Car on the lower right is a tight squeeze. As pictured, there is space roughly equal to a side mirror between the cabinets and the actual side mirror. Ditto for the driver's side between the MX-5 and the CaddyMaz. Hopefully there's more room in reality, especially for car door opening.
That's one of the dimensions I need to confirm. Going with the 78" shelves would give me an extra 6" there, and the car placement is a bit random really. That stack of shelves between the two doors is one I'll put in if I have room, but leave out if I don't. The original plan was for just one of them as a good place to put the stereo gear.
Spent more time in the shop on Saturday confirming measurements, wandering around and thinking. So here's the current plan. Those three 78" high shelves in the bottom left are just a few inches too long to fit - but they're steel and I have a welder. So they will be made to fit and will retain all the other good attributes. Sorry, no 1" square tube for this. I could put my 3/4 ton diesel on each of these shelves if I took it apart.
I also realized that by mixing and matching shelf parts, I could build shelves that were 48x17 - perfect for going under the windows on the left. There's already a structural member that sticks out 17" from the wall, so I'm not really giving up any corridor room. I also noticed the guy wires on the rear were closer to the back wall so I have a bit of extra room.
Those three 60" shelves between the doors are very much under probation.
I'm at the point now where I can start actually doing things. I'm going to start with those three 78" shelves in the bottom right, as they will allow me to move a massive amount of stuff off the floor.
Here's where we sit right now. There are five cars in the garage (two of them dead) and all the floor space is taken with boxes and disassembled shelves and cabinets and bicycles. The white trailer is also about half full of stuff like spare Buick V8 engines and disassembled shelves and boxes of fasteners, etc.
The new shelving from Home Depot. Approximately $1/lb. "Two man lift", they say on the box. That only works if you can find someone to help you, so I manhandled them around myself. Not so bad, just bulky.
...and that's where we stop, because I had other stuff to do to the house. I'm free on Wednesday, that is when maximum garage chaos is scheduled. I shall move some cars out, move stuff on to shelves, move other stuff around and generally defrag.
Keith Tanner said:The work area in the top left isn't fully thought out. I could stash the Shop Vac beside the blast cabinet so it can do dust collection duties. Interesting idea to put it in the lean-to, though. I kinda like that. I could put a switched outlet in there so I can turn the vac on and off from beside the cabinet. I like that a lot, actually. Done.
A decent sized dust collector is a bit more flexible if you are willing to run some tubing and shut off gates. One neat thing is a floor port. Instead of having to pick up debris with a dust pan, you just sweep everything to the floor port with the vacuum on. Granted, this sort of stuff is mainly designed around wood working shops.
In all of the facilities I work in, the dust collection systems are almost always away from the work area. Partly due to the noise and mostly due to the dirty nature of the cleaning and maintenance. Of course, many of the systems we design cost more than my house (by a lot). Many of them are completely outside, even here in the northeast.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Not to mention the Panamera and the 911.
Ian F said:Keith Tanner said:The work area in the top left isn't fully thought out. I could stash the Shop Vac beside the blast cabinet so it can do dust collection duties. Interesting idea to put it in the lean-to, though. I kinda like that. I could put a switched outlet in there so I can turn the vac on and off from beside the cabinet. I like that a lot, actually. Done.
A decent sized dust collector is a bit more flexible if you are willing to run some tubing and shut off gates. One neat thing is a floor port. Instead of having to pick up debris with a dust pan, you just sweep everything to the floor port with the vacuum on. Granted, this sort of stuff is mainly designed around wood working shops.
In all of the facilities I work in, the dust collection systems are almost always away from the work area. Partly due to the noise and mostly due to the dirty nature of the cleaning and maintenance. Of course, many of the systems we design cost more than my house (by a lot). Many of them are completely outside, even here in the northeast.
Really, the only thing I need dust collection for is clearing the atmosphere in the bead blaster to maintain visibility. The plan is to do woodwork up in the two-car garage attached to the house and keep the sawdust and greasy bits separated for both their benefit. If I do add some real wood tools for that, I'll be coming back for advice on a good hobby setup! I like the floor port, but it's impractical unless I want to tear up the slab.
I think the floor port actually sits on top of the slab, contacting the slab on 3 sides and open on the fourth.
Like so
Duh, that makes more sense. Still, not really applicable to what I'm building at the moment.
Work day today. And I didn't get anywhere near as much done as I wanted due to running errands and a missing tool.
The first set of shelves went up quickly. I had to knock about 2" off the top of the uprights so they could tuck under the 6' high crossbar on the wall, but the sawzall took care of that in short order. These things are not built as well as the full on pallet shelves, but that's not really surprising. They're a big step up from the usual dross.
Second set of shelves was different. More front-rear members so more even support across the shelf. The wire was a bit thinner. Same packaging, though. It also had a mangled upright, but since I'm siamesing these that's not an issue.
Third set of shelves was like the first. And in order to make them fit, I need to shorten the lateral bars by 2.125". No worries, I wired up the welder plug and got ready to stick metal together.
Well, that was the plan. I could not, for the life of me, find my angle grinder. Spent all day searching and trying to think of where it was, but to no avail. I tried to clean off the powdercoat with the belt sander, but it didn't do a good enough job. So the shelf building exercise got put on hold until I can borrow an angle grinder from work. I don't want to load up the shelves I have because I'll need to keep them out from the wall just a little bit to assemble the last ones, and they'll be no fun to move when they're loaded.
Poop.
So I moved on to other things. First, I need space. Cleared some cars out, probably terrifying the neighbors that this was their future.
The MG was stuck at the back of the garage in the middle, right where I wanted to go. I put it up on dollies, dragged it sideways, cleared out a path and manhandled my big 2x4 cabinets to the back.
These have adjustable legs so they can be cornerweighed. I satisfied myself with just leveling them instead.
I learned when unloading them that these cabinets can swallow an immense amount of stuff. For the time being, I just started throwing boxes of their future contents on the shelves. The one on the left will be small parts for the fleet, the one on the right is fluids and painting stuff. A trio of seats went on top. And all of a sudden, the garage started to develop floor space of a sort. That's 60 square feet of shelf space if you include the top.
I also installed the 60" high shelves between the two doors. Just two of them. We'll see if they prove to be in the way, but so far they seem to be good. I had a set of shelves that fit so well they seemed to be custom built and it would be a shame to not use them. It's also a good place for the garage stereo, which has now been installed temporarily. They're also a good temporary working area.
So, some progress today. Not quite the progress I'd originally planned, but it's something. The monster cabinets are in place. The welder is wired and functional. 2/3 of the new 78" shelves are in place. Tunes have been achieved.
Hmmm, so can I ask, who was the Ham operator?
That's my call sign. I took it over after my grandfather died, I used to be VE3EZI. I haven't done anything with it in years.
Keith Tanner said:That's my call sign. I took it over after my grandfather died, I used to be VE3EZI. I haven't done anything with it in years.
The Stage Rally guys are always looking for more radio operators.... And a 2m setup can be had for cheap with all the actually decent Chinese stuff making it to market now
No Stage Rally in CO. And if there were, I wouldn't be sitting on the sidelines watching the cars go by!
It's not a lack of funds or opportunity, it's a lack of interest. I got my licence so I could talk to my grandfather. When he died, I stopped. That was more than 20 years ago. I sold my 2m rig and gave away the big antenna.
Uhhh, last I checked, rally Colorado still runs with rally America. And that's understandable.
Oh, is Rally Colorado still around? I thought that shut down a few years back when it became clear that WRC wasn't going to happen.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
They ran it last year, it was shut down for awhile.
Good friend of mine here in Ontario has been licensed for years, wanted me to get mine but never seemed to get a roundtuit. May still happen someday, will see.
This is a text heavy and picture poor update because I didn't take any pictures. Those of you who grew up in a distracted visual environment will just have to go check Instagram or something.
Spent a bunch of time on this over the weekend. Picked up a new grinder from HF because I can always use a second grinder. Then I had to fix the welder, the feed motor got wonky on me. Pulled it out, attached it to the variable power supply and gave it some exercise. Reassembled, fixed a problem with gas flow - the regulator self-adjusted during the move, it turns out - and finally I'm ready to stick metal together. Argh.
Cut and welded the crossbars on the third set of Husky shelves. That cleared the logjam, I was able to start shoveling parts on to the shelves. Before our move, we took possession of a couple of hundred file boxes - no exaggeration. Turns out you can stack these two deep on 24" deep shelves, so that makes for good organization. Put related items in a box, label the box, box goes on shelf. Looks pretty clean, easy to find stuff. Of course, car stuff being what it is, there's always something that's a bit too long for this to work but fundamentally it's better than having stuff just piled up.
With the floor partially cleared off, I was able to drag one of the peg benches into place. I then dragged the MG out of the work area and dragged the steel welding bench into place. And yes, that's a lot of dragging. Things are starting to come into focus here, I can see how it this will work. I appear to have built myself a fairly decent work area for things like bikes or engine builds.
A few things are becoming obvious. First, I think I'll need more storage. I'm not full up yet and I may be surprised, but I'm thinking I need more. I have the shelving, but the result is that the lift is probably going to have to move sideways. I'll get a bit more built out, then start taping out the floor to get a real-life feel for how it works.
We just got a shipping container as a storage unit at work, and I'm considering picking one up instead of my 4x6 lean-to. 20x8 sounds a lot more appealing. It's a bit more to purchase, but I wouldn't have to build a concrete pad for it and they're considerably less than equivalent size sheds. Turns out you can get "one use" containers that have only made one trip and they're in basically new condition.
I need to put some steel up behind the welding bench, as I'm pretty sure that plastic-backed insulation is going to fare poorly with grinding and arcing going on. I may use steel pegboard so I can mount a few things back there as a bonus.
I've also discovered that it's really hard to attach stuff to the walls of an insulated metal building. Even just simple things like a hook to hang a hose on are very limited as to where they can go. I'm thinking that hanging some plywood off the 6' high beam would be a good start, but to do it right I'd have to build some sort of framing and anchor a footer into the concrete pad. I think. I don't really know much about actual framing other than what I've seen when tearing walls down.
Serious question: when doesn't one need more storage?
I think the shipping container's a good idea.
The stuff being stored will always expand to fill the space available. But I don't have enough room to store the stuff I have, so that's a problem.
Just looked at the shipping container we got for work, that thing is mint. And solid as a rock.
Depending on where you live and the zoning codes (or lack thereof) you may want to familiarize yourself for how they treat shipping containers as storage. Some places don't care and others treat them differently than "conventional" sheds/storage buildings. If you are in an area with special zoning - it will be things like setbacks, location on the lot and view from roads.
More work! And pictures! In no particular order...
I set up the Nanobridge wireless setup. I am a convert! The home antenna is inside my server closet (aka a cupboard in the laundry room), shooting through the stucco wall at the shop. In the shop, the antenna is in the window. Made a big difference when I moved it behind the steel wall, let me tell you. According to the diagnostics, it's like they're right beside each other with 99% of maximum speed and I have a big fat wireless pipe. About $120 total for the Nanos, the little access point and a couple of shielded Ethernet cables.
Here's the shop antenna on its custom-made mounting bracket. Possibly overkill, but it's not going to move. It's bolted straight to the structure of the shop. It's a cute little thing. The wire routing is temporary, I'm waiting for a shorter cable.
The Husky steel shelves are filling up and floor space is appearing. I'm maybe at 2/3 capacity right now. Looks chaotic in this picture, but it's more organized than it looks. Half of the parts on one section are for a single engine build/rewire project, so they're temporary.
I decided to add these shelves along the same wall as the Huskies - they're on the right side wall in my previous drawings. These shelves have been following me around for 25 years, starting as my bedroom furniture/desk in university and now serving as garage shelving in at least three garages. I've got some big drawer units that sit on the empty spots, that's where fasteners and badges and vehicle-specific small parts and electrical bits live. I wove these through the guy wires just because. There are a couple of big house things like a spare window and some screen doors that I will hopefully never need stashed behind them, safe and out of the way.
The parking lot is scenic.
My main project area is starting to come together. Some of this is temporary as I wait for the air compressor to move out, but I'm starting to feel out how this should work - where shelves belong, where metal supplies go, etc. I did decide to move the stereo from the shelves between the two garage doors back to this area because I don't want to blast my neighbors with speakers right at the open doors and it's where I work anyhow.
I have a lot of wheels and tires. Gotta figure them out.
I do have spousal approval - actually, enthusiasm - for the shipping container. We'll put an 8x20 beside the shop where it will tuck in nicely. The back 4' or so will be physical plant for the shop, then the rest will get shelves with a 4' corridor down the middle for storage of all sorts of things. I'm going to wait until the sale of the old house closes, hopefully in a couple of weeks. Here's its big brother at the FM shop.
So, good progress. Some changes from the plan as I learn how the space works, but it's good.
Also, this thing.
A Buick Fireball V8 that was given to me about 11 years ago. It would be a great install in my Land Rover, but needs a rebuild and really, am I going to put a 50+ year old engine in if I ever do a swap? I'm more likely to do a Ford 302 because they're a lot easier to get parts for in this country. It pissed me off as I tried to take it out of the trailer so I put it up on Facebook for free. Wow, turns out there's a market for free V8s. It's going to a guy with an engine-less '64 Skylark, so there's good carma.
More work this weekend.
First, I started another thread about the ceiling fan. Right now, it has a fan that is only effective at laying down the beat, which is a fun game to sync the whonk whonk whonk with whatever music I'm listening to. Especially funk. But not effective at making the air move. So it's going to get changed out at some point, probably with a large diameter Dayton. Working in the shop this weekend in 80F weather moved that a little higher up the priority list.
I made a big change to the shop layout. The bench tops just weren't working out. Here's a reminder of where we were.
It just didn't work in the upper left corner. I had unusable space in my main work area. So late at night I started moving stuff around. I was informed this was making a lot of noise by my wife. Sorry neighbors. Here's a better diagram of where we are. All the work areas are roughly contiguous.
The plan is to rely on the space being configurable. I can shrink and stretch the work area in the upper left depending on what I'm working on. The next step in layout is to start moving around the vehicle that's parked "on the lift" at the moment to fine-tune the lift location.
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