My New Shop

[blue68f100]

Earlier this year my dad passed away and left me his place in the country. None of my brothers wanted it so I would have got it anyway. The bad part was the clutter I had to deal with. My dad built this pole building before he built the house, 1974. Used it to store building materials while he built the house. The shop was so cluttered you could not around the shop. His main use was a wood shop. This is what it looked like several years ago. I had cleaned it up the previous year so I had room to do a wood project. He had not thrown any thing away. Since he did not have sanitation services he threw broken/failed items into the back corner.





After 2 months of cleaning I got it where I could walk around in it. Burned as much as I could before the burn bands kicked in this summer. He has a old 16' trailer that is full of scrap metal now. I will eventually get it to the recycler but that's low on the priority list. Since the trailer has not been registered or moved in over a decade.



Getting a spot cleared out to enclose a room.



I did all of the construction myself this summer. I had a neighbor help me get the 3/4 plywood decking on top.



The main problem I have out here is dust and high humidity. The ground is a sandy soil and it's quite common to have a dust storm behind you as you walk. Once it gets dry there is no getting away from it. And you all know how abrasive sand is on fine machining tools, will destroy them in short order. The pole building was never designed to be tight. So I decided to have the shop sprayed with the foam insulation to seal it up. This particular foam has a high R value when compared to fiberglass, 1" = 8" fiberglass. I have a min of 2" with some of the outer walls are close to 5". This was not cheap but it was well worth it. Then I had another problem. I was sealed and insulated so well the AC was short cycling so it was not dehumidifying. So I ended up adding a small dehumidifier, 35 pints/day. Well the humidifier was ringing out the humidity at about 30+ pints /day. So I was emptying the bucket every day. This was mainly because I was going in and out constantly. Once I started leaving every thing closed up, it was running 5-7 days before it was needing emptied. Will have to hook up a drain hose to run this outside once I find a home for it.



Now for the lighting. I elected to use high power LED's that I was using in my boat. These run on 12 vdc so I had to use external power supplies. I went with 2 circuits so I would have one for backup. 1 has enough power to drive all the leds if needed. I have since run a pair of wire over to my boat battery encase of power outage I would have emergency lighting and still work.





This is what the 5050 LED's look like, attached with 2 sided tape. I have power taps at 3 places on each side. You can not run more that 3 meters on one tap, otherwise you will burn the trace up.



Output is 72w/meter of length. I have just under 14 meters up. with a power consumption of 1 amp on 12vdc/meter. So I have over 1000 watts of lights that only takes 4 amps on 115vac. Very efficient to operate and I can add on any where there is a tap, every 2".

Now my benches.

My general work bench. Halloway heavy duty metal bench.



My reloading bench. Heavy and solid.



As you can see the floor is anything but flat and level. There are places where it shifts 1" in as little as 4'. If you look at the blocks on my metal bench I had 1.5" change in 6' where it's setting. I wanted this level to keep parts from rolling off.

Since I'm going to get a knee bend end mill, I have a 5' panel I can remove to get it in. Found out they are 89" tall and I have 93" clearance through my panel. (Where the boards are on each side of my tool box.) I was having problem with my hand tools rusting so I moved them inside the room. I guess 60% humidity will do that and that's normal for this area.

I had to shorten the original design due to the way the roof construction was done. My original plans was to take the whole end but had to cut it short by 4'. So I made the remainder into a store room, no storage on top.



At least I have a comfortable place to work when needed. Now if I can get my gate alarm to work consistently inside the metal building, aka farad cage. My base units work fine but the portable one I carry on me does not. May just order another base unit but the mfg said if the base works the portable should too. This room is very quite due to the foam insulation I can not here much of any thing going on out side. My gate is over 100 yrds away from my shop.

[Bullseye]

Sorry to hear of your loss. I recall you went to live with your Dad when he fell into poor health a few years back. Inheriting property can be a bit of a hassle. Looks like you've made the most of it. You'll probably end up tweaking the shop space for the rest of your time owning that property. If you are like me, you'll be constantly making adjustments to enhance the work space.

I found some Phillips T-8 replacement LED tubes that really increase the available light in the shops and they slide right up into the existing fixtures. They're not cheap initially, but the difference in lumens is worth it in my book.

Have fun in your new workshop.

R,
Bullseye

[blue68f100]

It was quite unexpected in the way he went. Caught a lot of people off guard including me. There was no suffering and it was not drawn out. He got up to go to the bathroom, laid back down and that was it. His heart just stopped. He lived a full life, was sharp as a tack mentally. I wish my memory was as good as his. Was just a few months short of being 93 yrs young.

I have a lot of work to do around this place. He left me the house and the fenced in area around it, approx 6 ac. Then the remaining 26 ac is going to be shared (joint owned) between my brothers. But I'm the one here taking care of it. Since he no longer has any live stock on it he had all of his hay fields planted in pine. So the land is mainly forestry and heavy brush. I've been working on clearing the trails for the ATV to drive through so I'm not attacked by briers. My dad did not want me cutting small pine trees to clear a path. So it has grown up and more work now. They have gotten really thick. Then there are wild blue berry bushes/vines to deal with too.

I setup up deer feeder for my brother that likes to hunt. It's where I can watch it from the back porch. It was setup too late to be good for opening dear season. But they have started coming in along with coons and other wild life. Luckily the hogs have not showed up yet. When they do I have the setup now to deal with them. 458 SOCOM with a ATN X-Sight (http://www.atncorp.com/x-sight-night-vi ... cope-3-12x) along with other optics. I've been playing with the night vision and it works very well considering I only spent $450 for it. Last night we had a good moon light and I did not have to use the illuminator to see the feeder 100yrds off. I did find out that the picture is better viewed through my iphone using the builtin wifi, than the small lcd screen on this scope. This scope is hard on batteries and I need to get some rechargeable Lithum ions. Regular NiMh seam to have a problem with the recoil from this gun. Even though the recoil is less that a 12ga shotgun. My neighbors tell me that this gun has a very distinct sound compared to others you here around here. They can tell it's a big bore. I'm still working up loads for this gun but have have a few that can work if they are repeatable for accuracy. My best so far is 7/8" at 100 yrds.


These LED's were very cheap $12/5m and the power supplies I got are rated for 30amp and they were only $25. I looked at the florescent fixtures but the cost of 1 of them = the total cost of what I spent for these led's setup. I was also thinking if a spring get loose and goes flying these are a lot safer. No glass to break. With the florescent I was going to have to have covered bezels or protection tubes. The nice thing about this build was that I had all of the wood working tools to build just about any thing I needed. The drawers in the benches I made are made of 3/4" plywood so they will handle any amount of load I may put in them. With the limit on the drawer slides, 100lbs. I have 2 additional benches out in the main shop. One of the things I'm fighting out here are bee's. There is one that will make a nest in any size hole. Which means any recess hole on tools end up getting plugged. The benches I made for the main shop area have doors covering the drawers. The doors are framed so it seals off to keep them out. Then high humidity has caused some of the plywood to warp so I ended up using 1/2 steel tubing for this. With it recessing into the main opening. I have sealed the wood after they straightened out. All I can say is the plywood today is not anywhere near the quality we use to have.

Enough of my rambling.

[charlesb]

Your shop looks really nice, now I am re-thinking the lighting setup in mine as I have been using florescent tubes.

[Bullseye]

Those Phillips T-8 replacement bulbs have flat LED strips inside them to produce the light. The one caveat is they must be used in "instant on" fixtures, but they are direct replacements for the old florescent tubes and use the available 115v power without the need for any rewiring inside the fixture. They are pricey at $10 per bulb, which was the best price I could find. Each fixture takes four bulbs which adds up quickly but the trade off is a much brighter light with no flickering in the colder weather.

You should consider investing in a tax stamp for a suppressor and that will make things a bit easier on the neighbors at night when you 'pop' a hog.

Sounds like a really nice spread. I'm sure your Dad knew it would remain in good hands when he passed it on.

R,
Bullseye

[blue68f100]

There are a few that hunt the coyotes and hogs at night around here. I here shooting in the middle of night all the time. Part of the country life.

I've thought about a suppressor but since I'm 5+ miles from the city I have not done it. My closes neighbor is a good 200 yrds off, east of me. He is one that hunts at night. I did think about building a SBR with a suppressor. Those that are doing it are throwing 500 gr slugs and heavier out of this round. I've also been told it throws one big fire ball at night. One of the powders I use in this gun a W296/H110. If you shoot a 44mag or 500 cal you have an idea of what 34+gr of it will look light. If I recall this caliber gets most all of it's velocity with only 10" of barrel. I may still get one but have not made up my mind up fully yet. Still have a lot of things going on. It took 4 mo to get the surveyors out here since the property is being sub divided. Still have not got the paper work from them so we can create a new deed for the house.

The LED's I used were from SuperNight, got them off Amazon. The ones I get are a single color (bright white), 2 wire. I wanted to use Daylight but was going to have to use twice the lights to get the brightness I wanted. There where the smaller LED and where 1/2 the brightness of the ones I used. I kept 1 roll just encase I need to fill in a special area. I may see if they will work with my Chrony, for using in low light conditions. If your get the RGB or RGBW you will need a controller to control the color. They even have connector in L & Tee's, splices so no soldering is needed. I have them but decided to just use the double sided tape and solder the connections. Figured it would be best in the long run. I will probably be adding to it once I get a lathe and end mill. The have some out now that run directly on 115vac. But they are not design so you can cut them to length.

Where do I get the paper work for a can? I might as well get things started. It may be more useful on a Varmint gun, which is my next project. To keep the coons under control. Out of the peach trees and feeder.

[Bullseye]

There is a nice write-up about purchasing suppressors in this month's American Rifleman magazine including forms and how to submit the paperwork for the stamp. Here's an online link~ http://www.americanrifleman.org/article ... uppressor/

R,
Bullseye

[blue68f100]

Thanks for the link. Downloaded the forms for future use.

Interesting read