6-11-06 After a year of
working in the shop I have decided to build an addition. I will
be adding 12-feet to the length of the building which will give me
12'x30' overall. I will do the framing myself but have hired
someone else to do the cement work. The contractor set the forms
yesterday and will pour cement next week.
6-18-06
6-24-06 I picked up the materials for the shop yesterday then started construction this morning. I have the end wall pretty much disconnected from the rest of the building. All that will need to be done is to cut a few nails when I am ready to pull the wall out. The East and West walls are framed up and ready to go. Weather permitting, Monday morning will be go time.
6-26-06
6-28-06
7-8-06 I finally have
the outside of the building completed. I do have some minor
chores to finish up like touching up the trim paint, caulking around
the top of the siding where it meets the sofit, and getting some
stainless screws to hold the gable vent in place.
The gable vent
doesn't quite match the pitch of the roof but some creative carpentry
has it looking okay. When the grass grows back and I wash the
dirt off of the siding it should look like it has always been here.
7-8-06 Now that the
exterior is complete, it's time to get the inside ready. I need
to install a 100-amp breaker box and run new wiring throughout. I
plan to put outlets about every three to four feet along all of the
walls at a four foot height. This should make them accessible
over the top of benches and stationary tools and I should never need an
extension cord. The dust collector, air conditioner, and table
saw will all have 220 volt outlets running to their locations. I
may put an additional 220 volt circuit near the service panel in case I
should need it for a welder. 9-24-06 It has been a hot
summer and I haven't felt like spending my days off working in the 100
degree weather so the last half of July was pretty uneventful.
August was still hot and I was spending a lot of hours at work trying
to get ready for the start of school. It has finally cooled off
in September and things have begun to slow down at work. I can
spend evenings and weekends back in the shop.
The first part of
September was spent emptying out the shop and consequently, filling up
the garage. Dad came up two weekends to help with insulation.
wiring, and hanging pegboard and osb. After the first weekend, I
realized that I still had too much stuff in the shop. Trying to
work around it really slowed our progress.
During the week,
I finished filling the garage to the point that it resembles something
from a cartoon, where you open the overhead door and find yourself
buried under all the stuff that falls out. With newfound
room to work, weekend two went pretty well. We finished pulling wire,
hung all the ceiling panels, and finished covering the walls. I
ran short on pegboard so one corner is still unfinished. 10-14-06 The interior
walls are back together. Now it's time to figure out where the
major equipment will be placed. I have to consider how I will run my
dust collection efficiently and maximize floor space at the same time.
Since my trim
saw is heavy and takes up a large amount of space. No
matter where I store it, it is almost always in the way. When I
want to use it, I have to drag it out and set it up
somewhere. I decided to try mounting it on a shelf on the East
wall to get it out of the way and always set up for use. I think
this will work well since it puts the saw at a good working height and
allows another machine to be stored below it. The shelf brackets
are about eight or nine inches above the tablesaw so it shouldn't
interfere with any operations there.
I used a scrap of
OSB for the shelf but will build something more permanent later.
The finished shelf will be 32-inches wide and about 24-inches
deep. The jointer is on a mobile base so it can be rolled out
from the wall when in use.
I plan to put the
dust collector in the far corner and plumb it down the East wall with
4" duct. I will have a separate blast gate for the bandsaw,
jointer, planer, and tablesaw. Since the sander and the trim saw
both use two-inch dust ports, I will put them on the same blast
gate. I hope to put in a couple of floor sweep gates somewhere
in the system .
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