Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT The Cold Cactus Garage

[icecactus]

Figured i would start a thread of my garage build.

I got married and bought my first house about a year and a half ago. Figured I would show some progress of what i have been up to.

Here is some pics of when i first got it...

I have been lurking on here for a while getting ideas etc...So far i have painted the walls (after seeing some of your garages and how good they look)

Replaced the plain white covers with stainless ones.

I am currently working on setting up my table saw and dust collector i purchased for doing some wood working stuff. Right now I am installing a sub panel and trying to figure out how i am going to run conduit to power the machines.

I cannot believe how fast i have accumulated tools (or **** like my wife likes to call it) to fill up the garage!

 

[JimVonBaden]

Nice garage. Great start!

Jim

 

[Tom_20m]

Nice!!! I would have epoxied the floor before bringing all my tools. Would make it alot easier.

 

[Amazzen]

Beautiful "fresh canvas".

Colors are going to look great too.

Congrats.

 

[Tech Guy]

Nice start ! what is the ceiling height of the garage as it looks fairly high

 

[regguy1]

Nice paint job, are you adding any lights?

 

[synik]

Very nice! What are the dimensions and garage door size? Thanks!

 

[icecactus]

Nice!!! I would have epoxied the floor before bringing all my tools. Would make it alot easier.

I would have LOVED to have done that. But, we're young, and I didnt have the funds after the cost of getting married, buying the house etc..

While i disagreed, the wife said a kitchen table was more important then epoxy.

Nice start ! what is the ceiling height of the garage as it looks fairly high

I think its around 16'. The dust collector 8' tall and i mounted it 4' off the ground. So the top of the motor should be around 12'.

Nice paint job, are you adding any lights?

Lights might be my next task. I am borrowing that scaffolding and there is no way im adding lights on a ladder that high up...So while i have the scaffolding i might either add more or replace the 6 that are in there with better ones...Any suggestions?

Very nice! What are the dimensions and garage door size? Thanks!

19.5' x 39' (big garage) and 20'x20' (small 2 car garage on the left)

The front door is 12' x 14' i believe.
The rear door is 8'x8'.

 

[jeepjunky]

With that kind of height I would be looking at a lift! Looks great, you can do epoxy any time. As for your conduit, how about running inside the strips you painted (just paint them to match)

 

[brokenknee]

Figured i would start a thread of my garage build.

I got married and bought my first house about a year and a half ago. Figured I would show some progress of what i have been up to.

Here is some pics of when i first got it...

I have been lurking on here for a while getting ideas etc...So far i have painted the walls (after seeing some of your garages and how good they look)

Replaced the plain white covers with stainless ones.

I am currently working on setting up my table saw and dust collector i purchased for doing some wood working stuff. Right now I am installing a sub panel and trying to figure out how i am going to run conduit to power the machines.

I cannot believe how fast i have accumulated tools (or **** like my wife likes to call it) to fill up the garage!

not **** or toys, as my dad finally convinced my wife, they are "labor saving devices". My wife now refers to all my tools as labor saving devices. I can honestly say that what I have spent on tools I have easily saved much more. Maybe not all tools purchased paid for themselfs, but the ones that didn't were made up by the ones that did.

 

[Nighttrain]

that must have been a garage for a motorhome, being in AZ I guess. Very nice work you have done in there. What type of dust collector and how's it work?

 

[icecactus]

not **** or toys, as my dad finally convinced my wife, they are "labor saving devices". My wife now refers to all my tools as labor saving devices. I can honestly say that what I have spent on tools I have easily saved much more. Maybe not all tools purchased paid for themselfs, but the ones that didn't were made up by the ones that did.

Haha, I like that, i am going to have to start using that one!

that must have been a garage for a motorhome, being in AZ I guess. Very nice work you have done in there. What type of dust collector and how's it work?

You are correct, the builder markets it as an RV garage or a place to store your toys. Quite a few of the neighbors store boats since the lake is not far. Most, including myself have toy haulers in there. So while most the time i keep it someplace else, one of my criteria for my build is that i can still get the hauler in there when needed.

Its a Grizzly 2HP cyclone. Took me a long time to decide which one to get. I decided to spend more on a cyclone since i could wall mount it and save the floor space. I also didnt have to screw around with trying to make a separator etc...like i knew i i would end up doing if i bought a single stage. I'll let ya know how it works once i get the electric run

 

[icecactus]

The last couple weekends i have been learning to bend conduit and stringing some wire...hopefully next weekend i can finish up the electrical portion for now..

 

[ConstructionBoss]

Nice garage. Do you have any updated pictures? I used to live out in Chandler and ran asphalt paving work all over the valley before i moved to Texas in '06. I am guessing you are up my Lake Pleasant, north of the 101? I know a couple neighborhoods with that type of setup in that area. I always loved those neighborhoods. Our office was in Tempe though, and I always needed to be within a 15 minute drive from the office to attend meetings and such.

 

[Mikey72Nova]

I love it!! Great size, and how nice it must be having it connected to the regular garage..

Can you post some more pics from the outside, maybe from the street etc, to get an idea of how it blends into the house? Been dreaming of building something similar to the side of the house.. Congrats!!

 

[Red Leader]

Great shop and nice tools!

 

[ODIS]

Nicely Done! You will have a ton of fun in your garage. Good to see that you like making sawdust too. Looking forward to see more on what you are up to.

Ody.

 

[icecactus]

Thanks for the compliments guys! Didnt realize how long its been since i last posted photos..

I finished up the electrical and ran it over the small garage door in the back to the other side. Just 2 110 circuits. I don't plan on having any 220 on the left side of the garage.

I also decided that while i still had the scaffolding i would upgrade the lighting. So i changed out the 6 (2) Bulb units to 4 bulb units with 6500k bulbs...WOW what a difference....cant believe how much brighter it is in there now.

The small garage only had a single 60 watt bulb in it. So I took 2 of the old 2 bulb units and moved them into the small garage.

I have also been messing around with my new table saw. I fabbed up the mobile base about 9 months ago and i snagged the sliding table for cheap on craigslist (woot!). So i spent a couple weekends setting up the slider and my cross cut sled.

I started to work on a bin holder for the dust bin (its currently sitting on boxes). I made up a prototype from wood but its to weak so i think i am going to rebuild it in steel. I havent gotten much done the last couple months since i broke my hand...but i did manage to snag an awesome deal on every socket craftsman makes. Which of course led to the need for a new tool box

And some organizing...

The next couple months probably wont see much get done. With the monsoons coming in the swamp cooler doesnt work real well and it gets real hot out there. I do have some new craftsman tools coming though, now that i got room in the box and all

 

[icecactus]

Since my last update, i have completed the dust collector bin holder. It folds down from the wall. Here are some pics of the progress...

Arms that hold the bin up.

Tacking everything up.

test run

 

[bknudtsen]

I really like this garage setup you guys have down there! Nice work so far. The bin holder is pretty ingenious!

Brad

 

[fergus]

That bin holder is cool.

At first I was like "what?" Then I was like "oh COOL". Or something like that.

The gas struts are a clever idea too.

 

[LeeG]

I am envious of the height you have to work with. Very nice place. What part of the valley are you in? I'm in Gilbert. My garage is here

 

[55cadillacking]

Wow. Just, wow. That is a dream garage in every sense of the word. It has some similarities to "Synic's" garage. Multi-million dollar homes here don't even compare in terms of garage space. You must continue to keep your thread updated as things progress. Wow.

 

[icecactus]

Finished Bin Holder Pics

Thanks for the compliments guys!

The goal was to save the floor space but be able to easily access the dust bin.

Here are some pics of the finished product. It was a LOT of work. Much more then i expected. But i learned to weld, and to do a bit of metal working. Which now really opens the door for me to be able to build a lot more things. As you'll see in my coming projects

Holder in up position so i can store mobile things below it.

In the down position so I can easily empty the bin.

 

[turbowoodworker]

Hi Icecactus, How'd you get that Grizzly so high on the wall? Lots of tall friends? I have a 220v Penn state Tempest and it weighs a ton. Give me some tips since I will be moving mine soon. Thanks.
BTW where are you in PHX. I just moved from Ahwatukee to NC.

 

[icecactus]

Hi Icecactus, How'd you get that Grizzly so high on the wall? Lots of tall friends? I have a 220v Penn state Tempest and it weighs a ton. Give me some tips since I will be moving mine soon. Thanks.
BTW where are you in PHX. I just moved from Ahwatukee to NC.

I ended up borrowing some scaffolding from a friend. That gave me a nice platform to work on that was about 5ft off the ground. I Attached the boards to the wall first. Then with the help of a couple neighbors we lifted the motor assembly onto the scaffolding, then lifted it up onto the boards. I had all the lag bolts in the boards already, i just had to slide the motor assembly onto them.

I then installed the 2 cones pieces and the filter etc myself. I used some ratchets straps to help hold the top cone piece up. Again this was done all on the scaffolding.

So if your plan is to mount it high, i would recommend you either borrow, rent or buy some scaffolding. Or make your own platform out of wood. That's what i would have done if i didn't have a nice friend.

 

[turbowoodworker]

Thanks, I may just have to rent some scaffolds.
Nice build
subscribed because I like the woodworking aspect.

 

[icecactus]

On to the next project!

Infeed and Outfeed tables for the table saw work station.

I like to build cabinets and utility type projects. They almost always involve sheets of plywood and I am sick of using a circular saw and a straight edge. I want to use my table saw + dust collector. However handling a large sheets of ply/mdf is dangerous unless you setup some type of support...Forget roller stands, i cant stand them.

So after doing some research for a while, i came across the Ezee-Feed System.
I really liked this setup so i decided to mimic it. I had to make some changes as I have the Incra fence system. I also wanted to be able to slide the tables along the full 8ft length of my workstation so i can use them for the router on the end.
Now eventually my workbench (to be built later) will serve as the outfeed for the table saw. Until then, the outfeed stand will serve both the tablesaw and router.

I seriously considered just buying the Ezee-Feed system. However, I have to justify the cost of the welder and the money i saved building it myself paid for half the welder. Plus its a good learning experience. Its been a lot of work though.

Here are some pics so far...


Steel Cut

Tacking up the frames

Frame + legs

Frames with roller and lift leg brackets welded on. Also trying to figure out arrangement of transfer balls.

So far they are turning out good. But I am disappointed in how much metal warps when you weld on it. The legs have quite a bow to them. The one that really irritates me though, is the bracket thats about a foot in front of the roller on the last pic. You can see 2 little tabs sticking out. When i welded those on, i was in the zone and just welding away. It warped the **** out of the tube. It shouldn't affect the performance of the stand, its just cosmetic but annoys the hell out of me. Every time i look at it sticks out like a sore thumb!

 

[turbowoodworker]

Great project. You are a woodworker using metal craft to solve a problem common to most woodworkers. Sheetgood handling can be a real pain. I can't wait to see the finished product.

 

[icecactus]

I finished up the frames. They weren't quite flat when i got done with them. So i had a buddy stand on one corner and i stood on the other. That tweaked them back to almost perfectly flat!

I really didnt feel like painting them so i sent them to the powder coater last week and just got them back last night..well worth the money...cant wait to get the transfer balls mounted and the rail mounted to the saw to try them out.

 

[icecactus]

I can't believe its been 3 years since I last posted. Time flies.

My wife and I had our first child, and I have been busy with other hobbies, and life in general. So I have not done a whole lot in the garage. I have snagged up quite a few new tools over the past few years though

The garage took a back seat for a while. I really wanted to turn my Tumble Weed Farm of a backyard into something usable with a tropical theme. While not really garage related, part of that backyard design included building a custom shed.

I learned pretty quickly, that even though I have a good size garage, I needed a place to store things that I just don't use that often.

It's an 11'x16' shed. I also poured a concrete pad that leads between the garage and the shed. This way I could wheel tools back and forth. Took me about 6 months to complete start to finish.

 

[rattle_snake]

Nice looking shed. Yes time goes quick when you add little people.

 

[icecactus]

Got some stuff done in the garage this weekend.

Back in October I ran across these really neat Certiflat Welding tables. Previously I had been using a piece of MDF on saw horses. Not exactly ideal. It did get the job done, but I found myself avoiding welding things since I didn't feel like setting it up and It was annoying not having a proper place to weld. My plan was to eventually build a nice Beater steel table with 1" thick top, but I don't really have time right now to design and build one.

The certiflat was priced reasonably and having all those holes for clamping is awesome. I decided to purchase the 36x48 with a couple extension wings. I still am going to build my HD table, but this gives me proper place to weld/assembly metal projects now with a minimal amount of time invested.

20160307_201336 by IceCactus, on Flickr

20160309_072257 by IceCactus, on Flickr

20160320_100135 by IceCactus, on Flickr

20160320_100146 by IceCactus, on Flickr

20160321_071316 by IceCactus, on Flickr

Just have to finish up welding the extensions...

 

[jabin]

Very nice!!!

 

[Kevin54]

I watched the video about the table......Very impressive. From me being a toolmaker it looks like the table is made with some degree of precision to it with the way the tabs fit to the slots. I don't weld, but I would like to have one. I could see some uses for it other than just a welding table. I think it would be great when assembling cabinets and such. Or to be able to clamp something down while doing work on it. Very nice indeed.

 

[icecactus]

I watched the video about the table......Very impressive. From me being a toolmaker it looks like the table is made with some degree of precision to it with the way the tabs fit to the slots. I don't weld, but I would like to have one. I could see some uses for it other than just a welding table. I think it would be great when assembling cabinets and such. Or to be able to clamp something down while doing work on it. Very nice indeed.

I thought the same thing which is another reason I bought the table. Even though the holes are 16mm (mft is 20mm) the festool clamps work great since the surface is 1/4 instead of 3/4

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[BikerDad]

Could you provide more pics and info on that fine tablesaw station you have there? It's very similar to what I want to create for my SawStop, only I have the SS sliding table and a Benchdog Cast Iron router extension. I'm especially interested in your mobility solution, and how stable it is if you use it while it's on it's wheels.

Oh, and if you'd be kind enough to provide some feedback on the CertiFlat table after you've got some good time using it, I'm sure folks here would appreciate it.

Finally, congrats on the kid.

 

[icecactus]

Could you provide more pics and info on that fine tablesaw station you have there? It's very similar to what I want to create for my SawStop, only I have the SS sliding table and a Benchdog Cast Iron router extension. I'm especially interested in your mobility solution, and how stable it is if you use it while it's on it's wheels.

Oh, and if you'd be kind enough to provide some feedback on the CertiFlat table after you've got some good time using it, I'm sure folks here would appreciate it.

Finally, congrats on the kid.

Sure, I will see if I can rummage up some pics, or I'll try and take some more detailed pics and post them up here.

Its rock solid for stability though. If I really push, I can "flex" the wheel locks a bit, but I never notice it while actually using the saw.

Thanks!

 

[icecactus]

Finished up the welding table last night.

20160329_071913 by IceCactus, on Flickr

My thoughts thus far...

Its not as flat as I would like. I clamped the hell out of this thing. I don't mean I reefed down on it, but I clamped every criss cross with an exhaust clamp and 3/8 bolts. The first time I clamped everything together I could rock a straight edge on the edges. So I took it apart and redid it. The 2nd time, all the interior ribs where touching the straight edge and right on, but none of the outside skirts were touching the straight edge. There was zero light under the ribs. I check each one with a flash light.

I took a mic to the pieces and all the supports were withing a few thousands of each other. All the outside skirts were also within a few thousands of each other, but the outside skirts were .017 shorter then the supports. Which explains why the straightedge was not touching them. Not sure why they are not the same, but I figured it must be by design since all the skirts were the same and all the supports were the same.

The 3x4 table is pretty flat across the 4' length. Definitely good enough for me, which is pretty darn good since I am a stickler about things like this. The 3' length dips .015" on the edges. Its pretty flat till about the last 4-6" on each end. One corner dips ~.021".

The extensions did the same thing across their length. The dip around ~.025" on the ends. The narrow strip on both extensions also did not fit properly I had to file down some of the tabs to make it fit. Not sure what was up with that.

So the 3x4 table flatness is good enough. Once I put the extensions on, its out more then I would like. Will it effect what I am doing....probably not. The table is a MASSIVE improvement over saw horses and a piece of MDF.

It does not come with instructions, but Dave over at Tab and Slot, was super good about answering my questions and walking me through the whole process. He also gave me some tips.

One thing I didn't account for, was how much it costed in bolts, nuts, threaded rod and exhaust clamps to clamp everything. It added a significant amount of money to the table. I don't really understand why they don't cut some straps out of the scrap metal and include them with each table. That way you wouldn't have to purchase exhaust clamps, 11 in my case.

So, overall, I am happy with it. The ability to clamp anywhere is awesome! It's not as flat or square as I would like, but its probably good enough and a HUGE improvement over what I using previously.

 

[icecactus]

It's been over 3 years since I last updated this thread. Seems to be trend

Not much has happened in the garage. I am always on the look out for good deals on Tools and I have acquired a few more since I last posted. Sadly the garage remains pretty much unchanged since I last posted. I have done a LOT of thinking and dreaming, but not much actual work.

This is a for a few reasons. My wife and I had our 2nd child. So I now have 2 feisty red head girls, 2 & 4 years old. I just don't get the garage time I used to.

What garage time I do get now, I'm usually lacking motivation. I live in a pretty cool neighborhood with a bunch of neighbors with similar interests. Rzrs, camping etc.. They all hang out. All the time...So beer drinking with the neighbors and socializing ends up sucking up most my time. I'm almost never bored...boredom leads to motivation for me. I cant sit still.

I would be lying though if I said analysis paralysis was not a large part of why nothing has been done. I hate making something, only to redo it shortly down the road. This leads to well, I cant put this here cause one day I might get a mill and it cant go here cause I am going to end up making a bench to go there...etc. I like to be efficient, and the less garage time has magnified that need...which in turn has made the paralysis even more pronounced. All this ends up making me less motivated and I am back to the social life

My garage is a mess and I have reached my breaking point where it needs to be organized. I like efficiency, I have all these nice tools etc, but its a PITA to use them. I need the garage to be clean and efficient. Maybe I should rent the neighbors garage to put all the kids toys in. LOL

A lot of the other users/garages I follow on here say they enjoy posting since it helps keep them motivated and on track. I have been meaning to post for quite some time. Almost 9 months now. The progress is slow, but I have been taking pics along with the way. During the next few days I am going to post a series of posts that will catch up.