New woodshop in a historic home
Hello, Creek. Long time lurker, first time poster. I generally have little to contribute that hasn’t been said before so I’ve been quiet, but I’ve learned so much from this forum and the familiar faces that help everyone out. Thank you for your contributions.
Images in a public album, so I don’t have to upload to the forum: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0QJ058xyJpTisY
I’ve been working with a team restoring an old house for the last 5 years. The stack of architectural drawings weighs about 5 pounds, as the scope has been broad and deep, planned and unplanned, with many surprises along the way. The final leg of the project was turning a 2 car garage into a four car sized shop (with zero cars in it). I have been enjoying the process, but have made some mistakes as fatigue and energy limitations after such a long and in depth project don’t allow me to be everywhere. I’m either building, researching or managing the subs or designers, and there are only so many hours in the day.
First, the machines: Felder kf700sp with 9 foot slider, an SCM fs52es with Tersa head, and an acm built s540p SCM bandsaw. And a Oliver 91-d rebuilt by Darcy warner. I’m upgrading from a sawstop pcs with router table (keeping it), powermatic mortiser, Laguna 18bx and hammer a3-31 jointer/planer with xylent cutter head.
*One piece of trivia that might be helpful to future felder orders is after enough calling day after day for a few weeks, we were able to get them to crate the machine with osb rather than just the typical ply skeleton wrapped in Vci yellow plastic on a pallet.
Phase perfect drawing from the main house’s 400 amps which works out because the house used to have over 150 halogen mr16s in the building and yard, and 3 electric water heaters which are now all LED/natural gas. We’re actually running the single phase off the phase perfect, too, which I heard would clean up the power. I had engineering help on that, which is sometimes dangerous.
I also did a sound analysis (casual) with the advice from a person with a phd in noise reduction, which was useful for quick and dirty gut check on my instincts and product selection. I selected material by trying to remember the tones of my existing machines, humming them and comparing them to YouTube test tones, to realize that 2” material would be better than 1” material to handle low/mid frequency noise. For new machines, I tried to find recordings on YouTube of people running similar devices. Sound transmission handling was done in wall (drywall and insulation rated for sound transmission reduction, as well as double walls in some places where old masonry was behind new stud framing.) there’s also a layer of ply on top to help give shear strength to lumber and shelving standards. On top of that I did a combination of noise absorbing panels (echo eliminator, basically recycled shredded denim with a class A fire rating) mass loaded vinyl on sheet metal of the worst offenders for sound, and an industrial quilted curtain (3 of them, about 40 pounds each) around the dust collector. Right now, the dust collector (5hp Oneida) can’t be heard whatsoever from 5 feet outside the shop. I still might cover the panels, which shed a lot of blue dust during cutting and install, with some fire rated medium weight canvas. No big deal, easy fix if it turns out they get too dusty from wood working or continue to shed. The material is cheap and staples are easy.
Some other fun quirks are a walkable attic storage with (existing) retractable stairs, and a 200 pound material lift (by Space Attic) as well as a surgical room foot pedal for my sharpening sink so I can avoid wasting time, water, avoiding potential injuries manually turning the faucet on or off (I sharpen a lot, and take many lessons from the Japanese woodworking community, including brian Holcombe who many of you recognize from the creek.) since many of the walls are built in existing framing, we have often 10 inches of wall, and window jambs and sills were extended. One particular south facing window with frosted glass gets fantastic early and late day light, and I might modify the sill into a detailed work bench for fine, small work. One wall is lee valley lumber racks, the other major wall is heavy duty shelving standards. The work table height level of both these racks/shelves will be used for a temporary work surface and infeed outfeed for the machines nearby. I also installed some fire suppressant canisters from haven, which are basically extinguishers with a heat activated trigger set at 135 degrees in the case of an incident. They cover 10x10 so I put 8 into the shop, spaced accordingly. They also make attic rated models that trigger at higher temperatures, which I am considering.
The main reason I am posting is that the dust collection system was just done and I might have some issues. I hired the same HVAC company my general contractor used for the hvac in my main house. Good guys, who put in a small apartment building heat pump system zoned (Mitsubishi city multi connected to haiku fans and ecobee thermostats.) I worked with a mech e to modify Oneida’s initial duct run suggestions and guidelines since Oneida stopped writing back and wouldn’t help with revisions (what does one expect for 200 bucks?). The engineer built a few too many aggressive twists and we ironed them out in the field, but things went ok.
Back to the potential issue. I realized today, after the system is basically done, they used these 1/2” (guessing, but might be 5/8th ish) sheet metal screws rather than rivets as i discovered some smart people suggest. I worry mostly about the planer shavings.
I’m considering asking them to redo the connections, as the screws seem like they would catch long shavings from the tersa, but then again those shavings are going to be short grain along the length. Would they break up or catch and clog? The system is about 35 feet long, so its about 200 screws for the system, I believe, rough guess. Taped and sealed after. A contract is a contract but guys gotta make a living so I usually will offer to split cost of labor with the sub, in a situation like this. Obviously, asking an hvac company to do this kind of application one could expect that kind of thing to happen if the owner (me) wasn’t being careful or wasn’t experienced enough. I live in a remote area where good help is hard to find, but good help can be guided through new experiences often enough. We have a ton of salt air, no old iron to be found, and tons of logistical challenges getting materials and expertise here.
Rivets can be installed blindly, I believe, without connections being taken apart. Yes?
One could scratch through the tape to access the screws, and then remove and re-connect with rivets in the same spots, then tape and sealant could be re applied. Am I thinking this through clearly?
Last question is about grounding, the owner built a coupling of rubber to isolate the machine from the ducts in terms of noise and vibration. That also seems like I need to expressly ground the machine. How would you ground this duct system best? Just a metal screw and wire from the duct’s main to the frame of the collector?
I look forward to getting the shop set up, as I’ve been without a shop for almost a year. In the mean time, I got to practice some field carpentry with basic tools that fit on a belt, learned to sharpen in the dirt on the floor, got comfortable using a circular saw (japan market 5” Makita most of the time, a scalpel of a circ saw!), and learned to appreciate the work of carpenters and cabinet makers in the trades, who often have to build far from the precise and perfect environment of a shop. I also deeply appreciate this community, who seems to know a lot better than any engineer, sub contractor, designer, architect or even builder. There’s no replacement for an obsessed heart, is what I’ve found.
I only posted a few photos, but I can post more if anyone is curious.
Duct issues aside, there is only to wire/plug some 3 phase equipment and the shop is basically ready to go. I can wait a bit longer to get things right before moving back in, though.
Thank you for your expertise, opinions and replies in advance.
Brian
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