Bob's Home Shop

So I turned 40 this year and the whole "If not now then when?" mentality set in so I asked the boss and she said ok.
I grew up in my gramps/dads shop which is great and all but it was drilled into my head (screamed into my ear) from the very beginning to not disturb or irritate the men in the shop we depend on in any way. Being the consummate middle child and peace keeper that I am now that I run the shop side of the business I see myself as more of a shop steward than as "the boss". That said even though it's my shop at work I don't treat it that way, I still stay out of the way of business and I do not clutter the shop with personal items or projects. But god damn if I don't want to, so here comes MY shop lol.




My Son just had to climb it

The Form blew out on the back side of the building wasting most of a truck load of concrete but I got a spot for the air compressor outside I guess.

I live 35 miles south of New Orleans, we spent an hour in the eye wall of Hurricane Ida and my family of 4 + 2 dogs spent 8 hours in the under stairs closet during the storm. All but one roll up door blew out for the storm, as per usual. I know rollup doors don't hold up well to hurricane winds so I decided I couldn't do any worse and just made my own barn doors, I am sure they will be tested soon.

That's all I got for now, the picture of the hound (Louis) on his rug was last night as I was prewiring some light fixtures. I've got a lot of old equipment I've been hoarding for years to take home, a tig welder a whacheon leblond clone from 1982 and other miscellaneous stuff. I do a lot of time consuming hard facing ( stellite 6 applied by tig welding) that I will soon be able to do at home after hours and weekends, which is better than after hours and weekends at work lol. Other than that I don't really know what I am going to do with the space I don't like the tv or sitting on the sofa, I just always want to be busy with something and now I can be but still be accessible to the wife and kids.

So I've only run the table saw and chop saw in the shed so far and the wife has already complained about the lights in the house dimming. I am currently running off a sub panel on a 100 amp breaker. My electrical knowledge/experience is limited so bear with me but are there "house sized" capacitors that I can install to even out the voltage drops? Are they affordable? Or do I just take the hit and have a second service put in?

Kingbob said:

So I've only run the table saw and chop saw in the shed so far and the wife has already complained about the lights in the house dimming. I am currently running off a sub panel on a 100 amp breaker. My electrical knowledge/experience is limited so bear with me but are there "house sized" capacitors that I can install to even out the voltage drops? Are they affordable? Or do I just take the hit and have a second service put in?

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Tell us more about your electrical service- What KVA is your transformer? What size/alloy wire coming into your main panel? Is it overhead or underground?

Tablesaw/chopsaw should not be pulling down the power in your house. You're talking under 20 amps right?

I vote bad connection somewhere. Aluminum feeders are notorious for this.

When I built my shop I put a lot of thought into the main door. It's still not done yet, but getting there. I went with a slider because swinging doors will flat kill you, or especially a kid, in a storm. if you ever have to open that hinged door in a storm it could be problematic.

What else is running when the lights are dimming? Perhaps your a/c is kicking on at the same time as the dryer is running, she using the stove/oven, and the hot water heater is running. You only have so much juice and may need to turn off some things when using the shop. Being in hot humid Louisiana, you better seal that shed tight and run a dehumidifier. Otherwise everything will rust quickly.

Garwood said:

Tell us more about your electrical service- What KVA is your transformer? What size/alloy wire coming into your main panel? Is it overhead or underground?

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It's underground - Not sure on the rest, I'll have to dig into the rest this weekend

Garwood said:

Tablesaw/chopsaw should not be pulling down the power in your house. You're talking under 20 amps right?

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Yep, standard prosumer crap

Garwood said:

I vote bad connection somewhere. Aluminum feeders are notorious for this.

When I built my shop I put a lot of thought into the main door. It's still not done yet, but getting there. I went with a slider because swinging doors will flat kill you, or especially a kid, in a storm. if you ever have to open that hinged door in a storm it could be problematic.

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I considered that but just being a home shop he barn doors will be closed 99% of the time, no vehicles parked inside and I have 8 windows for ventilation.

Superbowl said:

What else is running when the lights are dimming? Perhaps your a/c is kicking on at the same time as the dryer is running, she using the stove/oven, and the hot water heater is running. You only have so much juice and may need to turn off some things when using the shop. Being in hot humid Louisiana, you better seal that shed tight and run a dehumidifier. Otherwise everything will rust quickly.

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I am going to experiment with it this weekend to see what she called "lights dimming" going to stick my son in the shop and have him bump the table saw on and off so I can see what she saw. I did caulk all the seems in the door and I have a 25,000 btu window unit I've been saving for the shop but honestly I am sealing up the shop more to keep the mosquitoes out lol.

Regarding doors blowing out in hurricanes, I think I would make provisions to install several columns adjacent to the doors and then attach the doors to the columns.

How do pole barns or metal buildings perform in hurricanes? I thought they generally were not laterally braces very well, and I question whether the metal panels would hold up.

mjr6550 said:

Regarding doors blowing out in hurricanes, I think I would make provisions to install several columns adjacent to the doors and then attach the doors to the columns.

How do pole barns or metal buildings perform in hurricanes? I thought they generally were not laterally braces very well, and I question whether the metal panels would hold up.

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The doors are attached to the 6x6 posts and I am going to make some long barrel bolts out of some scrap 7/8" 303ss I have laying around that will up and down into the header and the concrete. I am also going to make a sort of drawbar to attach them to one another when closed.
As far as surviving hurricanes goes the building is engineered to withstand 130mph winds as per local code.
I unfortunately have extensive experience dealing with hurricanes and metal buildings https://www.homefacts.com/hurricanes/Louisiana/Terrebonne-Parish.html.
Every morning, every day, everything is wet, this rusts out the purlins on red iron buildings and once a the rust sets in a good storm will lift a sheet somewhere and the rest go like dominoes.
That being said in general metal buildings do seem to hold up well, only 2 of ours ever lost tin and they are the 2 drafty and rustiest.
The 3 pole barns however never lost a sheet and the oldest one has been up since 98 and we've had a lot of really bad storms since then. This old barn I'm in now has lost at least 2 of it's 3 roll ups on 4 separate occasions but never lost a sheet of tin, for Ida last year it had half of it's fiberglass skylights sucked out but not a sheet of tin.
My theory is that wood barns have more attachment points between the tin and purlins because there are just more of them.
Wood does loosen it's grip on screws as it ages but not as severely as a rusted z purlin will. This is why I chose a pole barn, there are a lot of them around and also a lot of red iron buildings, I have never seen a pole barn stripped but I've seen plenty red iron buildings striped. When it final does go, and I know it will eventually will, the structure will fail and the whole building will go which for insurance purposes is far better than a damaged building, ask me how I know.

Cool shop.
I have a friend in northern lower Michigan putting cement floors in barns and the like.

Tonights progress, the lights are temporary just practicing my meager electrician skill set. Got some old timey pendant lights on order.

Kingbob said:

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That's all I got for now, the picture of the hound (Louis) on his rug was last night as I was prewiring some light fixtures. I've got a lot of old equipment I've been hoarding for years to take home, a tig welder a whacheon leblond clone from 1982 and other miscellaneous stuff. I do a lot of time consuming hard facing ( stellite 6 applied by tig welding) that I will soon be able to do at home after hours and weekends, which is better than after hours and weekends at work lol. Other than that I don't really know what I am going to do with the space I don't like the tv or sitting on the sofa, I just always want to be busy with something and now I can be but still be accessible to the wife and kids.

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House dog and shop dog... which one is jealous of the other? Ha Ha, nice looking start, thanks for sharing. Charles

Where you get the metal strap hinges for the door. Got to do the same thing.

Ps- Corvettes for the mid life crisis rarely make you money. So good job!