Garages and workshops

[MPicciotto]

I am a member of this forum over here owwm.org all about vintage woodworking tools, from big industrial belt drive equipment to the Delta Homecraft line of home hobbiest woodworking tools from the 30's, 40's and 50's. Anyways I'm going to be building a 20x24 work shop soon to use for restoration and construction of vintage stuff like restoring my old Postal Jeep, repairing army cots etc. Any thoughts, pictures, tips, suggestions on going vintage with my shop? I'm thinking like the vintage office thread, a vintage shop thread.

Matt

 

[Stearmen]

Size Matters

Make your shop 4 feet longer! They always need to be 4 feet longer! No matter how big you make them!

 

[Mr_D.]

Make your shop 4 feet longer! They always need to be 4 feet longer! No matter how big you make them!

Don't forget to add 4 feet taller too.

 

[MPicciotto]

My plan was for a 20x20 detached garage. Then yes I made it 4ft larger by going 20x24. And I went taller too! I am working on plans for a half story second floor with 4ft "Knee walls" and sloped ceiling to make my vintage office in. I was going to do vinyl siding to match my house. But I'm thinking maybe stucco, then galvanized gutters and downspouts.

Matt

 

[MPicciotto]

I thought for sure there would be some input here. I mean Vintage Office is great. But what guy doesn't want a vintage workshop? So I'm looking through my 1942 and 1947 bound editions of Architectural Forum and am leaning towards using a lot of the products or similar products as appeared in the ads in the 1947 magazines. Call it late forties contemporary. Winter and now SUMMER air conditioning (as opposed to winter air conditioning aka heat) was coming into vogue as the latest and greatest with round registers, which is great as they are easy for me to get still today and are super simple to install, I plan to use a heatpump for heating and cooling eventually. Also looking at using fluorescent trough lighting throughout the garage with hanging lamps over certain tools or workbenches. So the plan is gelling now for a cutting edge 1940's workshop.

Matt

 

[Chainsaw]

Stucco's good for lowering the heating and cooling costs, a small foundation wall to set the studs on( so they're not stuck under snow, or susceptible to rain) is a good idea.

The garage at our place was built in the 60's, and not only is it all built with cedar studs but the house is as well (probably 50 Gs in cedar today). No ply wood either.

Make sure you use "fiber-crete" for the floor et-cetera. It's just fiber glass thrown into the concrete, and costs 5-10 dollars extra a meter. Also, go with rebar in the floor, as apposed to wire mesh.

It would be fairly simple to run plumbing to the garage for a shop sink, and install an essential for a mans garage, a urinal.

 

["Skeet" McD]

Shopsmith 10ER group....

I thought for sure there would be some input here. I mean Vintage Office is great. But what guy doesn't want a vintage workshop? So I'm looking through my 1942 and 1947 bound editions of Architectural Forum and am leaning towards using a lot of the products or similar products as appeared in the ads in the 1947 magazines. Call it late forties contemporary. Matt

Dear Matt, you've got a great idea, and I'm sure the photos will come in...although your's may be the first! But, in the meantime: other than my father's wonderful "ray-gun" aluminum drill and his radial arm saw (both in fine working order, and infinitely better than anything you could buy today, I expect) the only thing that's FL period in the workshop are two Magna Engineering 10ERs: these wonderful, cast-iron multi-tools were introduced in 1947 and their great period was from then for about a decade or so. Their (much lesser) descendants are still being made today. The reason I mention this is to point you towards a wonderful BB devoted to them. Here's what they say on the homepage:

"The 10E/10ER Shopsmith, manufactured by Magna Engineering Corp. from 1947 through 1953, is an American Classic like Apple Pie and 55' Chevys. At one time much more of a household word than now, it was a stock item in Montgomery Ward stores nation wide and was the top selling power tool in the country from 1949 through 1952 with over 125,000 sold. If you have a Magna Shopsmith 10E or 10ER or if you are interested in learning more about this most useful and ingenious woodworking tool, you are welcome to join us and share in the wealth of knowledge available in this group. The before/after picture at the right shows the possibilities for machines that look too far gone to ever be used again.
This is not a woodworking group though we are all woodworkers. The purpose of the group is support for those repairing, restoring, customizing, making accessories for and learning the history of Magna Engineering Corp. and the 10E and 10ER Shopsmith machines. If that sounds good to you then come join us."

It's a very friendly and VERY helpful group. You'll have to join (which is free, of course) but once you're in, check out the downloadable PDFs of the Magna house organ "Shavings." This has plenty of tips, and a fair number of photos, of folks from just the period you're interested in in their shops.

Here's the URL for the homepage for the group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shopsmith10ERusers/

Other than that, I'd think that perusing the Popular Mechanics archives that have just gone online would be a source for plenty of ideas...and probably plans, to boot; this was mentioned recently in this thread:

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=973777&postcount=1

Best of luck to you, and be sure to tell us all about your doings!

"Skeet"

 

[MPicciotto]

Skeet,

How could I forget the venerable Shopsmith! A wonderful tool for 90% of home hobbiest wood workers. Although I run with a crowd that likes their tools all separate it is an ingenious piece of engineering and well deserving of mention in Golden Era tools. To give this thread a bit of bump I'll post up some of the tools that I have that will be going into my shop:

This is a DeWalt badged grinder/honer. I'm in the process of restoring it. Hope to make it look as good as this one: http://owwm.com/photoindex/detail.aspx?id=9527

Here is a substantial chunk of iron. This is a Wilton Machinist Vise:

This Delta Homecraft scrollsaw is in the que to be restored and put to use. Behind it is a Walker-Turner 14" Bandsaw that is in the que at my father's shop to be restored and used.

Matt

 

[MPicciotto]

Picked up a couple of hand planes at a yard sale Saturday. Circa 1930-1950. One was missing the front knob. So here is an in progress pic of the fabrication of a new knob on my circa 1940 Double A Products Lathe.

Matt

 

[David Conwill]

I intend to have more to contribute to this thread soon, when I'm not busting my butt on a deadline.

Until then, check out The Garage Journal. It's not exclusively vintage, but the proprieter is a fellow who really appreciates a Golden Era aesthetic in his workspace.

-Dave

 

[andy richards]

Hi Dave,
Interesting subject.
If I was about to build a garage I certainly would like to have a decent silenced compressor, maybe in a seperate and isolated room and lots of pipes and conectors for all the air-tools.
I don't know about current Voltage in the US, but here we have 220-230V and 380V. The 380V allows you to use more heavy equipment if desired and can also be converted to 220-230V.
Also, when working under a car (postal Jeep) consider a "pit".
Good luck with your project.
Andy

and if you have limited space, but enough money to spent...

 

[MPicciotto]

An air compressor is in the plans. I might locate it outside, but rumor is the vintage compressors are a LOT quieter then the new ones. Here in the US "household" current is 120 with 240 for large appliances like air conditioners, clothes dryers etc. So I'll be running 240 to my shop so I can use either. Then I might build a rotary phase converter to power 208 3-phase equipment. But as of now I don't plan on having any full blown industrial equipment that would require 3-phase. No shop yet. But here are some pictures of some of what will go in the shop.

First is the DeWalt Power Shop radial arm saw. A direct competitor to the Shopsmith products. Lots of accesories were available for the RAS just as for the Shopsmith. But where a Shopsmith makes a great lathe or horizontal boring machine and not much else a RAS makes a great RAS and not much else.

Next is a flamed maple chisel handle I just turned today on the lathe pictured up the thread:

Matt

 

[Atomic]

I don't know too much about woodworking, but if you wanted a touch of mechanical vintage feel you can get old oil cans and just hang them or set them in corners.

Also, old heaters are awesome and work surprisingly well! Here is an old Arvin fan I restored to working order last year.

 

[MPicciotto]

Nice Fan! I assume that is a heater/fan? Are those electric coils around the edges? Can you run the fan OR the heater ie use it in the summer as just a fan?

As for oil cans. I like to eat at Cracker Barrel restaurants, but I don't want my garage to look like one. Oil cans will be around to use though, vintage? Of course. I have some other ideas for decor. Like maybe one of these posters:

http://vintagraph.com/wpa-posters/health-and-safety-posters/2378898

I'm thinking of mounting the posters between two pieces of plexi-glass bolted together for a 50's mod look.

Matt

 

[Chainsaw]

Love the fan man! I have a few old heaters, they're really nostalgic. :eusa_clap

 

[Atomic]

Nice Fan! I assume that is a heater/fan? Are those electric coils around the edges? Can you run the fan OR the heater ie use it in the summer as just a fan?

Matt

Awesome poster! I might have to pick one of those up!

The fan is a heater as well as a fan, the outer coils do heat. First stage on the toggle is fan only, for summers and what not, and second stage kicks on the heater and the fan still runs to blow the hot air out. Works great, I'm pretty impressed with it. I found it in an antique shop and tried to turn it on and it pretty must just started smoking and burning dust. The shop owner said "5 bucks, and I'm not responsible if your house burns down". All it needed was a good cleaning and some lubricant and it runs super quite and like a charm.

I actually have a little blog where I catalog my stuff and include pics of tear downs. Have a gander if you're interested.
http://revivingtheoldstuff.blogspot.com/

Also, here is a fan that has a lot less abuse than mine, and isn't terribly expensive.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/1464618...age&ga_page=&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title

 

[MPicciotto]

NIce blog! Yeah those posters on that site are way cool. Lots of different ones.

Matt

 

[Stearmen]

Old Stuff

All it needed was a good cleaning and some lubricant and it runs super quite and like a charm.

I remember several years ago, there was a show that showed how things work. In one episode they showed how refrigerators work. They went to the junk yard to look at discarded ones, all of them worked, even ones from the 50s, just simple problems like the door seals, or avocado green.

 

[MPicciotto]

I especially like what you did with the Navy headphones. As for old refrigerators, it seems the older they are the more reliable. Also the less stuff to go wrong in them. A friend of mine has a 1941 refrigerator that he thought the start relay had gone bad. He bought another off of ebay and went to change it only to find his problem was a deteriorated wire. Replaced the wire and problem solved. That is the biggest bugaboo in old electric stuff is the insulation falling apart, followed sometimes by the conductor itself. I know guys who restore antique electric motors (read 1920's or earlier sometimes) to put into daily use. Some of them go so far as revarnishing the windings.

Matt

 

[Atomic]

I especially like what you did with the Navy headphones. As for old refrigerators, it seems the older they are the more reliable. Also the less stuff to go wrong in them. A friend of mine has a 1941 refrigerator that he thought the start relay had gone bad. He bought another off of ebay and went to change it only to find his problem was a deteriorated wire. Replaced the wire and problem solved. That is the biggest bugaboo in old electric stuff is the insulation falling apart, followed sometimes by the conductor itself. I know guys who restore antique electric motors (read 1920's or earlier sometimes) to put into daily use. Some of them go so far as revarnishing the windings.

Matt

Thanks! I thought they were neat and I'd seen a couple of other conversions where people cut the metal casing to make the wires work which I really had a problem with.

I really want an old 40's or 50's fridge for my garage. I think they are really neat looking and would probably try to find a way to convert them to non freon. I love how heavy they are. Opening a door is an effort!