# New shop build -- photo intensive thread, warning!



## mleptuck310 (Feb 24, 2022)

I'm new to this site, but figured I'd jump in and detail the new shop I designed, engineered and built over the past year and a half.  To start, in late March of 2020 we somehow sold our house in 3 days for well over asking price in the initial stages of the lockdowns (the folks who bought it never set foot in the house until settlement day; did everything via facetime on my wife's phone, believe it or not).  So, come early July, I needed to move the contents of my wood/machine shop in our daylight basement to the new place.  Here's my old space mid-move out:



So after I loaded everything into a 24' rental truck, I got to deliver it all to the new place, and it filled two of the three bays of the attached garage:





THEN, to make matters worse, these two guys just followed me home from some weekend adventures (and got stowed into the garage too):




Our new place is ~6 acres, about 5 of it pretty heavily wooded with mature black oak, poplar and several hickory trees.  I started scouting potential building sites in the property, with an eye on how I could minimize the amount of tree work to do, vehicle access, how I could get utilities out there, etc. and we settled on a spot off of the top of our driveway, about 150' from the house.  Labor Day weekend of 2020, the Gravely went to work on the brush:





As winter came in, I got the design and engineering pieces of the building knocked out, and started the civil engineer on the stormwater plan (what a racket that is...).  Now that the leaves and foliage were down, I started seeing more and more iffy trees that would be surrounding the building, and as my critical eye looked more and more, what originally was a plan to drop 5-7 trees (keep in mind, most of these trees are in the 100' tall region) grew to about 20.  A new bar and chain on the Farmboss, a handful of felling wedges, a sledge hammer and a peavey, and away I went:











This was the biggest tree I had to drop -- that is a 20" bar on the saw for scale, and it JUST made it....



We were left with a nice pile of butt logs that I was able to sell off to a local sawmill (kept a few for myself too):




Then, a few days of chipping (and stump grinding, not pictured) followed:



Until FINALLY I could get some footings dug and poured, and my block walls in place: 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





To be continued!


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 24, 2022)

After hemming and hawing about the insane price of lumber in early 2021, my wife got tired of my griping and TOLD me to just order the damn lumber and shut up.  Who was I to argue?

So, let the framing begin!  9' pre-cut 2x6 walls in 12' sections, so I was able to stand them all solo (a couple were a tad hairy, but none got dropped, and no injuries reported.

May 13th the first wall section went up:









2 lengths of W12x26 steel, and I'm ready for the 2nd floor deck:




I **HATE** OSB, and really really wanted to sheath and deck in CDX, but geez, the prices...  I was convinced to go the OSB route, and I have to say the LP 3/4" T&G subfloor they gave me went together WAY easier than any CDX I'd ever put down.  A few light taps with the sledge on a beater board, and the tongue was nicely seated, and away we went.  



Now to frame a 9/12 up and over by myself....  16' 2x8 rafters maxed out (had nothing by a million little triangles left over once all the rafters were cut.  Really wasn't bad at all getting the ridge up.  Made some temporary props, slipped one end, then the other end of the ridge between pairs of rafters and, it started to look like something:






The plan was for an 8' covered slab the entire front length of the building (and the porch columns sat on the slab), so while I waited for the flatwork to get done (other than the spray foam insulation, the concrete flatwork was the only thing I didn't do myself) I got rafter tails and soffit framed, framed my fly rafters and return roofs, and sheathed the back roof:




Front and interior slabs poured, so now I can start planting columns on there and framing the porch roof:


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 24, 2022)

Got the roof weathered in over the July 4th holiday.  I even had my wife up on the roof feeding me shingles








Then had to go source some bluestone to cap off the block wall on the uphill side of the porch, and then plant the roof column back on top when it was dry



Upstairs kneewalls and collar ties in place, ready for my framing inspection.  I've got ~15' kneewall to kneewall, and almost 9' wide of 7'+ ceiling.  Not totally ideal; I'd have loved to have done a shed dormer the length of the back of the building, but the additional costs for structural ridge beam, the chance I would have had to introduce columns on the 1st floor to transfer roof load down (avoiding columns was a MUST in my design choices), etc. just wasn't worth it in my mind.  The 2nd floor is going to be where all the woodworking machines live, and I don't use them nearly as much as the machining tools, so I'm okay up and down as needed when I need to do some carpentry.





Time to get power out there.  NEVER in my life would I have guessed the 1"(Ethernet and coax) 1.5" (3/4" PEX water line) and 2" (3x 1/0 SE cables) conduit runs to the building would cost more than my service entrance cables.  Go figure....



I was fortunate enough to have a separate 100A off-peak meter on the side of the house that was only feeding a few house circuits.  I consolidated those into the main house panel, and now had the entire 100A feeder segregated for the garage.  Only problem is, the meter bases are on the back of the attached garage, and our outdoor compressor was only about 1 foot away from the building, and I needed to trench 3'+ deep (since I was running water out there).  This 10' length of trench got dug by hand with a lot of cursing and sweating (it's July, remember?)



New 100A disconnect on the bottom of the meter base, and 2" into it for SE cable.  1" stub for low voltage stuff sticking up, and the 1.5" can be seen entering the basement below frost line)



Then, I needed to burrow UNDER the sidewalk behind the garage (with a 4" trenching shovel and digging bar from both sides, like I was digging the Channel Tunnel)



And pipes connected and critter/water proofed until next sections went in:



The backhoe made pretty quick work of the remaining 150' of trench.



Until I hit some GIANT rocks I decided were easier to bore beneath than attempt to dig out:



Until I was finally ready to pull my SE cable (custom rack-a-tier by yours truly):



Finished up with a piece of Azek on the new building and conduit bodies into the building as needed



Let there be light!  I did nine 8,550 lumens LED fixtures for the ~900 sq.ft. of 1st floor space.  Each fixture is 3 bulbs, and I split each fixture internally and wired to different switches so I can halve the light output as needed.


----------



## rabler (Feb 24, 2022)

Seeing a new place come together is really gratifying, especially when you’re doing the work yourself.


----------



## woodchucker (Feb 24, 2022)

Nice.
With all that wood cleared, you could have done like Keith Rutker... He cut down a lot of trees, then sent them over to be milled and dried. The resulting lumber was used for a beautiful post and beam shop.  I hope you sold that lumber...

Now, great shop. I hope those steel beams will be strong enough for a chain fall and trolley.   How big is the square footage?


----------



## DavidR8 (Feb 24, 2022)

That looks like a great space!


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 24, 2022)

woodchucker said:


> Nice.
> With all that wood cleared, you could have done like Keith Rutker... He cut down a lot of trees, then sent them over to be milled and dried. The resulting lumber was used for a beautiful post and beam shop.  I hope you sold that lumber...
> 
> Now, great shop. I hope those steel beams will be strong enough for a chain fall and trolley.   How big is the square footage?


I thought about that, and LOVE post and beam, but it would be uncharted territory for me (framed hundreds of houses, done ONE little post and beam porch project), and also kicked around a steel-clad post frame but really wanted more comprehensive insulation/air stopping, more ability to be flexible in mounting cabinets, fixtures, etc.  The butt logs all got sold (I donated a few to a non-profit antique machinery museum I volunteer for), and all the shorts in the pictures were hand split (I LOVE splitting wood by hand), stacked and are used for camping and backyard firewood.  

Beams can easily lift 3500# with very allowable deflection at midspan (1/200; not great but for quick lifts and drops, not an issue) and I've got trolleys for both.  First floor sq. ft. is ~900 (25 x 36) upstairs about 500 (14x36) with lots of storage behind kneewalls I'll be using liberally.


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 24, 2022)

rabler said:


> Seeing a new place come together is really gratifying, especially when you’re doing the work yourself.


Plus, I'm cheap and VERY picky about the quality of the work I do, let alone what I'm PAYING someone else to do!


----------



## MikeInOr (Feb 24, 2022)

When I saw those oak logs in your pics the post n beam idea occurred to me too.  Very cool idea but you have to separate "practical" from "would love to do" to actually make progress some times. 

Very nice job so far!

I like that you laid 3 conduits while you have your trench open.  Do you have an initial use for all 3?  Is it possible to pull a water line while your trench is open?

Edit: I just read that you are putting a water line in.  GOOD CALL!


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 24, 2022)

MikeInOr said:


> When I saw those oak logs in your pics the post n beam idea occurred to me too.  Very cool idea but you have to separate "practical" from "would love to do" to actually make progress some times.
> 
> Very nice job so far!
> 
> ...


Hi Mike, you got it -- three conduits one for electrical service, one for water and one for low voltage.  Next post or two will show more details on the utilities I ran out there!


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 24, 2022)

Time to start the soffits/siding/trim details.  




On days when weather was a limiter, or I wanted a break, I'd start roughing in all the 120V electrical inside, hang more LEDs upstairs, etc.  TOTAL overkill, but downstairs there is a quad receptacle every 64" fed by two separate 20A circuits, so I can plug two power-hungry 120V things in side by side and not have to worry about overloading anything.





Panel with my 'good to proceed' sticker from the inspector, and a coil of PEX which is the water supply to the building:



The fly rafters are a detail I really like, but these little return roofs entailed so much labor getting everything looking good, and laid in in the proper order for weather-proofing everything:





Garage door took EIGHT weeks to come in -- seems whatever I needed for this project either went up 50% in price JUST as I needed to buy it, or became immediately scarce when I went to find it...



Last step, was to break and install all of the cladding.  I avoid any face-nailing of aluminum trim, and have had really good success with nailing vertically from below in the 1.5" hemmed edge into the fascia or fly rafter, putting a slightly open hem on the top edge of the trim (which gets captured by the drip edge) and using color-matched OSI Quad sealant at 'glue' for all of the lap joints.  The blue painter's tape is to keep the joint clamped until the sealant cures.  




Back inside, I made provisions for my machinery wiring, by installing two 8" x 12" x 6" deep electrical boxes protruding from the face of the 2x6 studs 1.5" or so, then piping into the panel with 2" (I had leftover PVC, so used it, just making sure I bonded the boxes through the plastic back to the neutral/ground bar in the panel.  The 2" in the upper right goes to the 2nd floor for any possible future pulls up there.  Once this was all done, I had the place spray-foamed and then would have NO way of easily running new wiring anywhere...



Strangely I took NO pictures post-spray foam.  I did then clad all of my walls in 1/2" CDX, painted with 3 coats of PVA primer.  I didn't sweat making seams disappear, and everything is screwed up only (no adhesives) should I ever need to get into a wall, it should be fairly painless.  

THEN, I ran the two parallel runs of 1" EMT between 4 11/16" boxes every 64".  This will allow me to be able to place machines almost anywhere in the shop and supply them power (single or 3 phase, more on that later).  MORE importantly, it'll allow me to relocate machines without huge nightmares or rewiring




I think I need to have points taken off of my score, my 4-point saddles don't completely line up vertically, AND I've got some apprentice kinks in the bends (it had been a while since I'd bent conduit)



January 9th, 2022 I started moving machines out of the old garage into the new



I can see the far wall of the old garage!


----------



## NCjeeper (Feb 24, 2022)

Sweet G&E. I see it has the automatic down feed. A much desired feature. I wish mine had it.


----------



## MikeInOr (Feb 25, 2022)

mleptuck310 said:


> This will allow me to be able to place machines almost anywhere in the shop and supply them power (single or 3 phase, more on that later).  MORE importantly, it'll allow me to relocate machines without huge nightmares or rewiring



Good thinking!  Reading through your last post I was actually going to suggest you make provisions for some 3 phase wiring.  I would have a LOT fewer VFD's and just run the majority of my 3ph machines off my rotary phase converter if I had made provisions for a 3ph circuit when I wired my shop for 110v/220v. 

I like having a VFD on my lathe and such but the only reason I have them on machines like a table saw and jointer is so I can plug them into a convenient 220v outlet.


----------



## IamNotImportant (Feb 25, 2022)

With a building like that.. who needs a house.. bedroom and kitchen upstairs.. and playroom downstairs.. life is good!

Awesome set up that lot of folks only get to dream about..


----------



## mmcmdl (Feb 25, 2022)

Love the Bota !


----------



## ConValSam (Feb 25, 2022)

Looking really fantastic!


----------



## mmcmdl (Feb 25, 2022)

IamNotImportant said:


> With a building like that.. who needs a house.. bedroom and kitchen upstairs.. and playroom downstairs.. life is good!
> 
> Awesome set up that lot of folks only get to dream about..


If I had a place like this , my family wouldn't see me much . Very nice place .


----------



## rabler (Feb 25, 2022)

I like the parallel EMT for future/flexible wiring, I may copy that for my 3 phase from my RPC.

Do you have a way to hoist stuff up into the loft area?  I know you said it would be the lighter woodworking equipment but some of that can still be a little heavier than I would want to carry up steps, you may be a bit more agile.


----------



## FOMOGO (Feb 25, 2022)

Very nice space, and well put together. The only thing I would have done differently, would have been to go with a full second story. Pretty cheap additional s.f., and we never seem to have enough of that.


----------



## Papa Charlie (Feb 25, 2022)

Awesome shop build. Really well thought out. It would be perfect if it had a reloading room.


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 25, 2022)

NCjeeper said:


> Sweet G&E. I see it has the automatic down feed. A much desired feature. I wish mine had it.


Has the auto tool-lifter too, though I'm not sold it's anything more than a gimmick -- I kind of like the slapping clapper box sound!


----------



## Papa Charlie (Feb 25, 2022)

mleptuck310 said:


> Has the auto tool-lifter too, though I'm not sold it's anything more than a gimmick -- I kind of like the slapping clapper box sound!


It is more than a gimmick. It prevents the tool from dragging across your work and causing marks as well as protecting the tool tip.

However, if you really don't like that, you can always send the scraper my way. JK


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 26, 2022)

Papa Charlie said:


> It is more than a gimmick. It prevents the tool from dragging across your work and causing marks as well as protecting the tool tip.
> 
> However, if you really don't like that, you can always send the scraper my way. JK


Oh yea, I know its true purpose, but personally I've never seen it affect surface finish, and always figured with back rake on the tool, I'm bouncing the back corner of the bit off of the work, not the cutting edge.  I'll have to tune up the lifter and give it a real shot


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 26, 2022)

NCjeeper said:


> Sweet G&E. I see it has the automatic down feed. A much desired feature. I wish mine had it.


I lucked into mine; buddy found a machine shop retirement liquidation near me and told me about it.  Guy was really worried about having no buyers for the shaper, so gave it to me for $250 rather than see it get sent to China for scrap.


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 26, 2022)

mmcmdl said:


> Love the Bota !


We love it too.  Got it 2 falls ago after we moved in; the missus wanted something to help clear and maintain the trail network she's building in our woods, and it proved invaluable for lugging logs, digging stumps and footings, laying driveway stone, utility trenching, etc.  Would have spend a few thousand on rentals, so it saved us that, does much more, and we get to keep it!


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 26, 2022)

ConValSam said:


> Looking really fantastic!


Thanks!


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 26, 2022)

rabler said:


> I like the parallel EMT for future/flexible wiring, I may copy that for my 3 phase from my RPC.
> 
> Do you have a way to hoist stuff up into the loft area?  I know you said it would be the lighter woodworking equipment but some of that can still be a little heavier than I would want to carry up steps, you may be a bit more agile.


Do NOT have a hoist.  I kicked around replacing one of the 2nd floor gable windows with a door and a yardarm, but for now at least, decided I don't need it.  The Jet cabinet saw is the heaviest machine, and I drop the motor and table top off, and the heaviest piece is then about 200# and was easy to get up there with an appliance dolly and a buddy's help.


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 26, 2022)

FOMOGO said:


> Very nice space, and well put together. The only thing I would have done differently, would have been to go with a full second story. Pretty cheap additional s.f., and we never seem to have enough of that.


I kicked that around for a little while in the design phase, but it would have made the building look massive, and neither my wife nor I wanted that.  The 2nd floor was really the only compromise I needed to make, so I have no complaints!


----------



## mleptuck310 (Feb 26, 2022)

Based on the current inventory, I monkeyed around in Sketchup and came up with the layout below.  The Xed out areas are the additional clear space(s) I need to open drawers, get in drawbars, etc.... 
	

		
			
		

		
	




The maple woodworking bench is currently a dumping/sorting ground, will eventually get replaced with a homemade metal bench I imagine and the wooden bench will go upstairs.



I'll be putting the 1959 BP J-head, Logan, Leblond and B&S grinder up on 4-5" riser feet; but for the time being, 4x4s are cribbing the mill up to a really nice working height.



Shaper corner.  1950 Atlas 7b and a 1954 G&E 20-24" Industrial.  The rotary phase converter is on a small wooden pallet beneath the stairs (no pictures, strangely enough).  



This spring/summer I'm planning pouring a pad off of the back of the shop, and putting up a shed roof to shelter the Kubota (and some material racks I have for stock).  The air compressor and rotophase are both likely to be moving out there too.  The back wall will get a little less-crowded when the compressor moves out.  The downstairs 24K BTU mini-split head unit is in this picture; there's a 12K head on the 2nd floor.  I over-bought a little and got a 4-zone outdoor unit, so if the 24K isn't up to the task (it should be, it's been running all winter through the really cold spells and surprisingly seemed way more than enough heating).



1949 LeBlond Dual Drive 15x40, and the 1960 Logan model 1957H 11x36 (blue) in the background



Dake 1 3/4 press and a nice Swiss Weidmann press



1975ish KO Lee  model BA960 tool & cutter grinder, and a 1928 Brown & Sharpe #2 surface grinder



Delta triple-duty grinder, Clausing variable speed drill press, a Taiwanese Orbit drill press (with a tapping head), Baldor grinder, and a Delta carbide grinder (behind the straw mat)


----------



## Calandrod (Nov 20, 2022)

mleptuck310 said:


> Based on the current inventory, I monkeyed around in Sketchup and came up with the layout below.  The Xed out areas are the additional clear space(s) I need to open drawers, get in drawbars, etc....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I’ve been dying to find a clausing drill press like that. They are either outrageous high or impossible to find.
Really nice on all your build. You really did a great job. I enjoyed reading through the thread and wish I had the knowledge you had. In struggling as it is running all the wiring to my new garage.


----------

