In which John kicks the winter blues

Hung plywood on the west wall Friday night.

The piece on the left was a pain. I made cutouts for the garage door bracing and electrical outlets, and both they and the overall length were a close enough fit that it was a bit tricky to wrestle half a sheet of ½” plywood into position over my head. Still need to pull it at least partway down and add some clearance for the outlet wiring.

Got a slow start on Saturday, but decided to finish the stove stand, or as close to “finish” as I can with the supplies I have. Started with some CAD:

And wound up with this slightly oversized piece of expanded steel:

I left it oversized so I could bend the edges back over like this:

Tacked that in place with the top edge halfway up the legs, and moved on to more CAD:

Used the same shape as the expanded steel, with slots for the legs. Marked on a 16ga steel computer enclosure I scavenged from behind the maintenance shop at the last job:

Cut that out and ran it through my slip roll (which is a FANTASTIC thing to have when you need a simple curve):

Took some additional cutting, bending, and swearing to get it into place, but after a couple of tack welds and a couple of continuous beads:

The legs are pretty stable front-to-back now, but still have some flex side-to-side. I want to add some bracing in the form of creatively curved ¼” rod, but I didn’t have any this weekend.

Pulled down the (wrong) flue pipe. Will return that this week. Hopefully the (right) flue pipe will arrive at the end of this week so I can start heating the space. Taped up the hole in the roof to keep the snow out.

I need some long-ish sections of 2x4 for bracing the ceiling panels. Short of borrowing a truck, I don’t have a good method for getting them, but we’re slowly working on a bathroom remodel that includes pulling down an interior wall. Help wife with bathroom demolition, win free 2x4s and earn brownie points that can be redeemed for other great prizes. That was my Sunday.

Been kind of a slow week.

Tore out some of the bathroom. So far have salvaged six 8’ studs, which should be enough to run the supports for the east and west edges of the ceiling. Should be able to salvage another 15 studs or so once we’re ready to have more of an open-air bathroom space, but we’re not quite there yet.

Returned the gas vent pipe, picked up some minor hardware, some ¼” steel rod, and about 25 feet of ½” pipe insulation.

I turned the 1/4” rod into this:

It’s properly sturdy now. I may add an additional section of ¼” rod to protect the edge of the sheet steel, but for now I’m calling that good. Needs a coat of high temp paint once we get some spring temperatures.

The valleys in my roofing tin are just under 4” wide at the bottom and just under 5” wide at the top, and about an inch deep. I cut 4.5” sections out of the pipe insulation and wedged it into the valleys at the ridge cap from inside the building, leaving the split in the insulation toward the ridge (protected from the elements). This isn’t a solution I want to treat as permanent, but it does seem to be a 90% fix. Later this year, I’ll attempt to gingerly pry up the ridge cap and install a proper continuous foam seal. If prying up isn’t possible, I may pull the pipe insulation and reinstall with silicone caulk to help keep them from working loose.

Pulled nails on some home renovation scrap we pulled out of our kitchen and recovered about 30 feet of 2x4. That took most of my Monday evening, but I’ll be able to hang these this week to create a good surface to attach the ceiling to.

Rained pretty much all day Tuesday through Wednesday morning with steady wind from the south. The floor got damp next to the south door, but seems to be blowing in under the poorly sealed garage door rather than coming through under the ridge cap. I’ll call that a win on one front and an “add that to the list” on another.

Wednesday afternoon I hung up 2x4s along the east and west edges of the ceiling and between the rafters. All the spaces are irregular; the rafters seem to have been put in “close enough”, so every piece had to be fit individually. I had pulled down the single piece of 1/4” plywood on the ceiling on Monday before it rained for 36 hours; it was pretty taco-shaped by Wednesday evening. I wrestled it back up into place and screwed it to the rafters and new 2x4 supports. MUCH less wrinkly than it was without the supports. Real happy with this. I’m debating painting both sides of the ceiling plywood before installation (as opposed to just the bottom, leave the top raw) to help reduce the effects of moisture.

It was a fairly productive weekend. I hung the rest of the 2x4 supports, installed the flue pipe and associated bits, replaced some dysfunctional roofing nails and caulked the roof up, sealed up gaps in the walls, installed insulation in the ceiling, and hung three more pieces of plywood on the ceiling.

Supposed to get some rain tomorrow. Tonight’s priority is getting the flue capped off (and fixing the vent cap that blew off the house last week).

Got the flashing and storm collar, but not the rain cap. Flashing is high-temp silicone, says it’s safe to 400F, which shouldn’t be an issue short of a chimney fire. We’ll see how it works out, anyway. Installation is as simple as cutting out the center on the appropriate pipe size mark, slipping down over the pipe, bending the aluminum collar to fit the corrugated roof profile, caulking the edges, and securing with sheet metal screws. I opted to err on the side of excess, and caulked over the screw heads as well.

Storm collar went down over the flashing. It is big enough that it pretty much covers the (somewhat unsightly rust-orange) flashing. Should keep the vast majority of weather off of the silicone boot.

That was all I needed to do prior to rain, but I still had daylight, so I whipped up a brace. The flue extends about 5 feet above the roofline. Rule of thumb seems to be “add a brace for every 3 feet of unsupported pipe”.

This involved several trips up and down the ladder getting the shape right before welding solid and shooting high temp paint.

Taped a plastic bag over the top of the flue pipe, and called it a night.

Next thing on the list is to finish the ceiling plywood. I’m pretty confident that the transition from slanted at the north end to horizontal at the south end is not a straight line, on account of the “close enough” mentality when the barn was put up decades ago. To try to minimize the impact, I’m going to work toward the center and fit the center seam last. I’ve done all the full-width panels on the north section, so I’ll start at the south end of the ceiling and working back toward the “crease” in the center.

It took me 3 hours to set up this photo. This corner is so far out of square it isn't funny.

On a happier note, this piece should be the most difficult to wrestle into position. All downhill from here, with any luck.

In reply to JohnInKansas :

This is looking really nice!

Sooooo.....

Where's Charlie?

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/2000-ford-superduty-body-swap/106855/page1/

In reply to SaltyDog :

There she is.

Before I get the ceiling closed off, I need to figure out what (if anything) I'm doing with electrical. I think at a bare minimum, I need one more outlet near the northeast corner. Other than that, it comes down to lighting.

Here's more or less what I'm thinking about.

There are two standard incandescent bulbs (60-100w) at the "crease" in the ceiling, switched at the walk-in door in the southeast corner. There is a switched outlet at about 7 feet high over the center of the workbench on the west wall which had been used for a pair of pretty tired 4 foot florescent fixtures. My plan is to do larger assembly work in the center of the floor plan, with small assembly and detail work on the workbench, and hand tools hung on the north wall. I will want the workbench and tool board well illuminated, working in the dark sucks. The overhead bulbs already provide pretty good light to the center of the space, and if the workbench and tool board lights enhance that, so much the better.

I think what I want are 4 foot LED fixtures, with three over the workbench and two over the north wall. I'm afraid that once the plywood ceiling and walls are painted white, that many LED bulbs will overlight the space. At something like 2600 lumens per bulb and two bulbs per fixture, I'm in the neighborhood of 1000 lumens per square foot...

Brilliant thoughts? Enlightening advice?

Last night's endstate. All full-width pieces of plywood hung, just four narrow pieces left.

Time to think seriously about lights and such. Anybody got words of wisdom or just "shut up and do it"?

Glad to see that Charlie's still around! Is she running and driving yet?

A coat of white paint on the ceiling will make a huge difference in your lighting.

I painted my unfinished 40 year old drywall ceiling last winter and couldn't believe the difference.

For lighting, I've got (6) 4' two bulb LEDs evenly spaced in my 22'X28' garage and 2 more over my bench. Plenty of light for me.

You're making the place look great!

In reply to SaltyDog :

Not yet, no-crank condition. Either a required ground connection not grounded or a required component not plugged in. Got frustrated, got distracted, haven't been back. Maybe this summer.

And thanks for the light reference point. I want to try to hit the sweet spot between squinting due to not enough light and squinting due to holy light, Batman. 

The next two weekends are a wash. Race crew for SCCA F500 this weekend, NG drill next weekend. I'll probably work on spring cleaning in the shop while I figure out lights. 

No shop progress this weekend, went down to Hallett Motor Racing Circuit in Jennings, OK to crew for two local Formula 500 drivers. Turned out they were the only two signed up for F5 this weekend, so we were bound to have some success at the end of the event.

Dealt with broken rear suspension parts, a bad wheel bearing, brake problems, electrical gremlins, carburetor jetting, wheel balance, a cracked frame, and a pair of overgrown children who wanted to poke each other at every opportunity.

Driver One won by a wide margin on Saturday following an exciting moment early in the race that put the Driver Two off track following a near-miss with a Formula Ford. Both drivers ran well and turned good times. Driver Two actually turned better lap times by the end of the race, but the 4-off rattled him enough that it took him awhile to get back in the groove and Driver One had walked away by that point.

Driver One had an electrical problem Sunday, and we almost didn’t get it started in the paddock in time to get to grid. He came in at the end of lap 2 down on power and stopped in the hot pit, at which point it wouldn’t start again and he called it quits. Driver Two turned leisurely laps until he got the white flag, then laid down the hottest lap of the weekend by a full 2 seconds. Still 4 seconds off the class record, but not bad for 40 degrees.

I like being at the races. I like crewing. I like helping make sure the car and the driver are ready to go do what they need to do. I like sleeping in the trailer with the race gas and two-stroke oil and tire smells. But these guys. They’re worse than an old married couple. They know each other’s pet peeves and just pick at each other and try to make the other one break. And I get the overspray. I’ve crewed for them intermittently over the last 6 or 8 years, and I’m running out of patience for it. They asked if I wanted to go to St. Louis in two weeks to crew there, and I’m thinking not. As much as I love it, I come home wishing I’d done something else with my time. They don’t pay me (except real basic food and a few beers), and certainly don’t pay me well enough to deal with their personalities. Kind of bittersweet, to be honest.

Working on a pretty serious spring cleaning. I’m going to use this space for a small startup venture, so in the name of separating church and state, I’m buttoning up all of “my” tools and will get new tools for business use. Going through lots of accumulated “I’ll have a use for that someday” stuff. Orphaned hand tools and small parts. Good-to-have-once-in-a-blue-moon tools. Scrap wood and steel. At some point it becomes more of a burden hanging on to it than a potential future value. Gonna be a couple of heavy trash loads this month.

Wife talked me into holding off on going crazy with lights. Small space, low ceiling, white paint on the ceiling and the wall with the least natural light exposure. I’ll put two 100w bulbs in the overhead fixture and have two 4 foot fluorescent fixtures over the bench for now, with outlets for additional work lights as necessary. If I decide later that I need more light, the ceiling panels really aren’t that hard to remove (some exceptions apply).

I AM going to put in another outlet in the northeast corner, because I need to park the beer fridge somewhere and that seems to be the best option given available wall and floor space.

Once I get the outlet in, I can finish the ceiling panels. Once the space is cleared out, I’ll slap some paint on it and put the right tools back in.

The last 15% of a project takes 70% of the time.

Picked up an outlet and wire, and got them installed.

The rafters are only accurate to within an inch or so, and using them as a measuring reference would make the center seam look all kinds of crazy. A string stretched tight between a pair of nails gave me a much nicer reference point.

I made it this far before it was late and I was frustrated. I'll finish it later this week.

In reply to JohnInKansas :

Hey I just thought of a thing regarding your LED/lighting venture and worried about being too bright. You can normally use adjustable switches with led bulbs. We installed an adjustable switch downstairs with our projector. This would let you moderate the level of blinding...... 

Something to consider 

Ceiling's in. Time for a serious cleaning rampage. But for now: homemade pizza and a nice cold beer.

Not a whole bunch of progress this weekend, was pushing hard to get some other projects wrapped up. Hung up this section of wall in the southwest corner using reclaimed boards from where the stove is now.

Also masked off all the old wood in preparation for paint. This week.

Well, my latex paint was berkeleyed up. Suspect it didn't appreciate being frozen. So no painting occurred as scheduled last night.

Instead, I built a bike table.

That stool is a nice height for both the table and the work bench. Need to build or buy a front wheel clamp so the bike can be properly secured on the table.

Had an hour between get home from work and go eat dinner with family, so I rolled the north wall. Its rough and will need another coat, but second coat should go on much quicker. Haven't decided about painting the cement board...

One gallon gone. Past the halfway mark on base coat, and north wall got a light second coat.

Maybe 1 quart left of the second gallon. Everything got a coat today, so still have about 1/3 at the south end that needs a second coat, and brush work to clean up the edges.

I gotta find someplace to put all this junk.

Your using the cement board as something to prevent the spread of fire. I would not paint it with something that is potentially flammable. 

Been awhile since the last update. Mild weather got me away from shop improvements in favor of more pressing projects.

Wife and I cleaned a bunch of clutter out of the garage and installed some shelves to help keep the frequently used clutter more organized. This freed up some space, so we moved the bathtub into the garage. I pretty promptly reclaimed the former tub housing for my beer fridge-to-be. Pictures when I get home.

I need to push to get this closer to "done", as I have a buddy bringing me his motorcycle for a tuneup in about a week and I don't want the shop to look like a train wreck. Will need to reassemble the dirt bike engine, take a load of scrap metal to salvage, and start finding permanent homes for my tools. Maybe slap a coat of paint on my bike bench if I have time.