Building my own workshop

[Limburger]

Did some final welding on the doors and sealed the outside very good so no water will ever come in between the metal parts. If all goes well there should come any water to these doors.

Bought some very wear friendly paint (don't know the correct pronounciation) its called Hamerslag lak in the Netherlands it has a rough texture.

I was curius what the weight of the door frame was without the innerskin, all the hardware and glas work. So I said to friends the one that guesses the closest gets a beer on me!
One of them guessed 174KG a piece, he liked the beer:

The overhead crane was really handy, we could just lift them of the trailer and set them upright. We den set them on a piece of cartboard straight up and slided them into place.

The day after we hanged the doors we got some weather and minus 13 celcius. So glad I got them in. After that I worked in the evening on hanging the electric gutter, but it just got to cold with a small heater in there. I just had to wait the weather out to do something again.

Mounted the glass in there, really surprised me how much light came in thrue them:

The doors are not ready for now, still have to put wood up on the front and insulation, but thats for another time. So I did put the inside panel on there so it would not just stand in the garage to get damaged. Looks kind of vault like now. I plan to do some decoration on the inside on the door.

Next is electic and lights

 

[danst96]

Can I employ you to come build my shop?

 

[Limburger]

Hmm Leeds, never bin there. Yeah sure I drop by sometime to take a look

 

[Limburger]

Next is air and electricity, i wanted to do the electricity my self to learn it a bit. I do have some knowledge about it but not enough, so I asked some friends how I should make it and ordered all the stuff I needed. I did hang some gutter to lay all the wires in, in my opinion its so much nicer to see and very easy to work with in the future.
First I made the airlines, I ordered some hydraulic hard line and a bucket of couplings to connect them.

Made some down drops (4x) and a connection for a hose reel. Also made a pipe that goes down to my workbench to have air in the workbench. (the workbench is coming to an end and is pretty awesome in my eyes)

Did hook up the ground cable and the main feed from the house and ran all the cables to the outlets.

I asked a LED rep to come and look at my garage and my wishes and help decide wich light fictures would suid me and my garage. I went a little overkill, but you cant have enough light. 4 60x120cm high lumen panels in the front area (high area) and 8x 30x120cm highlumen under the attic, this came out real nice in the beams so they would hang flush with the beams. And finally I added 2 30x120cm highlumen panels on the attic. They are 4000K so it would not be so bright white when they are on. I'm really really happy with the result, almost no shade, and I can work on the bench pillar drill and sander without standing in the light.

Looks very yellow on this picture but its just nice light.

Next up is workbench!
Preview:

 

[Limburger]

I had a idea about how my workbench should look like. I'm a bit of a nutcase as it coms to stuff of my own, i often really think things thrue to try and think of everything. As in spray cans away from the welding area, build in air plugs. Build in controlls for my hydraulic table.

My main goal was to have a really sturdy workbench, that if I would move in the later future if that was the case I could unscrew it and seperate it in 3 pieces (heavy pieces). Wanted to have a lot of storage underneath, place for aerosols behind a door/drawer. I have a quite large collection of bolts/screws and i don't have a good place to store them and sort them. A while ago I found a nice cabinet with 28 metal containers inside wich can be taken out, this is the cabinet on the 3d drawing with the two doors. I wanted to set that underneath also for quick acces an so it's out of the way. When I was drawing it up I found I could add space for my toolbox to role under this way I have my tools handy and if I need it elsware I could easily take it.

It will all be metal, included the tops. The big spaces are 6mm steel plate and the section with holes is a fixture table wich is shown below:

In my drawing I made space for metal/wood storage behind/under the workbench, this will be changed to only the place behind the bolt cabinet and toolbox. The long pieces will go in a rack on the attick so I have more space for my welders and plasma cutter that will live under the workbench in the far corner.

I had to make a steelbox frame with allot of diffrent sizes so I made a saw list with colors (OCD here) this way I could shop everything at work and take it home to weld.
Started tacking everything together:

Ordered a bunch of drawer slides and measered the drawers, this was a precise job since the slides dont permit for much play. Asked a friend if he would be able to set them in a brake and tack them.

A mate had a TIG welder and we could really use a practise piece so we did weld two evenings to weld the drawers together. We did manege but it was alot of work.

Measered out weare the slides should go and trial fit the drawers:

Now it was time for the front plates to make it neat:

Fresh lick of paint for the frame and drawers:

I welded in the weldtable section afterwards, because this had to be 100% lever in all directions to get the best result on the fixture table.

Made the controlls for the hydraulic lift table in the workbench for easy acces. Also started running the airsockets, I did add a pressure gauge to see how many pressure is in the system and if I should set the compressor on (I can put it on from below so in case something leaks it doesn't start when i'm not at home).

More pictures in the weekend, I think it will be almost finished by then.

 

[Limburger]

I ordered some aluminium to make some shelves in the place between the drawers, but unfortunatly it didn't come yet.
Made some wooden boards to screw the shelves to:

I did put the toolbox in place to see how it looks like:

Slided in the drawers and masked of the stripe and sprayed on the blue stripe.

I need to get some thin wood board to make a grit like insert to put in the aerosol drawer, this way they stay put:

Behind the cabinet and toolbox spot, I made shelves to store short and middle length off cuts of metal and sorts. This way its easy to acces and not in the way when working.

Really but really pleased how it looks so far!
Still need to search sutible drawer handles.

 

[Spectric]

Still need to search sutible drawer handles.

As you have made the workbench and drawers why not the handles, could be simple two brackets and a tube through the pair.

 

[Limburger]

I thought of that, and meaby I will but I have to narrow down a design. I'm kinda picky about it

 

[clogs]

that project is a work of art....I'm sure your very proud.....
most hobbyists in the Uk would be happy to loose a leg to have your workshop......
If ever you move it will add extreme value to the price of the house....
Every house I had I did something similar but not as smart....
Say I spent £10,000 on the workshop it added another 10,000 profit to the price of the house......
easy peasy.....

 

[danst96]

This is an insane level of attention for a home workshop. Something I can aspire towards with my upcoming workshop in Canada

 

[Spectric]

How about polished and shaped aluminium channel, then anodise black or red to stand out.

 

[Limburger]

that project is a work of art....I'm sure your very proud.....
most hobbyists in the Uk would be happy to loose a leg to have your workshop......
If ever you move it will add extreme value to the price of the house....
Every house I had I did something similar but not as smart....
Say I spent £10,000 on the workshop it added another 10,000 profit to the price of the house......
easy peasy.....

Thx, yeah it deffinitly will not affect the value in the negative way.

This is an insane level of attention for a home workshop. Something I can aspire towards with my upcoming workshop in Canada

Yeah i'm aware of that I just love looking at other workshops on the web and youtube to look how and why people do things. I work as a mechanic everyday and have worked on my car in 3 diffrent area's. So overtime I got an idea what I would like and what not. And I tried to implement that in this setup. I really try to make it flow and work good for ME. That's why the bench is quit high for normal people but for me its perfect.

 

[Limburger]

As you have made the workbench and drawers why not the handles, could be simple two brackets and a tube through the pair.

Found them! I was walking thrue the builders shop searching for aluminium angle pieces. I found them and wandered on, but when I saw the sliding door hanger profile I thought hmm what if I use them upside down...

Really pleased with them, they grap easy. Quite cheap, i'm Dutch so that is a very big +, and I could make them the length I needed them to be.

 

[Spectric]

Thats what I like to see, people thinking outside of the box to make things different, and ultilising anything available even if not for the original purpose.

 

[Limburger]

Workbench is nearly finished, some small detail work. Still in the proces of putting some machines in place, need to make a shelf for my small drillpress so its a bit higher and that way I can sweep under it to keep the ground clean. I've put in the fixture table and leveled it out to have a nice level work/fixture table. I did put the fixture top about 2mm higher than the other tops to clear them if i would fixate something larger than the size of the table.
Also cut up some 3mm wood board in strips and made a can divider in the aerosol drawer to prevent them from sloshing around when opening/closing the drawer.

Fixture top, 1400mmx920mmx15mm St52 metal plate with 20mm holes 100mm on center.

Aerosol drawer. Room for 54 cans and bigger things in the bottom, I dont know if I make dividers in the bottom. For now I leave it like this.

The cabinet under the bench shown in the previous post holds 24 metal ''trays?'', I had planned to use this cabinet for a hardware storage, bolts nuts washers screws legbolts etc. I had a metal shop cut a bunch of 2mm plate to make dividers and I welded them in. After that I painted the trays, currently I have some sorting to do about 10 hours of it...

Made a stand for my bigger drillpress to also set the chuck higher for better working hights and to keep the floor clean around it.

And took the car home

 

[Spectric]

Your power sockets look interesting, I don't know about Dutch electrical systems but are they 230 volt single phase in blue and 400 volt three phase in red both in the same enclosure? If so how are they wired, as I have not seen anything like this.

 

[Limburger]

Your power sockets look interesting, I don't know about Dutch electrical systems but are they 230 volt single phase in blue and 400 volt three phase in red both in the same enclosure? If so how are they wired, as I have not seen anything like this.

That's correct, 3 fase simply to the 3face socket and one of the 3 fases go to the 230volt. I splitted them up so every one has a diffrent color to the one fase 230v.

 

[Spectric]

That is interesting as in the UK we cannot do things like that, not thought of as good practice.

 

[nickds1]

That's correct, 3 fase simply to the 3face socket and one of the 3 fases go to the 230volt. I splitted them up so every one has a diffrent color to the one fase 230v.

That would scare me. If you have two bits of kit in the same room on different phases, you can have around 415V volts between them...

Maybe they are far apart, but folk use extension cords...

That's potentially (!) a very serious zap!!

 

[Spectric]

That would scare me. If you have two bits of kit in the same room on different phases,

That is one of the reasons it is not good practice, you can lose control of what phase is supplying each single phase socket and end up with as you say a 400 volt Pd.