# What keeps me busy (Picture heavy)



## EricB (Nov 13, 2015)

Alright, I thought I'd show you guys why I don't ever seem to post any projects.  Apologies in advance for the crappy cell-phone photos. Right now I'm working on my garage, getting it up to snuff to use as a shop. When I bought my house the garage had a couple of incandescent bulbs and a couple of 110 outlets run by one shitty old cable buried under the ground coming from a single breaker. The walls were covered in stained plywood (the kind that if it sets on fire it burns like CRAZY) and filled with leftover building materials (paper, ceiling tiles, bits of wood and plywood, etc). There was a gas-line that had been disconnected in the house, and an old leaky bit of b-vent where an old floor-mounted heater would have been. There was also one big uninsulated window, a broken garage-door opener (the plastic gear stripped out) a work bench made by putting a solid-core door on top of a couple of falling-apart old kitchen cabinets, a damaged and pieced together overhead door, a man-door that didn't like to close...









It was a mess. Not to mention that the structure itself was a mess as well. The garage was built out of scraps that hadn't been used on other build-sites (The PO was the original owner, and built several houses in the area) including big rough-hewn beams that didn't make it across the span of the garage, so they were held together by single pieces of non-dimensional wood, old cribbing-material as studs and in the roof, and all kinds of random bits of split, broken, non-dimensional wood as the bracing in the ceiling. This would not do at all.

Notice how out of square the one beam is here, and it's two parts are held together by nothing but that little scrap of wood at the bottom of the picture:












So a couple of years ago I started to tear into it. Even now the further I get into this garage project the more astounded I am at the fact that it has stayed standing all these years. It all started by tearing everything off of and out of the walls and ceiling, and then shutting off the breaker to the garage. Ripping everything out meant that I had a few VERY overloaded trips to the dump in my future...




















After that it was time to dig myself a 4' deep, 47' long trench and cut out some concrete. I had decided to rent a mini-excavator to dig with, but my plumber buddy said that was silly and sharpened a shovel... He got about 1/3 of it done in a single day, which was damn impressive! But the hardest digging was yet to come (Deeper, narrower, and through clay)







Getting inspected by the pups:







I haven't had to dig like that since the army. Thankfully my brother came by to lend a hand:






Turns out that I got some bad info from the permit office, I only needed to be 2' down. That would have been nice to know. I also only needed 2" of sand above and below my cable, not the 6" they told me to put in, so now I have quite a lot of extra dirt. Anyone need some top-soil?


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## EricB (Nov 13, 2015)

With the trench in, it was on to electrical. Got everything installed and up to Canadian Electrical Code, Inspection time! ...Inspection fail? Turns out that even though you're up to (or in places even beyond) the electrical code, you have another hoop to jump through: Epcor owns the power-lines and won't hook you up unless you have your meter in the right spot. Fair enough, so now I have a hole in my roof, soffit, and wall, but at least I know. Got working on moving everything which was a lot more work than you might think...













After a long while of making-do without I finally have power again, which is allowing things to move forward much more quickly. Which is good because the next task was a big one: Time to fix my roof structure. The bottom of the beams were not even with each other which would have made drywalling a nightmare, everything needed to be strengthened and straightened, and hell, while I'm at it why not make myself a bit of a storage loft? Off I went...



















Used string to make everything nice and flat, and then...







Sistered every beam with 2x6 across the full length, and the back side has a 2' piece of 2x6 at every spot where two chunks of beam meet.

I don't have pictures of what I did for the rest of the roof-structure, but let me tell you, it is solid. The beams and teleposts are long-gone now, and a chain-hoist hung from 2 rafters helped me unload 900lbs from my truck the other day, and didn't even creak. At this point I'm ALMOST done insulating the ceiling (R22 Roxul), the gas-line is hooked back up and pressure tested, and...







Oh yes, there will be heat. I also have a new man-door installed, and a new opaque insulated window in the back wall. I can't watch the dogs in the yard, which makes me sad, but on the plus side people can't peek through and see the motorcycles, tools, etc.


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## EricB (Nov 13, 2015)

Just took this picture this morning. Insulation in the ceiling is almost finished, just need to do the very front and very back. You can see I'm going to have two hatches into my loft storage space. Hoping to get started on the vapor barrier this weekend and maybe hang a couple of pieces of drywall during the week. I just need enough up to install the heater and then I can spend the rest of the winter working in relative comfort and hang the rest of the drywall as time allows.


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## PeterT (Nov 13, 2015)

Nice work. Brings back memories (the ditch). You mentioned natgas line, do you have a gas heater plan? I chose one of those radiant heaters & its great. Sits up in the ceiling corner completely out of the way, nice soft heat to anything with mass, now  ducting & air circulating. I think mine is 40,000 btu. Entry level for double garage size but I barely noticed a blip on the bill.

I did things mostly right but in hindsight I would
- cover the ceiling with more densely spaced fluorescent lights, can never be bright enough
- put alternating 110 & 220v plugs in closer proximity around the walls. Workbenches & setups & machines kind of dictate the layout but its nice to have short electrical connections
- I've heard of some guys laying in pneumatic lines & outlets behind drywall too. Kind of Jay Lenno, but hey, its a man cave right?
- there are some real nice roll-on surface coatings for cement floors. Wish I did this early while I had the opportunity. Just makes for easier cleanup & even brighter indirect lighting.
- if you foresee walls with heavy shelving, avoid drywall & opt for something stronger as a base so you are not constrained to stud mounting

good luck!


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## EricB (Nov 13, 2015)

PeterT said:


> Nice work. Brings back memories (the ditch). You mentioned natgas line, do you have a gas heater plan? I chose one of those radiant heaters & its great. Sits up in the ceiling corner completely out of the way, nice soft heat to anything with mass, now  ducting & air circulating. I think mine is 40,000 btu. Entry level for double garage size but I barely noticed a blip on the bill.



Thanks, Peter! I will be going with a gas heater, you can see my beautiful new Reznor in the second post. I looked into the infrared radiant heaters as well, but my ceiling is too low for it. From everything I read and was told I would get cooked if I was working in front of it.



PeterT said:


> - cover the ceiling with more densely spaced fluorescent lights, can never be bright enough
> - put alternating 110 & 220v plugs in closer proximity around the walls. Workbenches & setups & machines kind of dictate the layout but its nice to have short electrical connections
> - I've heard of some guys laying in pneumatic lines & outlets behind drywall too. Kind of Jay Lenno, but hey, its a man cave right?
> - there are some real nice roll-on surface coatings for cement floors. Wish I did this early while I had the opportunity. Just makes for easier cleanup & even brighter indirect lighting.
> - if you foresee walls with heavy shelving, avoid drywall & opt for something stronger as a base so you are not constrained to stud mounting



In response to this part of your comment:
-Not sure what I`ll be using for light yet, but I`m leaning towards LED. I was worried that fluorescents will take too long to warm up, but in the end it will depend on what I can afford.
-I`ll be doing all external conduit. It`ll be a bit of a pain in the ass and a lot of extra work as well as a bit of extra money, but the nice part of it will be the ability to add and move outlets and lights whenever I feel the need which (Knowing me) will be quite often as I change machines or decide on better locations.
-I`ll be doing all external air-lines as well, I haven`t decided yet between copper and black-iron pipe. Don`t worry, the lines won`t rely on that little Mastercraft pancake compressor to feed them, I have a 60 gal.
-The epoxy seems like a great idea, but probably not one I can afford for the foreseeable future. From what I`ve heard though it not only makes clean-up and finding lost bolts easier, but also helps to keep dust down. Maybe someday. I`d have to seal a couple of cracks first as well.
-The walls were built with crappy wood in places as well, so I won`t be adding any extra weight onto them via shelving, it`ll all be stand-alone shelving units.

If you have you got photos of your work-space I`d love to see them. Or any other insight. In the spring I`ll have to decide if I want a standard insulated overhead door, or would rather go with a roll-up style door. Decisions decisions.


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## EricB (Nov 14, 2015)

Today I finished up the insulation and got started on the vapor barrier! I need to get all the insulation scraps out of here so I can have an easier time moving everything around to get at the areas that still need poly. So far I have poly on the whole back wall, and the back 8' of the ceiling meaning that I can hang some drywall and then UP goes the heater!!


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## John Conroy (Nov 14, 2015)

Looking good Eric. I have the same Reznor furnace in my garage. It's a great unit.


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## EricB (Nov 14, 2015)

Good to hear, John. Thanks! I was just going to get a Mr. Heater from PA, but with the lousy Canadian dollar puts them at nearly $800 now. This was $950 +tax, so seemed like the way to go.

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## John Conroy (Nov 14, 2015)

Mine has been in use for 6 years. I've never had any problem with it.


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## EricB (Nov 16, 2015)

John, you get some condensation on your vent or something? Why the hanging drip-tray?


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## John Conroy (Nov 17, 2015)

Yeah, if the furnace is not used for a while in really cold weather the vent pipe can get frost on the outside and when I start the furnace it drips when the frost melts. It would drip right on the milling machine so I put up that drip catcher pan suspended by wire. I wouldn't even have noticed if the drips didn't go on the mill.


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## Jwest7788 (Nov 22, 2015)

EricB said:


> If you have you got photos of your work-space I`d love to see them. Or any other insight. In the spring I`ll have to decide if I want a standard insulated overhead door, or would rather go with a roll-up style door. Decisions decisions.



Here was my garage fix up last year: (not nearly as intensive, but worth sharing. Obviously a lot has changed since then too. Haha)


Things I would change if I could go back in time:
Do the floors first. Walls after. I'm still cleaning up the flooring prep mess that got power washed onto the walls. Haha

Power outlets should be added every couple of feet all the way around the garage. Ideally a low set and high set (table height) and more 220v too as previously mentioned.

I would have added more ceiling outlets too. (Super convenient for when you find yourself working in the middle of the shop.

I really love my epoxy floor coating. Would highly recommend. If you go down this route, I used crack filler around the edge where the floor meets the foundation, and rolled the epoxy up the ~8 inches. Whole thing in water right now, so can squeegee water out easily.

Add windows while you're at it. Natural light really livens the shop. (window bars to make them a poor break in point. Blinds to keep people looking in when you're not around. )

I have fluorescent lights, warm up time has never been an issue, even on the really cold days. The ballasts have been blowing lately though, which is a pain to replace. Either way, get way more lights then you think you will need.

May be too late, but run an Ethernet line too if you can. I find myself wanting to put a wireless router in the garage for when I am getting help from Google. With an Ethernet line you could actually have a small work station somewhere tucked away. (The computer Would also be helpful for CNC work. Maybe a 3D printer. )


Hope this helps!

JW


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## John Conroy (Nov 22, 2015)

Great job. When can you do my garage?


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## Janger (Nov 22, 2015)

what a crap load of work... wow looks good. I was thinking of just buying that garage floor paint. does it work?


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## Jwest7788 (Nov 23, 2015)

Janger said:


> what a crap load of work... wow looks good. I was thinking of just buying that garage floor paint. does it work?


In the image gallery I posted above, the floor prep section outlines my efforts removing ~5 layers of garage floor paint. The previous owner just kept painting new over old as it came off the concrete. Could have just been poor prep in the first place, but I decided then that if I'm going to go through the steps of painting. Might as well spend the extra $200 and use a proper two part epoxy. 

You should come by some time and check it out. 

JW


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## EricB (Nov 23, 2015)

Looks awesome, @Jwest7788 ! Funny story about epoxied floors though; many years ago I dislocated my right shoulder mountain-biking. After that it came out more often than I would have liked, but I was always able to just shove it back in (much to everyone else's disgust) But then one day I was living at my brother's house and he had an epoxied floor in the garage. I was wearing my old combat boots and when I was in the joke was that the army got the rubber for our boots from recycled hockey pucks (they were notoriously bad on ice) so it was winter and we were unloading groceries and I had a tiny bit of snow on my boots. Down I went. That was the bad one. No amount of pushing was getting it back in. Ambulance came, one of the EMTs had to leave the room when I tried one last time to put it back in, and left again when I refused to let them cut my leather jacket and took it off myself.  At the hospital it took two men, a towel, and a lot of muscle relaxants to get it back in. I've thankfully had surgery since then, but I've been left with an irrational (or completely rational, depending on how you look at it) fear of epoxy floors! I'll keep my bare concrete for now.  It does look damned awesome though!!



Jwest7788 said:


> Power outlets should be added every couple of feet all the way around the garage. Ideally a low set and high set (table height) and more 220v too as previously mentioned.
> 
> I would have added more ceiling outlets too. (Super convenient for when you find yourself working in the middle of the shop.
> 
> ...



I routed new low-voltage cables through the garage while I had the trench open as well, but I think I'll be leaning towards a wifi signal booster I think. As for outlets, I'm thinking I'll have a cord-reel on the ceiling somewhere, and all my power will be routed through external conduit, so I can add and move outlets and lighting as needed which I'm excited about. As for windows, I have a huge one at the back but I won't be adding any more other than possibly some opaque glass in the overhead door when I replace it. Not sure yet. 

As for an update, I got the poly finished and taped. I picked up a few sheets of drywall, so they're ready to hang (just need another couple of hands) then up goes the heater! It'll be mounted to unistrut via all-thread and spring-nuts. Sadly I just got a notice that I owe an extra $1,000 on my taxes for last year (stupid accountant) so that will slow my progress right down. Especially being on work-share still and going back to school in January. So once the heater's up it's time to stop working ON the garage and start working IN it to try and make some cash.  First up will be to start fixing up the lathe. It sat for at least 15 years and the grease in it is nearly petrified. 

Let's see some more garages! Keep me motivated!


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## Jwest7788 (Nov 23, 2015)

Yikes, an injury like that for sure warrants a little apprehension. Keep in mind though, those floor kits come with grit you can use in the clear coat specifically for the same, but many opt to leave it out in favour of gloss. Obviously a slip risk. 

Keep the pics coming too! Looking forward to seeing it all come together.


Sent from my iPhone.


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## EricB (Nov 23, 2015)

Realistically my fall was entirely to blame on the boots and my extreme lack of grace. [emoji14] But it severed every ligament in my shoulder and actually sheared a chunk of bone off the back of the humerus. So I reserve the right to be a huge pansy scaredy-cat.

I'll for sure keep the pics coming as things progress. While I did poly on the weekend I had this guy keep me company:







Don't worry, he won't be around for paint!

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## EricB (Dec 6, 2015)

Vapor barrier has been finished for a while, but I got distracted by other projects (machining for other people, snowblower repairs, lathe tear-down...) but now drywalling has begun!


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## EricB (Dec 6, 2015)

Now I have to figure out venting for my heater. :S

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## Jyman (Dec 22, 2015)

One the heat guys here where I work was telling me,  if you go out the side of the wall for the vent your looking at like another 4-500, just for the vent as it has to be stainless now. And that straight out the top is the cheaper option. 

I was asking him because I'm putting heat into my garage also very shortly here.


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## EricB (Dec 22, 2015)

Yup, for horizontal you have to go stainless instead of regular galvanized, and it gets to be big bucks.

Besides, I already have a hole in my roof where a heater was once before, so we're going up!

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## Jyman (Dec 22, 2015)

How's the shop coming along?


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## EricB (Dec 22, 2015)

Slowly. [emoji14] At least that's how it feels. Ceiling is all drywalled. Just need time to figure out venting, go buy it and some gas-line. Then I can focus on nothing but projects until the spring.

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## Wayne (Jan 16, 2016)

Hi Eric,
I found your garage work interesting. I have recently redone the lights in my garage with LED fluorescents and would HIGHLY recommend them. They start instantly [ after one second] even in minus twenty and are more than twice as bright as regular fluorescent tubes, which after several hours of use degrade considerably. LED's do not degrade I can't praise them enough. I bought mine directly from Hong Kong as I couldn't afford the Canadian price but with the dollar now it may by better to buy them from a larger anadian company.
Wayne


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## EricB (Jan 17, 2016)

Hey Wayne, thanks for the input! I'm definitely leaning towards LEDs in some configuration. Everything is on hold for now while I'm in school and broke, though. 

Welcome to the forum!


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## John Conroy (Jan 17, 2016)

my garage already had fluorescent light fixtures that used the old style T12 bulbs. I found some LED "plug and play" replacements at Costco that just replace the bulbs and used any existing ballast. They are amazing! As Wayne said they are more than twice as bright and only use 19 watts each instead of 40. A lot cheaper than replacing the whole light fixture.

http://www.costco.ca/Luminus®-4-ft.-Non-Dimmable-LED-Tube-Light---2-Pack.product.100233182.html


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## PeterT (Jan 17, 2016)

I'm glad you posted that plug-n-play replacement. I had resigned myself to waiting till the prices came down to replace the whole fixture & I've still got a box of fluorescent tubes. The buggers wont wear out. Question: if I wanted to ease into the conversion $-wise & brighten certain areas with those LED, could I replace specific fixtures & leave others on fluorescent (they are all on same circuit)?


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## John Conroy (Jan 17, 2016)

As long as you replace all the tubes in a fixture you are golden. Once you see the difference in brightness you'll want to do them all.


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## EricB (Apr 5, 2016)

Haven't added to here in a while, but these fit more in here than they do in my lathe repair thread. I finally picked up a solvent tank my buddy is lending me. It's a really nice Zep tank, it needed a new filter and a couple new hoses. This thing has a string bound filter in the canister for particles, but then it has a big bag-filter in the basin for taking out grease and oils. Supposedly you should never have to change your solvent, only top it up and change filters. I got the canister filter from Home Depot 2 for $20, but the bag filters are 2 for $200 from Zep! Too rich for my blood on a borrowed tank right now, so I'm just running it as is. I also managed to get 20 gal. of solvent from work for free! (long story)




















I also started on a project in my free-time at work (which is ample right now) that isn't necessarily garage related, but it is machining related, and I'm hoping it will pay for at least the rest of the drywall in the garage! It's a Kurt D80 vise that I got my hands on. It was in... let's call it "very used" condition, but these things are bomb-proof so it still has tons of potential in it. All you have to do is re-grind all the important surfaces!







That's the base of the vise getting the bottom reground. It's been fully disassembled, washed in the solvent tank, and I'm almost finished re-grinding it. It'll get a few coats of paint, and then I'll put it up on eBay. I have no need for an 8" machine vise. This bastard is HEAVY!

EDIT: Seriously, how gross looking is our surface grinder? Looks like you could get TB just standing next to it.


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## PeterT (Apr 5, 2016)

Cool! Lucky you having access to a surface grinder for exactly projects like this. I'd be interested to see your Kurt progress pics, how it all comes apart & how you go about re-truing. I've seen some people rebuild some bad offshore iron with hand scraping techniques but it looks like one of those old school, lost art, specialty hand-eye sort of deals & probably confined to non-hardened materials.

When my fasteners show & assuming my plan works out, I'll post some pics of a (new) Chinese mini vise I bought... and subsequently modified so it would actually function. The grinding is amazingly accurate for a whopping 58$ gamble. But the clamping mechanics were apparently made by angry, metal chewing beavers. OMG. Stay tuned.


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## EricB (Apr 6, 2016)

Haha Peter, I look forward to seeing that. I also now want to see a horror movie about pissed off beavers who can chew through metal!! The best beaver horror movie I've seen so far was:






which was AWESOME, but there need to be more!! 

To be honest, I didn't document the refurbish of this old Kurt because this is my first go at it, I didn't do any research, and I won't be QCing it. I'm a machinist, so I have a good idea of what I'm doing, but I'm no expert with a grinder or with restoring old vises. Realistically it's all about just making it square again, so it should be pretty bang-on. At the very least it will be far more accurate than it was pre-grind with hammer-marks and stamp marks ALL over the static and dynamic jaws, and *0.002"!!!! *of wear in the sliding surface of the base! I was shocked by that one. Really shows you how important it is to keep your stuff clean, fellas!

Here's a shot of me truing up the tops of the jaws with the vise assembled, though! This ensures that you can use the tops as a square-surface if you put the replaceable jaws on the outsides of the static and dynamic jaws.


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## Jwest7788 (Apr 7, 2016)

Hah, that movie trailer is awful(ly) awesome.

You'll have that vice all fixed up in no time by the looks of it!


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