My New Shop
Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 10:17 pm
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/P9160579.jpg)
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/P9160574.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/2%20months%20clean.jpg)
Getting a spot cleared out to enclose a room.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0127_1.jpg)
I did all of the construction myself this summer. I had a neighbor help me get the 3/4 plywood decking on top.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0132a.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0157a.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0232.jpg)
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0205.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0228.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0230.jpg)
My reloading bench. Heavy and solid.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0229.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0175.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/P9160579.jpg)
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/P9160574.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/2%20months%20clean.jpg)
Getting a spot cleared out to enclose a room.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0127_1.jpg)
I did all of the construction myself this summer. I had a neighbor help me get the 3/4 plywood decking on top.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0132a.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0157a.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0232.jpg)
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0205.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0228.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0230.jpg)
My reloading bench. Heavy and solid.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0229.jpg)
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.
![Image](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg538/Blue68F100/Shop/IMG_0175.jpg)
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.