Above 1200 Sq/FT The Blizzard Build 40x60

[TurnipTruck]

Building the spiral stair reminded me that I need more steel to pile things on, so I traded a different too-large steel table for some new right-sized plate. I had a 5’x8’ chunk of 1/2” sheared in half.
Some overkill ledgers and some box tube stuck to some bar should hold whatever I can put on it.
The uprights are spaced so I can fab cabinet doors out of old steel garage doors. The back wall will soon be covered in 20gauge aluminum cable tray covers once I know which snow bank to dig them out of.The first half of the bench weighed 440 pounds.

 

[thammel]

Wow...simply wow!! And I know what you mean about chiropractors!!! My little 28x32 has some similarities....I have a UDAS separated combustion Reznor, but my mini splits do most of the work at greater efficiency. And I hired out the drywall. But no spiral staircase! Love your photos and the build story!!

 

[TurnipTruck]

On the wood shop side now. Wood has not been the priority lately, as I’ve had a tsunami of carpentry over the last six years of reconstruction, so I haven’t given the woodshop’s design much thought.
I have given thought to getting some of the **** off the floor and organized, so when an opportunity arose to get some cabinets, we ventured into yet another blizzard (with plenty of tarps to keep them dry).
I had already strewn some salvaged shelf standards and brackets on the wall to get some of the trim out from underfoot.

First was some stud-bridging 1x4 to screw cabinets to.


Hanging cabinets on blocks.
An obligatory doors-on pic. Here we are planning out a cabinet with a router lift, the saw, and the sander with dust collection somewhere over yonder.

 

[andyvh1959]

WWWWOOOOOWWWW!

Some people, like me, build simple little stick frame 24x28 garages. Some people, like you build a freakin' commercial building that could be a repair shop for a trucking company. Nice!

 

[TurnipTruck]

Last winter I found this 1986 IR compressor covered in oil and dirt at a closed-down machine shop sale. I gutted it and cleaned and rewired the controls and stuck it in this corner.
The next Spring, I was looking around trying to figure out where to stash the studded tires when in my metal pile I found 1-1/2 skinny uprights for a pallet rack.
Gotta clean out the corner, first.



Here we are mocking up the hydraulic hose routing and the auto blowdown tubing before redheading the uprights to the floor.


Before charging the air header for the first time, we needed to complete all the plumbing. I found a remnant of 800psi hose at the hydraulic shop, and it was even a blue to match the hoist. I kinked the 1” galvanized pipe in the electric shop at work with their conduit bender. (I hadn’t yet found my own bender yet)

 

[TurnipTruck]

Along about the same time, I started wainscoting to see if I liked it. The steel is WW2 quonset steel that has had its curve flattened over the last multiple decades by being nailed to a shed roof. I chose this prominent sheet to be near the door because the manufacturer logo was still visible. The incoming power conduit is the white-painted pipe.
Still trying to decide if I like wainscoting. I probably should trim the door and windows one of these days.

Iinstalled a small point-of-use 120v water heater just for hand washing.

 

[rixtrix1]

Neat shop build. A great place to escape the cold and dark of winter.

 

[Maxcustody]

WOW, what a build, Well done Sir!

 

[jollygreengiant]

Awesome build! Looking forward to seeing more.

 

[Swanny1953]

Very nice write-up after the fact, and looks like a great facility. Inspiring me to go back and finish documenting my build. You know, good intentions and all . . . . .

 

[larry4406]

One hell of a nice shop build! Congratulations.

 

[moon_tanner]

Great work! I really like the quonset steel!!!

 

[Jayman17]

Love your shop and I am very impressed how you bent that handrail into a perfectly fitting spiral to match your spiral staircase. I would have no idea even where to begin figuring that out.

Jay

 

[tj675]

Impressive build! Thanks for taking us along on your build.

 

[KrucksGarage]

Very nice job! I love the forethought on the details! I like the spiral staircase construction photos, I've thought about adding one of those to my upper room in my shop, but haven't decided. I like how you rolled and stretched the railing piece, solid work there. Cool shop, looking forward to updates!

 

[67CarGuy]

Awesome - thanks for sharing your process. Looking forward to seeing this progress from here!

 

[TurnipTruck]

The turquoise cabinet is the latest addition to the shop. This glass-shelved medical cupboard from my late Father’s clinic is one of the few things we could salvage from the building where he spent his last 50 years.

I had to cut it down to fit the wall and paint over the 1962 chartreuse paint. I was planning to have a readily-accessible showcase for all my manuals, but I didn’t realize the case was too shallow until after it was hung so it now will hold micrometers until the lathe corner congeals.

I still haven’t trimmed out the windows. Most of my free time has been spent fighting the foot of snow each week this year and snow blowing through six foot snowdrifts just so we can get to work.This typically melts by mid-May.

 

[TurnipTruck]

Another minor quickie project in the shop, mostly for my own sanity, but to also minimize distractions when looking for fasteners.
(We do have to maximize the brief few months of snowlessness.)

This mess is what the toolroom had devolved into. It still doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up…

…But these salvaged bolt bins will get me through its adolescence.




Somehow I lucked out in the room’s dimensions; the bins had to be beat into place between the wall and the shelving unit.


Once it snows again, the major outside projects will slow and we can rejoin the evolution of the interior of the shop.

 

[rocco]

Great shop with a ton of cool character, it’s a place that I could see spending a lot of time enjoying.

 

[TurnipTruck]

Another of my long term projects is nearing completion. Six years ago I bought this 16kw natgas standby generator locally when I was totally rewiring the house and needed a transfer switch.
This month the retaining wall was complete enough to finally dig the generator out of storage and see if it would fit and if it would run.


I had to upsize the wiring due to the increased distance from the transfer switch, so that was almost $1000 additional. The whole wall ended up costing three times what I guessed, so my hardscape estimating skills are seriously out of calibration.

 

[captain14]

Great build. How long was the planning stage before you started?

Post #19 shows a Ford 9N tractor under the lean-to?

 

[TurnipTruck]

Great build. How long was the planning stage before you started?

Post #19 shows a Ford 9N tractor under the lean-to?

I had been planning a shop for the first four years at this new house, but actual planning in earnest was the Winter before construction began. I had built a quonset and a celestory-roofed garage before that had problems that I did not want to duplicate.

I traded a 1969 396 Longhorn for this 1941 9N, then spent a few years restoring it completely. I should have kept it, but it was just a toy as long as it didn’t have a loader, and 9N/2N/8N tractors should not have a loader. I sold it to a Ford collector an hour away.

 

[jarhead]

Nice shop and that's allot of snow.

Nice looking 9N, I have had several 9 and 8Ns. You are correct the loader is way too much for them

 

[TurnipTruck]

I have squandered the last few snowless months wrapping up some projects outdoors with the plan to commit some serious time inside my shop this winter.
After digging out from last night’s 20” snowpocalypse I need some green in my life, so here is a decrepit fifty-year-old three stall dairy barn eyesore converted to a greenhouse:








In Alaska, the sun never rises high enough to be directly overhead, so a properly steep roof would
1) shade during the heat of the day to hopefully reduce the need for an exhaust fan,
2) eliminate the need for a transparent roof that could support three feet of snow,
3) use up a lot of salvaged material.

 

[Bopbop]

That is a really nice set up you have there. Alaska is a beautiful place. We where up there is February a few years ago to visit my Father in Law in Kenai before he passed away. I was talking with my wife the other day that we need to get back up there to visit her step mother.

 

[TurnipTruck]

Thank you, bopbop. Except for the occasionally oppressive snow, we think it’s the perfect combination of heavy indu$try and private lakefront.

After the greenhouse was completed, I took the dogs down to the lake for the next outdoor project:




I needed enough room to turn a truck and boat trailer around at the bottom of this 15% grade, so the tractor and a rental mini-ex pulled and hauled off eight dump trailer loads of overgrowth alder from the horrifically neglected beach. The wife found an amazingly cheap shed kit and I slapped it together to get all the beach and water gear out of my shop. The shed wall stack juuuuust barely fit down the beach road.
Next year will hopefully see the addition of a gazebo, a boat shelter, and a dock. If I can find two more rolling stairs parted out at work, we will have enough for a staircase for a straighter shot at the house sixty feet up the bluff.

 

[TurnipTruck]

As soon as I roofed the shed with leftover standing seam roofing, I walked the mini-excavator back up the beach road to trench for the retaining wall.

We have been delaying replanting the front lawn until this retaining wall got erected, so excuse the wilderness.

I thought I had trenched deep enough, but once I got a dozen passes with the plate compactor, the seam of clay congealed. The mini-ex had already gone back, so I got to hand dig out the foot thick clay seam.

That trench now holds an entire 10 yard dump truck full of compactible D1 roadbase.

Then I stacked 10 tons of 63-lb each blocks and 12 yards of compacted clean crushed drain rock with geogrid every two rows as a deadman, leaving a shelf for the generator and a stairway next to the house.

Remember two years ago, when I buried a gas line to the shop? I ran a parallel smaller line for this older unused 16kw Generac. We endured two Thanksgivings in a row without power due to downed trees and snowstorms, and the wife was disapppointed that this week’s 20” overnight snow dump didn’t cause a blackout.

 

[Bopbop]

It is a never ending job to have a nice place and keep it up. My wife asks me all the time when I am going to get caught up. I tell her when 1 item comes off the list 3 or 4 more is added. Sometimes it's 3 or 4 dozen. Lucky for me I deal with flat land and snow about every 10 years that is gone by noon.

 

[TurnipTruck]

I have been stacking parts inside the shop for this winter‘s projects, and they’re really in my way:


So the next project should involve reducing obstacles, like this pile:



First, I have to find the wall.


And fit and fasten that WW2 Quonset steel as wainscot.


Then weld up some ladders and stuff to this 12” channel I found in my stash.
The uprights are topped with 1” npt weldolets for changeable props or pony clamps.


Then paint and trial fit some of the smaller tools on my new sideboard!

 

[TurnipTruck]

I haven’t had ready access to my hardware stash since 2014, when we moved to this lake. Several small projects have been stalled or even cancelled cuz I couldn’t find that one particular part.
These 160 boxes of goodies have been in the way since the building became warm, and I finally had some divine inspiration regarding an out-of-the-way yet accessible spot: I’ll use the spiral stair!

Before:

After: an 11 foot tall stack o’ shelves!

Inside the toolroom are another hundred-plus boxes of General Motors-specific restoration gleanings:

The blue bins are 1/4 to 1-1/4 coarse/fine/stainless/locking bulk that I’ve scrounged over forty years.

 

[TurnipTruck]

While discovering and organizing all of my **** into this new building, I have found multiples of some things. In this instance I had an overflowing tool drawer full of air chuck stuff and needed a simple/convenient/obvious spot for it all. After rummaging around and not finding a bunch of worn out female couplers to hang from, then briefly considering a town trip to buy new, I tripped over some perforated angle. Huh, those holes are about the right size…



And it only took ten minutes from staring at the angle to self-tapping it to the racking.

 

[86turbodsl]

Love your ingenuity. And the greenhouse. One question - no in floor heat in a very cold state?

 

[TurnipTruck]

Thank you, 86.
Regarding a radiant floor, I ran out of money, time, brains, snowlessness, and vertebral discs, and discovered that I bolt things to the floor more readily without tubes dictating locations. Pretty much in that order.
My last shop had radiant heat and it was glorious, but I was too paranoid about it slushing at -25* to do it again.

 

[dmittz]

I just read your whole build. What a wonderful shop and what a beautiful place Alaska is. I've never been to Alaska but my late grandparents used to love visting it. Perhaps one day i'll have to drive up and see it.

Also loved all the enginuity ypu put into your shop such as the spiral staircase!

Thanks so much for sharing.

 

[TurnipTruck]

Thank you, D.
I have been following your build as well. I am jealous of your upper floor space.

 

[TurnipTruck]

As threatened last winter, I finally dug this pallet of salvaged aluminum industrial power cable tray covers out of the snowbank I had cleverly stored them in.



But first I had to clean off the table and benches, then I had to CLEAN them, as alluded to in my Millscale thread.


After some measurements, I made a fancy Brake:


After fitting around the receptacles, I glued and screwed the sheets to the wall. I used wet location receptacle covers to try to keep the grit out.


I found these WallControl steel pegboards in an auction pile years ago and eventually figured out something cool to do with them:


It turned out that I had just enough WallControl to fit.

 

[racer-john]

As threatened last winter, I finally dug this pallet of salvaged aluminum industrial power cable tray covers out of the snowbank I had cleverly stored them in.



But first I had to clean off the table and benches, then I had to CLEAN them, as alluded to in my Millscale thread.


After some measurements, I made a fancy Break:

After some measurements, I made a fancy Brake:
After fitting around the receptacles, I glued and screwed the sheets to the wall. I used wet location receptacle covers to try to keep the grit out.


I found these WallControl steel pegboards in an auction pile years ago and eventually figured out something cool to do with them:


It turned out that I had just enough WallControl to fit.

 

[75slant6]

Wow! I just read through the thread and realized that in all my “overthinking” of my shop design, it’ll still be subpar to everything you’ve come up with to implement in your shop! May hats off to you on a job well done!

 

[TurnipTruck]

Well, thank you, Slant6. I rely on dumpster diving/scrounging/good deals for inspiration.

Like these old garage door panels repurposed as cabinet doors:


We still have three feet of snow to start melting before I can find one last garage door panel to finish the three additional doors under the bench.
Maybe handrails for the catwalk are next?

 

[75slant6]

That is too cool! And repurposing free/cheap stuff is right up my alley! Lol I also plan on doing the used corrugated metal around the inside of my shop for wainscoting. Btw, what are the dimensions of your fab room?