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

[Denwood]

Glenn, thanks for the props When we purchased our home it got a ton of work, so now we're on round 2. Then the Cinevate project, 3 yrs back, (net zero'ish 9500 sq/ft renovation) took 10 months and a scary sum of $$. Did I take flak on the garage build. Absolutely!

So the good news for the Missus is that she's driving for the next few years. Ha.

D, I saw a Wilton trailer hitch mount vise at our goto industrial supply house and immediately thought of you. I did a welding repair for my father in law last night and was reminded that my portable work bench project needs some love. The hitch mount system you had linked to earlier for bench grinder, vice etc is smart.

My six yr old and I took a stroll whilst the eldest was horse back riding a few warm days ago (snowflakes this morning!!) and came back with several wood ticks onboard..unbeknownst to us for a day. Climate change has brought deer ticks and therefore Lyme disease here over the last few years. Got the call today from the health unit that our "friends" submitted for examination were indeed wood ticks and not carriers. It was a nice phone call to get. Believe it or not, my first experience with wood ticks. Perhaps another point for old man winter...no ticks when it's freezing.

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: I've never seen a wood tick and i think only one of my kids had head lice. we don't get many bugs here. i actually quit killing all the spiders outside our house about 10 years ago so they can put webs up to catch the no see ums and we get a few mosquitoes. happy to hear you found the ticks because I've heard they can imbed and need to be surgically removed sometimes.

your work space sounds nice because i think you mentioned the heat bills are next to nothing for 9,500 square feet. from the pictures you posted of it and your staff it looks like a great place to work too.

i'm still asking questions about my old 1978 Ford C800 truck and getting a lot of information that might be a good read if you are thinking or wanting a big truck for your company. take a look and maybe give some input if you have some because a lot of good posts so far.

cheers

 

[Denwood]

Drive, the truck is very cool. The single cab design is pretty unique I figure. It is a monstrous restore project if you choose to go that route.

I almost did my honors thesis in bio on an arachnids-related subject. Always been fascinated with them, and make a point of making sure my kids appreciate their role in our ecosystems. One of our shooters took a few macro video clips of a jumping spider a few yrs back. You can identify the family by their two extra anterior eyes.

http://www.denniswood.org/images/rinkyweb.mov

 

[Vieux]

Great shot of a spider! I also filmed a similar spider.

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: nice picture and you too Vieux. you both might not believe this, but when i was working on my front yard for two summers the first summer i had to go down the side of the house several times each day with a camellia bush on one side and rhody and a fence on the other with 3 feet of path. so every morning i'd go to open the gate and get a face full of spider web because one or two of the spiders made a new web that night across the path.

so here's where it gets a bit weird. i decided i liked the spiders a heckuva lot better than the no seem um bugs that were in my face all day in the sunshine so here's what i did. instead of barreling through the webs i found the end of the web going across my sidewalk and put one or two spiders on one side let's say in the camellia bush and the other one or two on the side of the rhody (Washington flower like what's in Mirry's box in my sig). ok after 4 days of moving them and telling them to stay on their sides they did. it's been almost 4 years and i have yet to have a spider web in my face walking down the path and i see them in the bushes. funny, weird, strange you name it.

so if any of them happen to get inside my house i have to kill them on site or my wife will. I've tried to save a few without my wife seeing me, but she actually leaves the ones outside alone now.

cheers and yes no BS and a true story. maybe if we all quit killing all the spiders the mosquitoes and no see ums population would decrease.

have a great weekend

 

[JohnnieMo]

I can't wait till all my garage construction is done I can spend my time working on cars and photographing spiders....

 

[Denwood]

Tonight, no photos..just helping my brother in his shop (and perhaps a few beverages) getting his fishing boat sorted out for the long weekend here

So an interesting work week as we launched a new product..Modo. Wind-up time lapse motion control. There will be some very cool motion time lapse shots from the shop coming to this thread

https://vimeo.com/127937375

 

[Strouty]

That is very cool, not as cool as the garage, but still cool.

 

[Denwood]

Thank's Strout. My current day job here at Cinevate was 100% the result of work done in the shop (as messy as it was) 11 years back, developing some new equipment to take more "filmic" looking video of our newborn daughter. I had posted up at dvxuser.com with some footage and the offer to make a few extra Brevis35 shallow depth of field lens adapters for others. I only wanted to make one of the devices for myself which required CNC machining, carbon fiber etc. so a small production run made sense. Within two hours 12 folks had deposited $500 each in our Paypal account..and the rest, as they say, is history. Now that we have a dedicated home with a 3D printer, and access to whiz bang 7 axis CNC machines, not too many prototypes are done in the garage. I did spend some time there over the weekend though sorting out some bearing fitment challenges on the clockwork time lapse system you see in the video.

 

[Bassfishing54]

Dennis,
I know what you mean about a lot of work and $$! Been there and done that with 2 custom homes and 2 remodels in 40 years.

I see the passion you put into your shop in the Cinevate products also. Well done!
Glenn

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: awesome story about a guy pursuing his passion and making a living helping others pursue theirs. since i'm looking at all your time lapse and other cool videos can you tell me what the purpose of the moving camera is on the time lapse versus the stationary? nice platform you made BTW.

 

[Denwood]

Glenn, those are kind words indeed. We work to such a high tolerance with respect to our gear (+- .001" or better), I always feel a bit crude even cutting a piece of wood with a chop saw. Ha. The nice thing about doing almost 100% of our manufacturing domestically is that we can focus on consistent quality at a very high standard.

Drive, movement during a time-lapse is essentially the same creative tool as for real-time movement. When we want to get closer to something, we move closer. In the camera world, that's a push (dolly forward). When we see a an epic landscape we turn our heads (panning the camera). So most movement is an attempt to put the viewer into the scene as organically as possible. Time lapse is a temporal compression, but we can treat camera movement the same way. Hyper-lapse is another newish technique which is basically a spatial compression. One of our local time lapse gurus locally did time lapse, hyper lapse and dolly movements while he enjoyed unusually free access to these Mayan ruins.

https://vimeo.com/118376695

With the time lapse gear, it gets pretty amazing when we add in multi-axis with pan and tilt happening at the same time as dolly movements. I'll post up some of these as we progress with the gear. The lower cost Modo gear I figure will make for some very interesting shop timelapses.

 

[Strouty]

Thanks for sharing Dennis. I have enjoyed all the posts, but the garage truss redo makes you my current idol. The time lapse stuff is a hobby I enjoy. I am only playing with go pro cameras for now. I hope to end up with a much better time lapse camera in the future.

 

[bonecrrusher]

Dennis - totally OT.

In that Mayan video - at the end they have a shot of the stars - how do they do it?

I'm seeing it tv commercials, etc.

 

[Bassfishing54]

Dennis,
I understand the part of cutting precisely with a chop saw! You really want a tough one, do some trim that is stained and not painted. Can't hide the cut flaws like they do painted trim, so it requires the chop saw and some fine tuning with a small block plane to get real tight joints. Takes some patience and practice, but well worth the reward.
Glenn

 

[Denwood]

Bone, this was the technique used (AfterEffects) http://petapixel.com/2014/08/14/how...ails-in-nightsky-astrophotography-timelapses/

 

[Sunbimmer]

I too love the passion in everything you are doing. I really appreciate that in a person and am a bit jealous too.
Real cool vids, thanks for sharing

 

[Denwood]

Thanks Sun. Sometimes I think the line between OCD and passion is a fine one

A past project was this 84 Scirocco which I owned for 24 yrs. It was stock when I purchased it, but ended up heavily modified for autocross with a 2.0 liter built motor, QUAIFE TBD, adjustable suspension etc. It was my daily driver, and a wonderfully visceral drive. It was also the first car painted in the shop. Over the last 8-9 yrs, it was sitting in my driveway not being driven much, so I passed it on to an enthusiast from Toronto area who flew up and drove it back. He sent me this pic last night..still looking very cool. Zac is pretty awesome about sending me pics and updates as he begins restoration of the car.

And from the archive, a pic of your's truly at the helm about 18 yrs ago...

 

[1/2 Cup]

I too love the passion in everything you are doing. I really appreciate that in a person and am a bit jealous too.
Real cool vids, thanks for sharing

I can only echo Sunbimmer's sentiment and many thanks for sharing.

Regards

 

[dubber]

Nice rocco. It is cool knowing that your old ride is being treated well. Something i'm always curious about with all of my old cars.

 

[Denwood]

1/2, i think I've a new "home" on the internet here on the journal

Dub, my wife referred to the Scirocco sale as an adoption. Ha. I put many hours over the years into building the car so was really happy the new owner has fresh passion for the project.

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: since you had that Scirocco before your lift and your garage updated and organized were you working on it out in the -30 degree weather in your driveway? or were you at another house or leasing a shop? nice picture or you racing around the cones. is the Audi faster than the Scirocco was or is it more of a family car?

very cool story how you became the head dishwasher too for a product you seem to really love.

have a great weekend.

 

[Denwood]

Drive, 100% of the work I did on the Scirocco was in the shop as it existed here:

The Audi is definitely a grocery getter, but its TDI engine delivers 50 mpg (US) at 65 mph...so satisfies my personal "carbon imprint" goal of +40 mpg on the daily driver. Even flogging around town, it averages 37 mpg. It's effortless and quiet at cruise with a 6 speed DSG, so 100% more relaxing to drive than the older car was. That said, the Scirocco would pretty much eat the A3 for lunch, performance wise, and cornered in excess of 1G with the autocross tires on and all the suspension/chassis mods.

So with a nice clean shop, I guess I'll need to find another project soon. There's lots going on with the house. We just agreed on a quote to remove the upper story cedar shakes (very old) and replace with "HardiePlank", a concrete based product. That means I'll need to remove and restructure the rather authentic porch attached to the house in the next month or so. I also have a 25x12 deck to replace...

 

[sublime68charger]

Drive, 100% of the work I did on the Scirocco was in the shop as it existed here:

The Audi is definitely a grocery getter, but its TDI engine delivers 50 mpg (US) at 65 mph...so satisfies my personal "carbon imprint" goal of +40 mpg on the daily driver. Even flogging around town, it averages 37 mpg. It's effortless and quiet at cruise with a 6 speed DSG, so 100% more relaxing to drive than the older car was. That said, the Scirocco would pretty much eat the A3 for lunch, performance wise, and cornered in excess of 1G with the autocross tires on and all the suspension/chassis mods.

So with a nice clean shop, I guess I'll need to find another project soon. There's lots going on with the house. We just agreed on a quote to remove the upper story cedar shakes (very old) and replace with "HardiePlank", a concrete based product. That means I'll need to remove and restructure the rather authentic porch attached to the house in the next month or so. I also have a 25x12 deck to replace...

The grape gone but not forgotten

Monthly support meeting third sunday of the month at denwoods place.

Talk and story's of cars gone to soon,
Err that is held on for to long.

Great work Denwood

 

[runt262]

Thanks Sun. Sometimes I think the line between OCD and passion is a fine one

A past project was this 84 Scirocco which I owned for 24 yrs. It was stock when I purchased it, but ended up heavily modified for autocross with a 2.0 liter built motor, QUAIFE TBD, adjustable suspension etc. It was my daily driver, and a wonderfully visceral drive. It was also the first car painted in the shop. Over the last 8-9 yrs, it was sitting in my driveway not being driven much, so I passed it on to an enthusiast from Toronto area who flew up and drove it back. He sent me this pic last night..still looking very cool. Zac is pretty awesome about sending me pics and updates as he begins restoration of the car.

And from the archive, a pic of your's truly at the helm about 18 yrs ago...

What a small world!!! I was riding in your old Scirocco last year when Zac stopped by my house! I went to school with Zac and he is treating that car like it should be. Looks like he is tearing that car apart.

Just such a small world. I haven't been too updated on GJ too much, come back and see your thread, and read a story about your old rocco. Starting thinking that it sounded very familiar...
That old VW of yours is in good hands. Shop looks great by the way!

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: just imagine how much faster your old Scirocco would have been if you had had your new lift and shop like it is today? didn't you raise the roof in your garage originally so you could work on your VW van? i guess you did so you could finish it up before selling it.

when you start missing your past cars feel free to email me and i'll help you through the grieving process or Sub has regular meeting set up if you can wait.

so far i haven't heard anything horrible about Hardy board so probably the best choice if you are not going to use real wood.

best of luck with the remodeling and take plenty of pictures to post and show us the progress.

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: you always seem to find deals so if you can find decking called Ironwood that is the product i'm pretty sure i'm going to build my deck on the last house i build and own. here's an old consumer reports link to get you started http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/.../overview/iron-woods-ipe-decking-99015159.htm


i'm going to replace my current deck surface with cedar mostly because i already own about half of what i need to do the project and because i'm planning on selling our home in the next 5 years and the younger crowd seems to like cedar.

or if you find a better product for your decking that will be in almost every temperature as well as wet and dry then do tell when you do.

 

[Denwood]

Runt, 6 degrees of separation indeed

Drive, thanks for posting up that link. It's good to see CR is doing a test ..I'll likely sign back up just to read the report.

 

[Denwood]

So rather off topic, but business finds us in New York this week. My business manager and I scooped last minute stubhub tickets for Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden. At 66, Mr. Joel is still selling out MSG...and sounding amazing!

Having a choice between the 5.1 system in the shop, vs Madison Square Garden, I'd say pretty impressive performance for MSG

 

[sublime68charger]

awesome pictures and that must have been a great time at the garden.

thanks for sharing,

gonna have to pull up some Billy Joel Piano man today and listen to

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: it's still Rock 'N' Roll to me!! i haven't been to a concert since Boston played in Las Vegas in the mid 70's. thanks for sharing and sounds like you had a great time.

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: this awesome thread needs to be closer to the top because others need to see how a very handy guy can make his 1.5 car garage a very nice working shop/garage.

hope you made it back from the Big Apple without any incidents. i'm still humming Billy Joel songs every now and then and i don't listen to music hardly ever anymore. maybe i should.

Hoping all is well up in the land of the sunshine now that the winter's snow has left your town.

my little furry friend's area is getting closer to being finished and planning on putting a row of red bricks around the cement pad. my new cedar fence i hope is starting next week and new cement driveway is getting some bids because it might be a bit bigger than i can do myself.

 

[Denwood]

Drive, thanks for posting It looks like you've been very busy with the yard projects. I'm back from the Big Apple and right back into the craziness. I've been scooting around setting up for the HardiePlank reclad of the house, remove/rebuild of the porch, and a complete replacement of 12x25ft deck out back with composite. My general take on this stuff is to read a bit, look at a lot of google images, talk to local suppliers, plan, then jump in with both feet. I think a back lane/garage christening party might be in order

Now that the weather is nice, I figure it's also time to terminate/connect the CAT5 cables I buried with the gas lines out to the shop (8 yrs ago!) and set up wall mounted computer to add to the sound system. The powerline network works, but drops out every now and then.

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: How do your neighbors and friends like the garage now? i bet the guys in the alley that didn't see you much or at all this winter are amazed.

good luck finding old buried wire and i have to do some of that sort of stuff myself soon. some i put out a couple years ago for lighting and power in the front yard and when i get the backyard set up I've had some underground wire dead ended and waiting for some love for maybe 20 years now.

cheers and hope all is well in your world.

BTW is the GO PRO camera holder your idea and are you the patent holder of that unit? i'm seeing more and more of that type of unit being used in everyday life. i just went to your website and didn't see Go Pro in your products list so typed in Go Pro in the search which pulls up a google type page and go pro with your company's name and web pages show up. i suppose if you know what you are looking for your product list is awesome, but those old guys and gals looking for Go Pro because we heard it was the best maybe a category or some mention of it might help us. or maybe i missed it?

 

[Denwood]

Drive, our Morpheus stabilizer/dolly does have a few patents related to it, but is more of a film/making "Swiss army knife" for Gopro as it incorporates dolly moves, stabilizer functions, stand, and soon motion time lapse (3 axis!) for Gopro, smartphones and small cameras. It's at www.denniswood.org/morpheus

The shop has become a bit of a novelty. The fellow who dropped off the deck supplies grilled me for a good 15 minutes on it. The guys from the sailboat (38ft IMX 38) I crew on have suggested a crew party to christen the garage...not a bad idea. Right now the shop is a staging ground for a new 3 level composite deck I'm building before the Hardy board siding crew shows up. The yard is a bit of a disaster, however the old deck is already gone, and footings nearing completion for level 1. I learned my lesson from the shop project and took a few before pics this time.

The house is nearly 100 yrs old, so plenty of projects to do. You can evidence of the attic spray foam and rear structural work. The Hardy Board siding and composite rear deck will really pretty things up.

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: i hope the delivery guy 'grilled" you in a good way with compliments instead of letting you know what you might of or could have done different. in my book you were over the top on everything you did.

yes have the gang over for a party in the alley and maybe put up a project on the lift so they can see it in action and maybe help do some work.

does that electrical junction box under the deck get any power? OH BOY what a place to put that sort of thing if it does. nice find and happy it didn't burn your house down.

the new materials look great and can't wait to see what they look like after you do your magic and screw or nail them together.

cheers

 

[Denwood]

Drive, everyone so far has liked the shop as it is Considering I've pressure washed the old deck right over that junction box, it's surprising I was never shocked.

The composite decking is grooved on each side, so I'll be trying out mantis clips and a pneumatic gun to apply them. The deck surface will have no visible fasteners, or penetrations. I'll post a few pics.

 

[drivesitfar]

Woody: so it does have power? helluva place for a junction box and one that isn't waterproof or even closed up.

yes please post up a few or several pictures of the nailing of your deck because my wife doesn't want to see any nails or screws on our new deck surface replacement that is on the Honey Do list of mine. or maybe try out your time lapse video too of your deck build?

good luck

 

[rostius]

Awesome garage tune up!! I'm just starting my 18x24 shop and this has given me lots of ideas!! I'm just around Alliston and did the bike ride to TB a few years ago...nice area!

Where did you get the product for the floor finish? I'm doing radiant heating so I think that would work perfect

Rostius

 

[Denwood]

Drive, for sure. Here's a YouTube video of the Mantis clip system I'm using:

Rostius, glad you found some ideas Radiant heat and a well insulated shop would be nice indeed. I purchased the increte stain/sealer locally from KAM industrial. If you are doing a new slab and keeping some heat in it, I'd go with a decent 100% solids epoxy. The white floor would be easier to clean if the pits had been filled with an epoxy slurry first.