Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT Woody's Works Garage

[bonecrrusher]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

That PVC pipe is a great idea!

***** your pad was less then 2" thick!

Keep us posted with updates.

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Algoma, hope he's staying warm We're just dropping below freezing now at night..so the heat's on for the new slab. Bone, thanks for the kind words..presenting today's update! I've been posting these pics in a maxjax thread, but will stick them here here as well for reference. The pour today went pretty quick. If you're doing a slab, I'd highly recommend renting the agitator. It vibrates the concrete and makes it flow like syrup. I know with 100% confidence that the concrete has completely enveloped the lower rebar, and flowed completely into key in under the old slab. We had the chute from the concrete truck sitting right over the hole, so the agitator also helped spread things out with zero effort. I made up a quick skree from 1"x3" aluminum channel (4 ft long) to level the slab, then slicked it up a bit with a 14"x4" trowel. It's my first concrete finish..strangely satisfying to play with

 

[earthworks]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

hey Denwood, I'm from Thunder Bay also, started reading your thread and the reference to Unitized truss manufacturer clued me into your location. A coincidence since I was in talking with Luke today... they are great to work with. Your "backlane garage culture" reminds me of a friends place in westfort. I dug the hole for my garage slab a couple days ago, I'm racing the freezing night temps right now as I'm also trying to finish up a couple other jobs before the end of the season.
Anyhow, I'm wondering who did your insulation as I'm building with attic trusses and would consider spraying the rafters as you did if the price was right.
By the way, great job on your ridge beam, cool solution.

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Cool man Luke...just saw him in Toronto at the Vistek Profusion show

Thunder Bay Insulation did the spray foam and blow in insulation at Cinevate, so I've used them since for spray foam on my own projects. Not cheap, but it's hard to argue with the air sealing/vapour barrier qualities inherent. When you own a 100 year old house, spray foam is your friend. Thanks for the kind words Good luck with your build.

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Many hours of clean up later...we're making progress. Drilled the holes today for the MaxJax, but it's too soon to set the epoxy anchors. The nice thing about pouring a slab is if you planned right, no rebar to hit, and full depth holes for each anchor. I just chalked a center line down the slab, marked each MaxJax base for center line, and measured three times. Pilot holes weren't required..I just used the Maxjax base as the drill guide, hammer drilled for 10-20 seconds in each hole, moved the base and finished each hole with the 7/8" bit. Easy peasy.

Drywall should be done next week so the floor epoxy process and Kee-clamp organizing can start.



This was just two weeks ago..ha

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

I usually use Microsoft Visio for 2D planning. 3D, particularly in a garage is very useful, but comes with a learning curve, and/or price tag. The easiest 3D tool I've used to date is free, and works using Chrome, Firefox, or IE. Ikea's planner might have you thinking that kitchens are the only thing you can visualize, but you can see here that my shop planning actually works very nicely too. I'm not necessarily using Ikea cabinets..the tool though makes setting up in 2D/3D with a learning curve near zero. The hoist columns are modeled adding "obstruction-wall column", garage door using a "resizable wall opening" benches added using wall mount tables, etc. A very useful tool, and deserves awards for how crazy easy it is to use. I tried at lease one dedicated garage planner but quickly ran into Internet Explorer issues with their setup. The Ikea software works nicely on Firefox, Chrome, and IE 11, both MAC and PC.

 

[Periodic]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

creative use of the Ikea design center that's for sure. Awesome garage, and great turn around!

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Kind words indeed Per. I'll admit that this forum has inspired a lot more of a shop build than originally intended

 

[DarrenF]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Good Job

Nice to see some guys from Thunder Bay on here.

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

I suspect there's a few Darren. Thanks for the kind words.

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Finally, the hoist is working. I'll wait until tomorrow to torque the mounting bolts as the epoxy anchors will need 24 hours to cure.

There were some large burrs left inside the jack column (sloppy hole punches where the safety bar goes) which would have taken some material off the guides if left. I also clamped the end of the column to take up a fair bit of play before attaching the end brace, and tacking it with a quick MIG weld to make sure the end column stays put. This will help to keep vehicles level at full hoist height.

 

[bonecrrusher]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Love how you wall mounted the power unit - I assume your going to be keeping the MaxJax installed at all times?

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

B, thanks for dropping in. The only thing I'll likely move are the columns..and they have the hydraulic quick disconnects. The shop is used for painting from time to time, so in that case the columns will go against the wall. The shop project has really just begun. My insulated fancy pants roll up door should be here in a few days. Was shipped from smartgarage.ca on Wednesday . It's dropping below freezing at night now, so epoxy may have to wait.

This was my last paint job done in the shop:

 

[Strouty]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

I am glad I saw this build, I have been thinking of doing something very similar to my shop. I know you are in Canada, so things may be different for me here in the US. Did you have to pay for engineering or did the company that supplied the materials design it for you? I have been planning on hiring an engineer, but if I could find a company to do the engineering for me it would save me $1,500 or more.

Back on track…..

The build is looking very nice, I am a tad bit jealous.

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Strout, this forum sparked off this build, so glad I could throw some ideas in the pile

The truss manufacturer ran all the numbers on the roof work. They normally do this if you purchase from them. In this case I wasn't buying trusses, but they did provide, cut and deliver the Versalam beams. On my business warehouse reno, we did require engineered/stamped drawings for structure, mechanical and electrical. On a residential job you just need to work to code, and pass inspection (if you are going the permit route). In this case I approached Unitized manufacturing locally, gave them my current build details and asked them to ensure all of the beams etc would meet code here. We do get high snow loads, so guess work would be risky. We're exceeding code at this point with all of the work.

 

[Strouty]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Thanks for the info Denwood. I will talk with the local supplier and see what they would provide. If I go with the engineer, I will be using heavy metal trusses to act as the ridge beam. I all ready have them from a project that never happened, so I would save some on materials. I am in Maine, so we have some snow load too, probably not as much as you get though. Did you do any temporary supports when cutting out the trusses?

This entire thread is getting me really excited! Please keep posting updates.

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

The truss ties weren't doing much (no snow right now) so I left the middle two in place until after the ridge beam was up. I wouldn't do this work in the winter (or would shovel off all snow first) as the snow load would have been a big challenge. My neighbor actually had first hand experience of the results of cutting truss ties in winter. Apparently it took 3 days, cable and winches to correct the exterior wall outward bulge...

Found a local outfit clearing out a ton of industrial office cabinets...score. I will certainly keep the updates coming. Halloween and kids snookered the first lift on the hoist. Tomorrow is another day.

 

[drivesitfar]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Denwood: nice thread. i was surprised looking at the title that you did raise your ceiling height the way you did. looks like it will work nicely for your needs. i really liked the old doors on your garage, but at -30 degrees in the winter i bet the new insulated ones will be nice. we just put insulated doors on our 2 single car garage doors and it made a 10-20 degree difference and we haven't even hit winter here in Seattle yet.

I was also surprised to see a 2 inch concrete floor in your old garage, but if your home is 100 years old most of the garages built back then were more like sheds. very nice lift installation and nice trick keeping the dust down while you beat out the old concrete.

i saw your Van video and that thing looks brand new. hard to tell it's not and surprising because of your harsh climate where you live. i also noticed your lawn sharpening video and was expecting a way to file and all you did was brush on some paste and it was a done deal. by the way very professional looking YouTube videos and are you doing that on your phone or do you have a camera that hooks up to your computer for editing?

best of luck getting the new garage doors in and the organizing which seems like i'm doing all the time.

 

[CNGsaves]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Great job transforming your small shop to handle MaxJack lift. Concrete work and laminated beam for roof were top notch !!

For future reference, what width would you recommend the buried PVC in concrete ?? Looks like you could have gone several inches wider on both sides ??

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

CNG, thanks for your reading through the thread..I appreciate your kind words. Doing it again, I'd do the conduit exits spaced at 120" on center. The columns are 128" apart, measured from the back of each base plate. That would avoid the arms completely. It's been a lot of work, but worth it.

Drive, it's not often I see such a thorough read! You made some great observations and asked questions that deserve a bit of off-topic wandering. I'll be doing a little video review of the roll up door/side operator/remote from SmartGarage.ca which claims to be an R27 door. The current hangar doors are leaky like crazy, so looking forward to the upgrade. The shop I suspect was built in the 70s, and the previous owner was a contractor..go figure.

The youtube vids are not nearly to the level that we do at Cinevate (which need to very professional..our customers are film-makers!) but I do have some fun with them. Both of them were very minimal for gear. This is the setup for the Fiskars reel mower sharpening vid (hard to believe it has 30K plays!) The camera is a Sony RX100 which also takes very nice HD video. This is something we'd never use in our studio typically, but in our quest to enable "light weight film-making" I think it's pretty awesome.



and this one for the Westfalia van video using our Morpheus and a GoPro camera. You might call the videos experiments in terms of using very inexpensive gear to do decent productions.

We ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to do "Morpheus" (a multi-platform stabilizer) so the videos are more or less me playing with the gear. I edit normally using Adobe Premiere Pro, but we shot and edited this commercial using only an iPhone and Morpheus:

this commercial

Back on topic. What a sight to see the little TDI up on the hoist today!..first lift. Westy is next once the work on the A3 is done. The car on the hoist is surprisingly solid. I was expecting more movement..there's very little. I'll still be using low rise, stands, but this first lift was excellent. In my younger years as a part time job, I serviced hundreds of Bell telephone vehicles on two and four post lifts in their commercial garage...this little lift (with tweaks) is excellent. It's slow as molasses to lift, but that's OK on a 110V pump and home lift. The A3 diesel is just under 3000lbs.

 

[drivesitfar]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Denwood: i'd like to learn more about your video making, but i'll PM you and keep your thread on target with the garage rebuild and organizing. awesome that the lift is working like it should and holding your Audi already.

since it looks like you don't have a ton of space here are a couple ideas i'm using to help with my space issues. i bought some commercial racks because i can put my work bench or carts under it and not have a rail at the floor level. it will also work for lawnmowers and other things.

also I'm going to make a steel bench that has trailer hitch type attachments to put my vises and grinders in when i want to use them and back on a shelf when i don't.

I'm looking forward to seeing the progress on your shop and hearing how the roof holds up when the huge amount of snow is sitting on it. by the way i forgot to mention, but that is a very impressive way to insulate the ceiling.

cheers

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Drive, thanks for the pics and suggestions. The shop is pretty much a blank slate, so my starting point was the Ikea 3D drawings I posted back a few posts so I can visualize everything. I think work surfaces like your wheeled table are perfect. I will likely build a work bench modelled exactly as yours...awesome design! I'm not fully briefed on the vise thing yet, but I know a nice Wilton when I see one! How was your table top done?...I'd guess local machine shop? My plan is to assign the areas under the back window, and right front 8ft to workbenches..on wheels of course.

We built 100% of our assembly workstation and tables over at Cinevate using 2" steel pipe, Kee Klamps, double laminated 3/4" birch plywood with laminate tops, and something like 500 heavy duty castor wheels. My policy there was that absolutely everything must be on wheels, including our inventory shelving, and all desks. We reconfig often, so this wheeled philosophy is key. Everything I build for the little shop reno will be on wheels, and easy to move to a new shop if/when the time comes

Finished the work on the TDI today. (my shop life will now be defined as LBH, and LAH..Life Before Hoist, Life After Hoist). I'm happier than a pig in poo I was able to thoroughly inspect the little diesel for the first time on a hoist, and found a broken rear suspension/CV joint shield, as well as the main exhaust hangar assembly right behind the engine hanging in air. Swapping over to the snow rims/tires was a treat. I can never go back to the floor jack...

Test 2 was the Westfalia, which is lot heavier than our other vehicles.

 

[Sunbimmer]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Now that is one nice Westfalia . There was a time I was thinking of buying one myself....but I didn't....

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Thanks Sun The Westfalia has been in our family now for 15 yrs or so, (almost sold it this fall...my two girls cried for a very long time..so I had to keep it!) and has been a learning project for me. It's running a tuned i4 audi engine instead of the stock boxer so is about 7 seconds faster to 0-60 than stock. That's not saying much really..but 13 seconds is a lot better than 21, ha. Man, a hoist would have been soooo nice for that project.

 

[drivesitfar]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Denwood: i'd like to say that was my welding table i posted for you, but it's another members that showed me how he is able to mount several grinders and vises and then put them on a shelf when they are not in use.

the welding table i'm hoping to build will have that wheeling ability, but it will also be able to pull the wheels up so it can be super stable for welding or vise work. here's the picture of the welding table i want to build that another member here built maybe a year ago.

isn't it great when a plan works. looks like you didn't have much room to spare when your van was on the hoist, but just enough.

by the way if you ever have any vise questions I've learned quite a bit since hanging around the vises of garage journal for the past year or two. feel free to PM me if you do.

good luck with the door install.

 

[Strouty]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Looks damn good! It must feel nice to be able to work under your vehicles and not have to crawl on the floor to do it.

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Strout, pretty awesome indeed. One of the things you don't consider using a creeper is how much time is involved in sliding under/out to grab tools, fasteners etc. When you're scooting around on a stool, it's fast! The other obvious that I didn't consider is how much larger a small shop seems when the floor area is free with a vehicle hoisted. It seems like a ridiculous luxury to have hoist abilities in a small shop

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Well, apparently I'm not the only one hoisting a Westfalia on a MaxJax. This one in Calgary:

 

[drivesitfar]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Denwood: in case you might want to put a covering over your cement floor to warm up your garage when it hits the low temps here's a couple ideas. i bought 3/4 inch thick recycled rubber "horse mats" and covered my home's garage floor with it. at the local feed stores in my area some of them have pallets of these in 4 foot x 6 foot sizing for about $40 each and other than a little hard to cut they don't move much because they weigh about 80 pounds each. I was using mine as a gym, but as I learn more about tools and fixing various things it is probably turning into a shop at home. I have a shop/garage i lease that is 24 x 24, but that is a few miles away for the big stuff i repair and i bought all the one inch thick rubber flooring from a small gym closing last year that i put on it's floor and if i happen to drop something fairly heavy it doesn't damage the cement floor or most times not the piece either.

With your cement floor only being a couple inches thick it might really help to keep it a little warmer in the garage. another idea is the tiling that i see so many of the nicer garages have and some tiles are tougher than actual cement and don't crack even when a sledgehammer is dropped on them.

good luck and again happy to see you had a few inches to spare in height when you got your van up on the new rack to work on it.

 

[bonecrrusher]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Where in the Ikea sketches are the cabinets at?

I drew this up today to make sure all my **** will fit in the new house and garage that I am spec'ing out:

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Drive, yep, it was a close fit up top. I'll have to remove the racks once the 6" extentions for the lift pads show up. The pad unfortunately was never insulated at the foundation walls, nor under. So in terms of keeping it warm, we don't try. I only run the heat when I'm working in there. That said, at my business location we insulated over the existing slab, added 4800 sq ft of radiant, then poured two more inches. It's a nice floor!

Bone, you'll find most cabinets you need under "Kitchen" (drop down menus on the left of the design window), then "Built in Kitchens" ...many sizes to choose from. As you drag them towards the walls they will orient automatically to fit your dimensions.

Under "Kitchen", "Wall panels" you can choose wall colors as well as coverings from the options that will show up on the right side of the design window. I've approximated slat wall with the choices offered.

For the workbenches, I just used wall mounted tables under the "Dining" section as you can slide these up and down to the desired heights when working in 3D view.

For obstacles (like lift columns), I found these under "Room Layout" then "Obstacles".

Surprising how easy it is to use the app, no? If you end up wanting to use some Ikea cabinets, then the "Your selected items" will do a list and pricing..just in case you're curious.

 

[G-Ram]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Stumbled on this thread from the "Do you even lift?" thread. I too live in Thunder Bay Awesome garage transformation!

 

[bonecrrusher]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Yeah - I downloaded the Google SketchUp application - and hated it after 20 minutes I got no where.

Tried the Ikea application - and was able to get my room size correct first try! Messing around with the SketupUp and zooming in and out and not getting the room size correct pissed me off.

Here's my final rendition - has all my tool boxes, benches, air compressor and my Gladiator boxes as well as the SS and the Lexus in there. Just using this to visualize all my **** fitting in there - which looks like it will. The Corvette and left over **** will have to go in the second 21x12 bay we are looking at.

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

G, I think now at least 3 tbay'rs on this forum Must be the frigid winter and the resulting demand for man caves..ha.

Bone, that looks great. IKEA could dominate the simple 3D design world if they expanded on their app. Either way, it's an amazing tool for 3D pre-visualization. We are sorting a kitchen reno using the tool. My daughter will be using same to visualize a room re-org..so a great intro to 3d design for the young ones too.

 

[utahdog2003]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Just watched the Westy vid on YouTube. What an awesome vehicle. Nice work!

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Thanks Mr. Utah As much as I like the Westfalia, I'm still quite partial to the older busses. Thanks for stepping out of the gleaming towers for a visit!

 

[GuyllFyre]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

After seeing all of this, I *NEED* a MaxJax lift!

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

My A3 TDI, now out of warranty, will need an oil change, diesel fuel filter change, and DSG (electronically controlled dual-clutch multiple-shaft manual ... blah blah blah) fluid change this month. The dealer cost here for all of that will be in the $800-900 range..so nearly half the lift cost saved in one go. The DSG fluid change requires a very level car, fluid temp checks with VAG software, etc.

I would not normally have done this in my own shop on jack stands..but with the lift, darn tootin! I'll post up some pics.

So Guy, if you need some buy-in from the Missus, just dazzle her with a few of these jewels of fiscal responsibility

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Hmm. A box showed up today. What could it be?

 

[Denwood]

Re: 8ft to 10ft ceiling in 8 hours, $650 ??

Unveiled! Very impressed with how well this was packed.





Not sure how the door insulation comes close to R27, other than an attempt to quantify its heat reflective properties. The door is seamless, so there are none of the air gaps you would see with a conventional roll up door, or panel door for that matter. A review is coming.



Ready to install on the brackets. Some reading to do first, as this will be my first roll up garage door install. The direct drive electric operator install looks pretty straight forward.