Girth's Garage of Garbage- another garage build thread, but with added Urethane and GovDeal surplus

Hi. Welcome to hell.

J/K welcome to a bit of an odd thread, more of a "life improvement" and "ultimate build" more than a specific "garage build" like some of the others have done. Like some here (Revrico springs to mind) the complete bottom-out "Or dear lord the fed is literally doing everything they can" lowering of interest rates meant that I could finally spend my long-saved pennies on buying my own home instead of dickin' around with living with family or friends due to an avalanche of reasons, and the home I bought is one of those "Potential in spades" places that most people merely see (and smell) it's 40+ year old shag carpet and get hung up on that instead. I snagged the sucker WAY below asking after it had been on the market for awhile, and for nearly half a year I've been rebuilding it into a sweet bachelor pad- but at first, I'd like to focus on the garage.

Pictures you can smell.

It's a dank, dark 2 and-some-change garage like you'd see in any home across America, completely neglected as the prior owner focused more on the woodshop in the back until his passing. When I bought the home I saw all the things I could do, and when work began I realized that if I was ever to build an "awesome" garage to work in i'd have to do it right the hell now. I'm intelligent enough to be very cognizant of my own bullE36 M3 and I knew when opportunity reared i'd begin filling the garage with tools and things without ever really cleaning or improving it aside from the bear minimum, so the garage became a priority while the interior was worked on by tradesmen (and then promptly berkeleyed in half by said tradesmen but that's another story entirely). First were some basic plans:

1. As much light as possible, to make working and seeing inside easy.
2. To make every tool and bench mobile so space can always be made.
3. To make everything coated and sealed, so cleaning is easy as possible.
4. To make it as comfortable as possible, to not impede work.
5. To plan out aggressively, so everything has a space/place and clutter is kept to a wholly minimum.

So to begin, I first began cleaning and patching.

It's beautiful!

You might be able to see them in the pictures, but the garage floor had the standard pits and wells from decades of use- it actually held up extremely well for it's age, but as I researched coatings for the concrete I knew I wanted to do as much as I could to make it look as good as possible. In this future foreshadowing picture, you can see some of the 2+ pounds of concrete patcher I used; I went mad as basically attempted to remove any trace of aggregate from the surface with this putty mixture, a choice that would come to bite me later.

It was hot, sore work mostly spent on my knees. No don't type that-

This was done after I had done my first full sweep n' power wash, which thankfully didn't move much material from any of the surfaces and I was able to leave the garage open into the home to completely dry during the summer. The first lesson I can teach anyone wanting to do something similar is- you will work in spans of weeks. Concrete patches cannot be considered fully cured for 28 days, and since concrete is porous any cleaning you do will need a minimum of 48 hours to fully dry assuming you have great conditions (dehumidifier, A/C, ect.) so work on the garage would essentially be constant start-stop. This was actually great; the only time I *had* to have something complete on a span of time had to deal with the Urethane (which I'll get to) and some installers. Everything else was as I pleased.

This began also teaching me about myself a little bit- I will absolutely let something "get away" from me in the name and goal of perfection one I'm stuck in. I powerwashed this floor maybe 4-5 times before the Urethane. On the plus side- I probably needed that learning exprience and honestly I only expended time.

All men with a powerwasher will do this eventually. It's just a rule.

Remember those shelves? I was really trying to save them, but as things began being moved out of the garage for cleaning, staining and maintenance I began to learn that not all wood workers were created equal.

Thankfully I was able to save all the little bunny wallpaper that lined it!

#notallheroes

Congrats on the purchase! What's the garage square footage and what does your ceiling electrical setup look like? There are so many fantastic LED options these days that you can get some incredible light output without having to change too much if you pick the right bulbs/fixtures.

I pulled the workbenches out- the one on the far right fell apart instantly, and got destroyed for it's incompetence. The center one was soon revealed to be little more than a middle portion that was reliant on the backs of it's brethren to survive, and for it's weakness was purged. The one left on the left- LAUGH, LAUGH GODDAMN YOU- was thankfully put together by someone who knows glue exists, and I soon found myself a second bench to begin saving for future use.

Here's some mid-restore shots. This was taken during waits for different tools and things, and during this I realized the deck out front was getting real warped from decades of sun exposure and was sharp enough to actually cut someone. My spendthrift nature (and the fact I knew it would need replacing eventually) meant I slapped a coat of Thompson's Water Seal onto it, so the workbench got it too along with some other coming upgrades.

So anyway, now time to talk about coatings.

There were 3 choices I had here, each with pulses and minuses and all requiring the concrete to be cleaned to some degree.

1. Heavy Wax. One of two that can withstand oil and gasoline, wax would help seal the concrete and was the cheapest out of the bunch, but it suffers from needing reapplication bi-annually and allowing the concrete to show through. I really wanted color and having dark grey concrete would cut down on light, so that was a pass despite it's cheap cost.
2. Epoxy. Everyone knows about it so I won't go into too much detail, but I soon learned from here and the company I went with that the concrete floor has to be sealed for Epoxies to hold- they have very little "grip" to the concrete and water vapor evaporating through the block has far more strength, so if you're block is not sealed it'll just peel and flake off eventually- Tests could be done, but they largely involved drilling into the block itself. Finally, epoxies don't really repel oil and gasoline... and it's a garage.
3. Aliphatic Urethane. Not *exactly* sure what it is- some kind of polyurethane material that forms a rubbery coating on the concrete, pooling and quickly setting. It's the only coating other than wax that actually resists oil and gasoline, while also remaining flexible and resistant to abrasions.

I went with the urethane. After some calls and research, I settled on a brick-red from Armorcoatings, UTN60 blend- not simply because I like the color red, but because hordes of local college football teams in the area use red, making it an obvious choice that now I'm leaning into for other reasons.

But first, we gotta get everything ready...

The_BIG_Texan said:

Congrats on the purchase!

Thanks!

What's the garage square footage

No idea!

and what does your ceiling electrical setup look like?

Crap!

There are so many fantastic LED options these days that you can get some incredible light output without having to change too much if you pick the right bulbs/fixtures.

We'll get to that, I got like, 3 more posts to make or something.

Do not grind your own concrete.

Like with most coatings, the surface must be properly prepped before any material will adhere to it. Most of the time- especially with floors from this era- concrete was poured, leveled, and polished nicely because coatings weren't something for the commercial homeowner sector, at least as far as I can tell after learning that you do not grind your own concrete. Anyway, everything needs a grinding down and that means a rental, and doing my research (which should have included a chorus of people saying do not grind your own concrete) I quickly learned that a water hookup was necessary, 8 inch cutting wheels are the only ones to reliably get into corners, and it'll take a little longer than you'd think. I wanted to get started early so I went with what I thought was fine- a 2HP electric pulling a total of 20 amps.

DO NOT GRIND YOUR OWN CONCRETE.

This was a perfect storm of well-intentioned decisions that ended up being the worst I could have made. First, the concrete patches- the putty filling them gums up the cutting wheel disk and doesn't ablate away like the rest of the material, so routinely the grinder would bog into the floor dredging up a gummy mix. the 2HP motor was NOT up to the task and frequently cut out, tripping the breaker on an old Federal Pacific panel (YUP) and forcing constant start-stop. Finally, an 8 inch blade isn't E36 M3 and as will be revealed later, the supposed agility didn't matter at all. If I ever do this again- WHICH I WONT- I'm starting at a 10 inch wheel and I'm not looking at anything less than 5 horsepower. I used this grinder for nearly 6 hours for around $250 on this floor and I'm pretty sure a more powerful, 10+ inch gas version could have done it in half the time for less money.

But now we have to do even MORE grinding.

  I used LED lights that look similar to the old long typical garage lights, works much better, not expensive.  Available at Home Depot.

     I used garage floor paint from Home Depot, it is some type of Epoxy seems to work OK.  Not sure how well it cleans, I should empty the garage out and give it a real cleaning, but half the cars are not exactly mobile.  I have clean some spills with brake cleaner, didn't seem to harm the paint.

    You are smart to plan and get it as good as possible prior to any project work, once that starts it becomes very difficult to improve the shop. 

You thought we were done grinding? Bah, Krom laughs at your 4 winds.

So most grinder's really *cant* get the edges of the concrete, you know 'cause right angles and all. No matter what, you'll have to snag an angle grinder to do the job- thankfully, I've found a random youtube video that actually pointed me in an excellent direction. You need specifically a shield and a grinding wheel:

HERZO Universal Shrowd

OCR Diamond Grinding Cup

And these fit your standard Harbor Freight grinder and actually make for what seems to me, a really good tool for basic edge grinding. It's still a Harbor-freight spec grinder so torque is merely implied, but you're not cutting; merely ablating away the upper layers down to expose fresh, rough material for the layer to stick to. Despite the hilarious engrish on the OCR wheel the thing REALLY removes material and can be dry-ground at a cost of wheel life. The Shroud comes in handy not only to control the dust, but works astonishingly well for collection systems which I am still putting together.

So- edges get cut down, and finally the garage is ready right? No! No, not at all! Again, I learned my bullE36 M3, but thankfully I elected to do one final acid wash just to make sure, followed by two ammonia washes to make sure it was completely neutralized without leaving a salt behind- only after all that, and with 2 days to dry using a dehumdifier, could I truly call the garage floor "ready" to coat.

Here's what UTN60 Urethane with the "Brick Red" coloring look like:

Blood Bucket

I elected to not use the "pretreatment" epoxy that their instructions talked about for the prior epoxy issues in general- it's intended to make an even better surface for coatings to adhere to in the same way a primer would.

Armor Coating's instructions are great for the single kit, which will more than cover 500 sq/ft with basic tools (My garage is 21 by 23 feet or thereabouts) but you NEED to be ready with this stuff. Urethane dries fast- once mixed, you have a whole 20 minutes or so to completely paint your surface otherwise it begins to dry and loose adhesion, so for each application I had 2 others helping me to paint. And painting is literally what you'll do- it goes on thick like a Latex based Kilz and can either be rolled on with a shedless NAP or be poured and pushbroomed, the Former of which is what I did. From there, you have 10 hours until a second coat can be applied, which is ALSO what I did.

Here is my blood room! Where I keep allllllll my blood!

Halloween jokes aside, Urethane has a 'smell' but it isn't aggressive. We had the door completely open and it that seemed to be just fine for us, though with these times we were constantly masked.

So the floor is coated! I haven't -used- it yet, but I can describe what I've liked so far about it:

1. Urethane is rubbery and has a really nice, smooth surface like the kind that you could pull a Cruise on in you're socks if you were inclined. It CAN have a fine grit mixed in for added grip, but Armor explained to me that that item was intended more for pools than garages so I omitted it.
2. It's color has made the garage notably brighter, even before the painting I've now done. Red will also be different visually from bolts and such so they will be easily seen.
3. This stuff repels seemingly everything! Latex paints- kilz- scrapes off with a fingernail or is wiped up without problem. Oil and gas just pools in place.
4. The garage now feels slightly more insulated. Sound is more muffled, and the garage felt nicer and more sound.

So far, tires haven't affected it at all and the only scratches I've put into it was from moving furniture. I'll keep this updated with other findings, but so far I'm pretty happy with the purchase.

Notice that the paint went 'up' the wall slightly. UTN60, per Armor, does have enough tensile strength to go "up" 2-3 inches maximum, so I decided to use it like an edge.

TED_fiestaHP said:

  I used LED lights that look similar to the old long typical garage lights, works much better, not expensive.  Available at Home Depot.

     I used garage floor paint from Home Depot, it is some type of Epoxy seems to work OK.  Not sure how well it cleans, I should empty the garage out and give it a real cleaning, but half the cars are not exactly mobile.  I have clean some spills with brake cleaner, didn't seem to harm the paint.

    You are smart to plan and get it as good as possible prior to any project work, once that starts it becomes very difficult to improve the shop. 

From what Armorcoating's has told me, gas and oil goes straight through epoxy; I don't remember the exact science, but it had to deal with atomic polarity and epoxy having very low surface adhesion (the same reason an unsealed pad will see epoxy lift off soon after- water evaporation through it is stronger) which allows petroleum to go "though" it. Armor told me quite a bit I have written down somewhere... basic boxmart is better than nothing but their water based/low solid formulas mean putting more money into it pays off big in layer thickness, density and lifespan. I should mention tho, Aliphatic Urethane is simply that, whereas there's tons of different epoxy coatings and additives that can add some Urethane-like features, like whatever the hell the Air Force uses that other forumites have confirmed can survive quite a lot that I really considered. Research is needed!

Now for the build, i'll begin to get into the next "phase"- painting and lighting. Speaking as someone who's been helping build multiple houses for the past several months, I genuinely don't understand why the garage was always seemingly an abandoned part of the home until recently. A duplex my family owns has one garage that has no lights whatsoever (!?) with it's only sources being the garage opener, whereas the other side only has a small window and lacks any circuits so new panel boxes have to be added first. Even my families home has no plane to the garage, so liquid pools and cannot drain. It's kind of baffling to me.

During my initial clean, I naturally took the time to power wash the walls of any material and cobwebs, a process which (frighteningly) made the garage a little brighter by itself (yikes!) despite it's only light sources being one functional bulb and an old flourescent hanger. I quickly formed a goal while the space was drying; it's not enough to simply have all the wall sealed and white for light reflection, but I also needed a very easy method to clean the garage too, which goes along with my mindset to make it as usable and comforatble a workspace as possible. For that, I waited for some deals and I was rewarded after a few months.

Hykolity 36w Linkable LED Shoplight

I purchased these on special from Elektrek.co, whos coupon brought a 4-pack of these down to a cost of around ~$40 dollars, or about 10 bucks a pop. I went aggressive and bought 4 packs- my plan required the garage to have some 6 to 8 lamps alone and my back utility room has similar light problems, so going overboard only means that I have spares if I later have a room that needs them.

The before and after shots are pretty impressive.

Afte (and a lot of clutter later...)r-

I keep hitting reload to see what else you've done.  More garage updates!

I'm kind of digging the toilet just sitting there. In the garage for lighting you want a few of the fixtures to run perpendicular to the others to help with shadows.

brad131a4 (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm kind of digging the toilet just sitting there. In the garage for lighting you want a few of the fixtures to run perpendicular to the others to help with shadows.

Correct! I'm planning on having 4 on the celing and the other 4 in each corner.

Yeah, the toilet there is in an odd spot. Not sure what i'll do for that room, eventually I'd really like to have a specific bathroom down there.

pres589 (djronnebaum) PowerDork said:

 

I keep hitting reload to see what else you've done.  More garage updates!

More tomorrow!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_toilet

Love garage builds!

Hope you don't live where you have snow and ice.  I made the mistake of having the floor in my mountain house coated "professionally".  They had no comment to my order of the smooth epoxy surface.  The first winter, when snow and ice were on the floor, it was like walking on a polished ice surface.  It was the most slippery surface I have ever been on.  It was frickin dangerous.  Grandkids and the wife were not allowed into the garage.  I would shuffle carefully into the garage and back the vehicles out.  Bought 5 big industrial floor mats from HD.  They worked great until ice built up under them and then they just slipped around like flying carpets...  I had it recoated this past summer with grit.  Christmas time will see if it has made it any safer.

maj75 (Forum Supporter) said:

Hope you don't live where you have snow and ice.  I made the mistake of having the floor in my mountain house coated "professionally".  They had no comment to my order of the smooth epoxy surface.  The first winter, when snow and ice were on the floor, it was like walking on a polished ice surface.  It was the most slippery surface I have ever been on.  It was frickin dangerous.  Grandkids and the wife were not allowed into the garage.  I would shuffle carefully into the garage and back the vehicles out.  Bought 5 big industrial floor mats from HD.  They worked great until ice built up under them and then they just slipped around like flying carpets...  I had it recoated this past summer with grit.  Christmas time will see if it has made it any safer.

I'm hoping like mad that's not the case, but thankfully I've already had positive experiences with oncoming winter and the Midwest's apeE36 M3 weather thanks to climate change. The garage is directly under the home partially sunk into the hillside- even on some ~30 degree mornings it's always been mid 50s for temperature and it's got a slight decline, so my hope is Armor steered me true and I don't have issues. They haven't told me wrong yet, so I'm hopeful.

preach said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_toilet

Huh! Never knew! It fits the home perfectly tho, and it's also my future plans if I can ever really mess with the layout.

So, the floor is coated and smooth but the temperature is rapidly dropping down as we head into winter. Here in the Midwest- and thanks to climate change- we now have to deal with 50 degree changes in the span of 12 hours (!) so the coming work on the garage suddenly has to be in specific timeframes, even though the garage routinely seems to stay around ~55 degrees. Thankfully, I also have an infrared heater that can keep temps up as well; despite work forcing me to paint mostly around 8-9 PM at night the garage it rarely fell below 60 degrees while drying.

My home is completely painted in Kilz eggshell white (the prior owner was a pack a day smoker) and I know how well the crap does for anything. I also knew from what little knowledge I have that I was gonna need a latex-base or something else that was equally thick just to fill the natural pits in cement block wall, AND that i'd need a minimum of two coats on the walls to cover up all the sludge and dialysis-patient urine yellow paint on them.

But first... we gotta toss that panel.

Federal Pacific. I know you've been gone now for nearly 40 years, but I sincerely hope you're burning. This breaker tripped probably ~5 times while I was grinding concrete and each time I was deadass terrified that it would short from pulling far more than 20 amps. No joke, my best friend had one of these in his first home both short AND ground itself at once to the casement and he learned that molten copper can still conduct electricity no problem. When I bought the home, I asked for money off simply because of the panel and the prior owner just nodded without question.

So it got chucked. A regional electrician was wonderful here in West Iowa /Northwest Missouri and was very patient, especially since COVID his backlog expanded to over 6 weeks (!). He upgraded me to a 250 amp panel, upgraded the number of outlets in the garage from a paltry 2 to 8, and added a NEMA 14-50R connector for a future EV Charger and to take advantage of government rebates on them (which I can post if anyone wants that info; it got prorated to 2020 earlier this year so it flew under the radar). All for a small sum of nearly $3K!

uh... paint. yes.

I wish I knew how to thin paint...

One gallon is JUST enough for the two cement walls- I snag two for a full coat.

Next is the issue of "cleaning". The new outlets provide me with a great above-waist cutoff line and kilz will seal the old surface and prevent mildew and mold; I needed a paint that not simply resisted water, but also repelled it and allowed me to literally spray my walls off. Anything that makes cleaning easier and simpler will make it occur more and more, and thus I quickly found another kilz product that will do just that:

Nice. My goal literally will be, that in the near future "cleaning the garage" will involve moving the corner LEDs "up" (they will be hung on chains), moving all the equipment "out" as it will all be on wheels, covering all electrical outlets in plastic, and then taking a spray soap foam gun to the walls and just spraying it all down. Get enough foam and a light brushing, and gravity will take care of the rest down the floor and out the garage.

Gratuitous new panel shot:

This is right after the Kilz3 Primer coatings. Kilz3 seems to be a slightly "more" external primer than Kilz2, but to be quite frank I'm unsure of any deeper differences other than water repulsion. 

Before:

After:

Okay, but for real in the sunlight:

... that's a little bit of a change.

Next up; Govdeals big-ass drill presses and crap is made to ROLL.

I use drylok around here. Works wonders and is pretty thick stuff. You could get some grip tape that we use on sail boats. Works very good for where you get out of the car and walkways to the car from the garage door. Best would have to been able to seal it from the outside. They have some pretty crazy stuff that makes it about impossible for water to penetrate the concrete or block. Gloss white is what I'll be going with once I get to that point. Still have a whole lot more to go before that happens. Oh and that grinder you were using was a toy. The correct one has 3  8" or 10" cutters and would have done that whole space in about a hour. Watched the terrazzo guy's have fit's at SeaTac airport because they specked a 1/16 deviation instead of a 1/8 on the floor like most everywhere else. Will drive you crazy when working on a couple hundred thousand square feet. 

I saw drylok and considered it; it always seemed a little more expensive and Kilz was a known factor, so that sealed it for me. I wish I could have sealed from without, but then part of the house would have had to been excevated.

Good point about grip tape; that's the stuff on skateboards right?

I'd consider the Harbor Freight grinder to be less than a toy; more like a punishment until you can afford better. There's just plenty like me that can't afford to dump more cash into one and are just ride-n-die.

So we're now caught up, aside from my recent work putting caster wheels on one of the benches and other little things as I begin to fill the space like I was worried about. I've been visiting junkyards and govdeals looking for parts and needed items, and it's time I ask for help with... well, I guess all I can call it is "KING E36 M3" because that's what it kind of is.

The instant you own a drill press bigger than your average human being is the instant you become serious business. I ain't even built a race car yet and now everyone gonna know I'm not here to quietly smooth heads or lovingly apply 2 thin coats; i'm here to throw down.

What I remember researching is this Walker press is a World War 2-era tool that was designed in response to government needs for both a wood and metalworking tool for the aerospace industry and was built up to '63. It's powered by a 1/4 horsepower AC motor around 1700RPM but has 4 different pulleys on the motor side and 3 on the bit side, so speeds can be heavily played with and is capable of industrial 3-phase power. Somewhere in the realm of ~200-250lbs, it is completely cast-iron all the way to the foot making it stupid top heavy and was a horrible pain to move 25 feet despite how much time I spend in the gym. She needs some repair, but otherwise fires up no problem. I snagged it for around $100 off Govdeals from a nearby electrical company's vocational partnership. I think it's a hell of a find, myself.

It NEEDS casters to move better and roll around, but my issue is I have no idea how wide it should be. I scored some 100+ lb rated poly wheels not long ago that will work just fine for it, but how big of a base does this thing need? Any ideas?

Machine tools of any type should be bolted to the floor. This one primarily because it is so top heavy. Lathes and mills need it to maintain accuracy, as they are more flexible than they appear. Please find a spot where this gem can be installed firmly. Even if you survive unharmed, it won't if it falls. Cast iron is brittle.

TurnerX19 said:

Machine tools of any type should be bolted to the floor. This one primarily because it is so top heavy. Lathes and mills need it to maintain accuracy, as they are more flexible than they appear. Please find a spot where this gem can be installed firmly. Even if you survive unharmed, it won't if it falls. Cast iron is brittle.

FUG

is there some kind of base you think I could make then? Maybe something twice the footprint, 3 inches thick, filled with concrete to bolt it to? If I make it too heavy I won't be able to move it.