Blackend
Well-known member
Great thread! Tell Tin to hit me up on www.acuralegend.org if he's not already on there for the AT>MT swap. I recently did this as well.
My Workshop / Garage
- Thread starter wbrian63
- Start date
He's not a big internet board "joiner", but I'm pretty sure he's aware of the site.
We will be making the swap together. The recipient car is a 95 Legend L. It's red with a tan (buckskin?) interior. The interior is very worn in places.
The donor car is an older model, a '94, I believe, but it's an LS, with the appropriate trim level upgrades. (Auto A/C, heated seats, power passenger seat, etc.) The interior is practically pristeen - a little wear on the driver's seat, but that's all. The outside of the car is trashed, and the Type II engine has a blown headgasket.
I understand the Type II heads and intake, if in good working order, are worth some $.
Tin has already stripped most of the interior, which is black. We'll strip the rest of it (which we'll need to do to swap the Auto A/C in for the manual unit currently), and that will give us a good bird's eye view of how the clutch mechanism works. That will make a big difference in swapping that structure to the recipient car.
A red car (with a new paint-job) with a black interior is going to look nice.
We've got a bit of work to do on the engine from the red car - a previous owner smacked something solid down low in front and the oil pan has a JB Weld fix. It's also leaking oil from the seals where the driveshafts pass thru the oil pan, and it starts smoking a bit when left to idle for an extended period of time (I'm thinking valve seals).
It's gonna be quite a project. Plus, Tin's mom wants us to build cabinets for her new kitchen after the 1st of the year...
We'll keep you in mind. Helps that you're reasonably close as well.
Regards
I started a new thread on this subject:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=963822#post963822
Any person that survives the type of weekend we just experienced can survive anything.
When the lease was signed on this space, it was typical February in Houston, TX - coldish and rainy.
Fast forward nearly 5 months and it's now all-too-typical summer in Houston, TX - hot and muggy, muggy and hot, and just plain HOT.
It became obvious about 2 months ago that something was going to need to be done to insulate the roof.
The previous shop space benefited from a normal steel building construction with encapsulated bat insulation stretched across the C-beams before the roof went down. About a year there, the landlord decided to fix the roof - it was leaking in a few places. Rather than pull the old roof off, or patch anything, he had another set of C-beams laid and a new roof installed over those. Between the C-beams, he added 8+ inches of insulation. Even on the hottest day, you could stand right next to the roof in either loft and not feel any radiated heat.
Got a series of quotes to have closed-cell spray foam applied to the roof. Prices were around $2,500 to spray 1-1/2". That's WAY too much for the budget (says the man that has a remote-start Quincy air compressor...)
Stumbled across an article in the Journal of Light Construction where a contractor was adding insulation to an attic area in a house. They stapled tyvek housewrap across the studs, and put 1x2 battens over the top of the
staples. Then they blew in cellulose insulation.
Did a few calculations and came up with some ideas to do the same thing. However, even blowing in fiberglass, which is lighter than cellulose, there would be problems with sagging over time.
Figured up the cost to just put sheetrock on the ceiling, and it was on par with using the tyvek.
So this weekend, up went the blocking necessary to hang the sheetrock:
Spent about 6 hours to get 60% of the blocking in. Finished the balance today in about 4 hours. Joined the but ends of the 2x4's with 2' blocks from above.
Part of the reason why the space is so hot is the roof deck is a hodge-podge of panels, all used, almost none of which are reflective colors. There are dark green, dark brown, dark red and a few off-white and aluminum. Found this out after the first heavy rain when searching for a few leaks to fix. Of course, that was back in February - didn't think about it much.
Here's why insulation is a requirement, not a luxury:
The IR thermometer is aimed at a section of roof that has a darker color exposed to the sun. This is cool compared to yesterday - I measured 158 at that same spot at about 2pm.
Here's the difference a white or close to white roof can make - the section in the center of the photo is either off-white or aluminum colored on the outside:
That same spot was about 138f yesterday.
Here's what we've been enduring at floor level:
I'm not completely sure that the IR thermometer is totally accurate. Pointed at the same spot as the Liftmaster control, the IR thermometer reads about 10f higher. Even if it's 10f overstated, 128f and 118f are still damn hot.
I initially thought it was cool that the Liftmaster control had a thermometer. However, there are things that one is better off not knowing...
Our saving grace was a portable A/C unit. Bought this years ago for the garage at home, but it's not big enough to overcome the heat load of the cars, etc.
Fortunately, the air comes out the top and the vent can be oriented such that it blows the air almost straight up. It didn't help with the radiated heat, but it made 30-minute sessions up near the roof tolerable. Drank water and gatorade until I thought I would burst, and still never had to go to the john even once. At peak ambient, we were getting 95f out of the A/C, which is positively chilly compared to the alternative.
Next weekend, the sheetrock goes up and the insulation goes in. I can't wait.
Actually, I can - the ceiling at it's highest point is 16' feet above the floor. At the eave of the building is just shy of 14'. I hope I can rent a sheetrock lift that will reach 16'...
When the lease was signed on this space, it was typical February in Houston, TX - coldish and rainy.
Fast forward nearly 5 months and it's now all-too-typical summer in Houston, TX - hot and muggy, muggy and hot, and just plain HOT.
It became obvious about 2 months ago that something was going to need to be done to insulate the roof.
The previous shop space benefited from a normal steel building construction with encapsulated bat insulation stretched across the C-beams before the roof went down. About a year there, the landlord decided to fix the roof - it was leaking in a few places. Rather than pull the old roof off, or patch anything, he had another set of C-beams laid and a new roof installed over those. Between the C-beams, he added 8+ inches of insulation. Even on the hottest day, you could stand right next to the roof in either loft and not feel any radiated heat.
Got a series of quotes to have closed-cell spray foam applied to the roof. Prices were around $2,500 to spray 1-1/2". That's WAY too much for the budget (says the man that has a remote-start Quincy air compressor...)
Stumbled across an article in the Journal of Light Construction where a contractor was adding insulation to an attic area in a house. They stapled tyvek housewrap across the studs, and put 1x2 battens over the top of the
staples. Then they blew in cellulose insulation.
Did a few calculations and came up with some ideas to do the same thing. However, even blowing in fiberglass, which is lighter than cellulose, there would be problems with sagging over time.
Figured up the cost to just put sheetrock on the ceiling, and it was on par with using the tyvek.
So this weekend, up went the blocking necessary to hang the sheetrock:
Spent about 6 hours to get 60% of the blocking in. Finished the balance today in about 4 hours. Joined the but ends of the 2x4's with 2' blocks from above.
Part of the reason why the space is so hot is the roof deck is a hodge-podge of panels, all used, almost none of which are reflective colors. There are dark green, dark brown, dark red and a few off-white and aluminum. Found this out after the first heavy rain when searching for a few leaks to fix. Of course, that was back in February - didn't think about it much.
Here's why insulation is a requirement, not a luxury:
The IR thermometer is aimed at a section of roof that has a darker color exposed to the sun. This is cool compared to yesterday - I measured 158 at that same spot at about 2pm.
Here's the difference a white or close to white roof can make - the section in the center of the photo is either off-white or aluminum colored on the outside:
That same spot was about 138f yesterday.
Here's what we've been enduring at floor level:
I'm not completely sure that the IR thermometer is totally accurate. Pointed at the same spot as the Liftmaster control, the IR thermometer reads about 10f higher. Even if it's 10f overstated, 128f and 118f are still damn hot.
I initially thought it was cool that the Liftmaster control had a thermometer. However, there are things that one is better off not knowing...
Our saving grace was a portable A/C unit. Bought this years ago for the garage at home, but it's not big enough to overcome the heat load of the cars, etc.
Fortunately, the air comes out the top and the vent can be oriented such that it blows the air almost straight up. It didn't help with the radiated heat, but it made 30-minute sessions up near the roof tolerable. Drank water and gatorade until I thought I would burst, and still never had to go to the john even once. At peak ambient, we were getting 95f out of the A/C, which is positively chilly compared to the alternative.
Next weekend, the sheetrock goes up and the insulation goes in. I can't wait.
Actually, I can - the ceiling at it's highest point is 16' feet above the floor. At the eave of the building is just shy of 14'. I hope I can rent a sheetrock lift that will reach 16'...
sammm
Well-known member
It has been a brutal summer already, and it's not even July. Stay hydrated!
Shaggie
Active member
WBrian63
Holy cow! what a HUGE amount of work! I'm in awe!
It's looking great though - you must be very pleased - can't wait to see the results of the insulation - that heat is brutal!
I'm always intrigued to see the OSB - the flakes are GIGANTIC compared to the chipboard (as we call it) we have down here - I must try and find (or take) a picture or two to show the difference.
Cheers and best wishes
Shane
Holy cow! what a HUGE amount of work! I'm in awe!
It's looking great though - you must be very pleased - can't wait to see the results of the insulation - that heat is brutal!
I'm always intrigued to see the OSB - the flakes are GIGANTIC compared to the chipboard (as we call it) we have down here - I must try and find (or take) a picture or two to show the difference.
Cheers and best wishes
Shane
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flyng_fool
Well-known member
Can you attach some sort of flex duct to the A/C unit and get the air right where you're working?
I catch myself zoning in on the flaws in the finish. Only solution seems to be a yoga-ish chant of "it's only a workshop, it's only a workshop, it's only a workshop..."
Right now, the flaws are blatant. Once I start filling the space with equipment, cabinetry, etc, they'll be far less noticeable - I hope.
Good idea. Fortunately, we're done with the framing on the roof.
Might just do what you suggest for the next phase of the project.
Somewhere, I've got an extension cord big enough to handle the draw of the A/C. I've also got some 8" flex duct from a remodel job - somewhere...
I could just lash the unit to the base of the scaffold and drag it around with us as the work progresses.
The "to-do's" that remain before the sheetrock can go up:
1) Put 2nd coat of paint on the walls.
2) Remove the balance of the hanging florescent lights.
3) Seal all openings where the walls meet the roof. To prevent condensation, we must ensure that warm air from the space (or from adjacent spaces) cannot enter the insulated space during the winter. Several cans of spray foam should do the trick.
4) Get some wires run for stereo speakers. I'm going to put the tuner in the closet with the compressor. No dust there, but I need wires up to the front of the shop. Easily done now - not so much later...
5) Figure out trim issues up where the ceiling meets the overhead door. The torsion spring drums project about 1" too high to allow the sheetrock to be slid in above them.
The work to get the framing in was brutal. Tin and I traded time in the oven, but there were times when we both needed to be up there.
I fashioned a pair of "3rd hands" to allow one person to deal with the positioning of the 2x4's. It was a 10" piece of 1x4 screwed in line to a 20-1/2" long 2x4, with 3.5" sticking out. Drilled a 3/4" hole in the 1x4 in the correct position to have the bolt centered in the middle of the 2x4 and in the middle of the C-beam. The 20-1/2" length is the spacing required between 2x4's laid on the flat to have 24" on-center spacing. Clamp the helper to the C-beam, one at each C-beam intersecting the 2x4s. Lift the 2x4 up and slide it into the cradle created by the 1x4.
A series of drills and drivers follows. First, a drill with a 3/4" spade bit to drill the countersink for the bolt head. Another drill with a 1/8" bit to pilot drill the C-beam follows. Another drill with a 1/4" bit for the bolt hole after that and finally, a 1/4" impact driver with a 7/16" socket to tighten the bolt. Like clockwork...
1) Put 2nd coat of paint on the walls.
2) Remove the balance of the hanging florescent lights.
3) Seal all openings where the walls meet the roof. To prevent condensation, we must ensure that warm air from the space (or from adjacent spaces) cannot enter the insulated space during the winter. Several cans of spray foam should do the trick.
4) Get some wires run for stereo speakers. I'm going to put the tuner in the closet with the compressor. No dust there, but I need wires up to the front of the shop. Easily done now - not so much later...
5) Figure out trim issues up where the ceiling meets the overhead door. The torsion spring drums project about 1" too high to allow the sheetrock to be slid in above them.
The work to get the framing in was brutal. Tin and I traded time in the oven, but there were times when we both needed to be up there.
I fashioned a pair of "3rd hands" to allow one person to deal with the positioning of the 2x4's. It was a 10" piece of 1x4 screwed in line to a 20-1/2" long 2x4, with 3.5" sticking out. Drilled a 3/4" hole in the 1x4 in the correct position to have the bolt centered in the middle of the 2x4 and in the middle of the C-beam. The 20-1/2" length is the spacing required between 2x4's laid on the flat to have 24" on-center spacing. Clamp the helper to the C-beam, one at each C-beam intersecting the 2x4s. Lift the 2x4 up and slide it into the cradle created by the 1x4.
A series of drills and drivers follows. First, a drill with a 3/4" spade bit to drill the countersink for the bolt head. Another drill with a 1/8" bit to pilot drill the C-beam follows. Another drill with a 1/4" bit for the bolt hole after that and finally, a 1/4" impact driver with a 7/16" socket to tighten the bolt. Like clockwork...
The other hard part about doing work like this is working with another person. Tin and I have been doing "stuff" like this together for the better part of 10 years. I've got 30+ years of experience, he doesn't. I am a perfectionist, almost to the point of being obsessive. He's not. Not to say that his work is sloppy - he's a machinst by trade, so I can always count on him to measure things accurately. However, this is fun for me and more like work for him. So, when the temps get high and the strength gets low, we have to be extra careful to keep our tempers in check.
Tin declares that he has no talent for design. I think he doesn't give himself enough credit. In any case, for these type of efforts, I do the primary design work and then we discuss what I've come up with. He's not good at thinking ahead in 3 dimensions, imagining what the space will become, so there are times when his input to the design doesn't come until we're in the throes of construction. We've established a working relationship that is a somewhat lopsided partnership. I hold about 60% of the "power", deciding what will be done and when. Where required, I provide detailed instructions to him, otherwise he just tackles the work I line out. Since he doesn't "work" for me, this is the best approach, I think.
I rely heavily on him to add a balance of reality. Somewhere between his approach and mine lies a good result with acceptable cost and functionality. He keeps me from obsessing on minutae, I keep him from just throwing stuff together for the sake of getting the job done.
On occasion, he gets tired of dealing with my "it must be right" approach. His frustration shows and I get pissed. A recent bone of contention has been the painting. He understands fully the need to have proper primer on the walls, and the concept of getting the required number of coats of paint to ensure a durable finish. However, one can easily argue that once the walls are primed and a single top coat of paint is applied - for a workshop that is probably sufficient. For me, if I can see holidays in the paint, it's not good enough, even for a workshop.
Our last "exchange" in this area ended with me looking him square on and saying "I'm not going to accept anything but proper results. For the walls, the purpose of paint is to cover the substrate. If I can see stuff thru the paint, the walls aren't covered. If the walls aren't covered, the result isn't proper and I won't accept that."
Nothing further has been said. I'm also doing the balance of the painting...
Sometimes he prevails and I later admit he was right. For me, acknowledging that I've changed my opinion and agree with him is an important part of the equation. When I have to flex my 60% muscle and insist on a course of action he'd not ordinarily take, I can get push-back. To ensure he sees concretely the times that I relax and take the 40% role, I make sure to verbally admit my change of heart. The times when I must insist tend to "stick in his craw", so showing that he does get to have a say is important.
For example, I wanted to build some custom trim to fill in the bottom of the walls at the floor. He just wanted to cut OSB to fit. The cost of the trim was going to be high, and the effort would add considerable time to the project. I kept pushing for quite some time as we debated back and forth the merits of each idea. Went with his idea, and the results are entirely satisfactory.
Other times, I win but he rarely admits I was right. I don't need the validation that comes with any acknowledgement of this type. In the end, I run the show, that's plenty for me.
I pushed for more light than he would have liked. The cost of lighting was not cheap ($75+ per fixture with tubes), but I'm pushing 50 and the more light the better. He'll be 35 this year. By the time he's 40, he'll need roughly 50% more light to see as well as he does now, but there's no telling him that. Once all the walls were up, there are obvious well-lit and not-so-well-lit spots in the shop. I took care to place the lights where they're needed most - above the equipment and work areas. He actually asked the other day if there was enough light in the areas that don't have a dedicated fixture...
Tin declares that he has no talent for design. I think he doesn't give himself enough credit. In any case, for these type of efforts, I do the primary design work and then we discuss what I've come up with. He's not good at thinking ahead in 3 dimensions, imagining what the space will become, so there are times when his input to the design doesn't come until we're in the throes of construction. We've established a working relationship that is a somewhat lopsided partnership. I hold about 60% of the "power", deciding what will be done and when. Where required, I provide detailed instructions to him, otherwise he just tackles the work I line out. Since he doesn't "work" for me, this is the best approach, I think.
I rely heavily on him to add a balance of reality. Somewhere between his approach and mine lies a good result with acceptable cost and functionality. He keeps me from obsessing on minutae, I keep him from just throwing stuff together for the sake of getting the job done.
On occasion, he gets tired of dealing with my "it must be right" approach. His frustration shows and I get pissed. A recent bone of contention has been the painting. He understands fully the need to have proper primer on the walls, and the concept of getting the required number of coats of paint to ensure a durable finish. However, one can easily argue that once the walls are primed and a single top coat of paint is applied - for a workshop that is probably sufficient. For me, if I can see holidays in the paint, it's not good enough, even for a workshop.
Our last "exchange" in this area ended with me looking him square on and saying "I'm not going to accept anything but proper results. For the walls, the purpose of paint is to cover the substrate. If I can see stuff thru the paint, the walls aren't covered. If the walls aren't covered, the result isn't proper and I won't accept that."
Nothing further has been said. I'm also doing the balance of the painting...
Sometimes he prevails and I later admit he was right. For me, acknowledging that I've changed my opinion and agree with him is an important part of the equation. When I have to flex my 60% muscle and insist on a course of action he'd not ordinarily take, I can get push-back. To ensure he sees concretely the times that I relax and take the 40% role, I make sure to verbally admit my change of heart. The times when I must insist tend to "stick in his craw", so showing that he does get to have a say is important.
For example, I wanted to build some custom trim to fill in the bottom of the walls at the floor. He just wanted to cut OSB to fit. The cost of the trim was going to be high, and the effort would add considerable time to the project. I kept pushing for quite some time as we debated back and forth the merits of each idea. Went with his idea, and the results are entirely satisfactory.
Other times, I win but he rarely admits I was right. I don't need the validation that comes with any acknowledgement of this type. In the end, I run the show, that's plenty for me.
I pushed for more light than he would have liked. The cost of lighting was not cheap ($75+ per fixture with tubes), but I'm pushing 50 and the more light the better. He'll be 35 this year. By the time he's 40, he'll need roughly 50% more light to see as well as he does now, but there's no telling him that. Once all the walls were up, there are obvious well-lit and not-so-well-lit spots in the shop. I took care to place the lights where they're needed most - above the equipment and work areas. He actually asked the other day if there was enough light in the areas that don't have a dedicated fixture...
Blackend
Well-known member
Catch me here or over on acuralegend.org (same SN) when you're ready to start on it. We have lots of experience with these cars and can offer some help if needed.
/end hijack!
Progress for July 1 thru 6.
Work continues to cover the ceiling in preparation for insulation.
As usual - things get delayed and other stuff gets in the way. As we were attaching the 2x4's, I discovered I'd used a mix of 1-1/2" octagon boxes and 2-1/8" octagon boxes for the connect points for the lights on the ceiling. Had to swap out the shorter boxes for the taller ones so they'd project through the surface of the drywall. Fortunately, didn't have to pull too much wire out - there was one deep box were virtually all of the wires "teed" off, so that was easy. However, the only 2-1/8" boxes I could get had a pair of 1/2" knockouts and a pair of 3/4" knockouts. I guess there's probably some sort of adapter connector or special washers that can be used to attach a 1/2" conduit to a 3/4" ko, but I didn't have any. I do have a Greenlee ko punch kit, but to punch out a 3/4" ko for a 1/2" hole is delicate work and time consuming. I thought about it after all that work was done, and I could have easily just converted the short sections of conduit at these points to 3/4" and dispensed with all the fussing... oh well.
There were other issues that had to be tackled as well - like closing in the gaps where the wall sheathing meets the C-beams at the roof. Need these gaps closed so we can blow insulation in after the ceiling is up without having it go where we don't want it to go.
Tin had the idea that we cold "muscle" the 4x8 sheets of drywall up onto the scaffold and then up onto the ceiling. I designed the scaffold with two levels for the deck, and we've been using the lower level for all the work to this point. The deck is about 6' off the ground, so you have to use a ladder for any work above 14 or so feet, which is about 50% of the ceiling in the space. I could envision lots and lots of sheets crashing to the deck, possibly pulling me or him along for the ride, and a botched installation to boot. The second level is 2' up from the first, and we'd still need ladders, so...
I looked into renting a drywall lift, which can be had for about $40/day around here. As typical of most rental places, a Saturday morning pickup, can be returned Monday by 9am for the cost of a single day's rental. Problem is nobody will reserve a lift, and they all have a 11-foot lift limit.
I did some online searching and found a company in Fla that sells a unit with an upgrade to handle 16' ceilings with reasonable shipping to TX and that would ship the same day, so I could get it in-hand by last weekend.
I took Thursday & Friday off and did some last minute "before the ceiling goes up" work - ran a conduit from the front to the back with speaker wires inside so we can hook up the stereo properly, etc. Naturally, since I wanted to be off, stuff at work gave me nothing but grief, so for 2 days vacation I really only got 1 day off, but that's how it goes sometimes.
Finished the wall painting and all the trim work. Still have a few more visual things to do to get the space "done", but those will wait. One of the ideas involves a gallon of paint the same color as the Quincy compressor...
Tin rolled his eyes when he saw the drywall lift.
It's a good thing I got it - we worked about 4 hours hanging sheets on Saturday, and about 5 hours on Sunday - temps up near the ceiling were 130-145f. 9 hours work for 10 sheets...
The first row across was the most stressful, because if it isn't right, everything else on the rest of the ceiling will be a fight. The 3rd row had cutouts for the conduit boxes, and I made a real botched job out of 2 of the 3 boxes.
Note to self - it's COUNTER-clockwise when roto-zipping around the outside of a box.... I did the first one clockwise and got the usual "deviation" from the actual shape of the box. The next one I made a mental note to reverse the direction I cut the hole, and promptly did it CLOCKWISE AGAIN!!! The third hole I got it spot on...
It's just a workshop - it's just a workshop - it's just a workshop...
Anyway - with the slow progress due to the heat, we'd have spent more than the cost of the lift with freight at the rate we're going. Plus, the lift we have isn't bent like most of the rental units I've used in the past. The seams and gaps between the sheets are A-1 accurate, and my OCD-inner-child is happy.
Even with just the drywall up and no insulation, there's a 15-20f drop in surface temperature. Will really be sweet when we get 9-1/2" of blow-in fiberglass up in the gap.
I went to the shop yesterday after work with the intention of doing several things, only 2 of which got done.
Item's on the list :
1) Install barrell bolt on right-hand door to finishing room.
2) Relocate refrigerator into compressor closet.
3) Miscellaneous tidying up of compressor installation.
The barrell bolt should have been 10 minutes work - MAX. It took 1 hour. I should know better than to buy cheap ****. Installed the bolt on the door. Positioned the plate on the door stop at the top of the door and realized that with the door closed fully and the plate touching the face of the door, the plate was offset to the point where you can't engage the hole in the plate with the bolt. GRRR. I don't have my vise set up at the shop yet, so it took a long time with a pair of pliers and my 4" right-angle grinder to remove enough metal to get it where it needed to be - or so I thought. Installed the plate and the bolt still wouldn't fit.... Found my Dremel and a small grinding bit and in 60 seconds had everything where it need to be. Should have used the Dremel in the first place...
Relocating the refrigerator took the rest of the time. I realized that I lacked a plug where I wanted to actually set the unit. All the walls are up, and I made a BIG production of not using exposed conduit anywhere during construction.
Fortunately, we installed the sheathing from the top of the walls down, so there's a filler strip about 6" wide at the bottom of each wall.
There a plug inside the compressor room to the left of the compressor. Using that outlet as the source would mean pulling the filler boards out on 3 walls and going down and around behind the compressor - not an easy area for access now that the compressor is in place.
There's also a plug on the outside of the closets between the doors, inside the finishing room. The outlet between the doors would only require drilling 3 holes to get me on the wall to the right of where the refrigerator is to go, so that's the one I chose.The outlet is a "pass thru" connection - electricity comes in the bottom and goes out the top to feed other items on the circuit. I thought I would be able to disconnect the BX from the bottom and pull it down the wall to a junction box. I could tee in the circuit for the new plug, plus a short section of BX back to the box, but I couldn't get my hand up into the wall cavity.
Ended up mounting an octagon box on the inside of the closet behind the outlet box. Removed the ko in the back of the box and added a conduit connector and a short piece of conduit. Put a conduit connector on the back of the octagon box and inserted it into the wall, engaging the stub of conduit coming out of the back of the box. Working with 12ga wire in small boxes is no fun, but if you're patient and careful and don't overload the box with conductors, it can be done. From the octagon box, I drilled another hole into the wall and attached a BX connector to the box and that's where I attached my BX feed to the new plug in the adjacent closet. 3 holes in the bottom of the studs later and the wire was where it needed to be.
I've got an exposed octagon box on the inside of the dust collector closet, but I can live with that. Knowing me, when I touch up all the stuff I marred pulling the filler boards off, I'll hit the box with white paint...
Doing this kind of work alone *****. It took me a solid 1-1/2 hours to do this. If Tin had been available - max 30 minutes...
I'll post some pictures when I get back home tonight.
Work continues to cover the ceiling in preparation for insulation.
As usual - things get delayed and other stuff gets in the way. As we were attaching the 2x4's, I discovered I'd used a mix of 1-1/2" octagon boxes and 2-1/8" octagon boxes for the connect points for the lights on the ceiling. Had to swap out the shorter boxes for the taller ones so they'd project through the surface of the drywall. Fortunately, didn't have to pull too much wire out - there was one deep box were virtually all of the wires "teed" off, so that was easy. However, the only 2-1/8" boxes I could get had a pair of 1/2" knockouts and a pair of 3/4" knockouts. I guess there's probably some sort of adapter connector or special washers that can be used to attach a 1/2" conduit to a 3/4" ko, but I didn't have any. I do have a Greenlee ko punch kit, but to punch out a 3/4" ko for a 1/2" hole is delicate work and time consuming. I thought about it after all that work was done, and I could have easily just converted the short sections of conduit at these points to 3/4" and dispensed with all the fussing... oh well.
There were other issues that had to be tackled as well - like closing in the gaps where the wall sheathing meets the C-beams at the roof. Need these gaps closed so we can blow insulation in after the ceiling is up without having it go where we don't want it to go.
Tin had the idea that we cold "muscle" the 4x8 sheets of drywall up onto the scaffold and then up onto the ceiling. I designed the scaffold with two levels for the deck, and we've been using the lower level for all the work to this point. The deck is about 6' off the ground, so you have to use a ladder for any work above 14 or so feet, which is about 50% of the ceiling in the space. I could envision lots and lots of sheets crashing to the deck, possibly pulling me or him along for the ride, and a botched installation to boot. The second level is 2' up from the first, and we'd still need ladders, so...
I looked into renting a drywall lift, which can be had for about $40/day around here. As typical of most rental places, a Saturday morning pickup, can be returned Monday by 9am for the cost of a single day's rental. Problem is nobody will reserve a lift, and they all have a 11-foot lift limit.
I did some online searching and found a company in Fla that sells a unit with an upgrade to handle 16' ceilings with reasonable shipping to TX and that would ship the same day, so I could get it in-hand by last weekend.
I took Thursday & Friday off and did some last minute "before the ceiling goes up" work - ran a conduit from the front to the back with speaker wires inside so we can hook up the stereo properly, etc. Naturally, since I wanted to be off, stuff at work gave me nothing but grief, so for 2 days vacation I really only got 1 day off, but that's how it goes sometimes.
Finished the wall painting and all the trim work. Still have a few more visual things to do to get the space "done", but those will wait. One of the ideas involves a gallon of paint the same color as the Quincy compressor...
Tin rolled his eyes when he saw the drywall lift.
It's a good thing I got it - we worked about 4 hours hanging sheets on Saturday, and about 5 hours on Sunday - temps up near the ceiling were 130-145f. 9 hours work for 10 sheets...
The first row across was the most stressful, because if it isn't right, everything else on the rest of the ceiling will be a fight. The 3rd row had cutouts for the conduit boxes, and I made a real botched job out of 2 of the 3 boxes.
Note to self - it's COUNTER-clockwise when roto-zipping around the outside of a box.... I did the first one clockwise and got the usual "deviation" from the actual shape of the box. The next one I made a mental note to reverse the direction I cut the hole, and promptly did it CLOCKWISE AGAIN!!! The third hole I got it spot on...
It's just a workshop - it's just a workshop - it's just a workshop...
Anyway - with the slow progress due to the heat, we'd have spent more than the cost of the lift with freight at the rate we're going. Plus, the lift we have isn't bent like most of the rental units I've used in the past. The seams and gaps between the sheets are A-1 accurate, and my OCD-inner-child is happy.
Even with just the drywall up and no insulation, there's a 15-20f drop in surface temperature. Will really be sweet when we get 9-1/2" of blow-in fiberglass up in the gap.
I went to the shop yesterday after work with the intention of doing several things, only 2 of which got done.
Item's on the list :
1) Install barrell bolt on right-hand door to finishing room.
2) Relocate refrigerator into compressor closet.
3) Miscellaneous tidying up of compressor installation.
The barrell bolt should have been 10 minutes work - MAX. It took 1 hour. I should know better than to buy cheap ****. Installed the bolt on the door. Positioned the plate on the door stop at the top of the door and realized that with the door closed fully and the plate touching the face of the door, the plate was offset to the point where you can't engage the hole in the plate with the bolt. GRRR. I don't have my vise set up at the shop yet, so it took a long time with a pair of pliers and my 4" right-angle grinder to remove enough metal to get it where it needed to be - or so I thought. Installed the plate and the bolt still wouldn't fit.... Found my Dremel and a small grinding bit and in 60 seconds had everything where it need to be. Should have used the Dremel in the first place...
Relocating the refrigerator took the rest of the time. I realized that I lacked a plug where I wanted to actually set the unit. All the walls are up, and I made a BIG production of not using exposed conduit anywhere during construction.
Fortunately, we installed the sheathing from the top of the walls down, so there's a filler strip about 6" wide at the bottom of each wall.
There a plug inside the compressor room to the left of the compressor. Using that outlet as the source would mean pulling the filler boards out on 3 walls and going down and around behind the compressor - not an easy area for access now that the compressor is in place.
There's also a plug on the outside of the closets between the doors, inside the finishing room. The outlet between the doors would only require drilling 3 holes to get me on the wall to the right of where the refrigerator is to go, so that's the one I chose.The outlet is a "pass thru" connection - electricity comes in the bottom and goes out the top to feed other items on the circuit. I thought I would be able to disconnect the BX from the bottom and pull it down the wall to a junction box. I could tee in the circuit for the new plug, plus a short section of BX back to the box, but I couldn't get my hand up into the wall cavity.
Ended up mounting an octagon box on the inside of the closet behind the outlet box. Removed the ko in the back of the box and added a conduit connector and a short piece of conduit. Put a conduit connector on the back of the octagon box and inserted it into the wall, engaging the stub of conduit coming out of the back of the box. Working with 12ga wire in small boxes is no fun, but if you're patient and careful and don't overload the box with conductors, it can be done. From the octagon box, I drilled another hole into the wall and attached a BX connector to the box and that's where I attached my BX feed to the new plug in the adjacent closet. 3 holes in the bottom of the studs later and the wire was where it needed to be.
I've got an exposed octagon box on the inside of the dust collector closet, but I can live with that. Knowing me, when I touch up all the stuff I marred pulling the filler boards off, I'll hit the box with white paint...
Doing this kind of work alone *****. It took me a solid 1-1/2 hours to do this. If Tin had been available - max 30 minutes...
I'll post some pictures when I get back home tonight.
Here are a couple of in-progress pictures of the ceiling:
This is the first effort with the roto-zip - (believe it or not, I do have extensive experience with these tools...)
Discovered that you need to rotate the conduit connector to position the the screw to the side, not facing down - if not, you get the nice "little" bust-out seen here:
Box 2 was actually worse
Box 3 was spot-on:
Here's a picture of some of the best money spent on this job so far...
I think we're gonna take this weekend off. Family obligations tomorrow (7/10) and lunch with some friends on Sunday. A little rest at this point isn't going to kill us...
This is the first effort with the roto-zip - (believe it or not, I do have extensive experience with these tools...)
Discovered that you need to rotate the conduit connector to position the the screw to the side, not facing down - if not, you get the nice "little" bust-out seen here:
Box 2 was actually worse
Box 3 was spot-on:
Here's a picture of some of the best money spent on this job so far...
I think we're gonna take this weekend off. Family obligations tomorrow (7/10) and lunch with some friends on Sunday. A little rest at this point isn't going to kill us...
07/11 and 07/13 update:
We did work some on Sunday. Ceiling is coming along nicely - only 7 more sheets to go.
The layout of the sheets worked nicely when we got to the supports for the garage door track. A little tidy trimming and everything went in just fine.
However, I still need more practice on the RotoZip. This is what happens when you use the drywall lift a little too aggressively:
We cut Sunday's activities short to (as it turns out) go home and wrestle with an unwilling power washer. Should have stuck around the shop and finished the ceiling for all the good it did.
Yesterday, I went to the shop for a few hours after work. Finally got the compressor dump valve wired up. It's a normally open valve that's triggered by the DP contactor that powers the motor. When the power is on, the valve is closed. When the power is off, the valve opens and dumps the contents of the tank. My previous compressor had a 1/8" dump valve, and I always strained to hear whether it was working. There's no mistaking when this one opens - I even have to leave the ball valve partially open to keep the ruckus down. The valve just dumps the moisture under the floor. The floor structure sits on 2x4 pressure treated sleepers, so a little moisture won't hurt.
Some may advocate the timed dump valves. For my purposes, since I'm occasionally away from the shop for weeks at a time, I like to completely empty the tank each time I leave. The existing piping is working just fine - over 24 hours we might see a 10-15psi loss, and I expect a lot of that is from the union right at the compressor - I haven't really cranked that sucker tight. Still - there's no worries about any leak anywhere when there's no pressure in the tank...
Because this compressor was expensive, I'm determined to take good care of it. All of the manuals advocate service based on hours of use. What a better way to track this value than an hour meter?
Got this from McMaster-Carr for $30. It's 220v powered. I tapped the red and black leads at the motor for power. When the pressure switch isn't feeding power to the motor, each wire has 120v, but across the wires is 0v. When the motor is running, across the wires is 220v and the hour meter runs. No guessing when the next service is due with this setup.
The meter is installed in the frame just below the motor. I will attest to the ability of a Makita 18v LiIon drill to sucessfully power a 1-3/4" hole saw thru the 3/16" thick frame. I will also attest to the fact that my shoulders this morning are telling me that job would have been more "fun" if it could have been done with a drill press. I took my time and stopped frequently to allow the metal to cool. I wasn't sure how much heat the beautiful Quincy blue paint could take without discoloring.
More updates as they come along...
We did work some on Sunday. Ceiling is coming along nicely - only 7 more sheets to go.
The layout of the sheets worked nicely when we got to the supports for the garage door track. A little tidy trimming and everything went in just fine.
However, I still need more practice on the RotoZip. This is what happens when you use the drywall lift a little too aggressively:
We cut Sunday's activities short to (as it turns out) go home and wrestle with an unwilling power washer. Should have stuck around the shop and finished the ceiling for all the good it did.
Yesterday, I went to the shop for a few hours after work. Finally got the compressor dump valve wired up. It's a normally open valve that's triggered by the DP contactor that powers the motor. When the power is on, the valve is closed. When the power is off, the valve opens and dumps the contents of the tank. My previous compressor had a 1/8" dump valve, and I always strained to hear whether it was working. There's no mistaking when this one opens - I even have to leave the ball valve partially open to keep the ruckus down. The valve just dumps the moisture under the floor. The floor structure sits on 2x4 pressure treated sleepers, so a little moisture won't hurt.
Some may advocate the timed dump valves. For my purposes, since I'm occasionally away from the shop for weeks at a time, I like to completely empty the tank each time I leave. The existing piping is working just fine - over 24 hours we might see a 10-15psi loss, and I expect a lot of that is from the union right at the compressor - I haven't really cranked that sucker tight. Still - there's no worries about any leak anywhere when there's no pressure in the tank...
Because this compressor was expensive, I'm determined to take good care of it. All of the manuals advocate service based on hours of use. What a better way to track this value than an hour meter?
Got this from McMaster-Carr for $30. It's 220v powered. I tapped the red and black leads at the motor for power. When the pressure switch isn't feeding power to the motor, each wire has 120v, but across the wires is 0v. When the motor is running, across the wires is 220v and the hour meter runs. No guessing when the next service is due with this setup.
The meter is installed in the frame just below the motor. I will attest to the ability of a Makita 18v LiIon drill to sucessfully power a 1-3/4" hole saw thru the 3/16" thick frame. I will also attest to the fact that my shoulders this morning are telling me that job would have been more "fun" if it could have been done with a drill press. I took my time and stopped frequently to allow the metal to cool. I wasn't sure how much heat the beautiful Quincy blue paint could take without discoloring.
More updates as they come along...
Updates from 07-17 and 07-18.
Saturday, after a grueling 10+ hour day, we finished the sheetrock installation... For once, we had just the right amount of materials. The sheetrock lift proved worth its weight in gold.
Sunday was insulation day. We had 2-1/2 bales of insulation left from an earlier project, and we purchased an additional 11 bales. According to the specs for the material, covering 9.5" in depth gives R-27 insulation factor, and 1 bale will cover 70 square feet. We have 33' x 23.5' of ceiling, which should translate to just over 11 bales. However, the 9.5" figure is blown in a typical attic installation lofting the material over the ceiling joists to settle naturally. In our case, we would be "injecting" into the space between the sheetrock and the bottom of the roof. More of a "force-fed" application.
This only insulates the ceiling in the main shop area. The headroom in the loft isn't such that we can stand to lose 2" for strapping and sheetrock, so I'll have to come up with something different for that space - but that can wait. Eventually, I'll be doing some work up in the loft, but for now, it will just be storage space.
Here's a bunch of "pink stuff."
At Home Depot, if you buy 10 bales, you get 1 day free rental for this gizmo:
It's a handy tool, well designed and effective. You cut the bales in half, and break them into two separate pieces. This effort alone is surprisingly hard to do. You have to have something solid to "crack" the bale over. Once parted, you insert the open end of the bale into the opening of the blower. There's a captured razor knife blade on the left that splits the plastic, and the stopper on the right prevents the bale from pulling back out when you pull the plastic free.
The blower has a series of counter-rotating paddles that break up the insulation, but some gentle persuasion with a stick speeds the process along - they're really tightly packed.
In order to "inject" the insulation, we came up with this solution - a 3" PVC ell, attached to the end of the hose.
Drilled a 4-1/2" hole in the ceiling with a hole saw, and inserted the hose like a periscope. Did a test run to figure out we could easily blow the insulation 4-5' with this setup, so 4 holes across the ceiling between each of the C-beams, blowing insulation both sides of the hole.
.
Final result is 24 neat holes with reasonably packed insulation seen in each hole. Density approaches that of batt insulation, based on my estimates.
We did end up having to go back for one more bale of insulation, bringing the total bale count to 14-1/2 bales. We picked up the insulation and blower at 9:51am, and returned the blower at 4:15pm. We had some cleaning up to do before we started the installation, so an 11am start, with a 45-minute break in the middle to get one more bale of insulation yields about 4:15 for the whole process.
Final technique was to insert the ell into the hole and push it up to where it was just touching the bottom of the roof. Point the nozzle at about 11-o'clock towards the void and start spraying. As the space fills up, you start to feel the nozzle vibrate and bend away from the resistance of the insulation hitting the pile that's building in outflow stream. Move to 12-o'clock, and then 1-o'clock. Then reverse the nozzle 180 degrees and do the same thing as before. Once you've covered the area around the hole, pull the nozzle down until the collar of the fitting is visible in the sheetrock opening. Rotate the nozzle slowly thru 360-degrees of rotation and fill in the close-up areas until you get firm resistance - then stop and move to the next hole.
The best part about this stuff - IT DOESN'T ITCH!!!. All you need is a facemask and probably some eye protection. I did the whole project in short sleeves - but I did wear gloves.
Hopefully, the only effort required to reinsert the plugs will be to clean the dust off the plug and the hole and use some latex caulk as an adhesive to hold the plug in place (maybe some tape as it dries.)
I'm still pondering whether I want to tape & float the ceiling. (Tin will probably attempt to have me committed if I do.)
I do have some repairs to do around the conduit boxes, and that will involve tape & mud...
Effect - nothing short of amazing.
First, there's the noise reduction. We had a HARD rainstorm yesterday afternoon just as we finished. Previously, we would have to yell to be heard in such a situation - not anymore. Today - another storm when we were about 95% done - obviously, even more benefit from the insulation in the space.
Second - there's the obvious thermal transmission improvement. We got to the shop about 10:15am today, and the surface temp of the sheetrock was about 115F. After filling the first bay from east to west, and waiting about 10 minutes, the temp had dropped to about 105. Considering it had been baking for hours before we got there, not too bad. Just for grins, I measured the temp inside the void between the sheetrock and the roof - a staggering 167F. So - just the air gap between the roof and the sheetrock, plus the sheetrock itself was good for 50+ degrees differential. I feel confident that we'll see more ambient-like temps next weekend.
What's left?
Mainly, there's painting the floors. Then we can start moving equipment back in. Floor painting will come next weekend. We should be able to prime and get one coat done on Saturday, with the second coat on Sunday. Allowing a full week of curing before moving equipment should be more than sufficient.
Once the equipment is in place, I can build the stairs for the loft, install the stair lifting hoist, etc. But that's all fodder for more posts to this thread...
Saturday, after a grueling 10+ hour day, we finished the sheetrock installation... For once, we had just the right amount of materials. The sheetrock lift proved worth its weight in gold.
Sunday was insulation day. We had 2-1/2 bales of insulation left from an earlier project, and we purchased an additional 11 bales. According to the specs for the material, covering 9.5" in depth gives R-27 insulation factor, and 1 bale will cover 70 square feet. We have 33' x 23.5' of ceiling, which should translate to just over 11 bales. However, the 9.5" figure is blown in a typical attic installation lofting the material over the ceiling joists to settle naturally. In our case, we would be "injecting" into the space between the sheetrock and the bottom of the roof. More of a "force-fed" application.
This only insulates the ceiling in the main shop area. The headroom in the loft isn't such that we can stand to lose 2" for strapping and sheetrock, so I'll have to come up with something different for that space - but that can wait. Eventually, I'll be doing some work up in the loft, but for now, it will just be storage space.
Here's a bunch of "pink stuff."
At Home Depot, if you buy 10 bales, you get 1 day free rental for this gizmo:
It's a handy tool, well designed and effective. You cut the bales in half, and break them into two separate pieces. This effort alone is surprisingly hard to do. You have to have something solid to "crack" the bale over. Once parted, you insert the open end of the bale into the opening of the blower. There's a captured razor knife blade on the left that splits the plastic, and the stopper on the right prevents the bale from pulling back out when you pull the plastic free.
The blower has a series of counter-rotating paddles that break up the insulation, but some gentle persuasion with a stick speeds the process along - they're really tightly packed.
In order to "inject" the insulation, we came up with this solution - a 3" PVC ell, attached to the end of the hose.
Drilled a 4-1/2" hole in the ceiling with a hole saw, and inserted the hose like a periscope. Did a test run to figure out we could easily blow the insulation 4-5' with this setup, so 4 holes across the ceiling between each of the C-beams, blowing insulation both sides of the hole.
Final result is 24 neat holes with reasonably packed insulation seen in each hole. Density approaches that of batt insulation, based on my estimates.
We did end up having to go back for one more bale of insulation, bringing the total bale count to 14-1/2 bales. We picked up the insulation and blower at 9:51am, and returned the blower at 4:15pm. We had some cleaning up to do before we started the installation, so an 11am start, with a 45-minute break in the middle to get one more bale of insulation yields about 4:15 for the whole process.
Final technique was to insert the ell into the hole and push it up to where it was just touching the bottom of the roof. Point the nozzle at about 11-o'clock towards the void and start spraying. As the space fills up, you start to feel the nozzle vibrate and bend away from the resistance of the insulation hitting the pile that's building in outflow stream. Move to 12-o'clock, and then 1-o'clock. Then reverse the nozzle 180 degrees and do the same thing as before. Once you've covered the area around the hole, pull the nozzle down until the collar of the fitting is visible in the sheetrock opening. Rotate the nozzle slowly thru 360-degrees of rotation and fill in the close-up areas until you get firm resistance - then stop and move to the next hole.
The best part about this stuff - IT DOESN'T ITCH!!!. All you need is a facemask and probably some eye protection. I did the whole project in short sleeves - but I did wear gloves.
Hopefully, the only effort required to reinsert the plugs will be to clean the dust off the plug and the hole and use some latex caulk as an adhesive to hold the plug in place (maybe some tape as it dries.)
I'm still pondering whether I want to tape & float the ceiling. (Tin will probably attempt to have me committed if I do.)
I do have some repairs to do around the conduit boxes, and that will involve tape & mud...
Effect - nothing short of amazing.
First, there's the noise reduction. We had a HARD rainstorm yesterday afternoon just as we finished. Previously, we would have to yell to be heard in such a situation - not anymore. Today - another storm when we were about 95% done - obviously, even more benefit from the insulation in the space.
Second - there's the obvious thermal transmission improvement. We got to the shop about 10:15am today, and the surface temp of the sheetrock was about 115F. After filling the first bay from east to west, and waiting about 10 minutes, the temp had dropped to about 105. Considering it had been baking for hours before we got there, not too bad. Just for grins, I measured the temp inside the void between the sheetrock and the roof - a staggering 167F. So - just the air gap between the roof and the sheetrock, plus the sheetrock itself was good for 50+ degrees differential. I feel confident that we'll see more ambient-like temps next weekend.
What's left?
Mainly, there's painting the floors. Then we can start moving equipment back in. Floor painting will come next weekend. We should be able to prime and get one coat done on Saturday, with the second coat on Sunday. Allowing a full week of curing before moving equipment should be more than sufficient.
Once the equipment is in place, I can build the stairs for the loft, install the stair lifting hoist, etc. But that's all fodder for more posts to this thread...
Nighttrain
Well-known member
wbrian, pat yourself on the back.. You guys have done a great deal of work and it is looking great. Thanks for the description of all the work. That’s what I like about post like yours, I am learning the details about project (i.e. blown in insulation) which I have not myself done yet. Can't wait to see the shop in use.
Cheers
Cheers
Update from 7-24 and 7-25.
Saturday we re-installed the lights and got the holes in the ceiling patched where we blew in the fiberglass. It's nice to have lights again.
We started reasonably early, but rehanging the lights was tedious, and replacing the cutout slugs in 30 holes took several hours. The lights (almost) worked on the first try, and would have if I'd paid attention to how the wires should have been connected. First try resulted in lights that were always on - I guess that's better than always off...
Today, we were on site and ready to work at 8am. Lots of vacuuming and scraping to get drips and blobs and other stuck items off the floor in preparation for the primer.
Cutting in is a time-consuming process that is unkind to the lower back and knees. But, once done, we can start to paint.
Tin does not like the camera, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him (until he reads this post, then it's likely to hurt me...)
Took about 4 hours to get all of the cleanup done, and the floor primed.
Once the primer was down, we spent a couple of hours caulking seams and cracks in the floor. I tried not to be too obsessive about this step, lest I get a whack on the head from Tin, but some caulking was really necessary. Caulked all of the seams in the finishing room, makes cleanup far easier when I need the space really dust-free for some high-quality finishing work. No worries that an errant sweep of the paint gun will stir up a bunch of crud from a gap in the flooring. Truth be told, I'll probably caulk the remaining seams on all the floor on Tuesday afternoon. It looks SO much better with all the gaps filled.
Just as we got started, with me cutting in and Tin rolling, he lost a contact, and without his lenses, he's more-or-less blind as a bat, so he took over the cutting in. I was concerned about quality here, but he did a superb job.
The plywood on the walls is screwed there temporarily - couldn't figure out where to put it so we could paint...
This floor paint requires 24-48 hours before a 2nd coat can go down, and 72 hours after the 2nd coat before the floor can be used normally. I plan to get the 2nd coat done on Tuesday, so we should be good to go on Saturday.
A bolt out of the blue hit us on Saturday - the landlord that occupies the balance of the spaces has sold his business and the transfer is to occur on August 15. This means some alteration of scheduled items, as we will lose access to the adjacent spaces near that date. We've got to figure out a way to add a sink and a toilet. We were planning on doing this later rather than sooner, as the shared facilities are "sub standard" to say the least.
The good thing is that he's negotiated to keep one of the Rotary 2-post lifts as part of the deal, and there's a vacant space to the east of us where we'll be moving the lift. As "compensation" for having our working arrangement turned upside down, when our lease is up in 4 years, we get to KEEP THE LIFT!!! (I'll get that in writing...)
Other than replacing the stuff we had to move out to get the floor painted, it's likely we'll see no more progress in the space for a few weeks as we sort out the things that need doing before August 15.
More updates as updates are available.
Saturday we re-installed the lights and got the holes in the ceiling patched where we blew in the fiberglass. It's nice to have lights again.
We started reasonably early, but rehanging the lights was tedious, and replacing the cutout slugs in 30 holes took several hours. The lights (almost) worked on the first try, and would have if I'd paid attention to how the wires should have been connected. First try resulted in lights that were always on - I guess that's better than always off...
Today, we were on site and ready to work at 8am. Lots of vacuuming and scraping to get drips and blobs and other stuck items off the floor in preparation for the primer.
Cutting in is a time-consuming process that is unkind to the lower back and knees. But, once done, we can start to paint.
Tin does not like the camera, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him (until he reads this post, then it's likely to hurt me...)
Took about 4 hours to get all of the cleanup done, and the floor primed.
Once the primer was down, we spent a couple of hours caulking seams and cracks in the floor. I tried not to be too obsessive about this step, lest I get a whack on the head from Tin, but some caulking was really necessary. Caulked all of the seams in the finishing room, makes cleanup far easier when I need the space really dust-free for some high-quality finishing work. No worries that an errant sweep of the paint gun will stir up a bunch of crud from a gap in the flooring. Truth be told, I'll probably caulk the remaining seams on all the floor on Tuesday afternoon. It looks SO much better with all the gaps filled.
Just as we got started, with me cutting in and Tin rolling, he lost a contact, and without his lenses, he's more-or-less blind as a bat, so he took over the cutting in. I was concerned about quality here, but he did a superb job.
The plywood on the walls is screwed there temporarily - couldn't figure out where to put it so we could paint...
This floor paint requires 24-48 hours before a 2nd coat can go down, and 72 hours after the 2nd coat before the floor can be used normally. I plan to get the 2nd coat done on Tuesday, so we should be good to go on Saturday.
A bolt out of the blue hit us on Saturday - the landlord that occupies the balance of the spaces has sold his business and the transfer is to occur on August 15. This means some alteration of scheduled items, as we will lose access to the adjacent spaces near that date. We've got to figure out a way to add a sink and a toilet. We were planning on doing this later rather than sooner, as the shared facilities are "sub standard" to say the least.
The good thing is that he's negotiated to keep one of the Rotary 2-post lifts as part of the deal, and there's a vacant space to the east of us where we'll be moving the lift. As "compensation" for having our working arrangement turned upside down, when our lease is up in 4 years, we get to KEEP THE LIFT!!! (I'll get that in writing...)
Other than replacing the stuff we had to move out to get the floor painted, it's likely we'll see no more progress in the space for a few weeks as we sort out the things that need doing before August 15.
More updates as updates are available.
Updates from 07/27, 07/31 and 08/01.
Tuesday, I took a half-day of vacation to get the 2nd coat of paint on the floor. It took a solid 8+ hours to get the balance done. I decided I'd like the appearance of the floor better if I caulked all of the seams, and that took 2+ hours.
I was "sure" I'd have enough paint to finish the floor. The first coat took just over 2 gallons, and we had about 1-7/8 gallons left. Naturally, I ran short of paint with about 6 feet to go. Tin was available and made an emergency run to Home Depot at 8:30pm to pick up one more gallon of paint. I was able to slow the painting down enough to allow Tin to get there and keep a wet edge to blend the new paint into, so there's no visible seam.
No pictures of the finished floor - photographically, it looks just like the first coat.
As I noted in the previous post, our landlords have sold their business. It's really coming to pass - they signed the papers on Saturday.
The original plan they had was to retain the last 2 stalls in the building, which are directly to the west of ours. However, the people buying the business wanted the entire space, and hey - money is money. If the original plan had held, we would have been able to retain access to the bathroom. Now, we won't have access.
Saturday, we spent most of the day moving back everything we had moved out to paint the floor. The floor turned out nice and is proving to be durable enough. (We had the same paint in our previous shop, and it wore like iron.)
Cut a hole in the loft deck above the frame-out configure to allow for a lift, and temporarily installed the hoist on the C-beam at the roof. A 2x6 at an angle allowed for a pulley block to put the cable more-or-less in the center of the opening.
This is a new hoist - a Harbor-freight 650# capacity unit. I'm not crazy about Chinese made stuff like this, but we had 3 similar hoists in the previous shop, and they gave acceptable service for us, so purchasing a new unit for this space seemed like a good decision. The temporary installation allowed us to hoist some of the bigger **** we've had languishing downstairs up into the loft without having to resort to schlepping the stuff up the ladder.
About 1/2 way thru our "upload" process, the hoist abruptly quit. I started making denigrating comments about the quality of this overseas-made hoist, but then I thought, maybe it's overheated. We weren't using it that hard - most of what we were lifting were items less than 50#. However, these units are not continuous duty, and it is installed right under the metal roof, which has ambient temps around 150f in the direct sunshine. Sure enough, after allowing the unit to cool, we were able to complete our task. The hoist's permanent installation location will be elsewhere, and nowhere near the roof deck, so I'm not worried about future overheating problems.
We discussed with our landlord the problem of the loss of the bathroom. He offered to route a sewer line to a point where we could make use of it. I asked his plan, and it involved a trench from the existing bathroom, out about 30 feet to the parking lot, and east from there another 75'. The lot slopes downward from west to east, and I asked him how deep the sewer lines were at the bathroom. He said "I think they're about 2 feet down."
A quick pulling of the toilet in the subject bathroom revealed a poorly plumbed installation - a standard 3" Ell immediately below the toilet flange. That's no 2 feet... I asked him how he was going to get the proper 1/4"/foot slope on a pipe that's possibly starting at or near the same level as the toilet flange in the bathroom, especially having to travel over 100'. You'd need at least 2' of elevation difference from the destination back to the source to make this work - no way that was available.
I suggested a different approach. Rather than having the bathroom on the ground floor, why not install it in the loft? The loft is about 10' above the concrete, and we'd only have to run about 80 feet, no problem with slope in that situation. He was amenable to that implementation, so today, we turned from carpenters into plumbers.
I must say I like being a carpenter far better.
The existing toilet was added as an after-thought years after the building was built. The installation job is a real hack-job, but it flushes OK and I don't think they've ever had problems with clogging. As I noted before, a standard 3" ell immediately below the toilet flange pointed North. We gave our Bosch rotary hammer a good workout removing the concrete around the flange. This photo is after we got our line added in - note the careful use of a Vice-grip pliers to deal with a toilet supply valve that refuses to shut completely off.
The 3" ell went about 6" north, into another 3" ell, and from there into a wye with a 2" inlet for the vent - never mind that venting a toilet with a 2" line isn't proper, but as I noted before, this has been in place for more than 10 years with no issues.
We removed the 3" ell, and replaced it with a 3" radius tee. Out the back of the tee we went south into a 3" long-sweep ell and up the wall. From there, we travel south to the back wall of the building and east to the loft. As we approach the loft, we pitch out from the wall with a 22-1/2 bend, and back parallel to the wall with the proper backset for the toilet with another 22-1/2 bend. Slope is 1/4" per foot. The top of the hub on the tee in the bathroom is about 1/4" below the concrete. We haven't installed the toilet flange yet - it will be easier to get the concrete in around the tee and then install the flange. The flange we got is one that installs inside the hub, so I'll just use a small piece of pipe to get the concrete in place and level, and once it's set a bit, pull the pipe and install the flange, all nice and snug.
The pipe enters the loft at floor level. We wanted to make sure we came into the space where the bathroom is above the height of the walls, so doing a normal installation under the loft floor was ruled out. As it turns out, that was a good decision - the final long-sweep ell at the top of the wall before the big drop is only about 3" above the top plate. We're going to have to put "the throne on a pedestal" - about 8" above floor level should do the trick. There are proper fittings for venting the toilet, plus additional inlets for a sink. I think I'll add a cleanout - just for good measure. We still have to run water to the space, but that shouldn't be too big a deal.
Because the loft is enclosed, Tin was content to leave the toilet exposed - I can't hang with that. We'll construct a small room to house the toilet - the sink will be external to that room. We've got a one-room 110v A/C unit that's just waiting to make the throne room the chilliest place in the shop...
I haven't told Tin yet, but I think we'll probably have to box in the line with metal studs and 5/8" drywall to make the insurance carrier for the new tenant happy. I'm pretty sure that exposed PVC is frowned upon.
We worked like dogs, and we're still not done. We've got to backfill the area we excavated, and cap it with concrete again, plus lay down some sort of durable tile - I promised the new business owner we'd put it back good as new - or at least as good as it was before....
Tuesday, I took a half-day of vacation to get the 2nd coat of paint on the floor. It took a solid 8+ hours to get the balance done. I decided I'd like the appearance of the floor better if I caulked all of the seams, and that took 2+ hours.
I was "sure" I'd have enough paint to finish the floor. The first coat took just over 2 gallons, and we had about 1-7/8 gallons left. Naturally, I ran short of paint with about 6 feet to go. Tin was available and made an emergency run to Home Depot at 8:30pm to pick up one more gallon of paint. I was able to slow the painting down enough to allow Tin to get there and keep a wet edge to blend the new paint into, so there's no visible seam.
No pictures of the finished floor - photographically, it looks just like the first coat.
As I noted in the previous post, our landlords have sold their business. It's really coming to pass - they signed the papers on Saturday.
The original plan they had was to retain the last 2 stalls in the building, which are directly to the west of ours. However, the people buying the business wanted the entire space, and hey - money is money. If the original plan had held, we would have been able to retain access to the bathroom. Now, we won't have access.
Saturday, we spent most of the day moving back everything we had moved out to paint the floor. The floor turned out nice and is proving to be durable enough. (We had the same paint in our previous shop, and it wore like iron.)
Cut a hole in the loft deck above the frame-out configure to allow for a lift, and temporarily installed the hoist on the C-beam at the roof. A 2x6 at an angle allowed for a pulley block to put the cable more-or-less in the center of the opening.
This is a new hoist - a Harbor-freight 650# capacity unit. I'm not crazy about Chinese made stuff like this, but we had 3 similar hoists in the previous shop, and they gave acceptable service for us, so purchasing a new unit for this space seemed like a good decision. The temporary installation allowed us to hoist some of the bigger **** we've had languishing downstairs up into the loft without having to resort to schlepping the stuff up the ladder.
About 1/2 way thru our "upload" process, the hoist abruptly quit. I started making denigrating comments about the quality of this overseas-made hoist, but then I thought, maybe it's overheated. We weren't using it that hard - most of what we were lifting were items less than 50#. However, these units are not continuous duty, and it is installed right under the metal roof, which has ambient temps around 150f in the direct sunshine. Sure enough, after allowing the unit to cool, we were able to complete our task. The hoist's permanent installation location will be elsewhere, and nowhere near the roof deck, so I'm not worried about future overheating problems.
We discussed with our landlord the problem of the loss of the bathroom. He offered to route a sewer line to a point where we could make use of it. I asked his plan, and it involved a trench from the existing bathroom, out about 30 feet to the parking lot, and east from there another 75'. The lot slopes downward from west to east, and I asked him how deep the sewer lines were at the bathroom. He said "I think they're about 2 feet down."
A quick pulling of the toilet in the subject bathroom revealed a poorly plumbed installation - a standard 3" Ell immediately below the toilet flange. That's no 2 feet... I asked him how he was going to get the proper 1/4"/foot slope on a pipe that's possibly starting at or near the same level as the toilet flange in the bathroom, especially having to travel over 100'. You'd need at least 2' of elevation difference from the destination back to the source to make this work - no way that was available.
I suggested a different approach. Rather than having the bathroom on the ground floor, why not install it in the loft? The loft is about 10' above the concrete, and we'd only have to run about 80 feet, no problem with slope in that situation. He was amenable to that implementation, so today, we turned from carpenters into plumbers.
I must say I like being a carpenter far better.
The existing toilet was added as an after-thought years after the building was built. The installation job is a real hack-job, but it flushes OK and I don't think they've ever had problems with clogging. As I noted before, a standard 3" ell immediately below the toilet flange pointed North. We gave our Bosch rotary hammer a good workout removing the concrete around the flange. This photo is after we got our line added in - note the careful use of a Vice-grip pliers to deal with a toilet supply valve that refuses to shut completely off.
The 3" ell went about 6" north, into another 3" ell, and from there into a wye with a 2" inlet for the vent - never mind that venting a toilet with a 2" line isn't proper, but as I noted before, this has been in place for more than 10 years with no issues.
We removed the 3" ell, and replaced it with a 3" radius tee. Out the back of the tee we went south into a 3" long-sweep ell and up the wall. From there, we travel south to the back wall of the building and east to the loft. As we approach the loft, we pitch out from the wall with a 22-1/2 bend, and back parallel to the wall with the proper backset for the toilet with another 22-1/2 bend. Slope is 1/4" per foot. The top of the hub on the tee in the bathroom is about 1/4" below the concrete. We haven't installed the toilet flange yet - it will be easier to get the concrete in around the tee and then install the flange. The flange we got is one that installs inside the hub, so I'll just use a small piece of pipe to get the concrete in place and level, and once it's set a bit, pull the pipe and install the flange, all nice and snug.
The pipe enters the loft at floor level. We wanted to make sure we came into the space where the bathroom is above the height of the walls, so doing a normal installation under the loft floor was ruled out. As it turns out, that was a good decision - the final long-sweep ell at the top of the wall before the big drop is only about 3" above the top plate. We're going to have to put "the throne on a pedestal" - about 8" above floor level should do the trick. There are proper fittings for venting the toilet, plus additional inlets for a sink. I think I'll add a cleanout - just for good measure. We still have to run water to the space, but that shouldn't be too big a deal.
Because the loft is enclosed, Tin was content to leave the toilet exposed - I can't hang with that. We'll construct a small room to house the toilet - the sink will be external to that room. We've got a one-room 110v A/C unit that's just waiting to make the throne room the chilliest place in the shop...
I haven't told Tin yet, but I think we'll probably have to box in the line with metal studs and 5/8" drywall to make the insurance carrier for the new tenant happy. I'm pretty sure that exposed PVC is frowned upon.
We worked like dogs, and we're still not done. We've got to backfill the area we excavated, and cap it with concrete again, plus lay down some sort of durable tile - I promised the new business owner we'd put it back good as new - or at least as good as it was before....
The more I thought about the way we changed the plumbing, the less I liked it. The way we set it up, there was a slim possibility that flushing our toilet could create a vacuum as the "slug" passes this toilet that could cause the toilet to flush. This could open the toilet to sewer gasses, etc.
So, Saturday, out came the rotary hammer, and out came some more concrete.
We ended up moving our supply line to the right, and the vent for the exiting toilet to the left. Our supply line ties into the sewer line "downstream" of the existing fixture, and downstream of the vent for that fixture as well. We basically rotated the vent that is seen in the previous picture to the left and brought our 3" line in on the right, into a wye fitting.
Funny/sad story. Because we moved our stack to the right, we had to adjust the connection above, where the horizontal pipe tied into the vertical stack. Cut the old ell out, and added more horizontal pipe. As I was getting ready to add the horizontal extension, I took the glue, swabbed the coupling and the pipe end, put the glue cap back on the glue can, and pushed the coupling home. Then I took the extension piece, primed it and the coupling and grabbed the glue. Swabbed the connections and instead of putting the glue cap on the glue can, I dropped it, clean as a whistle, right into the open vertical stack... Put the extension pipe on and looked down at Tin. He says "did you just drop the glue cap down the stack???" As I realized what he was saying, the scene played back in my mind - this was no "oops, it slipped" accident. I had the cap in my hand, and had just swabbed the coupling. The swab was horizontal - cap lid vertical, I rotated the cap in my hand to put it back on the can, and dropped it right down the stack, just as if the stack was the can itself... DOH!!!!
Prior to all this plubming rework, we'd have been able to take the cover off the tee below the toilet and pull the cap out. Now, our connection is downstream of that fitting...
We looked down the pipe - nothing. Tried using a magnet on a string - no joy there either.
Finally remembered we have a 25' vacuum cleaner hose that's small enough to fit down the stack. A little coaxing to get it to turn the 90 at the bottom of the stack and in 2 tries I pulled the glue cap back up the stack.
I suffered the indignity of lot's of side-long glances for the balance of the day.
Got the concrete poured in over the excavation, and after the concrete has cured, we're going to pour in some floor leveling compound and go back with some simple resilient floor tile. The bathroom previously had ceramic, which is actually harder to keep clean in an industrial environment. Allowing until Tuesday should be 72 hours of curing - sufficient, I believe.
We spent the balance of the day confirming the slope of the sewer line is correct and adding additional support straps to prevent sagging. Also "threaded" the water line along the same path, up to the point where we'll tie into the building source.
Sunday, we got a late start, and the mojo to work in the heat just wasn't there, especially after discovering the gate valve ahead of where we wanted to tie into the building water doesn't actually shut off.... I HATE GATE VALVES.
I suspected this in advance, and opened a faucet at the end of the line and watched it for what seemed an eternity - not so much as a single drip... Cut the line about 8 feet from the valve and the downstream end suctioned empty as the water flowed out the open faucet. Upstream line drained, and drained, and drained... It's 3/4" copper - 8' of 3/4" copper should hold maybe 3 cups of water. Stupid gate valve wasn't closing off fully. Muscled it as much as we dared and got a little flow reduction. Finally just decided to go for broke - fitted the "T" to the downstream side and soldered it in place. Lifted the line at the valve to get it to drain, and then lift it where I wanted to install the "T", and got the connection soldered successfully on the first try. Ran the primary service in 3/4" SCH 40 PVC, so I added a ball valve at the "T" so we can cut the water off to our space should the weather turn chilly.
Worked on a few more small chores and went home at 2p to take a much needed Sunday-afternoon nap.
Had a chance to speak with the new business owners, our new neighbors. So far, so good. Only gripe so far is his workers like to blare the stereo, and while the music isn't objectionable, I get tired of loud music after a while. We're rarely there during working hours except for Saturdays, so we'll take a wait-and-see attitude to tell if while at work in our space we can hear their radio at an objectionable level. If so, we'll deal with it at that time. The good news is that they fully understand that they cannot obstruct the path to our space at any time. The owner's a nice fellow and didn't seem put off at all when I used the "24/7/365" phrase when explaining that even though we're "usually" only here on the weekends, we might show up at any time on any day, and expect to be able to get to drive straight thru the gate and up to our shop door with no issues.
The only "problem" so far involves the landlord telling the new business owner as part of their lease they had shared access to the trash dumpster. This is a dumpster that we pay for 100% and as a courtesy allowed the landlord to use. It's 4 cubic yards and we rarely generate even 1/2 a container's worth of trash on a weekly basis. Previously, the landlord paid for a dumpster, which was sited on the other side of the property, a good 150 yard walk from our space. Last June, in response to a City of Houston citiation, we built an enclosure for the dumpster, at a cost of over $1,000 in materials. Prior to that, on occasion, strangers would make anonymous trash contributions, but never in excess. After the fence went up, every single week there was a couch or mattress or other piece of furniture... Plus, the landlord's bill-paying practices usually resulted in service interruptions.
We decided that for the price, arranging to have our own dumpster would be the best deal. After discussing with the landlord the need for the trash company to have unlimited access to the space and obtaining agreement, they decided the time was ripe to exit the deal they had with the other trash service. Apparently their contract was up. They said - "we'll just pay for this dumpster" and I said "OK", never intending for them to pay for it at all. They've never asked where the bills are, and we've had the dumpster for about 2-1/2 months now...
Obviously, they can't offer something they don't own, so we'll have to take this up with the landlord. This is not the fault of the new tenant.
Time will tell here. The new tenant seems nice enough, but truly, we're in the beta-test phase of this arrangement. I've been in situations like this before, and the best results were always had by keeping the lines of communication open and not allowing transgressions of any sort - and by being a 100% outstanding neighbor ourselves. If "people" know you're not one to tolerate BS, they're less likely to toss it your way...
The only items on the list before we can start moving equipment back in are finishing up the metal wall between our space and the rest of the building. I stupidly agreed to do this for the landlord. He's providing the materials. The irritating part of it is that this is his problem, not ours. We're completely sealed up and separate from the rest of the building, but you can see our buildout above the 10' metal wall that separates the space. Being tired and cranky on Sunday, I had a little rant about why we should have to do this at all... Of course, the bathroom wasn't our issue either, but having a nice, clean, A/C-Heat'd restroom will be a big bonus, so I don't mind (much) the expense and effort. We get nothing out of extending the wall except dehydration...
I'd like to finish out the bathroom before moving equipment, but we've got so much stuff up in the loft that we're space confined and don't have the floorspace to set everything up. Gotta get a lumber rack built, that will allow a bunch of the lumber in the loft to come out and will open up a bunch of space. Guess the bathroom will have to wait.
More updates as updates are needed.
So, Saturday, out came the rotary hammer, and out came some more concrete.
We ended up moving our supply line to the right, and the vent for the exiting toilet to the left. Our supply line ties into the sewer line "downstream" of the existing fixture, and downstream of the vent for that fixture as well. We basically rotated the vent that is seen in the previous picture to the left and brought our 3" line in on the right, into a wye fitting.
Funny/sad story. Because we moved our stack to the right, we had to adjust the connection above, where the horizontal pipe tied into the vertical stack. Cut the old ell out, and added more horizontal pipe. As I was getting ready to add the horizontal extension, I took the glue, swabbed the coupling and the pipe end, put the glue cap back on the glue can, and pushed the coupling home. Then I took the extension piece, primed it and the coupling and grabbed the glue. Swabbed the connections and instead of putting the glue cap on the glue can, I dropped it, clean as a whistle, right into the open vertical stack... Put the extension pipe on and looked down at Tin. He says "did you just drop the glue cap down the stack???" As I realized what he was saying, the scene played back in my mind - this was no "oops, it slipped" accident. I had the cap in my hand, and had just swabbed the coupling. The swab was horizontal - cap lid vertical, I rotated the cap in my hand to put it back on the can, and dropped it right down the stack, just as if the stack was the can itself... DOH!!!!
Prior to all this plubming rework, we'd have been able to take the cover off the tee below the toilet and pull the cap out. Now, our connection is downstream of that fitting...
We looked down the pipe - nothing. Tried using a magnet on a string - no joy there either.
Finally remembered we have a 25' vacuum cleaner hose that's small enough to fit down the stack. A little coaxing to get it to turn the 90 at the bottom of the stack and in 2 tries I pulled the glue cap back up the stack.
I suffered the indignity of lot's of side-long glances for the balance of the day.
Got the concrete poured in over the excavation, and after the concrete has cured, we're going to pour in some floor leveling compound and go back with some simple resilient floor tile. The bathroom previously had ceramic, which is actually harder to keep clean in an industrial environment. Allowing until Tuesday should be 72 hours of curing - sufficient, I believe.
We spent the balance of the day confirming the slope of the sewer line is correct and adding additional support straps to prevent sagging. Also "threaded" the water line along the same path, up to the point where we'll tie into the building source.
Sunday, we got a late start, and the mojo to work in the heat just wasn't there, especially after discovering the gate valve ahead of where we wanted to tie into the building water doesn't actually shut off.... I HATE GATE VALVES.
I suspected this in advance, and opened a faucet at the end of the line and watched it for what seemed an eternity - not so much as a single drip... Cut the line about 8 feet from the valve and the downstream end suctioned empty as the water flowed out the open faucet. Upstream line drained, and drained, and drained... It's 3/4" copper - 8' of 3/4" copper should hold maybe 3 cups of water. Stupid gate valve wasn't closing off fully. Muscled it as much as we dared and got a little flow reduction. Finally just decided to go for broke - fitted the "T" to the downstream side and soldered it in place. Lifted the line at the valve to get it to drain, and then lift it where I wanted to install the "T", and got the connection soldered successfully on the first try. Ran the primary service in 3/4" SCH 40 PVC, so I added a ball valve at the "T" so we can cut the water off to our space should the weather turn chilly.
Worked on a few more small chores and went home at 2p to take a much needed Sunday-afternoon nap.
Had a chance to speak with the new business owners, our new neighbors. So far, so good. Only gripe so far is his workers like to blare the stereo, and while the music isn't objectionable, I get tired of loud music after a while. We're rarely there during working hours except for Saturdays, so we'll take a wait-and-see attitude to tell if while at work in our space we can hear their radio at an objectionable level. If so, we'll deal with it at that time. The good news is that they fully understand that they cannot obstruct the path to our space at any time. The owner's a nice fellow and didn't seem put off at all when I used the "24/7/365" phrase when explaining that even though we're "usually" only here on the weekends, we might show up at any time on any day, and expect to be able to get to drive straight thru the gate and up to our shop door with no issues.
The only "problem" so far involves the landlord telling the new business owner as part of their lease they had shared access to the trash dumpster. This is a dumpster that we pay for 100% and as a courtesy allowed the landlord to use. It's 4 cubic yards and we rarely generate even 1/2 a container's worth of trash on a weekly basis. Previously, the landlord paid for a dumpster, which was sited on the other side of the property, a good 150 yard walk from our space. Last June, in response to a City of Houston citiation, we built an enclosure for the dumpster, at a cost of over $1,000 in materials. Prior to that, on occasion, strangers would make anonymous trash contributions, but never in excess. After the fence went up, every single week there was a couch or mattress or other piece of furniture... Plus, the landlord's bill-paying practices usually resulted in service interruptions.
We decided that for the price, arranging to have our own dumpster would be the best deal. After discussing with the landlord the need for the trash company to have unlimited access to the space and obtaining agreement, they decided the time was ripe to exit the deal they had with the other trash service. Apparently their contract was up. They said - "we'll just pay for this dumpster" and I said "OK", never intending for them to pay for it at all. They've never asked where the bills are, and we've had the dumpster for about 2-1/2 months now...
Obviously, they can't offer something they don't own, so we'll have to take this up with the landlord. This is not the fault of the new tenant.
Time will tell here. The new tenant seems nice enough, but truly, we're in the beta-test phase of this arrangement. I've been in situations like this before, and the best results were always had by keeping the lines of communication open and not allowing transgressions of any sort - and by being a 100% outstanding neighbor ourselves. If "people" know you're not one to tolerate BS, they're less likely to toss it your way...
The only items on the list before we can start moving equipment back in are finishing up the metal wall between our space and the rest of the building. I stupidly agreed to do this for the landlord. He's providing the materials. The irritating part of it is that this is his problem, not ours. We're completely sealed up and separate from the rest of the building, but you can see our buildout above the 10' metal wall that separates the space. Being tired and cranky on Sunday, I had a little rant about why we should have to do this at all... Of course, the bathroom wasn't our issue either, but having a nice, clean, A/C-Heat'd restroom will be a big bonus, so I don't mind (much) the expense and effort. We get nothing out of extending the wall except dehydration...
I'd like to finish out the bathroom before moving equipment, but we've got so much stuff up in the loft that we're space confined and don't have the floorspace to set everything up. Gotta get a lumber rack built, that will allow a bunch of the lumber in the loft to come out and will open up a bunch of space. Guess the bathroom will have to wait.
More updates as updates are needed.
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This evening after work, I went by the shop and put some floor leveling compound in the bathroom where we tore the concrete out. Saturday, we'll put some tile in place and set the toilet so the new tenant can have their employee's bathroom back.
Managed to get a bit of work done for the bathroom upstairs. We'll be walling it in, so got the back wall framed, hauled upstairs and installed. Without Tin, this was a major undertaking. No matter how hard I tried to make sure to take everything I could conceivably need, I always forgot something downstairs...
Managed to get a bit of work done for the bathroom upstairs. We'll be walling it in, so got the back wall framed, hauled upstairs and installed. Without Tin, this was a major undertaking. No matter how hard I tried to make sure to take everything I could conceivably need, I always forgot something downstairs...
Progress has been slow and ponderous the past couple of weekends.
Sunday the 15th we spent most of the day working on the metal dividing wall between our space and the new tenant. I foolishly agreed to do this work for our former landlord, who when he was also the tenant next door was easy to work with. Now that he's just the landlord, what a PITA. In the first pictures in this thread, you can see that the wall dividing our space only went up 8 feet. We built out our space and enclosed it fully.
Now that there's a new tenant, the landlord (we've taken to calling him OB, for Old Ba$tard) wanted the spaces fully divided - insurances, etc. He said he had plenty of materials if we'd do the work. I figured it was a good 8 hours work, and we benefit from better security and privacy, so I agreed.
As he was cleaning out his belongings, he directed us to a stack of material we could use to finish the wall. We moved the material to what we thought was a secure location.
When I was at the shop on the 10th, I noticed that the materials had been moved from where we put them. I hunted around and found most of them buried at the back of the property under a pile of lumber, metal studs and other building materials.
Tin knows our landlord very well, so I asked him to place a call and ask him to have his "worker" (day laborer he's hired to do most of the heavy lifting involved in cleaning out) extract the sheets from the pile. After all, we're doing the work for free, why should we also have to go "pile diving" to get the materials, right? Well, apparently someone had put Draino in his Cherrios, because things got ugly almost immediately. The details aren't important, and would be hearsay anyway, so suffice it to say he refused to have the materials removed from the pile. I think the final statement was something like "I don't care if you don't do the work - it's no longer my problem..."
Nevermind that he should have properly divided the spaces years ago.
We found some more materials elsewhere on the property, plus took 4 sheets of material from the pile of extras the new tenant had purchased for some other work and no longer needed.
Got half the wall done that Sunday (25 feet). Hot, miserable, slow work.
I told the landlord last week that all of the costs associated with doing the work will be deducted from the rent. As I turned around to walk off, he made a noise as if he was going to object. I guess the look on my face was convincing, because when I turned around he looked a bit shocked. He paused briefly and said - provide me an invoice and deduct the amount due from the rent.
We finished the wall yesterday. It looks like **** - mismatched materials, colors, etc. However, it's DONE!
Saturday we got a lot of the work for the bathroom done. I took some heat because as part of that process I decided to frame out a wall in the back of the loft all the way across the space. We'd previously left that just bare metal, as the loft was intended to be just storage, but now we're planning on putting the sandblaster, parts washer, etc upstairs. The noise and heat that comes from the adjacent space is noticeable, so having an insulated wall will help tremendously. I'd always planned to do this at some time in the future, but the installation of the bathroom required us to relocate some electrical circuits, and later, we'd just have to pull them down again to put the wall up, so I did it all now. "Seems like every time we make forward progress, you add something to the list..." was what I heard more than once during the day.
But the work got done. The platform for the toilet is in and the water is run as far as the stop valves for the toilet and the sink. We've also got the dividing wall up and some sheathing in place.
This week, I'll work there on Tuesday and Thursday after my "day job" and finish the bathroom.
Our lease protects us from any landlord shenanigans, but it will be a cold day in hell before I do any more "favors" for him.
Funny how people can change....
Relationship with the new tenant are excellent. He's found the landlord to be as much of an SOB as we do, so we now have a "common foe."
More updates and pictures later.
Thanks for tuning in to "As the Shop Turns", or "A Day / Week / Month / Year in the life of Two Fellas just Trying to Build a Shop"
Regards
Sunday the 15th we spent most of the day working on the metal dividing wall between our space and the new tenant. I foolishly agreed to do this work for our former landlord, who when he was also the tenant next door was easy to work with. Now that he's just the landlord, what a PITA. In the first pictures in this thread, you can see that the wall dividing our space only went up 8 feet. We built out our space and enclosed it fully.
Now that there's a new tenant, the landlord (we've taken to calling him OB, for Old Ba$tard) wanted the spaces fully divided - insurances, etc. He said he had plenty of materials if we'd do the work. I figured it was a good 8 hours work, and we benefit from better security and privacy, so I agreed.
As he was cleaning out his belongings, he directed us to a stack of material we could use to finish the wall. We moved the material to what we thought was a secure location.
When I was at the shop on the 10th, I noticed that the materials had been moved from where we put them. I hunted around and found most of them buried at the back of the property under a pile of lumber, metal studs and other building materials.
Tin knows our landlord very well, so I asked him to place a call and ask him to have his "worker" (day laborer he's hired to do most of the heavy lifting involved in cleaning out) extract the sheets from the pile. After all, we're doing the work for free, why should we also have to go "pile diving" to get the materials, right? Well, apparently someone had put Draino in his Cherrios, because things got ugly almost immediately. The details aren't important, and would be hearsay anyway, so suffice it to say he refused to have the materials removed from the pile. I think the final statement was something like "I don't care if you don't do the work - it's no longer my problem..."
Nevermind that he should have properly divided the spaces years ago.
We found some more materials elsewhere on the property, plus took 4 sheets of material from the pile of extras the new tenant had purchased for some other work and no longer needed.
Got half the wall done that Sunday (25 feet). Hot, miserable, slow work.
I told the landlord last week that all of the costs associated with doing the work will be deducted from the rent. As I turned around to walk off, he made a noise as if he was going to object. I guess the look on my face was convincing, because when I turned around he looked a bit shocked. He paused briefly and said - provide me an invoice and deduct the amount due from the rent.
We finished the wall yesterday. It looks like **** - mismatched materials, colors, etc. However, it's DONE!
Saturday we got a lot of the work for the bathroom done. I took some heat because as part of that process I decided to frame out a wall in the back of the loft all the way across the space. We'd previously left that just bare metal, as the loft was intended to be just storage, but now we're planning on putting the sandblaster, parts washer, etc upstairs. The noise and heat that comes from the adjacent space is noticeable, so having an insulated wall will help tremendously. I'd always planned to do this at some time in the future, but the installation of the bathroom required us to relocate some electrical circuits, and later, we'd just have to pull them down again to put the wall up, so I did it all now. "Seems like every time we make forward progress, you add something to the list..." was what I heard more than once during the day.
But the work got done. The platform for the toilet is in and the water is run as far as the stop valves for the toilet and the sink. We've also got the dividing wall up and some sheathing in place.
This week, I'll work there on Tuesday and Thursday after my "day job" and finish the bathroom.
Our lease protects us from any landlord shenanigans, but it will be a cold day in hell before I do any more "favors" for him.
Funny how people can change....
Relationship with the new tenant are excellent. He's found the landlord to be as much of an SOB as we do, so we now have a "common foe."
More updates and pictures later.
Thanks for tuning in to "As the Shop Turns", or "A Day / Week / Month / Year in the life of Two Fellas just Trying to Build a Shop"
Regards
KYGTP
Well-known member
Looks great and what a ton of work you guys have put into that place, and it shows. Going to be a great work shop for ya.
Maybe I missed it, but do you build stuff for a living or just for fun? Seems like alot of work to a shop that you are renting, for your hobby. But then again, I have done some crazy stuff for my hobby to.......
Maybe I missed it, but do you build stuff for a living or just for fun? Seems like alot of work to a shop that you are renting, for your hobby. But then again, I have done some crazy stuff for my hobby to.......
Sadly, this is just a hobby. We have built things "for profit" in the past. There are 3 or 4 houses with kitchen cabinets here in Houston that we did years ago. The last was a killer that prompted me to "retire" from the for-profit business forever.
Entire kitchen and laundry room (30+ boxes). High-end construction (details for those the curious - just ask). Took 5+ months - every free moment after work every day, plus weekends. Charged around $12k. Enough stress to sink the Bismarck. Several "wordy" fights with Tin that threatened to ruin an excellent friendship.
The kitchen, once installed, looked great. The customers were completely satisfied. This was done almost 5 years ago and the kitchen is heavily used and is still in great shape. The wife once commented she was really impressed in how durable the cabinets were when she hear "wee - wee - wee" in the kitchen and came in to find her 2-year old swinging back and forth on one of the doors...
Several months later, I saw a HGTV show that profiled a kitchen similar to the one we'd just completed. About the same size, cabinets were stained instead of painted, but they lacked the full-extension drawer slides, and the base cabinets had fixed shelves - no pull-outs. Cabinet boxes were 1/2" or 5/8" material - looked like vinyl-coated particle board, the drawers weren't sealed (at least they didn't look sealed), no glass-front cabinets, no pull out pantry.
The cost? $36,000... Of course, this was a kitchen ordered and delivered in something like 6 weeks, not the 5 months it took us. It was also built by a shop that has employees and overhead costs we don't.
But still - 3 TIMES what we charged, for a kitchen that wasn't nearly as nice????
Reality is this - I won't do 1/2 work. If I'm going to involve myself in a project, I will do the best work I can possibly do, buying the best materials and hardware I can find. If the "cost" of an item is determined by matching that item against other similar items, and not based on what the cost + profit structure is to build the item, our kitchen should have probably been priced at $40k. I have been told by architects and designers that my work was being sold at 1/2 or less of what I should be charging.
Of course, the clients couldn't afford a $40k kitchen. Their budget was in line with what the kitchen was bid at, and I was comfortable with the price being charged. I knew it was going to be a lot of work, and it was and then some.
But, at the end of the day (month/year), the $ coming in the door just wasn't enough to justify the effort set forth.
Fast forward 5 years, and a few odd jobs here and there and I'm much happier with the hobby. Tin and I have remodeled most of his parents house - master bedroom and bathroom, guest bath and 2nd bedroom. Here in a few weeks, we'll start on the 3rd bedroom, which is just a re-rock and new flooring, not a huge effort. In the spring, we're supposed to start on the kitchen - we've been warehousing all of the appliances and plumbing fixtures for the job for nearly a year.
The craziest part of this effort is that it has a known life. December 2014 we have to be OUT... The "good" thing is that our lease stipulates that NONE of what we've done will be considered leaseholder improvements, so we can take it all with us. Everything has been constructed with screws, and as little adhesive as we could get away with. I'll burn the OSB (and smile the whole time), but everything else can go into something else. Will either find property and build, or find an existing structure to buy. Failing those two efforts, there's gonna be a hell of a sale - I can't/won't do this again - the work and the sunk costs are just too much.
I think a substance abuse problem would be cheaper...
Entire kitchen and laundry room (30+ boxes). High-end construction (details for those the curious - just ask). Took 5+ months - every free moment after work every day, plus weekends. Charged around $12k. Enough stress to sink the Bismarck. Several "wordy" fights with Tin that threatened to ruin an excellent friendship.
The kitchen, once installed, looked great. The customers were completely satisfied. This was done almost 5 years ago and the kitchen is heavily used and is still in great shape. The wife once commented she was really impressed in how durable the cabinets were when she hear "wee - wee - wee" in the kitchen and came in to find her 2-year old swinging back and forth on one of the doors...
Several months later, I saw a HGTV show that profiled a kitchen similar to the one we'd just completed. About the same size, cabinets were stained instead of painted, but they lacked the full-extension drawer slides, and the base cabinets had fixed shelves - no pull-outs. Cabinet boxes were 1/2" or 5/8" material - looked like vinyl-coated particle board, the drawers weren't sealed (at least they didn't look sealed), no glass-front cabinets, no pull out pantry.
The cost? $36,000... Of course, this was a kitchen ordered and delivered in something like 6 weeks, not the 5 months it took us. It was also built by a shop that has employees and overhead costs we don't.
But still - 3 TIMES what we charged, for a kitchen that wasn't nearly as nice????
Reality is this - I won't do 1/2 work. If I'm going to involve myself in a project, I will do the best work I can possibly do, buying the best materials and hardware I can find. If the "cost" of an item is determined by matching that item against other similar items, and not based on what the cost + profit structure is to build the item, our kitchen should have probably been priced at $40k. I have been told by architects and designers that my work was being sold at 1/2 or less of what I should be charging.
Of course, the clients couldn't afford a $40k kitchen. Their budget was in line with what the kitchen was bid at, and I was comfortable with the price being charged. I knew it was going to be a lot of work, and it was and then some.
But, at the end of the day (month/year), the $ coming in the door just wasn't enough to justify the effort set forth.
Fast forward 5 years, and a few odd jobs here and there and I'm much happier with the hobby. Tin and I have remodeled most of his parents house - master bedroom and bathroom, guest bath and 2nd bedroom. Here in a few weeks, we'll start on the 3rd bedroom, which is just a re-rock and new flooring, not a huge effort. In the spring, we're supposed to start on the kitchen - we've been warehousing all of the appliances and plumbing fixtures for the job for nearly a year.
The craziest part of this effort is that it has a known life. December 2014 we have to be OUT... The "good" thing is that our lease stipulates that NONE of what we've done will be considered leaseholder improvements, so we can take it all with us. Everything has been constructed with screws, and as little adhesive as we could get away with. I'll burn the OSB (and smile the whole time), but everything else can go into something else. Will either find property and build, or find an existing structure to buy. Failing those two efforts, there's gonna be a hell of a sale - I can't/won't do this again - the work and the sunk costs are just too much.
I think a substance abuse problem would be cheaper...
Just realized I've not updated the thread in a few days.
We spent most of last weekend finishing up stuff in the loft related to the bathroom. The toilet is in place, and most of the walls are up - still have to frame out for the door.
What's wierd is that up to the point where we set the toilet, we had not a single trace of sewer gas. The flange for the toilet was sealed, but the vent stack had yet to be plumbed to the outside of the structure. As soon as we broke the seal out of the flange and set the toilet, we started getting sewer gas out of the vent...
I worked there Tuesday after work to finish up the re-wiring required to allow for the bathroom. Ended up adding a new circuit to the breaker box to supply the plugs and bathroom. The lights are on their own breaker - the last shop shared the lights with a circuit that had the finishing room vent fan and the turbine HVLP spray gun. I'm pretty sure the circuit was 20a, but every so often, usually in warmer weather, I'd trip the breaker. Nothing like being 40 feet from the nearest light source (the door) when the lights go out. Not safe, to say the least. Not an issue with the lights have their own breaker (unless I blow the main fuse...)
This weekend is off. No shop work at all - time to relax a bit. We're 95% ready to start moving equipment back in - I can hardly wait (to see how much stuff has rusted while sitting in storage...)
We spent most of last weekend finishing up stuff in the loft related to the bathroom. The toilet is in place, and most of the walls are up - still have to frame out for the door.
What's wierd is that up to the point where we set the toilet, we had not a single trace of sewer gas. The flange for the toilet was sealed, but the vent stack had yet to be plumbed to the outside of the structure. As soon as we broke the seal out of the flange and set the toilet, we started getting sewer gas out of the vent...
I worked there Tuesday after work to finish up the re-wiring required to allow for the bathroom. Ended up adding a new circuit to the breaker box to supply the plugs and bathroom. The lights are on their own breaker - the last shop shared the lights with a circuit that had the finishing room vent fan and the turbine HVLP spray gun. I'm pretty sure the circuit was 20a, but every so often, usually in warmer weather, I'd trip the breaker. Nothing like being 40 feet from the nearest light source (the door) when the lights go out. Not safe, to say the least. Not an issue with the lights have their own breaker (unless I blow the main fuse...)
This weekend is off. No shop work at all - time to relax a bit. We're 95% ready to start moving equipment back in - I can hardly wait (to see how much stuff has rusted while sitting in storage...)
RobSmith
Banned
I don't understand...I haven't read the whole story, but I still see that you are renting this property. Man why wouldn't you buy a decent shed and do all this stuff for your own building ? Or maybe do all this magnificent work for other people (you already said you used to to commercial work) Boy the land lord must be dancing...all he has to do now is throw you out and triple the rent for the next bloke. I love your work but why on a rental ?
Great build and writeup! I would love to see some pictures of the kitchen you did, and your remodels if you have pics. I went to college for architectural millwork (ended up going another direction in jobs but is a fun hobby) and always like to see others' work especially in the kitchen area. I cringe when I see what some people pay for kitchens knowing what the "bones" of the cabinets are and where the builders cut corners. But as long as they are happy I guess.
They are renting it from his buddy's dad and everything that they have done they can take with them as in the contract they are not considered leaseholder improvements.
They are renting it from his buddy's dad and everything that they have done they can take with them as in the contract they are not considered leaseholder improvements.
Here are a few pictures of some of the work we've done. Oddly, there are no pictures of the swan-song kitchen - I'll have to ask my buddy if I can come snap a few for my album.
These are a few from the first kitchen we did. The cabinet faces are soft maple, with a weathered oak aniline dye stain, with 3 coats of semi-gloss poly. All of the lower cabinets have pull-out drawers on full-extension drawer slides, and all drawer boxes have dove-tailed joints.
In this picture, the cabinet to the right of the bar has a full-height pull-out with 3 shelves - a pull-out pantry, if you will. The upper cabinets have fluted glass doors and 1/4" thick glass shelves inside. The center cabinet bank has 3 toe-kick drawers, which are a PITA to make, but a heck of a good way to make use of otherwise lost space.
The sink area has a tip-out stainless-steel tray at the sink front. The big cabinet to the left of the sink has a pull-out trash can. All of the cabinet "boxes" are 3/4" melamine coated particle board. We use a special screw designed for particle board that makes an amazingly strong joint. The face edges of the boxes have 1/4" edge banding in soft maple, stained and finished to match the cabinet faces. The interior of the sink cabinet is overlayed with white vertical-grade laminate - floor, sides and back. All the seams are sealed with silicone. Water from a leaky faucet could stand in the cabinet until it evaporates and leave no damage.
The stove area has two vertical pull outs adjacent to the stove for oils and spices. (I tried to convince the owners not to do this - the heat from the oven will affect the shelf-life of dry spices - but to no avail.)
The blank panel at the end of the cabinet run is the side of an open-faced plate rack:
Here's a cabinet we made for the same house to go in the guest bathroom. It's also soft maple with a clear poly finish.
The elevated section on the right is open towards the toilet - great place for reading materials...
Under-mount vanity sink and granite top makes the whole deal:
Here are a few pictures of a rehab/update we did in another home here in Houston. Standard 1970's tract home, with painted face-frame cabinets with lip-mold doors.
Converted the pantry into two pull-outs:
Took out the old kitchen-desk and replaced it with 3 drawers above 3 doors.
Original stove cabinet was a peninsula, exposed to the breakfast nook. Added a new back with an elevated section to create a bar.
Also removed the left-most cabinet door and replaced it with a pull-out trash-can.
The one thing I remember most about this job was discovering that a huge portion of the tiles in the kitchen hadn't been properly installed. I dropped a screw or a drill bit on one tile and heard the dreaded hollow sound that indicates the tile has not bonded to the substrate - in this case the concrete slab. I did a little sleuthing outside the view of the customer and found 30-40% of the tiles had this problem. I asked the owner "who did your tile work?" She responded with a great big smile on her face: "I did it - how do you like it?"
I said - "really - was this your first effort?" "Yes it was - whaddya think?"
"You did a very nice job..."
I expect the first time she dropped anything heavy on one of the unbonded tiles, she found out what I was unwilling to tell her...
These are a few from the first kitchen we did. The cabinet faces are soft maple, with a weathered oak aniline dye stain, with 3 coats of semi-gloss poly. All of the lower cabinets have pull-out drawers on full-extension drawer slides, and all drawer boxes have dove-tailed joints.
In this picture, the cabinet to the right of the bar has a full-height pull-out with 3 shelves - a pull-out pantry, if you will. The upper cabinets have fluted glass doors and 1/4" thick glass shelves inside. The center cabinet bank has 3 toe-kick drawers, which are a PITA to make, but a heck of a good way to make use of otherwise lost space.
The sink area has a tip-out stainless-steel tray at the sink front. The big cabinet to the left of the sink has a pull-out trash can. All of the cabinet "boxes" are 3/4" melamine coated particle board. We use a special screw designed for particle board that makes an amazingly strong joint. The face edges of the boxes have 1/4" edge banding in soft maple, stained and finished to match the cabinet faces. The interior of the sink cabinet is overlayed with white vertical-grade laminate - floor, sides and back. All the seams are sealed with silicone. Water from a leaky faucet could stand in the cabinet until it evaporates and leave no damage.
The stove area has two vertical pull outs adjacent to the stove for oils and spices. (I tried to convince the owners not to do this - the heat from the oven will affect the shelf-life of dry spices - but to no avail.)
The blank panel at the end of the cabinet run is the side of an open-faced plate rack:
Here's a cabinet we made for the same house to go in the guest bathroom. It's also soft maple with a clear poly finish.
The elevated section on the right is open towards the toilet - great place for reading materials...
Under-mount vanity sink and granite top makes the whole deal:
Here are a few pictures of a rehab/update we did in another home here in Houston. Standard 1970's tract home, with painted face-frame cabinets with lip-mold doors.
Converted the pantry into two pull-outs:
Took out the old kitchen-desk and replaced it with 3 drawers above 3 doors.
Original stove cabinet was a peninsula, exposed to the breakfast nook. Added a new back with an elevated section to create a bar.
Also removed the left-most cabinet door and replaced it with a pull-out trash-can.
The one thing I remember most about this job was discovering that a huge portion of the tiles in the kitchen hadn't been properly installed. I dropped a screw or a drill bit on one tile and heard the dreaded hollow sound that indicates the tile has not bonded to the substrate - in this case the concrete slab. I did a little sleuthing outside the view of the customer and found 30-40% of the tiles had this problem. I asked the owner "who did your tile work?" She responded with a great big smile on her face: "I did it - how do you like it?"
I said - "really - was this your first effort?" "Yes it was - whaddya think?"
"You did a very nice job..."
I expect the first time she dropped anything heavy on one of the unbonded tiles, she found out what I was unwilling to tell her...
e-tek
Well-known member
The shop has really come a long way - WOW! The planning was incredible and will obviously pay off everyday you're in there. Looking forward to the tools going in. Then we'll need a few shots of the place in full action!
Update from 09/09.
Took the day off to finish up the bathroom and a few other projects in preparation for this weekend's equipment move.
Still need to do some insulating in the ceiling of the bathroom, and a bit of exterior trim, plus I lacked the necessary plumbing items to finish the sink drain, but the bathroom is now fully operational.
It sits in the loft, back in the corner:
There's a mop/utility sink on the outside:
Since the loft gets HOT and we don't have plans to insulate it just yet - just for storage, we decided to splurge on a small (the smallest we could find) window unit for the bathroom. Simple solution to deal with the condensation drip - a few $ worth of copper, and viola:
The bathroom itself is austere - but functional. Put some peel-n-stick tiles on the floor, I don't like the idea of a bare wood floor in a bathroom:
Also installed a "stink sucker" that will vent to the outside e"vent"ually:
The white box on the wall adjacent to the plug is the trigger relay for the A/C. I wanted some way to have the A/C come on as soon as we enter the shop - unoccupied, it gets really nasty hot up in the loft. The main lights of the shop are on a separate 20a circuit, so there should be plenty of room for the A/C, but then I thought about the possibility that the lights might flicker or dim when the compressor cycles, so a little creative wiring (involving removing lots of conduit to install a junction box mid-stream) allowed me to use a small 120v triggered relay to switch the A/C on. I broke the tab on the plug to isolate the bottom outlet, and so the line that comes into the box for the plug is branched to feed the top outlet and also feeds the line side of the relay, which returns the load back to the bottom outlet.
Got everything wired together the first time, and when I plugged the A/C in - POP went the breaker for the main lights. What??? Did a little checking - I'd put the hot-common wires for the trigger on the switch-side of the relay - oops. Swapped things around and stuff worked much better. Plugged the A/C in - works fine. Go downstairs, turn the lights off - A/C continues to run??? Maybe I fused the contacts in the relay with my previous bone-head wiring??
No - IDIOT, you tapped the signal for the relay from the circuit for the lights BETWEEN the breaker and the first switch... A little more wiring yesterday to pull another wire to the junction box where the lights feed from, and presto - lights on, A/C on / lights off, A/C off.
The only problem now is that with the vent fan on, it ***** all the cold air out of the bathroom... We'll see how things fare when the ceiling is insulated. Worse comes to worse, I'll add a restriction to the duct from the fan - 100cfm is really more than we need in a john of this size.
Took the day off to finish up the bathroom and a few other projects in preparation for this weekend's equipment move.
Still need to do some insulating in the ceiling of the bathroom, and a bit of exterior trim, plus I lacked the necessary plumbing items to finish the sink drain, but the bathroom is now fully operational.
It sits in the loft, back in the corner:
There's a mop/utility sink on the outside:
Since the loft gets HOT and we don't have plans to insulate it just yet - just for storage, we decided to splurge on a small (the smallest we could find) window unit for the bathroom. Simple solution to deal with the condensation drip - a few $ worth of copper, and viola:
The bathroom itself is austere - but functional. Put some peel-n-stick tiles on the floor, I don't like the idea of a bare wood floor in a bathroom:
Also installed a "stink sucker" that will vent to the outside e"vent"ually:
The white box on the wall adjacent to the plug is the trigger relay for the A/C. I wanted some way to have the A/C come on as soon as we enter the shop - unoccupied, it gets really nasty hot up in the loft. The main lights of the shop are on a separate 20a circuit, so there should be plenty of room for the A/C, but then I thought about the possibility that the lights might flicker or dim when the compressor cycles, so a little creative wiring (involving removing lots of conduit to install a junction box mid-stream) allowed me to use a small 120v triggered relay to switch the A/C on. I broke the tab on the plug to isolate the bottom outlet, and so the line that comes into the box for the plug is branched to feed the top outlet and also feeds the line side of the relay, which returns the load back to the bottom outlet.
Got everything wired together the first time, and when I plugged the A/C in - POP went the breaker for the main lights. What??? Did a little checking - I'd put the hot-common wires for the trigger on the switch-side of the relay - oops. Swapped things around and stuff worked much better. Plugged the A/C in - works fine. Go downstairs, turn the lights off - A/C continues to run??? Maybe I fused the contacts in the relay with my previous bone-head wiring??
No - IDIOT, you tapped the signal for the relay from the circuit for the lights BETWEEN the breaker and the first switch... A little more wiring yesterday to pull another wire to the junction box where the lights feed from, and presto - lights on, A/C on / lights off, A/C off.
The only problem now is that with the vent fan on, it ***** all the cold air out of the bathroom... We'll see how things fare when the ceiling is insulated. Worse comes to worse, I'll add a restriction to the duct from the fan - 100cfm is really more than we need in a john of this size.
Thanks for the pictures of your cabinetry it looks very nice. I like the idea for the "reading material" but also making it look like a drawer from the front. Many people don't understand how much melamine is so wildly used and that it can be a great product, most people think of melamine as that knock down bookcase **** they sell as walmart and only that.
Just out of curiosity (and you may have said earlier if so I apologize) what types of things do you make at your shop besides rehabbing the house?
Just out of curiosity (and you may have said earlier if so I apologize) what types of things do you make at your shop besides rehabbing the house?
The problem with melamine (and that's actually the surface coating, not the underlayment) is that it's used in places where it shouldn't be - like in sink cabinets. While it looks nice, if you leave any water on it for more than a few minutes, the water will soak thru the surface and the underlying substrate will get wet. If the underlayment is particle board, bad things happen.
Also, cabinet design for items to be built out of plywood doesn't necessarily translate well to being built out of melamine. Shelves can't be as wide with melamine, or support as much weight. I don't use anything less than 3/4" material, which helps, and there are ways to control the sagging.
A melamine cabinet interior is bright and cleans up easily. Nothing (almost nothing) sticks to melamine. Painting the inside of a cabinet is a PITA. With melamine, all I have to do is caulk the seam around the back (which goes in a dado, not applied to the back) to make it look nice and the cabinet is good to go.
Additionally, melamine is dead flat. Unless you buy MDF-core veneer plywood, the stuff you get now days (and I'm not talking home-center material - I buy from wholesale suppliers) looks more like lasagne. For euro-style cabinets like we build (no face frame), the sides of a drawer box must be dead flat, or the slides will bind. Melamine gives me that flatness.
Special tooling is required to cut melamine without chipping. I have a special blade for the table saw, and technique to prevent chipping. Melamine has a lot of internal stress, so when you rip a sheet the saw kerf completely closes up by the time the end of the board is 12" behind the blade. If you don't have a strong tablesaw, it's enough to stall the blade. This stress also means pieces aren't always straight with the first cut. I usually cut everything about 3/16" oversize and then re-rip to size. You've also got to be careful with the sheets once cut - the edges are knife-sharp.
For cabinets that will see wet exposure, I use vertical grade laminate on the bottom. VG laminate is about 1/2 the thickness of regular countertop laminate and doesn't wear as well, but I usually put pull-out shelves in the bottom of the cabinet anyway, so nothing touches the laminate. Water can stand for ages on the laminate with no ill effects.
Other stuff we've done is furniture-type work. Built a crib for my now 2 year-old niece - time to start on her bed. Built a small liquor cabinet for a friend, etc. Built some cedar lattice for a garden fence at home. Built a big-*** dog house for the dog when he outgrew everything for sale at the pet store. Built a "cat tree" for the cats that's nicer and more durable than the **** available at the pet store.
The shop is also going to be used for automotive rehab/restoration. Tin has an older Acura that we're working on, and I have an old Mercedes needing attention. We designed the floor to have solid structure for a vehicle at the front, and the spacing around the work area is sufficient to allow a full size sedan to pull in and have all the doors opened without creating work flow issues.
Also, cabinet design for items to be built out of plywood doesn't necessarily translate well to being built out of melamine. Shelves can't be as wide with melamine, or support as much weight. I don't use anything less than 3/4" material, which helps, and there are ways to control the sagging.
A melamine cabinet interior is bright and cleans up easily. Nothing (almost nothing) sticks to melamine. Painting the inside of a cabinet is a PITA. With melamine, all I have to do is caulk the seam around the back (which goes in a dado, not applied to the back) to make it look nice and the cabinet is good to go.
Additionally, melamine is dead flat. Unless you buy MDF-core veneer plywood, the stuff you get now days (and I'm not talking home-center material - I buy from wholesale suppliers) looks more like lasagne. For euro-style cabinets like we build (no face frame), the sides of a drawer box must be dead flat, or the slides will bind. Melamine gives me that flatness.
Special tooling is required to cut melamine without chipping. I have a special blade for the table saw, and technique to prevent chipping. Melamine has a lot of internal stress, so when you rip a sheet the saw kerf completely closes up by the time the end of the board is 12" behind the blade. If you don't have a strong tablesaw, it's enough to stall the blade. This stress also means pieces aren't always straight with the first cut. I usually cut everything about 3/16" oversize and then re-rip to size. You've also got to be careful with the sheets once cut - the edges are knife-sharp.
For cabinets that will see wet exposure, I use vertical grade laminate on the bottom. VG laminate is about 1/2 the thickness of regular countertop laminate and doesn't wear as well, but I usually put pull-out shelves in the bottom of the cabinet anyway, so nothing touches the laminate. Water can stand for ages on the laminate with no ill effects.
Other stuff we've done is furniture-type work. Built a crib for my now 2 year-old niece - time to start on her bed. Built a small liquor cabinet for a friend, etc. Built some cedar lattice for a garden fence at home. Built a big-*** dog house for the dog when he outgrew everything for sale at the pet store. Built a "cat tree" for the cats that's nicer and more durable than the **** available at the pet store.
The shop is also going to be used for automotive rehab/restoration. Tin has an older Acura that we're working on, and I have an old Mercedes needing attention. We designed the floor to have solid structure for a vehicle at the front, and the spacing around the work area is sufficient to allow a full size sedan to pull in and have all the doors opened without creating work flow issues.
We've been reverse-robbed!!!!
Showed up at the shop this afternoon (9/13) and someone has deposited all this SH!T in the place...
These views are from the landing just outside the loft.
Just kidding - we worked our asses off Saturday and Sunday moving stuff from storage into the space. It looks like complete pandemonium, and it is complete pandemonium.
Here's what the inside of the loft looks like - not any better than downstairs:
We did get the drain to the sink and the water supply hooked up today. Just need to craft some brackets to hold the sink in place, and screw down the counter-tops adjacent to the sink.
We're very close to the workshop equivalent of gridlock. No place to move anything, but everything needs to move...
We have made some progress. The first of the big base cabinets has been installed:
To the left of this cabinet will be the miter saw, with another cabinet to the left of the saw. (The saw sits in between the two cabinets, with the working surface of the saw at the same height as the adjacent cabinets.) We ran out of time and energy so the saw didn't make the move - I'll bring it tomorrow.
We also placed the band saw:
And the drill press:
Both are powered-up and working, but I've still got to connect the dust collection to the band saw, and hook up the vacuum system adjacent to the drill press.
Hopefully tomorrow, we'll set the next big base cabinet and get the miter saw placed temporarily. I've revised the dust collection system for the saw, and will need to build the hood to connect it.
We need to install the dust collector and the vacuum to get those systems up and ready to test for the machines.
So much to do - so much to do.
It is good to finally be moving stuff in.
Showed up at the shop this afternoon (9/13) and someone has deposited all this SH!T in the place...
These views are from the landing just outside the loft.
Just kidding - we worked our asses off Saturday and Sunday moving stuff from storage into the space. It looks like complete pandemonium, and it is complete pandemonium.
Here's what the inside of the loft looks like - not any better than downstairs:
We did get the drain to the sink and the water supply hooked up today. Just need to craft some brackets to hold the sink in place, and screw down the counter-tops adjacent to the sink.
We're very close to the workshop equivalent of gridlock. No place to move anything, but everything needs to move...
We have made some progress. The first of the big base cabinets has been installed:
To the left of this cabinet will be the miter saw, with another cabinet to the left of the saw. (The saw sits in between the two cabinets, with the working surface of the saw at the same height as the adjacent cabinets.) We ran out of time and energy so the saw didn't make the move - I'll bring it tomorrow.
We also placed the band saw:
And the drill press:
Both are powered-up and working, but I've still got to connect the dust collection to the band saw, and hook up the vacuum system adjacent to the drill press.
Hopefully tomorrow, we'll set the next big base cabinet and get the miter saw placed temporarily. I've revised the dust collection system for the saw, and will need to build the hood to connect it.
We need to install the dust collector and the vacuum to get those systems up and ready to test for the machines.
So much to do - so much to do.
It is good to finally be moving stuff in.
Update - more stuff in place, and a few "unique" tools we have.
Tuesday evening, Tin helped me get the second cabinet set that will be to the left of the miter saw. We should get that finished up this weekend.
I got the table saw and jointer into place temporarily. Need to determine their actual position before bolting anything down:
. There are 2 tables that surround the table saw - those aren't set up yet, but will be soon.
The shelves against the wall will move into the loft shortly.
Plans are to elevate the table saw so the table top is even with the back of the fence on the jointer. I'll add a 1/4" thick piece of HDPE to provide a smooth surface, and shorten the adjustment knobs until the top of the fence is the highest thing on the jointer. That will give me a support edge for cutting items long to the left of the blade. Obviously, I'll have to relocate the power switch for the jointer to a lower position.
The switch setup is my own creation. The jointer came with a crappy mechanical push-button switch which quickly failed. I replaced it with a magnetic switch, but that failed after a couple of years. This setup is best - up above the machine (the other two were down on the cabinet), and it's a simple 220v 20a switch. The jointer is a Woodcraft unit that I've upgraded to use a cutter head that has replaceable carbide inserts instead of the 3 high-speed steel knives. It cuts like a dream, and I've used it for 4+ years and have yet to rotate the inserts to a fresh edge.
I've often wished the table saw was a bit higher - now I get my chance. The good news is the floor is dead level right where the saw sits, which will mean no shimming required - just a platform to set the saw upon.
I inherited a variety of tools several years ago from my great uncle who was a hobbyist woodworker. Most of the tools he owned weren't "quality" items, but there were a few unique items I just couldn't let go to the estate sale. One thing I remember is he had a TON of old Craftsman sockets, breaker bars, etc. This is before I knew anything about the value of vintage tools - I could have kept anything I wanted, but wanted none of it.
Here's a floor-standing grinder setup. The stand is (I think) crafted from an axle housing from a HUGE differential.
The caged work light is supported by a rod that runs down the back of the grinder, bends around and is attached at a right angle to the post underneath the grinder.
The neatest tool I got from him is what I'll call a sharpening station. After WWII, he worked as a butcher for a number of years. Butchers like their knives sharp, and he knew how to put an edge on a blade.
I'll bet nobody in the entire world has another one like it, or even close. The power comes from a 1/20 hp motor of unknown age - here's the tag from the motor. It reads "General Electric / Motor Resistance Split Phase / For Lighting Circuits / Serial # / Type KH / Frame 23A / HP 1/20 / Unknown / Cyc (cycles) 60 / A. (amps) 1.5 / Unknown / RPM 1725 / Temp Rise 40C / Duty Cont. There are wiring diagrams to reverse the rotation, then FR (unknown context), and finally Schenectady, NY, Made in USA.
Anyone that can educate me further as to the meaning of "For Lighting Circuits" - I'd be happy to learn.
Here's how they did power cords "back when" - it's cotton covered and braided...
Here's a bad picture of the motor - I should have shot it from a better angle:
The switch that turns it on and off:
The loose pigtail went to the work light which was wired in thru the frame of the sharpener, and to transport it, I was forced to cut the wire. Notice the clever usage of aluminum foil to create a reflector...
The rod that supports the light is (I think) 1/4" galvanized pipe. Somehow, my uncle fed the zip cord thru the pipe...
Here's the water drip cup for the rotating stone. It has it's own rod that supports it, and the petcock allows you to moderate the flow of water. There's no circulation for the water - it drips from the cup onto the stone, and there's a pan beneath the stone to catch the water.
And here's the full view of the beast:
The axle of the stone is attached to a gear reduction box. I have no idea what the reduction is, but I'll bet it's more than 100:1. If you rotate the stone just a few inches, the input pulley rotates dozens of times.
Everything works - the unit hadn't been used in years, so the belt was very stiff and had taken a "set", so I junked it. I'll probably replace it with one of those web belts.
I don't know why there's an in-line switch in the cord. There were a lot of "curious" adaptations to tools in his shop. Maybe the mounted switch no longer works, or maybe he needed just a little bit longer cord...
The frame is just simple 3/4" angle, but notice the bracing for the legs - 1/4 section of some sort of flat hoop, about 1/8" thick material. Not shown, but at the bottom of each leg, a large flat washer is welded to create a foot.
The motor throws off a huge amount of ozone - the sparking around the armature is very bad, so I'll have to get the motor looked at to see if it's safe.
Here's a more modern tool - a hollow-chisel mortiser. The moisture in the storage building wasn't kind to the cast iron - I've got a lot of cleanup work to do with this unit:
The machete on the bench top is also from my uncle. Needless to say, it's SHARP...
Had I known the tools were going to be in storage from February until August, I'd have hosed everything down with rust preventative. Too late now...
Tomorrow, we start moving the lumber. I was supposed to get my lumber rack welded this afternoon, but my welder buddy called in sick to work. Should get that done next week and installed next weekend. Then we can position all the lumber from up in the loft, and the middle of the shop floor, which is where it's gonna start piling up come tomorrow.
More updates as updates are available.
Regards
Tuesday evening, Tin helped me get the second cabinet set that will be to the left of the miter saw. We should get that finished up this weekend.
I got the table saw and jointer into place temporarily. Need to determine their actual position before bolting anything down:
The shelves against the wall will move into the loft shortly.
Plans are to elevate the table saw so the table top is even with the back of the fence on the jointer. I'll add a 1/4" thick piece of HDPE to provide a smooth surface, and shorten the adjustment knobs until the top of the fence is the highest thing on the jointer. That will give me a support edge for cutting items long to the left of the blade. Obviously, I'll have to relocate the power switch for the jointer to a lower position.
The switch setup is my own creation. The jointer came with a crappy mechanical push-button switch which quickly failed. I replaced it with a magnetic switch, but that failed after a couple of years. This setup is best - up above the machine (the other two were down on the cabinet), and it's a simple 220v 20a switch. The jointer is a Woodcraft unit that I've upgraded to use a cutter head that has replaceable carbide inserts instead of the 3 high-speed steel knives. It cuts like a dream, and I've used it for 4+ years and have yet to rotate the inserts to a fresh edge.
I've often wished the table saw was a bit higher - now I get my chance. The good news is the floor is dead level right where the saw sits, which will mean no shimming required - just a platform to set the saw upon.
I inherited a variety of tools several years ago from my great uncle who was a hobbyist woodworker. Most of the tools he owned weren't "quality" items, but there were a few unique items I just couldn't let go to the estate sale. One thing I remember is he had a TON of old Craftsman sockets, breaker bars, etc. This is before I knew anything about the value of vintage tools - I could have kept anything I wanted, but wanted none of it.
Here's a floor-standing grinder setup. The stand is (I think) crafted from an axle housing from a HUGE differential.
The caged work light is supported by a rod that runs down the back of the grinder, bends around and is attached at a right angle to the post underneath the grinder.
The neatest tool I got from him is what I'll call a sharpening station. After WWII, he worked as a butcher for a number of years. Butchers like their knives sharp, and he knew how to put an edge on a blade.
I'll bet nobody in the entire world has another one like it, or even close. The power comes from a 1/20 hp motor of unknown age - here's the tag from the motor. It reads "General Electric / Motor Resistance Split Phase / For Lighting Circuits / Serial # / Type KH / Frame 23A / HP 1/20 / Unknown / Cyc (cycles) 60 / A. (amps) 1.5 / Unknown / RPM 1725 / Temp Rise 40C / Duty Cont. There are wiring diagrams to reverse the rotation, then FR (unknown context), and finally Schenectady, NY, Made in USA.
Anyone that can educate me further as to the meaning of "For Lighting Circuits" - I'd be happy to learn.
Here's how they did power cords "back when" - it's cotton covered and braided...
Here's a bad picture of the motor - I should have shot it from a better angle:
The switch that turns it on and off:
The loose pigtail went to the work light which was wired in thru the frame of the sharpener, and to transport it, I was forced to cut the wire. Notice the clever usage of aluminum foil to create a reflector...
The rod that supports the light is (I think) 1/4" galvanized pipe. Somehow, my uncle fed the zip cord thru the pipe...
Here's the water drip cup for the rotating stone. It has it's own rod that supports it, and the petcock allows you to moderate the flow of water. There's no circulation for the water - it drips from the cup onto the stone, and there's a pan beneath the stone to catch the water.
And here's the full view of the beast:
The axle of the stone is attached to a gear reduction box. I have no idea what the reduction is, but I'll bet it's more than 100:1. If you rotate the stone just a few inches, the input pulley rotates dozens of times.
Everything works - the unit hadn't been used in years, so the belt was very stiff and had taken a "set", so I junked it. I'll probably replace it with one of those web belts.
I don't know why there's an in-line switch in the cord. There were a lot of "curious" adaptations to tools in his shop. Maybe the mounted switch no longer works, or maybe he needed just a little bit longer cord...
The frame is just simple 3/4" angle, but notice the bracing for the legs - 1/4 section of some sort of flat hoop, about 1/8" thick material. Not shown, but at the bottom of each leg, a large flat washer is welded to create a foot.
The motor throws off a huge amount of ozone - the sparking around the armature is very bad, so I'll have to get the motor looked at to see if it's safe.
Here's a more modern tool - a hollow-chisel mortiser. The moisture in the storage building wasn't kind to the cast iron - I've got a lot of cleanup work to do with this unit:
The machete on the bench top is also from my uncle. Needless to say, it's SHARP...
Had I known the tools were going to be in storage from February until August, I'd have hosed everything down with rust preventative. Too late now...
Tomorrow, we start moving the lumber. I was supposed to get my lumber rack welded this afternoon, but my welder buddy called in sick to work. Should get that done next week and installed next weekend. Then we can position all the lumber from up in the loft, and the middle of the shop floor, which is where it's gonna start piling up come tomorrow.
More updates as updates are available.
Regards
aqr81
Well-known member
I can't believe I've just stumbled upon this thread. I read the whole, from start to finish and almost got winded. You have done an incredible amount of work there. The detailed planning and constant execution has been an inspiration. It's unbelievable and has turned out excellent. I can't wait to see the rest as you near completion. 