What's on my Bench Today?

Awesome.... keep looking better & better!

 

Thanks guys!!!

Its my initials. CJA. Cristopher Jay Anderson .

 

Ok guys!...the good news is...the shop's entirely deconstructed lol...and we've got one roof section, and three wall sections moved here. Tomorrow I'll be getting the other roof section and wall section...along with all the 3/4" plywood he was using as a floor (that stuff's $40 for a 4'x8' sheet now!!)...and move it all here. After that...it'll be reconstructed hopefully entirely over the next week (the roof is NOT going to be fun...), and I'll be back to making knives by next weekend!

Here's the pictures of my efforts to date, lol:




First, the work that had to be done at home. The back lot where my shop is has been home to my dad's racing program for years. It's also where he's stock piled just about everything you can imagine that he 'may' have wanted to save over a similar time period. From lumber that he kept for 'just in case' projects (that's now rotted to nothing anyway), to steel drums (we get methanol delivered for race fuel), to car parts (yes, that's a full floating quick change rear end, multiple body panels, the rear seats to my 68 Cougar, and at least five pairs of headers in the bottom picture). The pine trees have shed all over them for way too long, and just generally made a HUGE mess.


Added to the above mess...I've also had to try to get my current 'shop' consolidated so the new building can be built around everything...since I have nowhere else to move it to, lol.


So, this is about half of what I removed from the back...and yes, I called the haul off in specifically for this project, lol.

More pictures shortly!

 

While cleaning, I found dozens of these. I believe they're ground snake eggs, as we have them by the dozens out back lol.


I think this one's the little mama. She let me pick her up and move her over to the wood pile on the other side of the yard.


Anyhow, I got the back done, and only found five snakes, seven scorpions, and three black widows...lol. Rough part of town I guess!


Annnnd...mostly done! I still need to pull down the awning, and I'm considering moving all of my tooling to the front of the pad, since the building is 16' front to back, and the pad is 24' front to back. I'm not sure I can get all of my equipment into a space of 8' by 17'...but I can get the lighter stuff out there.

 

Deconstruction!! Those roof pieces are 16'4" x 8'2". 2x6 construction, with 3/4" plywood and about 1/2" worth of tar shingles on them...each. Read: Not light. First we skinned the inside of the building (that's my dad surveying the carnage in the first picture lol), then we skinned the outside (previous owner in the second picture), and put sheets up to hold the building square in preparation for removing the roof.


One roof panel down...one more and four walls to go! By the way...this is the view from the front door of my house. Right in the middle of metropolitan Phoenix lol.








Today's work consisted of pulling the other roof section, and the four walls. We got three walls loaded and hauled home, and the other roof section and wall will come tomorrow, along with the floor panels (I'll use those for more benches and interior paneling since I have a concrete pad). It's going to be LOADS of fun pulling those floor panels. This thing currently resides in the middle of the desert 20 miles outside of Phoenix. I have zero doubt that the underside of that thing's going to be home to all sorts of nasty, pissed off creepy crawly critters.

 

Great googley moogley you've been busy!

 

Yes sir!!

I just wish I'd been able to put all of that freakin effort into making knives lol. BUT!!!...all of this effort WILL greatly reduce my overall effort and disorganization, while increasing my overall comfort level involved in making said knives...so it's absolutely worthwhile.

 

After all those pictures you definitely needs to rename this thread into "Where is my bench today"

 

indeed

 

Holy crap-a-sarus!!! Talk about staying busy.

 

Right?! The problem is I know where my bench is, lol...and it's not inside my shop because my shop isn't built yet!

Very. We got the rest of the building hauled home today, and tomorrow we'll be starting on putting it back together. Everything is going to go REALLY easily, until we get to the roof. It was bad enough getting it down...and gravity was helping with that...getting it back up again is going to be interesting.

Anyhow, here's the last two pictures of the deconstruction, lol. Time for reconstruction to begin!


All we had left here was to pull the floor. Lol...the guy that put it together put literally 20+ screws in each panel...with no rhyme or reason to where he put them. Finding them all was NOT fun. Added to that...the underside was infested with scorpions...the largest of which was about 8" tip to tail stretched out.

Good stuff!


And that's it. The entire floor fit into the back of my truck. We got it all home and now just have to unload it and start reassembling.

Can't wait to have this over and done with, lol.

 

This thread is fun to watch. I am excited to see your results Cris!

 

Little bit of everything eh?


Panorama of everything staged. I'm finishing pulling down my old sun shade today, and will hopefully get started building tomorrow .

 

Well, I have four walls up! I'll be spending the rest of the day anchoring them, and then sheeting them. The last step will be putting the roof on, and I'm still not 100% positive how I'm going to go about that, lol. Each half weighs about 800lbs, and needs to be lifted 9ft in the air. It may end up that I rent a boom lift...but we'll see.

Anyhow, a few pictures to catch you guys up:




In the first two pictures you can see my benches and some of the tools still under the shade. In the third, you can see half the stuff that I pulled out to get things cleaned up.


Back wall up...


Side walls up...



And the front. The way the guy built it was actually rather brilliant. Both the top and bottom plates are doubled. On each corner, one is cut back, so they can overlap. He then drilled two holes through them vertically, and they bolt together. In this picture the walls are bolted together top and bottom at each corner, ensuring that its square.

Anyway, back to work! Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be insulating and sheeting the insides. From there it'll just be the roof sections, and rearranging my tools!

 

Gotta be some sore muscles around your neigborhood! :-(

 

Not too bad, lol! Though I fully admit I've been avoiding the gym with a purpose this last two weeks . I've got to get this thing done so I can catch up my orders, lol.

I thought I'd snap a picture of the way the corners are setup on this building. It's very simple, but as I said, rather brilliant. Four bolts per corner, two in the bottom plate, two in the top. The plates overlap, the bolts lock them together, and done. From there you sheet the walls, drop the roof on, and lock it down with angle brackets and screw straps.



I'm also going to drop some three inch screws through the 2x6 plates to square tings up on the corners...but honestly I don't think it's necessary.

 

New shop will be ready in no time at all!

 

I hope so, lol. The roof is going to be the most fun, for sure.

As things stand, most of the outer skin is on, excepting the west side, and some of the corners. The way the guy designed this thing...all of the corner pieces are oddball, one off sizes lol. One corner piece on a wall might be 8" wide, and the piece next to it on the other wall might be 27 1/4" wide. NONE of them are the same though. The reason for this is he built the structure from boards he found on Craigslist which had been covering a swimming pool...and decided not to cut them to any standard size. The outside of the building is something like 16'6" wide x 15'5" deep. Obviously neither of these numbers is divisible evenly by 4', lol...and since the inner studs are on 24" centers...it makes for some, well...creative carpentry to make it all work. The inside walls are going to be even worse at 15'7" x 14'6".

Anyhow, here's where we're at now:


How I left tings last night. Still missing some studs, and with the sail panels (horizontal sheets for stiffening) still attached rather than put in properly upright.


After a few hours this morning.


Basically, most of my time this morning was spent deciding exactly how to do the skin on the outside of this thing. The studs are exactly 8' tall, with 3" of bottom plates, and 3" of top plates...making the entire wall 8'6". Obviously a 4'x8' sheet of plywood can't cover the entire surface. So, we decided to place the sheets 1.5" off the concrete slab, and will overlap the top with another 2x4 (or 2x6)...making a ledge for my future awnings to be supported off of while blocking the gap in the plywood skin.

Did I say I hoped to be done with this by the weekend, lol? I need to get back to forging knives!!

 

Just a small update today. I spent yesterday and got all the sheeting to fit. I also cleaned things out a bit inside and moved the things in there around some to make it easier to work. As things sit, all of the sides are complete. I'm waiting for the owner of Westside Crane to make it out to look things over and let me know what it's going to cost me to get the roof sections on. He estimated somewhere in the range of $150-$250 over the phone, but didn't want to commit until he'd seen for sure. If things work out, he said he can have a crane here first thing in the morning...which is good since it's supposed to rain cats and dogs this weekend :/.

Anyhow, here's some pictures:




It's getting there. just need that damn roof!!

On a side note...I really love the panorama option on my phone's camera, lol. Super cool for pictures like this!

 

Looking good!