Popgun's Workshop:


popgun

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I must admit I am proud of my workshop and wanted to show everyone my handiwork.

Rather than clutter the lounge with a lot of photos, I decided to place it in here.

I hope you enjoy seeing my workshop.

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My Workshop:

Everyone told me to decide how much space I thought I needed and double it. I’m glad I followed their advice.

30’x40’ is what I ended up with. 7’x16’ overhead door and 1 walk-in and 5 windows.

I had a contractor do the framing, siding, windows, doors, roof, and concrete work.

While pouring the slab, I placed in the sewer, electrical conduit outlets, and water line stubs under the slab.

In other words, the contractor got the building in the dry.

My wife and I dug a lot of ditches. The power & phone, the sewer line, and the water line made for a lot of ditches. We laid the conduit, strung the power and phone, and we laid all the water and sewer lines by ourselves.

In order to save even more money, my wife and I did our own landscaping and job clean-up. I also got to keep all the contractors waste materials.

It still cost $20,000 for 1200 Sq.Ft.

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We planted Crape Myrtle along the south end to offer a little shade, and Golden Euonymus along the front and North end. The flower bed is cedar chunks to keep the weeds out.

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I put up my own guttering to keep the rain from splashing on the side of the building.

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This is the North end of the workshop.

Although the land looks to be pretty level, almost 4’ had to be built up on this end.

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As you can see, I like peg-board.

My wife and I did all the inside work ourselves including the wiring and plumbing.

I cut my paneling 3’ at the bottom and 1’ at the top. This left 4’ in the center for the peg-board. Also I was able to cover 8 lineal ft. of wall space with each sheet of paneling, because from each sheet I could get two 3’pieces and two 1’ sections.

All my work-tables and self standing cabinets are on lockable wheels.

When working with peg-board, it is critical to keep all the holes lined up and evenly spaced when putting two sheets end to end. Sometimes trimming is necessary.

Special care was taken to make sure the grooves in the paneling lined up on the top 1’ panels with the lower panels.

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The black paint cabinet is also on wheels.

The clutter is simply feed stacked ready to take to the farm.

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I walled in a separate storage area 12’x12’ on the North West corner.

Some of the chain hanging as decoration is hand forged by my grandfather who was a blacksmith/machinist for the railroad in the 1920’s.

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The restroom is 6’x6’ on the north east corner, paneled without any peg-board.

All cabinets were made from scrap left by the contractors.

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This is the folding ladder going into the attic. Only the center section is floored with plywood, but it gives storage for light items of 12’x40’. There are also two 4' light fixtures in the attic.

I hung all my lighting fixtures with eye-hooks. As you can see, I wired in outlets to plug in the lighting instead of direct wiring. Even though I put in plenty of outlets, there could be occasions where plugging into the ceiling would be handier than going to a wall.

I never skimp on outlets, wiring, and lighting.

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Some areas on the peg-board not used for storage of usable tools is used for displaying some of my grandfather’s old tools.

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I try to keep my tools separated in areas of the shop, dividing mechanical type tools from

Woodworking tools.

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I built this workbench almost 30 years ago before I even had any power tools, other than a skill saw. It is made with 2x8’s and 2x6’s and weighs a ton. With the shape I built it, it was a real pain to move from its original place in the garage into the new shop. I was able to shelve the entire bench with materials left from the contractors.

The cabinet doors are decorated with the kid’s pictures, and other things that interest me.

Behind the cabinet doors is a sectional shelf that has a row of drawers made of antique wooden cheese boxes that originally came from my grandfather’s workbench.

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This shows another angle where you can see my Shopsmith in the corner with all the implements of destruction. The Valkyrie is my other love.

The other covered motorcycle is my antique 1973 BMW, used only for parades and special occasions.

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The shelf I built into the worktable is handy for storing tools that won’t hang on pegboard and for scrap materials.

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This is another angle that shows the bathroom entrance in the corner and the inside of the overhead door.

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The ceiling of this workshop was my first experience hanging sheetrock.

It is painted with thick textured paint and appears to be a blown ceiling.

All the trim on the ceiling, baseboard, walls, window frames, as well as the molding between the ceiling and walls is made with scrap, and plain old 2x4 studs.

I ripped a lot of fir and spruce construction studs, and had very little left over scrap.

There is however a lot of elbow grease, sweat, stain, and clear polyurethane in my workshop.

This was also my first experience working with plumbing, electrical wiring and insulation, but after being inspected by the city inspector everything passed with flying colors. He even mentioned when he inspected the breaker box that I must have a lot of time on my hands, because he had not seen such a neat job of wiring in a long time.

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The angle of this photo makes the holes in the pegboard look crooked, but if you note the door trim, you will see that all the pegboard holes are perfectly straight.

This is a collection of some of the photos of the Intarsia wooden wildlife pictures my wife and I used to make and sell at craft shows.

Some were as small as 10”x10” and others were as large as 24”x24” and larger.

I still have a few we use for personal decoration, but we were able to sell enough over a 7 year run to help our son through Pharmacy School, buy a lot of tools, a 21 ft. travel trailer, 2 acres of land, a pickup truck, and a lot of other toys.

I sold an article to Wood Magazine as a feature in April 1990. After that article came out, we were never able to sell any more of our work, because potential customers thought they could do it themselves.

I have also built a lot of cabinets and etc. since then, but it is now just for fun.

So far I have not built anything in my new shop, but at least I have a place to do it if I want to, and after all….I had to wait almost thirty years to build the shop I always wanted.

....popgun

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Guest Andrea

Re: Popgun\'s Workshop:

VERY NICE!!!!!!!!

There's almost NOTHIN better than a man who runs a CLEAN workshop. grin.gif Love the pegboard. I am gonna show this to my husband. smile.gif And tell him this is what his shop should look like. crazy.gifblush.gifgrin.gif

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Re: Popgun\'s Workshop:

Yes, this is just in my back yard.

Since I have it fully insulated, someday I may turn the storage section into a re-loading room.

I do spend a lot of time out there...I have a refrigerator, toilet, telephone and old B&W TV.

I was storing a couch for my daughter, but she finally came and picked it up. I may have to make me another one.

Now my wife wants a potting shed and greenhouse. I've never built a greenhouse before, but there is always a first time. The more I build, the less grass there is to keep trimmed.

I have a chain hoist that is attached to a beam in the attic, so I do all my deer skinning out there with a plastic tarp on the floor.

My back yard was 2 acres until I sold off the other three lots. It was too small to farm and too big to keep mowed.

Sometimes I do wish I had some of my old elbow room back, but when it is time to mow the grass and the temperature is 100 degrees with 60% humidity, I'm glad to be finished in 30 minutes.

....popgun

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