays Fur Elise when the charging is done We used the driver all day Saturday, installing about 10 sheets of OSB. Each sheet has 25 screws, and we even did some other framing work with 3" screws, and the battery was still good-to-go at the end of the day. I think I'm gonna like this one... The Scotchman in me found another refurbished tool place to buy from - $200+freight delivered. This isn't the current 3-speed brushless motor model, but I'm very satisfied so far.

One final note - it was time, so I did it - placed the order for a new Quincy 2V41C60VC compressor. Will report findings when it arrives and we get it installed...

 

[Jpfreak33]

Lots of progress!! looking good, keep the pics coming!

 

[e-tek]

Lovely - but why didn't you run outlets under the floor too??

 

[wbrian63]

I did - there's a 110 outlet, plus 2 separate 220v outlets under where the tablesaw and jointer will be positioned. Really can't run "floor" outlets in a workshop setting - too much dust on the floor. These are attached to EMT conduit that stubs up from the floor about 10 inches.

 

[wbrian63]

This weekend's work was confined to sheathing - again.

We're about 80% done, and hopefully next weekend will see the end of this part of the job.

We've got all the full-sheet work done on the west wall - all that remains is the small tedious work to fill in all the way to the roof line.

The outside of the finishing room and the north side of the loft are complete.

We've got a couple of sheets up on the east wall of the equipment room.

The price of OSB has held steady, but quality seems to be slipping. We've got 4 of the 30 sheets that were purchased last week with serious delamination on the ends or sides. It also looks like we're gonna need another 10 or so sheets to finish, even after I used very generous calculations last weekend to figure out the balance remaining...

About 3 weeks ago, we purchased some 2x4-8' #2 YP boards to reconstruct the half-wall on the southwest side of the space. That wall was originally supported by a set of really crummy metal shelves. Now that we're nearing the end, I want that wall back up so our space is fully divided from the landlord's space and he can use that area again. Yesterday, we noticed that out of that batch of 14 boards, that fully half are unusable. I don't know how consumers can be expected to use lumber, that when picked from a pile at the home center and transported home, within a short time turns into spaghetti. We've got boards that have twisted, warped and bowed - all in the same board... All of these boards were hand-picked and were "reasonably" straight when we brought them to the shop 3 weeks ago. I'm tempted to tell the manager of Home Depot that he can reimburse us not only for the cost of the lumber, but for the cost of the gasoline to transport this **** back to his store... (As if that'd actually happen...)

I'm frustrated by the slow progress on the project as a whole, but gratified that we're close to being done with the sheathing. We only work on Saturday and Sunday. However, as tired as I am right now, I don't know how I'd make it if we did more during the week. I may step up the pace a bit after the sheathing work is done. I can't do that work by myself - the precision required to make sure that the sheets go up level and properly oriented to one another is not a one-man job.

Upcoming electrical trim-out and painting can be done by one man. Also have to install the doors into the closets and into the finishing room, but that is also a job that's easier with 2 people.

We're going to have to do some more work on the overhead door. It binds about 1/2 way up and we finally figured out what's causing it. The tracks that run along the ceiling aren't perpendicular to the face of the door. When the door starts to bind, you can clearly see the upper roller frame is rubbing against the door track on the left-hand side, but is clear of the right-hand side by 2+ inches. Once the door is all the way up, the misalignment is unmistakable. Unfortunately, the supports that hold the tracks at the end are welded to the roof joists, so shifting them over won't be as easy a task as if they were bolted.

We'll keep plugging along - the end is near (either for the project, or for me...)

 

[wbrian63]

Work from 05/15 and 05/16.

Saturday we got all of the lower section of sheathing done on the east wall.

Did some last-minute changes for the air supply - have piping in place for a hose reel. Also changed the drops for the first 2 in the line to pull from the top of the pipe, eliminating the need for drains at those points. Only have one drain in this leg, right at the end of the line.

On Sunday, we started framing out the last of the east wall, in the space between the roof joists, and also started installing the sheathing to fill those spaces up. Didn't finish, as we ran out of usable 2x4 stock. Will have to go buy some more spaghetti - er 2x4's next weekend...

Saturday was rainy all day long - but we couldn't get this work done then, naturally. Today was bright and sunny, and it was HOT up next to the ceiling.

Also got the bottom row of sheathing done up in the loft, but I neglected to take pictures. I actually wanted to snap a few, but I was afraid the temps up there might melt the glass in the lens of my Canon camera...

Also completed wiring the plugs up there - when the walls are finished downstairs, we can complete the electrical. I'm tired of tripping over extension cords...

 

[wbrian63]

It's here!!!

Arrived last Wednesday. Now to get it from the front of the shop to its permanent home in the back, wired up and functional...

What a beautiful shade of blue - don't you agree?

I'm on staycation all next week, so hopefully that week will end in one of two ways:
1) Me in hospital due to complete exhaustion
2) Shop assembly complete thru paint, ready for equipment/contents to come out of storage.

Hopefully the latter will be the end result...

Last weekend didn't see much progress. I had the compressor delivered to my consulting gig where they've got a forklift to take it off the truck. I picked the compressor up from my consulting gig on Wednesday and stored the truck at the shop until I had time to unload it on Saturday.

No forklift here at the shop. Ended up putting a 3/4" steel rod under the motor/compressor mounting block and hooking a come-along around the bar through the hole where the copper tubes come from the compressor to the tank and pressure switch. The other end of the come-along was attached to a chain hanging from a structural I-beam in the space next to ours. Slowly lifted the compressor off the pallet and drove the truck out. Lowered it onto a flat cart and from there to the shop. Cart was about 1/2" taller than the edge of the floor so we just walked it off the cart - and there it sits.

Took the dog to the beach on Saturday, knowing this weekend and next is going to be pandemonium.

Worked a few hours on Sunday doing some electrical trim out. I like having 20a plug circuits, but 12ga wire and my arthritic hands don't mix, so I made up some pigtails using 12ga THHN wire. Much easier to attach that to the outlets. The wires in the box are stripped and twisted together, and the pigtails are added to the bundles. This way, if a plug should fail, the outlets down the way will continue working. Also a lot easier to work the 12ga solid bundles back into the rear of the box and let the outlet follow behind with easy to bend and manipulate THHN.

Most of the plug outlets are done, but I ran out of plugs. Surely 20 would have been enough??? I count that I need at least a dozen more...

More to come when there's more to tell...

 

[wbrian63]

I've got a spare moment here at work, so I'll provide some verbal update on the project. Pictures will come later.

Tin and I worked 3 days (29, 30 & 31 May) at the shop, finalizing a lot of tiny details.

Got the doors installed to the closets, still have to install the doors to the finishing room. They're a pair of 30" doors that I'll have to "adapt" the casings to work as a single double-door setup.

Finished all of the wall sheathing up at the roof line. That is slow and tedious work if you want it to turn out right. I'm the skilled one with the power tools and Tin is a talented "measure man", so lucky Tin got all the inglorious work of calling out all the cut numbers from up on the scaffold, then installing the sheathing once I got it cut to size.

We decided to do the upper sections off the 4' side of the OSB. That limited our cutouts to a single purlin, per piece, making the installation process go much faster.

Picked up a small refrigerator at Fry's to keep cool beverages. Far better than having to ice up the cooler every day. Right now, it's stocked with water and Gator Aide. Alcoholic bevs may follow in the future, but we've discovered that a well-stocked fridge tends to "draw" lookers and chatters. They're more than happy to stop by and distract us from our goals, especially if there's a cold brew to be had. Ask them to lend a hand and suddenly they've got somewhere else to be. Oddly, when there's no beer, they never come 'round...

I worked solo Tuesday (1 June) thru Friday (4 June) in some of the hottest weather we've seen yet this year. I drank somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 gallon of liquid each day, sometimes more, and never once needed a bathroom break until I got home for the evening. Staying hydrated is such a chore - by the time you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated. On this task I failed.

I got the bottom section of the walls filled in the closets and the interior of the finishing room in preparation for paint. This is more slow and tedious work, and doubly hard for me being old, fat and reflux-prone.

I started priming the closets so I can get equipment installed there first. I've never been a fan of OSB - and my love/hate relationship has degraded into a one-sided hate relationship. Adding to the irritation of a 60% gain in pricing during the short 4 week interval where we were buying these materials comes the sad reality that what we purchased is ****.

I understand the primary purpose of OSB is as an underlayment - roofs, floors, etc. I briefly considered drywall for the space, but the thought of taping and floating 100+ sheets was unpleasant. Having to pick and choose where you attach stuff to drywall is another disadvantage. Plywood - just plain 15/32 BC was $15/sheet when we started the sheathing task. OSB was $8.50. $ were flying out the door faster than I'd like at that point, so OSB won the toss. I didn't expect a perfect surface from OSB, but I also didn't expect the **** we got, either.

I'd like to TOSS all of it right now. First - it doesn't take paint worth ****. Whatever you do - DO NOT ATTEMPT to paint OSB with a roller. There are zillions of little pockets between the flakes that take FOREVER to cover. Plus, a some the flakes on the surface seem to be barely attached. Once you put a latex primer on those pieces, they swell and pop loose. By the time all is said and done, I'll probably have a 5-gallon bucket FULL of flakes I've had to go back and pull off and re-prime underneath.

Still more - apparently the printing done on the surface (manufacturing date, thickness, installation instructions, etc.) is done with a process that seals the ink. Why do I say this? Because there are areas on some boards, and you can't see it easily, where apparently there was a leaky ink hose or jet or something and spots of ink are splattered in regular patterns. Once you put the first coat of primer, they show up like leopard spots. It takes 4 (FOUR!) coats of Zinsser BIN123 primer to cover those areas up without bleed-thru. After the first coat of primer, the printed bands basically disappear, so there's got to be something different with how the ink is applied in one area vs another.

It's also taking way too much paint to get a good finish. I'm glad I started with the closets, because I won't have to see how much like **** they look. I tried 2 coats of sealer/primer, only to discover that I needed 2 top coats of white to cover, and even then, I've got banding in the corners where the paint goes on heavier with the brush while cutting in.

I settled on 3 coats of primer and 1 top coat for the ceiling in the finishing room, and that looks OK.

Most of the 4 days I worked alone was consumed with priming, loose chip removal, repriming, second priming and painting. I did get the trim up around the doors that Tin and I installed the previous weekend.

On Saturday last (5 June), Tin and I finished closing in the bottoms of the walls in the rest of the shop. With Tin back as measure-man and me on the saw, things look far better for our efforts than mine did alone. The fill-in sheets are snug to the floor, where my solo efforts show about a 1/8-3/16" gap. The only advantage I can see of my installation over his is that it's easier to cut in the floor paint when the walls don't touch the floor completely.

Got the floor painted in the compressor closet, and 1 primer + 2 top coats looks the bomb. That's the way the walls should go, and would go if I'd used something other than OSB...

I got the remote switching system for the compressor installed and tested. The floor paint needs to cure for 72 hours before I can set the compressor in place and connect it.

It turns out I put the piping in for the compressor in the completely wrong spot. I installed the pipes before I settled on the Quincy compressor, with the inlet on the same wall as the door, immediately to the left as you enter the closet. The Quincy will fit best across the left end of the closet, which puts the outlet of the compressor on the opposite side of the room from the inlet to the piping system. I turned lemons into lemonade here and solved what might be a problem in the future. I built a heat exchanger system that has about 18' of copper, hung on the same wall as the door, above where the compressor would have set. Rather than mounting the tubes vertically, with a drain at the bottom of each loop, I built it horizontally, with the entire run tilted downhill. The catch tube is below the tee where the pipe goes into the wall. I mounted a cast FPT fitting to the wall to the right of the compressor outlet, ran copper up the wall and across the ceiling to tie in with the heat exchanger. All tolled, there's about 32' of copper between the compressor outlet and the inlet to the distribution piping.

I'll do a performance test on the system to see how much drop we get in air temp from the outlet of the compressor tank to the first point of consumption, the finishing room. I'm sure there are some tables somewhere that will tell me the dew point of air at various pressures. I've got a good quality air/water separator that I attach to the inlet of my pressure pot, so hopefully I won't face any moisture issues during heavy usage.

This weekend will see the rest of the walls in the finishing room painted, plus the ceiling in the equipment room. That will allow the balance of the lights to be installed and we can continue with the priming and painting of the balance of the space.

I'll post a few pictures later.

 

[wbrian63]

Here are a couple of pictures of the flaky OSB I referred to. Ended up finding and removing another 30 or so spots on this ceiling alone.

Here's what I was talking about with the Leopard spots. This is after a single coat of sealer/primer. Notice the printing bands seen everywhere on the bare OSB have pretty much disappeared, but the spots are very visible.

Here's the copper radiator I cobbled together. The picture angle is funny because I was leaning in the door to take the pic - floor wasn't dry enough to walk on. At the bottom of the picture you can see part of the enclosure that houses the contactor switch assembly. The tube at the top runs to the other wall in the closet, and down to about 16" off the floor to a cast 1/2" FIP ear'd ell.

 

[Motofixxer]

This is fascinating reading. That's an awful lot of work, just to be taken down in the future. But I guess...sometimes gotta do what you gotta do eh. I have heard horror stories about painting OSB. Don't worry your not the only one.
Just kinda curious though what the specs of the compressor are, or model so we can look it up. Love that blue color though

 

[wbrian63]

Quincy Model QV41C60VC. 5hp motor, 15.6scfm@100psi, 15.2scfm @175psi, or thereabouts.
Made in USA.
Thanks for taking the time to read the diatribe.

 

[twostory]

Plywood - just plain 15/32 BC was $15/sheet when we started the sheathing task. OSB was $8.50. $ were flying out the door faster than I'd like at that point, so OSB won the toss. I didn't expect a perfect surface from OSB, but I also didn't expect the **** we got, either.

I was just in a Home Depot (Atlanta, GA area) today. OSB was $7.77. Two weeks ago it was $12.

 

[wbrian63]

Update:

Things have been progressing, I've just not been posting. Mostly because I left my camera at a friend's house and just retrieved it Monday. As the saying goes - ... without pic's...

All of the space is primed. I spent yesterday (06/22) after work about 4 hours finishing the trim and started caulking. Boy there are a lot of seams to caulk in a space this size...

West wall

East wall:

South wall:

The lights are up everywhere, finally. Much as I like my 175w MH Wobblelight, there's no substitute for proper above-your-head lighting. In the above image, you can see there are 4 lights installed in the machine room. Rather than doing full-broadcast lighting, I chose to place lights where the equipment will be. The equipment room will house a planer, horizontal drum sander, router table, drill press and band saw. The planer and sander will be on the right wall, the router table on the back wall, the drill press on the left wall and the band saw under the stair landing. Each has a 4' 2-bulb T8 fixture above it.

You can also see the doors are installed on the finishing room. Was a bit of a challenge to turn a pair of doors into a double-door setup, but as a pair, the doors cost a whopping $60 total - far better than the $250+ for even a really cheap double door setup, or crafting a custom frame and hanging 2 doors manually. Of course, $30 per pre-hung door doesn't get you quality - the left door has a perfect 1/8" gap across the top. The right door had a barely 1/16" gap, and with expected inconsistencies when attempting to join the two frames, we had to cut about 3/32" off the right door at the start to even get the door to close without rubbing.

The pictures below are crowded with all the **** that's stored in the finishing room, but you can see a few of the lights. There are 8 4' T-8 fixtures installed vertically on the wall, spaced evenly around the room. As a group, they're switched from outside the room. Additionally, they each have a toggle switch on top to allow me to turn them off individually. When attempting to put a fine finish on cabinetry and furniture, being able to control the direction of the light is handy.

BTW - taking advantage of the Father's day sales, I placed an order for a 5-drawer ball-bearing base cabinet and a 2-drawer ball-bearing intermediate cabinet to rest the toolchest seen in the pics. The chest itself is a quiet-glide model, I wish I had sprung for the bb unit, but at the time (2 years ago or so), I think this one was 50% off. The cabinets should be at my local Sears in about 2 weeks.

North wall of finishing room - the Quincy is in the closet behind the left door.

East wall of finishing room:

Quincy's settled nicely in his closet. Bought 4 cork/rubber isolation pads and bolted the frame down. Even tho' it runs smoooooth, the pads keep any harmonic vibration from sneaking into the structure and adding to the noise level. I took these pictures before I added the wire cover to the unloader valve circuit.

Here's a better view of the radiator. "I think" the downward slope of the tubes get rid of the need for individual loop drains. The radiator connects to the piping where it enters the wall. Just inside the wall is a Tee - pipe goes up to feed the shop, and down to another tee to feed the finishing room and down to a drain valve. With this setup, there's about 30' of tube between the compressor and the point of first use:

Here's a picture of the electric unloader valve I added. With this compressor's design, unless the unit reaches full pressure and is turned off by the pressure switch, the compressor isn't unloaded. I don't want to worry about restarting the compressor if I shut it off for some reason before it reaches full pressure and need to restart it before the dump valve empties the tank. (I have another electric valve that will be installed on the tank drain that will dump the tank when I switch the remote starter off. There are times when I don't go to the shop for weeks at a time, so I like dumping the tank completely each time I leave.)
I removed the pressure relief valve from the side of the check valve at the top of the tank, added a street ell, a 4" ****** and a tee to add this valve to the setup.

The valve is normally open when no power is present. The coil is 120v and is connected to the extra terminals on the DP contactor switch in the box mounted on the wall to the left of Quincy. When I activate the remote switch, the valve closes. When I pull the power, the valve opens and dumps the pressure off the compressor.

I got about 60% of the caulking done today. Thursday, I'll finish that work and start painting the walls!!!

We've decided to add framing and sheetrock to the ceiling, and then blowing in fiberglass insulation. That work will start this weekend. I can't wait - it was 108f in the shop when I got there at 4:00pm yesterday...

More as more comes.

 

[wbrian63]

Balance of the caulking is done and the first coat of white paint on the walls. Looks SO much better. My neck and shoulders are killing me, and my fingerprint door lock at home doesn't recognize my right index finger from smoothing so much caulk...

We start the project to insulate the ceiling this weekend. I can wait...

Here are a few pics. Trim is primed - still need to get the first coat of white on it...

East wall:

South wall:

West wall:

 

[Jack Olsen]

That's looking great.