Help Me Plan Out the New & Improved Shop

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You need plumbing. It is not that expensive. A toilet/sink will save you tons of time each week. Are you on a septic tank or sewer? How nosey are the inspection people in your city/county? Plumbing can be added near the wall with very little slab work, and if done in the cracked area, that can be repaired as part of the process.

If that is still expensive base on your total plans, deck the floor up for a bathroom area and all the plumbing can be above the slab, exiting through the wall. Do this on the side that is closest to your septic/sewer line.

Instead of shelving, wire rack shelves and cabinets.
 
Bathroom would be nice, I wish I had one in mine:sad1:. Running water for cleanup(laundry tub) and stuff. Cable tv, phone, surround sound, internet access and a killer AC system........:thumbup: MMG
 
What are the dimensions of the building? I assume that you are salvaging the building, repairing, and wanting to add onto the repaired building with the addition.
Make a drawing on the building with dimensions marked (maybe 1/4" = 1 ft) and all the current outlets, doors, windows, etc. shown. Take a picture of the drawing and post it so we can visualize the space better.

The other thing you need is some serious heavy duty workbenches.
 
You may only need a single ceiling fan. Take a look at this bad boy -

http://www.bigassfans.com/powerfoil_x

One thing that's always worked well for me when planning where things go is to do a scale drawing of your floor space complete with the location of all electrical outlets and air lines. Then do separate same-scale cutouts of the footprint of each piece of equipment. Keep moving them around until you come up with your most efficient floorplan.
Lots easier to move little pieces of paper than heavy equipment.
 
Single phase-or three phase? How thick is your floor?Piers-frostwall or slab on grade?
 
There are plenty of companies that are or have gone under, check your local auction houses to see what they have coming up. At work we just picked up about 80' of pallet racking 12' high for less than $100. There were also some nice work benches that went for low prices as well. Also, for your electrical, do the quad outlets but have 2 circuits in each box and if you know the layout before you pipe it, run dedicated outlets for each piece of equipment whether it needs it or not. The motors will last longer if they are not competing against each other. Another thing that would be worth looking into would be to contact your local power utility to see if they are offering any energy efficiency incentives. You may be able to get them to subsidize the the cost of the nice 4 lamp flourescents that were previously mentioned. A fan at each end of the building, one pulling and one pushing will help alot as well.
 
Leanna,
One last thought for the day,do the bare essential repairs and bank the money.
Times are hard and who knows what will happen next.Ten to twelve thousand could put a big dent in your mortgage.Unless you got it paid....then go to the next highest interest debt,if any...
If it were me I pay it to my mortgage,I have double paid it for last 2 years and only have 3 years more to go.
If you have a retirement fund,apply some to it.
What ever you decide,just sleep on it and if not sure sleep on it more.
You have been successful with your present setup and do not need to spend the whole amount on the building.
Good night,
TXDart
 
fourspeed said:
Two things come to mind right away.

Make the building tall enough for a lift. Even if you don't put a lift in, at least you COULD.

No shelves - cabinets. Shelves collect dirt and dust, cabinets do not.
Click to expand...

It's a 30x40 with a 12' crown and 10' walls. Though a lift would be fabulous (goodbye floor jack lol), we really don't have much of a need for one since the restorations and under-car work are rare these days. If anything, Billy would probably want a motorcycle lift -- he was energized by the dirt bike build awhile back.

That's a BIGGGG 10-4 on the cabinets versus open shelving. A powder coater's worst enemies are dust and moisture. I have to blow out the shop and whatever rack I'm using after every color change so anything that doesn't collect it -- both from my gun and the blast cabinet -- is preferred.

I was looking at these ............ the slideshow makes ya drool.

http://www.sabercabinets.com/index.html

I know someone will bring up getting a spray booth. I've used them before and, for the customized work I do now, they do not serve me well. They're mainly for powder reclamation ... and I DO NOT USE recycled powders for anything so there's no need to collect it except for easier disposal.

The fan ideas above are very well taken. I've got a couple portables for hot days but the big squirrel cage fan Billy had in his shop in Louisiana's still on the storage trailer. That sucker's probably 50" in diameter ... might even run on 220 for all I know.


66cuda said:
Oh ya///for detailed work area's find some reasonably priced T5 HO fluorescent 4 bank fixtures...( between 100 and 150 per ) but well worth it in both lighting and electricity savings
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I'll check them out! Thanks. There's 10 8' fluorescents out there now ... the lighting is good but can always be better.


TXDart said:
Organize the items in red in the most usable arrangement,Parts washer can go on Billys side.
Number one I would get real shelving.
Number two,I do not know how hot that shop gets but you need another garage door to get some breeze thru that shop.
Sky lights would be great as well.I also like exhaust fan mounted on the ceiling,they work great and can be adjusted to turn on at a specific temperature.I included a picture and a link from home depot.
http://www.homedepot.com/Building-M...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053




I would pour a slab on the opposite side of your garage door and extend the building at that time that corner that is cracking could be dug up and have some metal jacks installed to bed rock and concrete poured around it or a pier could be poured as well.Of course when this slab is poured you would have your drain installed and concrete floated to run all water down drain.
Are planning on pouring a slab on the 16'x40' lean...


I'm going to show him this whole thread if he'll read it, but especially this post about the slab extension TXD. I don't know much about construction-type stuff but am going to get a crash course here shortly. :-D

The parts washer is already on his side.

Re the real shelving, I posted my dream wall up there but man they're proud of that stuff. Even a smaller setup would suffice but it still might not be in the budget. Metal is the only way to go due to the frequency of shop wash-outs -- no wood -- and casters on everything new that can move.

Last year I posted a pic of my high tech temp gauge with a reading of 136 so yesssss, it gets very hot in there.

It has roll up doors on the east and south side (behind the tree in my first pic in the thread), a man door on the east and one north-facing sliding window also shown in an earlier pic. We've talked about either a door or a window on the west side -- some tin damage there so it'll be replaced anyway -- and that will help a LOT with circulation. But it'll have two window unit air conditioners (hard to believe, since they've been sitting on that friggin pallet since we moved here ... :-\" )

Pssssssst, it already has five skylights courtesy of the oak tree. That's why we're gettin a new roof. LOL jes messin with ya my friend!



I need the dimensions of your building,so I could tell you how much for the steel,tin and slab to extend your building.
Material cost and what would be fair for labor.

I poured a slab in my old horse barn shop to put my lift and spent 1645.00 for a 14' x 21' foot slab 6" deep and 2' beam under where lift was installed.

which included:
120.00 1 yard of base,(sandy loam)
600.00 for rental for trax loader (bobcat) to remove asphalt
75.00 for rebar 3/8 " and 1/2 " for cage to beam my floor under lift
400.00 for 5 yards of 5000 psi concrete 80.00/yard delivered
450.00 for 2 man crew to pour and float it out they were there 4 hours
floated out every 1/2 hour
Of course I did all of it myself.I got pictures of it on my shop computer.
Click to expand...

Wow, NICE numbers!



Slappy said:
Leanna How about a space indoors so you can do your bigger blasting pieces like k-frames
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I'd like to have a designated spot in the lean-to for that Tod. The less dust in the shop, the better.


Big Dad said:
Best place to look for shop ideas

www.garagejournal.com

Be ready to spend hours and hours looking at all types of dream shops

Daryl
Click to expand...


Daryl, that's where I was ... for a couple hours already. Thank you very much for sharing that link. Those guys are highly talented and it'll be a good source for more ideas. :-D


6pk2goDemon said:
Leanna, Congrats on settling w/ the insurance company. I'm sure you and Billy will make the best of the situation at hand.

Here's a few ideas that I came up with for 'ya...

I would start by installing insulation & steetrock on all the walls. You can use Styrofoam sheeting for the overhead door too.

Seal the floor (makes cleaning much easier) and don’t use too dark a color, as you want as much light reflection as possible.

Take advantage of your wall height that is currently being wasted. Build shelves that go to the ceiling and anchor them to the wall. You can attach some metal piping to act as a curtain rod. Get some large heavy cloth painters tarps and use them as curtains with shower curtain hooks to make them slide. Covering the shelves hides clutter, as well as keeping the dust & dirt to a minimum.

They sell a wall mounted shop vac with 30 feet of hose that’s quite powerful w/ lots of attachments. I can find a link for you if you’re interested.

Wall or ceiling mounted fans strategically placed will help too. I know how hot and humid it gets there. Some type of air movement goes a long way.

The more you can utilize your overhead space, the more floor space you’ve freed up for your work areas.

Good luck my friend and looking forward to your progress :thumbup:
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Great ideas C! I'll have to check out that vac setup. There's an 8 gallon for the blast cabinet, but there's specialized powder vacuums too that I should probably look into.



mopar head said:
Leanna, just save enough space for a safe, for all those big bucks you make:D
On a serious note, Your compressor is your lifes blood.
What`s the condition of your current rig? may keep back some dough for a new one if it should ever crap out:scratch:
Good luck
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LOL @ the safe ... hold me up for my car or my money, I'm sure the car would be worth more. :-D

As much as possible is going to get socked away just for such occasions mopar head, but very tough to do in this economy. The compressor's been around, let me put it that way, and nothing lasts forever.



nuttyprof said:
If you can find some pallet racking units they make some very heavy duty shelving, and you can set up part of it as workbench. I even narrowed a section for workbench so I can fit it in my 1 car garage with a car.
Click to expand...

My 7' oven's racks are made from pallet rack tops and I might know where to get / bribe him for some more. Good call nutty!



ramcharger said:
Like most people said, quad electrical outlets every 3-4', fresh air movement, sealed floor. As you said, water and sewer won't happen but that would be awesome.

One thing I thought of while fabing this last piece for the bike is arranging my shop tools like a production facility. Thing about each step you do for the majority of parts imagine what tools you need and align them in the shop to make everything in line. You know as well as I do that one set up won't be perfect for everything but think about the true bread and butter stuff that pays the bills. Everything else is secondary but it will still be easier.

For example:

For me, having a steel welding table with a big vise is step one, drill press step two, grinder step three, etc. Depending on what you do your setup will change. Think about efficiency of motion.
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grr8_65 said:
Just few thought from an old man. Before you locate anything in the new shop do as has been sugeested and list what you did not like about the existing. Next, analyze how you want your work to flow through the area; how do you handle the large pieces versus the smaller ones, how do you "store" items in progress and when they come out of the ovens. At the same time look at where your expansion plans will tie into the new building and try to design your work flow to incorporate the expansion. And has already been suggested make sure every thing that needs to be used in a part of the process is readily avialable. If the same items need to be used in several steps of the process try to centalize them so you don't have to buy unncessary duplicates. Do all this on graph paper to approximate the relationships between "process stations". When you think you have what you want get some sidewalk chalk, several colors, and draw it on the floor using different colors for different systems, routes, areas etc. that way if you want to change things the toe of your shoe makes a great eraser. You have enough support and good will from everyone to make this a real winner. Remember that inquiring minds need to know.
Click to expand...

Since most of it's custom work, I usually don't have more than two or three jobs going at once, and most are in different stages (prep / coating / finishing / shipping out) so there's kind of an assembly line thing going with designated work areas anyway. You're both right about streamlining it though -- anything to speed up production and keep it organized is what I'm shooting for. The walk-ins are pretty limited but it still needs to look tidy.

Joe, what did you end up doing for the rest of your storage in your basement? I don't know if you ever showed it to us all finished.

Enough for tonight ... have to finish up the personal responses later, nothing personal just tired. :-D

Thanks to all of you for the terrific ideas! Keep them coming ...
 
All good suggestions. I would definitely cut down any tall trees within falling distance of any structure. A simple thunderstorm could break off a limb that could penetrate the roof. If you like trees around, think of evergreens or those that do not grow too tall with big limbs.
 
I think you are on the right path. What we do for layouts sounds silly but works well. Draw out the building dimension to some scale on paper. Then draw a square/rectangle/circle about the size you need for each of the stations you want. Then cut them out and start laying them in the building box. This "bubble" diagram will give you the opportunity to clearly identify workflow and space needed for the tasks you are performing. Once this is done, you can start to visualize how it needs to come together, and also pre-determine your need for power/air etc.

I designed my kitchen with boxes lol..

Grant
 
WildCat said:
View attachment 238718

My barn 40X48 with 10X35 cover porch .................... but I think out of your budget unless you build it yourself
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Beautiful work WildCat! I love those old restored filling stations. If you have any more pictures inside and/or out, please feel free to add them.

We'll be doing as much of the work ourselves as we can.

Most of our plans are now laid out and getting firmed up with details ... a custom short-chick work bench with cabinets are on my horizon!!! :-D (Yayyyy no more crappy metal shelves whewwwwwwww LOL)

As soon as there's some progress / pics to share, I'll update this. In the meantime, please keep sharing those wonderful ideas. Nothing is set in stone and my mind is open to absorb the FABO wealth of knowledge.
 
Heck, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing with my garage....

I'm voting for the stripper pole. You know here in Cali there is a big movement going on about the benefits of the poles on both muscle tone and cardiovascular health. So it could be a write off, also. You did add a shoe rack into the new plans, didn't you?

OK, so the only real suggestion I have at the moment is to try and make sure everything is off of the floor. It makes clean up a lot easier.
 
Just a quick update ...

The materials to repair the roof / walls -- and to build a 16x40' lean-to where the tree fell to house Billy's tractor, bush hog, sickle mower and project of the day -- will be delivered on Monday or Tuesday weather permitting.

I haven't been able to get much done work-wise (too much dust and crap in the way lol) but when all of this is done, the shop will be better, much more organized and professional. Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions! It's all been a BIG help. I'll post some pics when there's something cool to show off.
 
I think of things like insulation and ways of heating and cooling the shop so no matter the weather you can work comfortably, what about a dehumidfier to help with moisture control. I know with powder coating that can cause problems. We keep the operating rooms around 50-60 % it helps with static electricity control and well as bacterial growth. Painted floors for easier clean up, maybe an office with a desk, dry erase board to keep track of customers jobs, and a computer.
 
CudaChick1968 said:
Just a quick update ...

I'll post some pics when there's something cool to show off.
Click to expand...

I hope pun was intended,like an exhaust fan or insulation.
It fricking hot in my shop and exhaust fans going in next week,along with getting the swamp cooler going.
Good luck with your project.
If you ever paint the floors,I am happy with the Tile-Clad floor I did.
TXDart
P.S.
X2
on what 64x2 said.
 
One of the best things about the plan is that those two a/c units are cleaned up and will finally be installed -- after 5 1/2 years LOL -- and there's brand new high tech foil insulation among the building materials arriving Monday. There's been a serious shop heater out there for a couple years so that's taken care of.

We're still not quite sure what to do with the floor (LOVE Tony Fields' shop floor but that's just not in the budget). I want to check out the crack filler mentioned earlier in a reply to this thread and look at the coating options some more. It won't get driven on much, but it will get washed a lot due to the powder dust.

The el-cheapo plastic and wire shelving is going in the trash << happy dance >> with the contents relocated into hinged cabinets (part of the short-chick work station). And my 8' plywood/sawhorse table I've used for five years that I just finally painted three months ago ... well, don't know what to do with it. :-D When it's all said and done, it's going to free up some considerable space on my side, and we'll both be happy putting the blasting cabinets under the lean-to when it's built.

Maybe a laptop and wireless router are in the shop's future but for now the office is staying in the house. Walk-in customers are pretty rare but there's a spot in the basement to entertain them if needed.

For the current customers following this thread, I really appreciate everyone's patience and understanding as this mess gets dealt with. Since we're going to be ripping the roof off, the shop will officially be down for a few days. (I will not jeopardize anyone's job with construction dust or possible mishaps while the work is going on.) But the place will be better than ever with smoother workflow and organization once it's all done.

Thanks for all the ideas! Keep 'em coming -- nothing's set in stone. :-D
 
I'd put up 12 foot walls in case you decide to put in a car hoist. Two compartment sump, If your poring a new floor I would set four inch abs pipe by the rear overhead doors so you can have built in floor exhaust with a blower outside.
 
for maximum storage capacity in minimal space you may want to look into a shevling system libraries call "stacks" they have a wheel you turn and the shelves accordion one by one so you can get between them and when youre done you just turn the wheel back and they stack against the wall. no idea on a price for these things though and they may be pricey. but COOL
 
I've seen those rolling shelves in libraries and law firms before -- very cool, you're right! -- but I don't have that much stuff that needs stored, just a few parts jigs and some chemicals.

Though the body is protesting now, I'm happy to report that we started demo yesterday afternoon. The damaged tin on half of the south side has been removed, the screws holding the roof tin to the damaged beam are out and the beam itself was unbolted. I was shocked to discover I could pick it up by myself -- thought those things were much heavier than that????

Speaking of heavy beams, the one we ordered turned out to be overkill (240 lbs of cold rolled steel) so the order was canceled. We've contacted the company who originally built the building (Arco Building Systems) to try to get one replacement roof beam but haven't heard anything yet. All the "local" places apparently won't deal directly with the public -- can't buy just one beam unless you happen to be someone who erects these buildings I guess -- so anybody have a lead on where to get one? The shop would be much better if it had all four walls. :-D

A couple progress photos ...

View attachment IMG_4461.JPG

View attachment IMG_4463.JPG

Billy cutting off a sample of it for our contractor ...

View attachment IMG_4466.jpg

This is what we need right here ... but preferably a straight one. LOL

View attachment IMG_4467.jpg

After supper we came back outside and cut the oak tree into manageable chunks and hauled them out of the way with the tractor. There's some new ruts in the yard now but at least that big beast is outta the way! (No pics, sorry ... left the camera in the house.)
 
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