What I want for Christmas for my Shop

[BRuce]

yea but where are the tools! ;-) closest I could find was "Construction Chicks". I was looking for something just slightly less obvious, like the old Rigid tools calendars.

BRuce

Charles J> >

[Phisherman]

How true. I'm amazed what I've made from free pallet wood!

[Charles Jones]

Ah! You must be one of those "combination" machine users; you want girls *and* tools in your calendars. Here I was assuming a more dedicated-task focus ... you know, the tools-I-already-have so the calendar should focus on what I *don't* have. :-)

Funny thing is I don't have a calendar of any kind in my shop. Do have a clock though ... not that it tells the correct time ... CharlesJ

-- ======================================================================== Charles Jones | Works at HP, | email: [e-mail] Hewlett-Packard | doesn't speak | ICQ: 29610755 Loveland, Colorado | for HP | AIM: LovelandCharles USA | |Jabber: [e-mail]

[BRuce]

[Silvan]

What do I *want*?

Oh, why bother listing it all? My someday list is up to about $10,000 by the time you factor in building a decent shop.

I'm getting practically none of it. Why not list what I'm actually getting?

JET mini lathe maybe a scroll saw maybe a new router

[Thomas Satrom]

[Brian Elfert]

I don't know how anyone could build a decent shop building for $10,000.

Estimates from various contractors for my someday shop building:

Concrete slab $5000 Building materials $6000 Seamless steel siding $4400 (To match house)

A total of $15400 without any labor (except siding and slab).

The size is only 22' x 28'. I have to have planning commission approval. That is why everything has to match the house.

Brian Elfert

[jo4hn]

[Charlie Self]

The joys of country living. I built a wood floored 25x48 shop a few years ago, and, IIRC, total cost was under 15K. I wouldn't want to try it on 10K, though. The use of windows traded for old tools, doors made out of plywood and 2x4, rough cut poplar siding and subfloor, all helped.

I will suggest that you do it before you turn 60.

Charlie Self

"Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them." H. L. Mencken

[Greg O]

My gar...shop was built by the previous owner of the property. He claims that he put around $22,000 into building it! 24' X 38'. Greg

[Wolf Lahti]

Depends on how good/lucky you are at scrounging. I got everything I needed for a 24-by-24 pole building with cedar board-and-batten siding and 2-inch-thick Australian pine* floor for about $300. That doesn't include wiring, but hey--it's a price I can live with.

A local contractor said he could build it for around $17,000, so I guess a couple weeks of my labor is worth $16,700. :)

(*No, I have no idea what Australian pine is, either. Work had this enormous shipping crate made of some kind of pine, and it was shipped from Oz.)

[Mark Jerde]

The king of scroungers in my experience is the brother of a college friend. He built a large log house with bark-beetle logs the Forest Service gave away, and a sawmill buddy put two flat edges on each log..

-- Mark

[Jon Endres, PE]

And Charlie replies:

Costs for me -

Concrete slab with radiant floor tubing $3000 (slab DIY and $80/yd for crete)

24x36 white pine timber frame, purlins, shiplap and trim - free(*) Electrical and plumbing - a couple grand Roofing - cost of materials Labor to do-it-yourself, including cutting the frame and all other wooden parts on your own mill, from your own trees - a whole lot (and it ain't priceless) but it isn't cash out of hand.

(*) the gas and oil costs some money, I guess....

Jon E

[Charlie Self]

Jon Endres responds:

But it does help to have the land, the trees and the mill. I got some guys to put my roof on...I'm not enamored of the idea of sliding 16' x 3' wide sheets of tin around myself, but otherwise, labor was my wife's and mine, though I bought the lumber (all the framing lumber, subfloor and siding cost under $3000).

Used seconds on the roofing. Traded for a batch of stuff. Did favors for some more. No plumbing. Electrical is no sweat, as that's fairly cheap. Square D 200 amp box. Power company charged $205 to run an underground cable 185' to my shop meter. In Parkersburg, they were estimating OVER $1000 to run any kind of cable about 85' so I could change my box location.

Heat: essentially free. Got an electric furnace from a local HVAC guy just before he discarded it. Works fine, but the people had gone with another kind of heating.

I was idiot enough to discard the AC, but we've got 3-4 small AC units from the house that will go in (put central air in the house about 3 years ago).

Beg, chisel, everything short of stealing.

But it is far more shop than I ever expected to have and will get daily use when we return to VA shortly.

Charlie Self

"Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them." H. L. Mencken

[Silvan]

Hee... I don't have to get it past any froofy color matching type regulations, which helps.

I'm not sure what the zoning/planning people would say to a request for a new shop building. My zoning situation is awkward. We're a residential neighborhood, but zoned commercial. They might deny me a new shop, or they might make me pay commercial taxes on it.

That's why my idea of a "decent" shop is just a bigger shed built on the same site. Stretch it a little here and a little there, and chances are nobody will ever notice, and I'll never have to deal with any awkwardness. Just getting it off the ground and away from termites would be a big improvment, as I'm waiting to fall through the floor of my present shop any day now.

In thinking about shop sizes, I really have to get *much* bigger before I see any real overall capacity gain in terms of the size of work I can handle comfortably. I can't site a building that large on my property anyway, unless I give up, say, the patch where we play croquet and toss a baseball around, or the well-established berry patch that chucks out delicious fruit for a good bit of the year. I don't have a lot of land to work with, so my sights are set on a sound, well-constructed, well-insulated, climate-controlled building that's only maybe 10-20% larger than the existing pile of termite droppings.

(Or maybe I win the lottery and buy that mostly empty industrial/commercial building across the street from my house. Let the one tenant pay for my taxes and insurance, then use the rest of the space for me. Yeah bayyyybe, get me some three phase monster sawdust makers and have all the room anybody could ever use... I figure my chances of finding a winning lottery ticket aren't much worse than my chances of winning if I play, so I don't buy tickets. ;)

[Charlie Self]

If you can do it the way Bedford County does it...get it listed as agricultural. Then there's no inspection, no requirements at all really, and taxes are low. You need more than a city lot, though. I always figgered our 2 acres could support some chickens, but I went ahead and got a building permit anyway.

Charlie Self

"Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them." H. L. Mencken

[Silvan]

No chance of that. Before the road, the neighbors who would get eminent domained out cried long and hard, and convinced the zoning board to change this whole subdivision to commercial, so they could get more for their houses.

Since we're just over the hill from all the sprawl, and there are only a few houses here, sandwiched in by businesses on either side of the subdivision, getting them to change it to anything else would be awkward.

It's really not good commercial real estate though, as evinced by that empty industrial/commercial shell across the street that's been there almost two years. One electrical supply place on the end, and the other 5/6 or so of it is vacant.

I guess I'm kind of glad it's vacant though. They almost put a church youth center in there, for troubled youth... That just gives me the willies. I don't like the idea of a bunch of troubled, borderline criminal teens with a direct line of sight to my shop. I'd have to keep the doors closed, and avoid making any revealing noises, lest they seek out some cheap thrills and pot money.

Anyway, offer me $250,000 for the place (not really unreasonable under the circumstances, as that's only twice the tax value as a residence after they raised everyone's property values so high), and I'm outta here. No more problems then. Get an apartment for a couple of years until I'm done building my castle with the huge ass shop out back. :)

[Charlie Self]

I know a guy, James Jones, who makes musical instruments, who did just that. Got himself a large old trailer as a shop, moved it in, and used it for several years until he got his real shop built. His real shop isn't exactly a fantasyland piece, but it's darned close. Don't have a clue as to the money involved, but it worked for him, kept him solvent while he was touring craft shows, building a shop and supporting a family.

Charlie Self

"Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them." H. L. Mencken

[Silvan]

I'm thinking about a used semi trailer, if I could figure out a place to park it that wouldn't be obnoxious. Same kind of idea. The old, short ones sell for practically nothing.

No place to put it though.

[Brian Elfert]

My concrete slab is somewhat unique. Rather than just thickened around the edges, it also is thickened in the middle and has a 12" high wall all the way around. The price also includes some light excavation to level everything out. If I did all the labor myself, the price would be a lot less.

Brian Elfert