The Rusty Knuckle Torque Garage

[Pappy B]

I would like to welcome you to the Rusty Knuckle Torque Garage!
I am going to do this thread to chroniclize the rehab of my 1942 service station. This is not going to be a quick build it will take some time due to financial priorities. I'll add pictures as I go, but for the start I wont overwhelm you with all the photos from the past few months at once. Please feel free to add constructive criticism to help me along the way, but try and keep it with the picture you are referring to if possible so I can refer to it and find it whenever I need it. Yes there may be a few pics with my other projects in it, and pictures of products I researched, but hopefully it may save someone some time. I will also let you know as I go what did or did not work for me and I may ask for suggestions from time to time. All in all I've been pretty excited about it, and so have my buddies. because it will give them and I a place to meet, work on our rides, and also shoot pool in the hangout room! so break out your popcorn and enjoy. P.S. as I eluded to earlier this is not a high dollar build, however when I am done I want it to look, and feel high dollar with a sense original /industrial feel, so keep that in mind as I do at every step.

 

[Pappy B]

I was talking with my wife on the phone telling her how I needed (wanted) an old Gas station. She said "well start looking for one" After I hung up with her I passed by this and caught the small FOR sale sign out of the corner of my eye so I swung back around to snap this picture. I called her back about 10 minutes after our conversation and said "honey I think I found one already! She laughed in disbelief and by the next day I had the owner on the phone scheduling an appointment to see walk through the inside the following week. It was just recently vacated by a lawnmower repair guy.

 

[Pappy B]

Here a couple more I took a few days later. Before meeting the owner. I could see right away that the middle of the building had two add ons. On the right was a garage bay and on the left there was something hiding under that sign. It turned out to be a window for the add on to the small service station it was attached to. I thought maybe it was two separate additions....at first.

 

[Pappy B]

It turns out according to the local property appraiser web site it is 2785 sf of which 400 sf is the canopy. It sits on .32 acres. Not to bad for small city property. It has three large garage doors, one on the front of the building and one on each end of the building. Im already dreaming of what I could do with it at this point!

 

[HOTFR8]

Will be interested to see what you do with it.

 

[Ohmthis]

Pappy, have you searched for past pictures of the station? That may lead you in a direction for the outside. If you had your location, I didn't look. Maybe a petrol company that is/was local could be cool. As far as the inside goes, the sky is the limit. I want to follow along. This seems like a really cool build. BTW, Pappy is what we called my great grandfather.

 

[Tarnished]

Along for the ride. Loads of potential!
What part of the country are you in?

 

[redisthefastestcolour]

That's a great find!
I would love to have such a service station!

 

[MacTexas]

This looks like a good one to follow.

 

[Pappy B]

That's a great find!
I would love to have such a service station!

Thanks! I will post more tomorrow. BTW I like your grand fathers memorial garage!

 

[Pappy B]

Along for the ride. Loads of potential!
What part of the country are you in?

Im in NW Florida

 

[Pappy B]

Pappy, have you searched for past pictures of the station? That may lead you in a direction for the outside. If you had your location, I didn't look. Maybe a petrol company that is/was local could be cool. As far as the inside goes, the sky is the limit. I want to follow along. This seems like a really cool build. BTW, Pappy is what we called my great grandfather.

Yes I have done some local research and uncovered a few articles on it. They are pretty cool. Ill be posting some of them also in chronological order. I had a lot of FaceBook friends searching stuff out for me.

Yes Pappy has been around in my family for some time. I think we alternate between pap and pappy!

 

[Pappy B]

A few shots of my first time in the garage.









The first thing in the front door was the office complete with an original to the building restroom. straight in and a door to the garage. Then the door in this picture which looked pretty scary to enter. There was no electric on when I went in. The moldy bottom shelf was in its own seperate little area. I think the previous tenant that owned a lawn mower repair business used it for parts/tools. I remember hoping that the mold wasnt the water level line!

 

[Pappy B]

So here you will see the bays, I think the Original owner told me he lived here for a while back in the 80s. He (his family) was the 2nd owner in this building since its conception in 1942. I wondered if that was his bed? you can see the single pole lift that he swore to me worked but as you see its missing the super structure. I was a little worried about the water that appeared to be coming through the wall at floor level on the back side of the Garage. It wasnt pretty But an I knew as soon as I saw it that it had to be mine!

 

[patrickg20]

I would like to welcome you to the Rusty Knuckle Torque Garage!
I am going to do this thread to chroniclize the rehab of my 1942 service station. This is not going to be a quick build it will take some time due to financial priorities. I'll add pictures as I go, but for the start I wont overwhelm you with all the photos from the past few months at once. Please feel free to add constructive criticism to help me along the way, but try and keep it with the picture you are referring to if possible so I can refer to it and find it whenever I need it. Yes there may be a few pics with my other projects in it, and pictures of products I researched, but hopefully it may save someone some time. I will also let you know as I go what did or did not work for me and I may ask for suggestions from time to time. All in all I've been pretty excited about it, and so have my buddies. because it will give them and I a place to meet, work on our rides, and also shoot pool in the hangout room! so break out your popcorn and enjoy. P.S. as I eluded to earlier this is not a high dollar build, however when I am done I want it to look, and feel high dollar with a sense original /industrial feel, so keep that in mind as I do at every step.

Cool space! You can't have too many photos. I'm looking forward to see what you do with your new space. It has great potential.

 

[TurtleValley]

This is going to be a very cool build! Can't wait to find out more about it's history back to '42.

 

[Pappy B]

So about two weeks after those pictures I closed on the Garage. Then one week after A great friend of mine who plays drums in a popular band asked for permission to film a music video in there You don't see any of the Garage throughout but some of it is in a good portion of the video near the end. Take a look its pretty cool. Oh, btw the truck is his 69 GMC long bed. We've been doing little mods to it here and there it keeps getting cooler and cooler!

Here is the link to the you tube video

 

[Pappy B]

The Picture above is the area which you will see the band playing in after I cleaned it. To see the video click the link. Its you tube.

 

[patrickg20]

Your new garage looks good in the video. I really like the patina on the walls. Are you planning on painting them?

 

[Bert_]

Cool building, it looks pretty original which is cool. Looks like a little cleaning will go a long ways, lots of potential.


Not that most of you will care but a few of those lights are period correct if not original, kind of rare and very cool in my opinion.

I like it!

 

[Pappy B]

Your new garage looks good in the video. I really like the patina on the walls. Are you planning on painting them?

Thank you. I love the walls. There are some cracks. I plan on carefully filling the cracks bot not painting them. I may try and find some type of clear sealer though.

 

[Pappy B]

Cool building, it looks pretty original which is cool. Looks like a little cleaning will go a long ways, lots of potential.


Not that most of you will care but a few of those lights are period correct if not original, kind of rare and very cool in my opinion.

I like it!

Thanks! I plan on keeping all the lights and upgrading them to LED bulbs. I also found some more of the same style that I will be retrofitting as well.

The hangout room will have a industrial wood and metal feel where the couches and pool table go.

 

[Bert_]

Thanks! I plan on keeping all the lights and upgrading them to LED bulbs. I also found some more of the same style that I will be retrofitting as well.

Whatever works for you. Personally I'd find some newer fixtures to retrofit to LED and not hack these ones up, a couple of them look pretty nice. The one over the bench is probably from the 40's and the 4 lamp 8'ers on the ceiling might be 50's or early 60's.

I'm a bit biased though, I have a bit of a hobby finding and restoring some of that old stuff, it was well built in those days. Many of the ones I find from the 40's and 50's are all original and work like new with new bulbs or starters (the little ~1" round metal cans on preheat fixtures).

 

[Pappy B]

Would you suggest painting? or how do you restore? I really didn't give them a whole lot of thought. Didn't realize they were possibly as old as the garage. This is why i have started this for good ideas!

 

[Bert_]

Would you suggest painting? or how do you restore? I really didn't give them a whole lot of thought. Didn't realize they were possibly as old as the garage. This is why i have started this for good ideas!

I paint some if the paint is too bad. Check wiring, heatshrink or replace sections if necessary. Sometimes the lamp sockets are broken and need fixed. If they're bent I do my best to straighten them, I'm no body man though.

I realize most people don't have any love for this stuff, but for me it's the same as other old / vintage shop equipment. I like some of the led's, and have nothing against the decent ones, but I won't gut older nice fixtures in order to use them. Lights like this aren't real practical if you want 100 footcandles, you would need quite a few and I never find many matching lights, but they are great for task lighting.

This is one I picked up not to long ago. I think I will paint the inside of the reflector and one corner is bent. So far the only thing I did was put a different cord and bulbs in it, the rest is original. Ballast is stamped "DEC 17 1947" 70 years old and still kickin! I'd like to see the sam's club lights do that. With good bulbs in it, it is pretty bright.

I'm looking forward to the cleanup and progress on the building! I'll be following along as you dig into it. The music video was pretty cool. I thought it seemed pretty professional.

 

[Pappy B]

I paint some if the paint is too bad. Check wiring, heatshrink or replace sections if necessary. Sometimes the lamp sockets are broken and need fixed. If they're bent I do my best to straighten them, I'm no body man though.

I realize most people don't have any love for this stuff, but for me it's the same as other old / vintage shop equipment. I like some of the led's, and have nothing against the decent ones, but I won't gut older nice fixtures in order to use them. Lights like this aren't real practical if you want 100 footcandles, you would need quite a few and I never find many matching lights, but they are great for task lighting.

This is one I picked up not to long ago. I think I will paint the inside of the reflector and one corner is bent. So far the only thing I did was put a different cord and bulbs in it, the rest is original. Ballast is stamped "DEC 17 1947" 70 years old and still kickin! I'd like to see the sam's club lights do that. With good bulbs in it, it is pretty bright.

I'm looking forward to the cleanup and progress on the building! I'll be following along as you dig into it. The music video was pretty cool. I thought it seemed pretty professional.

So I love the way your thinking about these lights. I typically try and save as much history as possible on buildings when I can. I just really never gave these old lights any credit! I think I will revisit my lighting situation! I will grab more pics of what I have!

 

[Pappy B]

Here are some pictures with my 1940 Ford COE inside the garage. One of the main reasons why I bought the garage. Check out the work lights Bert!

 

[Bert_]

That's a cool truck, we NEED more pic's! It's much more interesting than the usual 1/2 ton short bed pickup's. What are the plans for it?

Looks like you've been cleaning, the garage is looking better already!

I'm glad you share a little bit of my enthusiasm for the lights. I will admit I'm a bit of a nut.

 

[rubberrodder]

This is gonna be another good one! subscribed!

 

[Pappy B]

So Bert has me excited about the florescent lights which he mentions could possibly be vintage and period correct if not the originals! Here are some more pictures of them. I did notice that they have old starters in them that I can still buy online cheap!

 

[Pappy B]

more of the old shop lights

 

[Bogdan M.]

That is going to be an epic thread!
Congrats!

 

[don long]

Congrats on your new venture and thanks for sharing it with us
I really like the coe it has style
I'll be watching your progress as I have a 30s garage inside my garage that is scheduled to get a facelift soon

 

[Pappy B]

Now That is cool!

 

[Pappy B]

So this is my first real Garage! Even though it is still under rehab (and will be for a long time to come) I love going there to work on it. I love the possibilities, The character that this place has and the history of a garage from the past make it a very relaxing place to be! I slip on some good outlaw country music and just do whatever project I want and lose my self constantly in that moment! Any one else get that feeling in the project garages?

 

[don long]

I'm in my garage every day with 60's music blowing out of my surround sound and more projects than one man needs. But it's my choice what gets done for the day. I have enough equipment and supplies that I seldom have to leave and go shopping. I manage to get in a good 10 hours a day of pleasure from my piece of heaven

 

[redisthefastestcolour]

So this is my first real Garage! Even though it is still under rehab (and will be for a long time to come) I love going there to work on it. I love the possibilities, The character that this place has and the history of a garage from the past make it a very relaxing place to be! I slip on some good outlaw country music and just do whatever project I want and lose my self constantly in that moment! Any one else get that feeling in the project garages?

That's great!

My congratulations!

I would leave as much as possible untouched, would only clean it and repair, what is neccesary. So you are keeping the unique character of your garage.

Could you fix the water issue?

BTW: It's great, that you love my grandpa's memorial garage too.

 

[Pappy B]

That's great!

My congratulations!

I would leave as much as possible untouched, would only clean it and repair, what is neccesary. So you are keeping the unique character of your garage.

Could you fix the water issue?

BTW: It's great, that you love my grandpa's memorial garage too.

I will know today about the water.

On a sour note I have been having some anxiety issues the past few days from a call I received Friday. A developer has offered me 5 times what I paid for the garage which is pretty significant $. I could take the $ and buy another old 1958 gas station not far from this one or I could buy 4000sf garage in a worse neighborhood. and still pocket alot of money. I hate this because the $ is good but the love I have for this 1942 garage history and stories this place has is great! Its tearing me up inside!

any good thoughts from afar?

 

[MacTexas]

I will know today about the water.

On a sour note I have been having some anxiety issues the past few days from a call I received Friday. A developer has offered me 5 times what I paid for the garage which is pretty significant $. I could take the $ and buy another old 1958 gas station not far from this one or I could buy 4000sf garage in a worse neighborhood. and still pocket alot of money. I hate this because the $ is good but the love I have for this 1942 garage history and stories this place has is great! Its tearing me up inside!

any good thoughts from afar?

Follow the money and buy the 1958 station.

 

[driftpin]

Did you research if the gas tanks hsve been removed before you bought it? Cleanup on a site like that could run to > the property cost.

Sell it. Take the $ & get another one, but check about the underground storage tanks, first!

You could probably sell it w/the condition that you have X days to salvage anything, if it's being demo'ed.