Beautiful home shop built in a small garage

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

Does it come with a rotary dial app?

What's up with the lettering on that? O and Q on the zero, no Z?

[Dean]

Originally Posted by sperry

What's up with the lettering on that? O and Q on the zero, no Z?

Q and Z were not on old rotary phones, or even early touch tones and they were never on the 0. So it is wrong on many levels. it was just the first image of a rotary dial app I found.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

Q and Z were not on old rotary phones, or even early touch tones and they were never on the 0. So it is wrong on many levels. it was just the first image of a rotary dial app I found.

I thought old phones had "OPER" on the zero. And ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO PRS TUV WXY on 2 through 9. No Q or Z.

But either way... if that's a rotary interface for the iPhone, shouldn't the letters match the iPhone which uses the modern layout of ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO PQRS TUV WXYZ, you know, so you can use it without having to guess at the letters?

[Dean]

Originally Posted by sperry

I thought old phones had "OPER" on the zero. And ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO PRS TUV WXY on 2 through 9. No Q or Z.

But either way... if that's a rotary interface for the iPhone, shouldn't the letters match the iPhone which uses the modern layout of ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO PQRS TUV WXYZ, you know, so you can use it without having to guess at the letters?

Correct and correct.

[Jack Olsen]

Sorry to bump this thread up after years of inactivity. But I just got sent a link to it and wanted to say thanks for the kind words about my little shop.

The phone is a 1951 Western Electric 354 that I got on Ebay. It's never bee restored -- they built those things like tanks. The odd part was plugging it in, dialing, and seeing my cell phone light up and ring. (Imagine trying to connect to the network with your current cell phone 6 years from now, let alone 60.)

Since the thread about the garage on Garage Journal got so long, I decided to make a website for the garage where people could get information on it more concisely. There's a bench-by-bench tour and a lot more photographs. The site is at:

http://www.12-gaugegarage.com

Here are some more pictures:









Benches fold down from the wall:







It looks nice cleaned up, but it's a working garage:

[Kevin M]

That last pic only adds to the awesomeness.

[rory_a]

Good god that's amazing.

I have a 36x24 that I'll be moving into in the next few months, need to figure out how to fit a boat, snowmobiles, tools and workspace for a resto. But really though, the colors, budget of 4k, and the gorgeous RSR replica make this so amazing.

[sperry]

Wow. Thanks for joining the board to share some more pictures Jack!

How'd you get that lift flush with the floor? Concrete cutting and excavating?

And I love the little details like mounting overhead lights that are suspended under the rollup of the garage door. Brilliant!

[MPREZIV]

SO awesome... Excellent work sir!

[Jack Olsen]

Thanks, guys.

sperry, I dug out a hole for the lift so it would be flush. It was kind of scary -- I'd never poured concrete before, wasn't 100% sure this was the right use for this kind of lift table, and the first step was going to be to cut a 5'x5' hole in my nice garage floor. I rented a walk-behind concrete-cutting saw and dug a 16" deep pit. Now that it's done, there's an 8" thick reinforced pad underneath the lift. The walls for the pit that are tied in to the surrounding pad with rebar. I had to bring the concrete sacks home in two loads to avoid destroying my Jeep's suspension. The mixing and pouring took an afternoon. Finding out that it was the right depth (and seeing the lift go up for the first time) was pretty satisfying. When you get concrete wrong, it's a real pain to tear out and do again.

Just getting the thing home was an adventure. Since I'm frugal, I rented a truck from Home Depot -- $20 for 90 minutes. Getting the thing down by myself was tense. The lift table itself weighs 950 pounds.



This video shows some pictures from the installation. You just have to weight through a minute or so of cheesy 'presentation.'

YouTube

YouTube

Here's a clearer look at the whole deal. You can see it's shimmed up to get to the right level. Better to go a little too deep than to not go deep enough and have it never be flush.



It also works as a work surface. It's also useful for getting heavy stuff into the back of the Jeep.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Jack Olsen

Thanks, guys.

sperry, I dug out a hole for the lift so it would be flush. It was kind of scary -- I'd never poured concrete before, wasn't 100% sure this was the right use for this kind of lift table, and the first step was going to be to cut a 5'x5' hole in my nice garage floor. I rented a walk-behind concrete-cutting saw and dug a 16" deep pit. Now that it's done, there's an 8" thick reinforced pad underneath the lift. The walls for the pit that are tied in to the surrounding pad with rebar. I had to bring the concrete sacks home in two loads to avoid destroying my Jeep's suspension. The mixing and pouring took an afternoon. Finding out that it was the right depth (and seeing the lift go up for the first time) was pretty satisfying. When you get concrete wrong, it's a real pain to tear out and do again.

Just getting the thing home was an adventure. Since I'm frugal, I rented a truck from Home Depot -- $20 for 90 minutes. Getting the thing down by myself was tense. The lift table itself weighs 950 pounds.



This video shows some pictures from the installation. You just have to weight through a minute or so of cheesy 'presentation.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Mnl...layer_embedded

Here's a clearer look at the whole deal. You can see it's shimmed up to get to the right level. Better to go a little too deep than to not go deep enough and have it never be flush.



It also works as a work surface. It's also useful for getting heavy stuff into the back of the Jeep.

That is an impressive amount of effort. Looks like it's worth it... I take it that you have no plans of moving anytime soon, eh?

I'm definitely inspired... I've got a 3 car garage I'd love to convert to a partial shop, but I've also got 3 cars to park in there, so even with more actual space, I have less to work with. Plus, I don't plan to be in this home forever, so it feels like some wasted effort to try to do something this nice now.

Did you ever consider a self-leveling concrete layer over the entire floor before going with the tile? I'm just amazed that you've had such great luck with the tile... I've got tile in my kitchen that's cracked, and I'm not even parking a car or using heavy tools in there!

[Jack Olsen]

I've got no plans to move. And I'm crossing my fingers that my wife will continue to feel the same way. It'd be pretty daunting to do all of this work over again.

On the tile, the biggest factor is how the stuff is installed. For home interiors, speed is the biggest factor, so you get a series of dabs of adhesive, basically. This leaves a lot of empty space under the tiles, and this will put them in tension (as opposed to compression), and they'll be more vulnerable to cracks. Inside a house, this usually isn't a huge deal.

Interior installations are often done over joists, which introduces more opportunities for trouble.

In an industrial or commercial setting -- or a garage -- you're installing over concrete, and you 'double butter' the thinset, which means it's uniformly distributed on both the concrete slab and the underside of the tile. Without gaps in the adhesive, you get this kind of strength.

YouTube

YouTube

(Note: these are the cheapest floor tiles I was able to find at the Home Depot. And that's a 4-lb sledge hammer.)

[ScottyS]

Wow, major kudos for doing all that yourself. That post-build floor lift mod is awesome.

[Jack Olsen]

Thanks. Everything in this shop is post-build, since the pad was poured in 1925.

I got a better video camera, so here's a clearer picture of the lift in use -- although you've got to put up with some over-the-top music while you see it. (But cut me some slack, there was a lot of work involved in putting the thing in, so I was pretty happy when I got to see it work.) I suggest full screen and 720p.

YouTube

YouTube

[AtomicLabMonkey]

The music cracked me up.

Nice work Jack, to put it mildly.

The green seems appropriate since there are a whole lot of people envious of that shop.