I have to confess to my guilt in the amount of time this shop move has been taking. It is getting close to five years and I just must complete it. The delays are not totally my fault; the most recent one was due to my son's stroke which took at least three months of my time between hospital visits in Houston and rehab and disability applications and VA application, etc. BTW, if you have a stroke, the place to go is St. Luke's Hospital in Houston. They are fantastic.
My lathe, mill, band saw, and many other items are presently still stored in a trailer in my driveway and the city is on my case to get that ugly thing out of there. Although I am legally permitted to park it there, they have come up with pages of infractions that I am supposed to correct. Many of these make no sense, but they are determined and I don't know if I could make a case to the city council so I agreed to five months. Hopefully that will be enough. So, back to the shop move.
If you want to see the start of this odyssey, here are the links to the first and second threads on it.
https://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/fo...reat-shop-move
and
I have put in about a week so far this month. The first thing I realized was I needed more shelves so I could clear off the bench so I could move it and floor so I could paint it. Or at least paint part of it at a time. And yes, I am tossing as much as I can. A bunch of time was wasted searching for white particle board shelves. I thought every lumber yard had them, like milk and bread in a supermarket, but the only local place which still carried them was Lowe's. Their computer showed 49 in stock but the bin had two and one was cracked. On my third trip there I was hoping they could either have some brought in or tell me where their nearest store with stock was. But a very helpful gentleman of at least 65 years took up the cause and searched. Sure enough, he found them on the very top bin near the back delivery door, not in the isle where they were sold. Four pallets up there and it was the third one down. The fork lift ran out of gas on the first lift so another 45 minutes to locate another cylinder and install it. Then there was no "spotter" so another 20 or 25 minutes to get another employee there to guard the isle. Whatever can go wrong, WILL. But their computer was spot on: 48 on the pallet and one good one on the shelf.
Anyway, I finally got my shelves. I am presently installing them. Here you can see the tracks are up and the bottom row of brackets are in place.
As I finished installing the tracks, I realized that I still needed to install new electric outlets on that wall and it would be difficult after the shelves were up and filled. I would have to empty at least the top ones and take them down. So I started putting the electric outlets on the wall. You can see two of them below the shelf tracks in the photo.
I started on the third outlet this morning and the lumber you see stacked against the wall was in my way so at least some of it had to be moved. In the process of moving it, I "found" the 12 ton press I had bought on sale a couple of years ago, still in the boxes. When I tried to move them, they started falling apart so I figured it was just as well to put it together. Here it is, assembled. Now I can push real hard.
I finally got that third outlet box on the wall while my current cup of coffee was brewing. I will wire it tomorrow or Monday. And then one more, a fourth one, to go. Then I can put up the shelves and stack stuff on them.
Oh, in another thread someone was curious about shop layouts so here is what I am working with.
The lathe, mill, drill press, and an additional bench will be in a central island. Two benches on the left or north wall. Hopefully that will be enough space. The top or east wall has a small bench I used for layout work in the trailer shop and it was shaped like that for clearance for doors. Next to it is my Unimat bench, a steel bench which has five drawers. On the right, south wall there is a built in desk that came with the house so, for now it remains. The dotted rectangle half way down that wall is the attic stairs which fold down/up. That area needs to be kept reasonably clear.
My daughter was nice enough to provide me with a 4' x 2' heavy duty shelf unit which is presently on the east wall and very full. But it can not stay there. I plan to put it where the table saw is shown. The table saw is very light and it will probably just move above that shelving unit. I haven't figured out where the press goes. I have another post about that.
The stock racks you see near the garage doors are for both lumber and metal. I am thinking about an A frame construction with room for storing plywood panels or sheet metal on the outsides and pockets for long, thin stock in the middle. I will probably have to make them shorter than the drawing shows for access to those middle pockets. They will be on wheels so they can be easily moved for bringing large machines or other objects in to or out of the shop.
I am running out of space quickly here.
Anyway, that's where I am now. And dog tired. Oh, another complication is a bunch of plywood that is presently on the north wall. It is cut into ~12 inch widths to make some nice shelves for my office, four seven foot high units. It has to go so after I get those shop shelves up, I am going to take a detour and get those office shelves finished. And they need to be stained and varnished. I hate painting. But that is another story. I started my office shelving with some nice, oak finished particle board shelving boards that did not need any finishing. I used pre-finished paneling for the backs and all I had to do was cut and screw together. But again, they stopped carrying those nice, oak finish shelving boards. I looked all over. Nada! Nothing! AAAHHHHHAAARG! So I need to stain and varnish to match a painted on finish of the existing shelves. Go figure.
More later.
My lathe, mill, band saw, and many other items are presently still stored in a trailer in my driveway and the city is on my case to get that ugly thing out of there. Although I am legally permitted to park it there, they have come up with pages of infractions that I am supposed to correct. Many of these make no sense, but they are determined and I don't know if I could make a case to the city council so I agreed to five months. Hopefully that will be enough. So, back to the shop move.
If you want to see the start of this odyssey, here are the links to the first and second threads on it.
https://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/fo...reat-shop-move
and
I have put in about a week so far this month. The first thing I realized was I needed more shelves so I could clear off the bench so I could move it and floor so I could paint it. Or at least paint part of it at a time. And yes, I am tossing as much as I can. A bunch of time was wasted searching for white particle board shelves. I thought every lumber yard had them, like milk and bread in a supermarket, but the only local place which still carried them was Lowe's. Their computer showed 49 in stock but the bin had two and one was cracked. On my third trip there I was hoping they could either have some brought in or tell me where their nearest store with stock was. But a very helpful gentleman of at least 65 years took up the cause and searched. Sure enough, he found them on the very top bin near the back delivery door, not in the isle where they were sold. Four pallets up there and it was the third one down. The fork lift ran out of gas on the first lift so another 45 minutes to locate another cylinder and install it. Then there was no "spotter" so another 20 or 25 minutes to get another employee there to guard the isle. Whatever can go wrong, WILL. But their computer was spot on: 48 on the pallet and one good one on the shelf.
Anyway, I finally got my shelves. I am presently installing them. Here you can see the tracks are up and the bottom row of brackets are in place.
As I finished installing the tracks, I realized that I still needed to install new electric outlets on that wall and it would be difficult after the shelves were up and filled. I would have to empty at least the top ones and take them down. So I started putting the electric outlets on the wall. You can see two of them below the shelf tracks in the photo.
I started on the third outlet this morning and the lumber you see stacked against the wall was in my way so at least some of it had to be moved. In the process of moving it, I "found" the 12 ton press I had bought on sale a couple of years ago, still in the boxes. When I tried to move them, they started falling apart so I figured it was just as well to put it together. Here it is, assembled. Now I can push real hard.
I finally got that third outlet box on the wall while my current cup of coffee was brewing. I will wire it tomorrow or Monday. And then one more, a fourth one, to go. Then I can put up the shelves and stack stuff on them.
Oh, in another thread someone was curious about shop layouts so here is what I am working with.
The lathe, mill, drill press, and an additional bench will be in a central island. Two benches on the left or north wall. Hopefully that will be enough space. The top or east wall has a small bench I used for layout work in the trailer shop and it was shaped like that for clearance for doors. Next to it is my Unimat bench, a steel bench which has five drawers. On the right, south wall there is a built in desk that came with the house so, for now it remains. The dotted rectangle half way down that wall is the attic stairs which fold down/up. That area needs to be kept reasonably clear.
My daughter was nice enough to provide me with a 4' x 2' heavy duty shelf unit which is presently on the east wall and very full. But it can not stay there. I plan to put it where the table saw is shown. The table saw is very light and it will probably just move above that shelving unit. I haven't figured out where the press goes. I have another post about that.
The stock racks you see near the garage doors are for both lumber and metal. I am thinking about an A frame construction with room for storing plywood panels or sheet metal on the outsides and pockets for long, thin stock in the middle. I will probably have to make them shorter than the drawing shows for access to those middle pockets. They will be on wheels so they can be easily moved for bringing large machines or other objects in to or out of the shop.
I am running out of space quickly here.
Anyway, that's where I am now. And dog tired. Oh, another complication is a bunch of plywood that is presently on the north wall. It is cut into ~12 inch widths to make some nice shelves for my office, four seven foot high units. It has to go so after I get those shop shelves up, I am going to take a detour and get those office shelves finished. And they need to be stained and varnished. I hate painting. But that is another story. I started my office shelving with some nice, oak finished particle board shelving boards that did not need any finishing. I used pre-finished paneling for the backs and all I had to do was cut and screw together. But again, they stopped carrying those nice, oak finish shelving boards. I looked all over. Nada! Nothing! AAAHHHHHAAARG! So I need to stain and varnish to match a painted on finish of the existing shelves. Go figure.
More later.
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