Some minor family politics and the arrival of Sprocket at Chateau Sporky has meant that I've not been able to get any use out of my existing workshop this year, and it's time to resolve that. This thread will detail the spending of about a decade's savings, so look away if you're of a nervous disposition.
The existing workshop is about two thirds of my dear old mum's double garage. She's going to be downsizing in the next few years and while she has very generously offered her house to us (in exchange for us selling up to fund her new place) it comes with some conditions that do not suit me, Lady BMcH or young Sprockodile (essentially we'd have to leave three of the four bedrooms fallow for guest-house use so would have less space than we do now), so the whole shebang needs to move closer to home.
The end of the garden features a fairly standard shed (as in it's full of lawnmowers and old car tyres and so on). The garden behind us features a determined and yappy chuihuahuahua who regularly tries to engage Sprockzilla in bark fights. But before the first really substantial tree there's a space about 9m x 5m that's crying out for proper use - and would keep Sprockbot and Ollie (the chuihuahuahua) well separated.
Under permitted development rules that means I can go 2.5m tall and up to 8m wide and 5m deep (though maximum floor space is 30m2 under a local covenant). I like my neighbours so good sound insulation is important. Equally the current workshop is terrifyingly cold in winter (single skin brick, thin flat roof) and roasting in summer so thermal insulation and a combined heating/cooling system seems a worthwhile investment.
More to follow.
"[Sporky] brings a certain vibe and dignity to the forum."
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Looking forward to seeing this develop.
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Pitched roof if you can - so great for hanging stuff up and losing things that need to be hoarded.
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Bit more detail. Oct's already had to sit through a lot of this! I considered three approaches to the building.
1) Brick/block type build. Horribly expensive, partly because the house is link-detached so no possibility of getting even a micro digger through.
2) Log cabin type shed with a second skin and insulation. Not flexible on sizes and to get the footprint I want it'd be over permitted height.
3) One I'd looked into a few years back; Pro Workshop - www.proworkshop.co.uk - not cheap, but not as brutal as the brick approach. Zero maintenance, 30 year lifespan, very well insulated and configurable.
I went to see Pro Workshop when I was in the area and that settled it - they're very nice spaces. Might even add value to the house when it comes to moving time (hopefully a long way off).
So... 7m x 4m, ceiling varies from 1.8m to 2.2m which will just accommodate the bandsaw. Their electrics aren't up to much though (16A max - the bandsaw alone draws that) so it'll be coming as a bare building. Deposit paid, installation mid December.
Next - clearing the site. The existing shed is on a raised wooden frame, which itself is on metposts concreted into the ground. There's also a load of bamboo and a weeping birch to remove. This sounds and looks like a job for a horny-handed son of the soil, not for a delicate snowflake such as your beloved Sporky. Lady BMcH, who is good at such things, found a reputable local groundswork bunch who think they may even be able to save the birch and replant it. Apart from the workshop itself this is the scariest bill so far.
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I did some sums - being an engineer and loving sums and calculations of all sorts I had to, really, and came up with 18,000 BTU/h, which suggests a split wall/external condenser unit around £600-800 from a decent manufacturer will do the job. First quote came back at £2500, including almost £500 just to connect the thing to a fused spur right next to the unit. Next quote came back at £2k. A few firmly worded emails and that dropped enormously - turns out if you say "workshop" they assume commercial rating, commercial paperwork and so on. If you say "shed" then the VAT is only 5% and you save a few hundred in certification. Servicing is still £150 a year, mind. Not 100% sure on this but I want to ensure I don't have excuses for not using the place so I think it's worth it.
For some reason this reminds me that I forgot the stage where I built a model of the space in CAD to see if everything will fit. It will. I'll post the layout later - it's on a different PC. I'll still have to wheel the planer thicknesser and tablesaw in and out as needed, but the chopsaw can stay in place (massive bonus - it's a real pain in the current workshop and the tablesaw has to be dismantled after every use and then put back together!).
There will be pictures as we go along, I promise.
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
Extraction has been a bit of an issue at the current place - I have an extractor but it's just not up to dealing with a planer thicknesser, so the shopping list has acquired one of these:
http://static.axminster.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/5/0/508338_xl.jpg
2hp, 180mm main duct, cyclonic separation. Been planning the ducting as well, based on the sums (yay, sums) in Woodshop Dust Control. Essentially the duct gets smaller at each branch so that air speed is fairly constant - that prevents clogging. Needs a 16A supply though, so on to the electrics.
Electrician came 'round this morning. There was a look of great relief on his face when he realised this was going to be done properly. The supply to the house is only 60A total so it's coming straight off that, 16mm2 armoured cable run to the end of the garden, local earth spike, a very serious consumer unit with separate breakers for each major machine and four twin 6-ft LED tubes for lighting. I'm going to sit down for that quote.
Final bit of the puzzle for now is moving the machinery. Most of it is too heavy for me to lift; some of it is too heavy for me to slide across a smooth floor. There's a local machinery moving company who normally do big industrial kit but the chap there said he liked the idea of something a bit smaller so we're going to look at it next week. Everything has to come through the house by hand so I'll be breaking things down as much as possible - the bandsaw table and wheels can be removed, for example. I don't fancy the man-and-van approach 'cos there's some stuff that needs gentle treatment - if the CNC bed gets twisted it's a bugger to sort out, and the planer thicknesser can't be lifted by its beds.
All good fun mind.
I suppose it could be storage for giant chess pieces too...
I admire Sporky's commitment to his space. I would like to find myself in a domestic locale that encouraged such a long-term approach.
It'll be ultra-organised with not so much as a speck of sawdust out of place. Indeed, any visible speck of sawdust will be out of place and will result in sirens flashing and warning lights sounding (this is a SporkyShop, so not everything will be as you might expect) until the speck removes itself to a more appropriate location.
Lots of shiny machinery will be awaiting the coded voice command to spring into action and start machining shiny things in a highly efficient and shiny manner.
There will be robots of varying sizes - little robots for handling little things through to big robots for handling big things - scurrying around the robot-optimised flooring carrying bits of "things" from one process stage to the next. None of those bits will be in any way recognisable until they semi-magically combine in the final stage to produce a big and shiny thing that is exceedingly clever. Albeit still unrecognisable.
Sitting in the corner will be theSprocket, overseeing things quietly whilst the master appears to doze quietly in a special doze-pod that appears to hover about 3ft off the ground. Although he's not really dozing, his brain is merely computing the specification for the next set of shiny things which will be transmitted by thought waves to the machinery.
Anything less, and I'm going to be disappointed.
@moe_zambeek, it's actually a 75m long former chicken shed that I appear to be in the process of buying. It might look a bit tatty, but I'm going to have no problems making very large guitars.
After visiting @octatonic earlier this year I decided that I needed a new workshop. Planning started in May, but then life got in the way. So you're a couple of months ahead of me with your project.
I've already got a brick built barn. It's 12 x 6.5m internal, with plenty of ceiling height, but needs dry lining before I can get power installed and start moving machines in. Before that I've got to move out 20 something years' worth of accumulated wood, bricks and other materials which I've been hoarding. Then there's the furniture which friends and family have asked us to store "just for a few months". So I guess you'll be staying that bit ahead of me.
not forgetting the trained monkies !!!!!!
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Main worry at the moment is whether there'll be enough storage space, but it'll free up a room in the house so I think I'll get away with it.
I am, as always, most grateful to Lady BMcH who is not only allowing me to take on such an endeavour but is also vetting contractors and making many of the most awkward choices about how things should be done. She's pretty ace.
Trickier - correct colour temperature for the lighting, which tool cabinets (Beta C24S/7, in red), laying out the machines for best workflow when some of them only fit one one side. What to compromise on or do as second phase. Pretty much any time I get stuck in analysis paralysis (which is very often).