Shop Build...should be a fun journey...

[George Yetka]

Glad to see you bought a spray rig Jim. As you know most everything in construction is modular and for the life of me I never fig'rd out why paint roller covers were 9'' long...cuttting them down to 8" gets tiresome

try a chop saw. I had to do a bunch once It went fast. Just have to make sure you get all the lint off the ends.

Jim, Are you doing horse mats on the floor? And when does the finish carpentry happen? Im thinking dental crown and large chair molding(you could run your power and air through it) Maybe some 3 piece picture frames underneath. Only serious about the first question

[Jim Becker]

Jim, Are you doing horse mats on the floor? And when does the finish carpentry happen? Im thinking dental crown and large chair molding(you could run your power and air through it) Maybe some 3 piece picture frames underneath. Only serious about the first question

See post #625....answered you there about the mats.

It's good you brought up air, however. That will be surface mounted using a RapidAir system. I bought a leftover kit and extras from Matt Day in the SMC Classifieds awhile back and will be using that plus additional fittings to fill that out. It's a little tricky fully planning that out without the "toys" installed in the space, but I'm thinking about it more now as I'll soon move the big compressor in while I can use the Big Orange Power Tool to lift it onto the platform as I noted previously.

BTW, I used a 14" roller to backroll the sprayed paint.

[Jim Becker]

Today I finished up "phase one" of the sound conditioning work...I say phase one because it was the "easy" part since it was all flat on the top of the wall. This is a combination of acoustic ceiling tiles and carpet which will have different properties. Note, there will be some small trim installed to clean up the "edge" once I have the windows boxed in which requires I get the new table saw up and running. (I may try to push forward on that soon. At the moment, with no machinery in there breaking anything up, the "big room echo" has been reduced to nearly nothing as compared to before I started. "Phase two" of sound conditioning will have some additional stuff up in the rafters. The sound volume is what it is, but cutting down the sound bouncing around makes a big difference for sure.

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I'm hoping to get the audio system hooked up and working tomorrow so I can cross that off my list.

I really am seriously thinking about getting the slider moved from the pallet living in the temporary gara-shop to the new building and getting it put together and running as it will make a lot of the remaining interior fit out a lot easier to do "nicely". I have to see if my younger daughter's SO is available to help.
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Someone above asked for more details on an comment I made earlier about the mini split and I'll do that now as things are as they should be at this point. I love the system. It was very easy to install, aside from my own stupidity that I already detailed. After I let it run for over a week, I moved forward with my interior finishing. In the meantime, the temperatures in our local weather went down and I noticed that the system was struggling to keep up, so much so that it would drop to the low to mid 50s overnight. While I had my suspicions that there may have been a very small leak in the line set, I dutifully called in for technical support. It took four tries to get a human (IVR hung up twice and mis-directed once) and I spent about 15-20 minutes discussing it with someone I had expected to be a technician. But alas, that was not the case and it was more of a "which script should I use next" at the other end plus a couple of "let me put you on hold for a few minutes" occasions during the conversation. In fairness, I think that the dude was new to the job, but in the end, there was no advice or resolution other than "a technical technician" (go figure...) will call you back, but it may be a few days. That was Wednesday of last week. To-date, there was no call back, even after I emailed on Sunday the original person I had a pretty good back and forth with early on and asked for assistance getting support. Given my gut feeling and knowing that all the connections were now tight since I checked them multiple times including cutting a flippin' hole in the wall to access the interior unit end connections, I ponied up some money and ordered up a kit with a container of R410a and a handy-dandy connection kit with a gage plus a UV leak detection pen (the refrigerant has both a UV dye and a sealant in it) and did the deed as soon as it arrived. And yes, the system was low. Very low. Like "why is there no error message" low. Correcting that fixed the odd behaviors across the board and I'm very happy with a nice warm space to work. I will need to add a little more to bring it fully up to where it needs to be as I used the entire container in the kit and will order another container of the special joy-juice to top it off once I get through buying holiday gifts. The UV pen, BTW, detected no leaks...I've checked multiple times just to be sure.

So bottom line...the Mr Cool system is physically excellent and exceedingly easy to install. I won't "not" recommend it because it fills a unique space in the marketplace for folks who want a nice system with lots of features that doesn't require a bunch of specialized tools to install. And it really is an easy install. And I'd buy one for another application I may have in the future. But Mr Cool's technical support is not kewel and I'm very disappointed. You can't offer a true DIY system and not expect there to be an issue from time to time that requires expertise to help a customer. And that's about all I'm going to say about it.

[Tom M King]

Sorry you had trouble with the mini split. Once the initial charge has been put in a system, if the amount of refrigerant needs adjusting, there is no substitute for a gauge set, and temperature probes to get it "just right". Also needed is a vacuum pump to clear the lines and gauge manifold. Super heat and Subcooling sounds complicated at first, but once you understand it, it makes perfect sense. We are proud owners of seven different heat pumps, including one mini-split, with not the best techs around here, in spite of the price, so I just learned how to do it myself.


I find these guys youtube videos to be very good-anything they have on their channel. I also bought their little weatherproof charts. This is an older video. Their newer ones are better. They probably have a newer one just on this subject, but I didn't spend time looking for it. If you see one over to the right when you open this link, click on the newer video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT14KanjckQ

[Zachary Hoyt]

I'm sorry that you've been having trouble. Mine seems to be working but I don't have a baseline to compare it to and I've only run it a few times when it wasn't cold enough to want the wood stove.

I'm curious about how the sound mitigation and the speakers interact. It sounds like the mitigation reduces echo but doesn't interfere with the speakers being heard, but I don't understand enough about how the system works to know if that's right. I do know that I find it helps to put a sheet over myself when volunteering as an audiobook reader, to reduce the room echo that's picked up by the mic.

[Jim Becker]

Zachary, I have started to change the term from "sound mitigation" to "sound conditioning" when speaking about this as it's more accurate I think. Phase one helped to reduce a lot of the "hard slap" echo and the things I'll hopefully do up high should reduce that further. Sound gets really annoying when it's bouncing around hard surfaces and can even make things sound louder than they really are. It's not detrimental to the speaker setup as I'm not trying to make a "dead" room; just one that's more reasonable with how sound/noise moves around.

Speaking of which...I got the audio system installed today and...wow...I'm really happy so far. I may or may not need a little targeted dampening on the top of the ceiling speakers long term, but for now, things are "kick butt" for sure. Right after I finished up with getting things working, WXPN.org's Funky Friday started and the whole building was doin' the funk for sure. I have a couple of little things to neaten up on the weekend, but otherwise, I'm very happy with being able to cross this task off the list.

Wiring up the tails for the speaker connections...

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All done for now...

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I have to start thinking about what I'm going to be doing and where on this "behind the bench" wall. That's about 16' of goodness.

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I'm going to be moving the slider from the temporary gara-shop tomorrow morning so I can work on getting it functional this weekend. I need that machine to complete boxing out the windows and door which is literally the last "construction" task other than projects like lumber storage. Helmut is visiting his 'rents in Germany right now, but my younger daughter's SO is available to help me late morning. I may or may not get the compressor moved, too, if time allows.

I'll be gradually filling up this nice space "real soon now" I suspect.

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[Tom Bender]

Of course it's just an artifact of the photography but the 'bow trusses' are an inspiration, should we build another space.

My brother has considered a tractor shed. Must try to keep this in mind, leaky though that vessel be.

[Jim Becker]

Yea, bowed trusses would be visually kewel...but bent laminations they must be for practicality and that would be "big bucks"!!!

(I did correct for distortion to the limit of Lightroom's capability, but there still that little bit of bow left in the image)

[Kyle Stiefel]

I like the contrasting "sound conditioning" treatment. A workshop that will be functional and look sharp at the same time!

[Jim Becker]

It's working well so far, Kyle...noticeably so. Once I have more "clutter", err...the machines and benches and cabinets, oh, my...I can evaluate if I need to do more and how much.

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The SC3C slider made it into the building this morning...the deed went fast and I'll post photos later in the weekend. I have it partially assembled and will hopefully finish that up tomorrow, given it will be a rainy day, etc. So I guess it's officially a "shop" now rather than just a shop building. LOL

[Christopher Charles]

Wow, congrats on that milestone! I also like the contrasting panels.

[Brian Tymchak]

Funny how the first thing installed in the new woodshop is a sound system...

[Wes Grass]

Subwoofer too? Nice.

'We' have 2 commercial buildings in the Bay Area with arched roofs. Bottom of the trusses are straight. I guess I've never really looked at them close, but the tops must be laminated. I think they're kind of cool looking. Not so practical in terms of roofing options though. I think they're both tar and gravel, or whatever, and there have been numerous problems with leaks over the years. And no overhangs, I think there's actually a perimeter with downspouts piercing the ends. Lotsa water has to come down those 4 little pipes, so it probably gets pretty deep up there when there's a good rain.

[Jim Becker]

Funny how the first thing installed in the new woodshop is a sound system...

Subwoofer too? Nice..

But of course! The old property had a large media room with the "big" TV screen, etc., and that 7.1 AV receiver did the deed. We don't have anything like that at the new place nor do we watch much TV/movies. So the receiver and subwoofer was repurposed for the shop building and as previously noted, the speakers in the ceiling are flat panel units that were originally in the drop ceiling of a small conference center at my employer of the time back in the mid-1990s. (they were designed for playback, not live voice) So repurpose/reuse is the name of the game here with a nice result.

The baseboard in the new shop as well as the surrounds for those ceiling speakers are reclaimed trim boards from the house that used to be next door. Same deal. Reuse and the price was right.

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Oh, and "It's Alive!!!!" First major tool is ready to use in the shop which is good because I need it to complete the last actual building construction task which is boxing and trimming the windows and person door. I'll detail the saw assembly in it's own respective thread, but this thing arrived a few months early from what was anticipated and it's been on a pallet in the temporary gara-shop since then.

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[Jim Becker]

The compressor made the 100' or so journey to the new shop today with the help of the Big Orange Power Tool and some careful preparation. I sliced off one end of the saw pallet since it was a "solid" deck and left the edge a little long so it could overlap the platform once I got it there as you'll see in a photo shortly. I made sure the pallet was strapped tight to the forks, too, so it was not going to move from any bounce, etc. 60 gallon compressors are very top-heavy so in addition to a heavy ratchet strap to stabilize the unit, the wood base it's bolted to was also screwed to the pallet for the trip with some additional material screwed down around it to insure it... was. not. going. to. move. It was still a little scary. LOL

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These small machines do not have the feature that keeps the loader "level" as it moves up and down so raising things up inside the shop building had to be done really, really slowly...the bucket tilt function is a bit touchy on my machine. As you can see, I put a little intermediate support in place so that there was a bit of back-stop available as the load got higher and I needed to adjust the tilt back to level. The right stabilizer foot at the rear of the tractor is not in contact with the floor, but was deployed simply for some extra safety due to the nature of what was going on up front. (the wall on the left served the same purpose)

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Here you can see how the lip I left on the pallet could rest on the actual platform once the load was up there and that added a "yuge" amount of stability so I could safely mover the compressor onto the platform by "walking it" in tiny little steps.

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Before I did that "walking" I put a strap over the lower chord of the truss that was right there just as some extra safety margin...and then slowly moved the unit onto the platform after removing the ten billion screws that were holding it to the pallet.

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After getting the tractor out of the building without running into the walls and cleaning up, I grabbed the compressor breaker from the temporary gara-shop's panel, installed it and switched it on. It was surprisingly less loud/noisy than I was expecting. The acoustic tile is literally right there at motor/pump height. I may make a small panel to hang from the truss right in front to further disrupt sound from the compressor when it runs periodically.

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The contactor setup works very nicely and that means it's darn tootin' easy to turn off the power to the compressor when I'm not in the building. Being up on the platform, that would have been a harder task to do otherwise.

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The other task today was getting a YoLink hub and switch installed for the outside light so I can turn the darn thing on and off from the house...from my phone for now but from a wall switch later that will also control other outside lighting in the back of the house. Other solutions I tried or investigated could not support the distance or could not support the LED fixture properly. My friend Helmut recommended YoLink and he was spot on that it would not only work, but do the job well.

Next up will be moving the G700 dust collector. It will be used "mobile" for a bit as I need everything in the space before I can calculate what I need to build out the duct work. It's using a long extension cord to bridge across the temporary gara-shop now, so I'll just continue to use that in the new shop plus a hose as I get through the move-in process.