Shop Time

[1983calais]

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[motorheadmike]

Mike,
Thanks for sharing your odyssey with us. You have obviously been quite resourceful over the years in the quest for a suitable working shop space.

I just remembered that I paid for storage one year we were here: the winter before I sold my Buick. We had a serious overflow issue. LOL.

 

[Max Headroom]

So I took a couple of pics of the inside of the shop. I started putting up shelving for a place to store things. It may not look very organized but it is a LOT better than it was even three weeks ago. I have a boat load of motor parts so I needed some shelving that could take the weight. I opted to go with 2x4s and 3/4" plywood. It's not cheap but it is a lot less expensive (and sturdier) than any of the prefab shelving in my price range. Once I get my welder up and running, I am going to start replacing the 2x4s with inch and a quarter box tubing. It will look better and be even stronger than the 2x4s. It's slow going but I am making progress.

 

[Max Headroom]

A quick update. A couple of good things have happened over the past week to ten days. Not won the lottery good but good none the less. I started receiving the rest of the boxes that contain my cnc plasma cutter. Only two more boxes to go. Then I can not figure out how to put the bloody thing together. Unless the horse power gods smile on me, which they usually don't, I will probably end up grovelling and begging my wife to figure it out. (She is great at that kind of thing!!!) I will pay big time for that down the road but it will get the cutter up and running.

I also received, only two days later than they promised, my 75' roll of 6/3 wire. (I'm not sure why they call it 6/3 because it has four strands of wire in it.) This wire was as expensive as a "pay for it" date in Vegas. It better make me feel the same once I run it.

I have been plugging away at cleaning and organizing the shop. I guess that, now that my stuff is in, I'll have to put some real time and effort into finishing that delightful task. Anyway, tomorrow or the next day, I will take some scenic pictures of my disaster area and post them.

Oh, I forgot to mention this earlier but I have had a bug to learn to powder coat for about 10 years now. I got online about 6 weeks ago and started looking into it. Turns out, it is much simpler (in theory anyway) than I thought. Much cheaper too. I bought an Eastman two voltage powder-coating gun ($175) and about three pounds of powder in four, count-em, four festive colors, for about $80. Harbor freight sells a simpler gun that has good reviews for about $79 +/-. I would buy the powder from Eastman but HF gun really has good reviews. (Unfortunately, I didn't find out about the HF gun till after using my tired and worn out credit card at Eastman.)
The expensive part is the oven but I figured out what I hope will be an inexpensive way to build and oven big enough to actually be useful. I'll update on that once my bud finishes the oven and we can test it.

Past my bed time. I'm out.

 

[Doug Chahoy]

Sounds like everything is starting to come together. I’ve also put off pulling the trigger on doing my own powder coating. I’ve been told an old electric kitchen oven works great. And can be had cheap. I guess in electronics the don’t count the ground wire. Like the 3 way curcuits I installed in my house, I used 12/3 wire. When I made my extension cord for my welder, I had to get bigger wire than the plug wire on the welder, it was built with only a 6 foot plug. I only need it if welding outside my garage. It was pricy 20 years ago.

 

[Max Headroom]

Sounds like everything is starting to come together. I’ve also put off pulling the trigger on doing my own powder coating. I’ve been told an old electric kitchen oven works great. And can be had cheap. I guess in electronics the don’t count the ground wire. Like the 3 way circuits I installed in my house, I used 12/3 wire. When I made my extension cord for my welder, I had to get bigger wire than the plug wire on the welder, it was built with only a 6 foot plug. I only need it if welding outside my garage. It was pricey 20 years ago.

I started to go that way myself. Of course when I started looking for a used electric oven, the cheapest one i could find was $280 and no guarantee it worked. So what I did was buy a used 55 gal drum. I had a bud cut the top off. I should have bought one with a removable top, but there were none around and I wanted to get started. Anyway we are putting a 20 gauge liner mounted to one inch standoffs in the barrel and filling the void between with rock-wool as an insulator. We reinforced the lid, added handles and put a bar-b-que thermometer in it. Heat will come from a used fish fry propane burner. The usable space inside the over will be 19 1/2" in diameter and about 34" deep. The space should be small enough that no hot spots develop and temperature throughout is the same. I'm old school, so I should be able to powder coat my 15", 16" and 17" wheels, two at a time. Nice thing about the barrel is that I can drag it outside with a two wheel dolly and not turn my shop into an oven and me into a well done roast. I will be about $100 to $130 in materials when all is said and done. (Thanks to my friends help.)

Next time I go to his shop, I'll take pics of the progress and post them.

 

[Max Headroom]

So I spent about two hours cleaning and organizing yesterday. Still can't see much difference but a lot of the stuff that used to be in the way, isn't anymore. When I got done I went to see my buddy to see how my powder coating oven is coming along. Except for insulation, the top is done. The standoff are welded into the barrel and he has cut the liner to fit inside. (Crap!!! Forgot to take a pic of the liner.) He is also working on the fish fry burner that will supply the heat for the oven. All in all, I' happy and major stoked about how it is coming along. (Pics of the oven below.)

Still waiting on two more boxes of parts for the cnc plasma cutter to arrive. I received the 6/3 wire for my 220v circuit and will be running wire later today. I have 10' ceiling in my shop so I had to by a 10' ladder to run the wire. What a great excuse to buy a ladder.

My plan, when all this crap is up and running, is to cut some custom accessory brackets for my Malibu and camino. I'll do the first set out of 6061 aircraft aluminum, shine them up on a polishing wheel and then clear coat them with the powder coating outfit. Then I'll do a set in carbon steel and powder coat them black. I plan on being able to make smaller g body parts that just aren't available at this time. They won't be exact replacements but will fit where they're supposed to fit, bolt where they are supposed to bolt and be at least as strong as the original part. Not looking to go into business but would do some stuff for members.

 

[Max Headroom]

So I spent a about three hours in the shop today, cleaning, organizing and throwing crap away. To be honest, mostly throwing crap away. To be even more honest, most of the crap I threw away my wife told me not to collect in the first damn place. Her dad was the best hot rodder I ever knew, so she doesn't think all car stuff is crap. Just the crap I bring home is crap. Anyway, I worked till dark and the few pics I took look like I took them in the dark. I will take a couple in the morning. For those of you interested in looking, tomorrow's pics will look just like the last pics except that the crap I threw out will not longer be in the picture. Seriously, knowing that some of you are actually reading this post gives me the drive to continue this endless task. Today, I actually felt pretty good when I finished because I did make some progress that can actually be seen.

I gotta get this finished so I can finish wiring the shop for my cnc plasma cutter. I saw my Lincoln cracker box welder today (for the first time in about two years) and realized that, it too, is 220v single.

Once I get the shop cleaned and wired, I have a 10' x 30' storage room that I rented about two years before my son was born, that I have to empty. He's 27 now. About seven feet of it has all my old sound equipment and the rest is almost all sbc trannies, heads, valves, intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds, blocks, etc. Some of it I will keep but a lot of it will have to go.

Some of the SBC stuff I have:

• Several sets of the better flowing open chamber heads. (I'll get a list of casting numbers later)
• A couple of sets of 305 heads
• Two or three corvette iron 4 bbl intakes.
• One or two sets of ram horn exhaust manifolds.
• At least one set of pink rods
• A couple sets of X rods.
• Three stainless steel cranks
• Two 283 blocks with caps
• One 327 (early, I think) block with caps and crank
• Several two bolt main 350 blocks
• Stock pistons out the wazoo
• Several stock iron 350 cranks
• Some miscellaneous accessory brackets
• Several 4 speed manual transmissions (Most need some work)
• One 472 Cadillac engine missing one head. Motor was running when it came out of the car.The 472 is the same as the 500 except for the crank and maybe the rods or the pistons.

I can't remember the rest but there is more.

I will start a new post when I am ready to go through it all but if anybody needs something now, let me know and I'll go dig around and see if I have it.

 

[Max Headroom]

OK. Another update. Today I received the last box of parts for my DIY CNC Plasma Cutter. I can't wait to get really, really, frustrated and pissed off while putting it together. However, before I can do that, I have some work to do to get the shop ready for the plasma cutter. So I have been spending about five hours a week throwing away stuff I never should have collected in the first place and organizing the rest of the stuff my wife will throw away when I die. All of the major stuff has a designated area but a lot of it still needs to be put in it's place. Kind of like my wife does with me.

About a month ago, I ordered some 6/3 wire to run a 220v 50 amp - single phase circuit from my shop panel to where my Lincoln stick welder and the plasma cutter will be. It came in about 10 days ago and being the hard charger I am, I jumped right on running that wire tonight. I got all the way down the side wall before I bitched out for the night. 6/3 is some non-cooperating stuff to pull. I still have to run the wire over one of the roll up doors and down the wall between the doors. I will try to man-up the rest of it tomorrow.

I almost forgot, my amigo is pretty much finished with my powder coating oven. It is LPG powered and takes about twenty minutes to get up to temp. The good news is that it takes over an hour to get from 400 degrees to back under 200 degrees AND it doesn't go through a lot of gas. It is big enough to hang two 17" rims in to bake (If I am REAL careful in hanging them).

I will take some pics in the morning and post them sometime tomorrow. I have to go to my storage room tomorrow and see if I have a set of 305 heads, so I will take a couple of shots of that cluster f*ck and post them too.

It occurs to me that I might actually finish my shop and have a chance to use it before they throw dirt on my face. Night ya'll.

 

[Max Headroom]

Got a chance to do some stuff in the shop today. Mounted the new motor on my drill press and wired it in. Also stripped the old wire, switch & box off of my mill. Went to Lowes and bought what I need to wire it in. Should get that done tomorrow. Tomorrow evening, I will pick up my powder coat oven from my friend who built it for me. Will pull an accessory bracket from my Malibu, clean it up and powder coat it black. I am curious to see how it turns out. If it is good, I will do all the brackets. Couple of pics below.