The making of three different shops

I bought two of these big Lyon boxes at auction for $320 each. They came from Boeing and have tons of stickers and Velcro strips on them. Got one in my fab shop cleaned up

I left the #13 decal on it for other reasons.
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If it works in your shop, hell yeah. Those are a killer find.

In mine, I'd like to think I'd organize, but in reality, three of those drawers would be cool, and the rest would be filled with things I thought were important but actually weren't.
 
If it works in your shop, hell yeah. Those are a killer find.

In mine, I'd like to think I'd organize, but in reality, three of those drawers would be cool, and the rest would be filled with things I thought were important but actually weren't.
I have a ton of hardware in boxes I haven’t started sorting out yet that I got from a place I worked at 10 years ago. It’s all sorts of hardware to specialty things. No idea how much of it I’ll use but I couldn’t pass up the price - free. It was all left over hardware from jobs. My boss was like “take that pallet of stuff out to your truck or it goes in the dumpster.

I bought a bunch of those little 3”x3” plastic organizers in kits off of Amazon. Some bigger treys come in the kits also. These work perfectly in the drawers

I just started on some of the hardware but I haven’t stay focused on other things I need to get done

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Most all the stuff in the drawer above are metric threads.

I stocked up the SAE drawers in the organizers I won at an auction several months ago

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So I got this stack of 1-1/2” thick R9 foam boards for $200. There’s 20 full sheets and some smaller ones.

I’m gonna install it over the top of my 1” foam board in the ceiling of my fab shop. This should help reheat and ac. I’m going to have to paint the face of the panels white for reflection
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I’m in the process of installing a unistrut track overhead electric hoist in my basement machine shop. This track will be able to service my mill and my lathe for accessory attachments/tooling and heavy parts to be machined on.

A couple of the turn tables and indexer table setups are crazy heavy and while the unistrut will handle the loads ok, I need something to back it up to help secure it

The span is 13’ so I cut a chunk of 2x4x1/4” wall steel tubing 14’ long as the main support beam to mount the unistrut track to.

I’ll drill and tap threaded mounting holes in it for the unistrut mounting brackets to bolt to. Mind you, this whole thing looks good in my minds eyeball.

The main beam will saddle on top of the center I beam in my basement supporting my floor joist. The other end will saddle on top of my basement outer concrete wall in between the floor joist. I have to relocate a couple things like a light fixture near the house I beam. Hardest part of all this will be squeezing this steel tubing beam up into place. Mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.

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I drilled 1/2” through holes on the 2” wide sides 14” apart on center full length of the beam. This will be for mounting the unistrut to the main beam for support.

I removed the old utilities I ran years ago from my house to my shop 150’ away. It was a 1” water line, 1” airliner, 100amps sub panel power feed and a data cable and coax cables. The data and coax conduit I kept but removed the rest. I ran new 200a power to my shop along with 1” blue pex tubing for air line (compressor is in my basement shop) 1” blue pex water line and new power wires underground.

The area where my old utilities ran is the same area my unistrut beam is going.
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I setup a sketchy lifting station to raise my steel beam up into position to push it into my basement shop

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I made a 2x4 tray to hold the steel beam in to help guide it into my basement shop. I mounted some UHMW strips on top of the 2x4’s to help make it slide easier.

I used ratchet straps and inch wormed it up into position, then I just pushed it into my basement shop. I mounted a couple Bessey F clamps to the bottom of the floor joist to hold it up into position as I slid it all the way in and on top of tgd house steel beam.
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Part of my three shop builds is reorganizing stuff including my storage trailers.

I got my steel storage rack main frames moved out of my pup semi trailer and into my container to start setting up my steel storage rack system in there.

I’m still moving **** out of my container into other locations but that is like playing the game gridlock.

My house vinyl siding will stay in the container for now until it gets installed… someday.

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Got my unistrut channel cut to 138” long for my basement shop electric hoist
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I’m still moving **** out of my container into other locations but that is like playing the game gridlock.

"Organizing" the shop always feels like a combination of the sliding tile puzzle game and tetris - move this to get to that to move the other thing and then try to fit everything back in without wasting space.
 
Got my electric winch hoist trolly up and installed in my basement shop
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Are you going to add blocking to tie the steel into the joists for lateral stability?

I think it would stiffen things up, or do you not want to do that to avoid noise or floor movement?
 
Are you going to add blocking to tie the steel into the joists for lateral stability?

I think it would stiffen things up, or do you not want to do that to avoid noise or floor movement?
I have it blocked braced between the floor joist to prevent the beam from moving or trying to rollover on its side. I’m not concerned about any noise it makes and my gf doesn’t care.
 
I have it blocked braced between the floor joist to prevent the beam from moving or trying to rollover on its side. I’m not concerned about any noise it makes and my gf doesn’t care.
I guess you added that after the pics. right on.

What are the extra trollies for? (sorry if I missed it when reading)

On my unistrut trolley I used the non-perforated stuff because I fingered it would have better resistance to spreading. Those outer hangers do help though obviously, and you got a ton of them.

I'm not sure if I got the light gauge stuff, or the heavy. Pretty sure I got the light gauge stuff though. Didn't stress about it since my hoist only does 440 lbs.

What's your max lifting weight gonna be?
 
I guess you added that after the pics. right on.

What are the extra trollies for? (sorry if I missed it when reading)

On my unistrut trolley I used the non-perforated stuff because I fingered it would have better resistance to spreading. Those outer hangers do help though obviously, and you got a ton of them.

I'm not sure if I got the light gauge stuff, or the heavy. Pretty sure I got the light gauge stuff though. Didn't stress about it since my hoist only does 440 lbs.

What's your max lifting weight gonna be?
You should be able to find a part number stamped into your unistrut and search its load capacity ratings from there. Mine is rated at 2,200# at 18” hanger gaps.

I think the heaviest thing I’ll be lifting it the index turn table I got. I would think it’s in the 300lb range. My hoist only does 440lb max rating also.
 
You should be able to find a part number stamped into your unistrut and search its load capacity ratings from there. Mine is rated at 2,200# at 18” hanger gaps.

I think the heaviest thing I’ll be lifting it the index turn table I got. I would think it’s in the 300lb range. My hoist only does 440lb max rating also.
And what about the other trolleys. Gonna hang the power cord on them? They’re pretty expensive for that. I’ve made a lot of festoon power cable using a tight wire rope and 3 pieces of chain link for each cable support.
 
And what about the other trolleys. Gonna hang the power cord on them? They’re pretty expensive for that. I’ve made a lot of festoon power cable using a tight wire rope and 3 pieces of chain link for each cable support.
Yes they are for the power cord. They weren’t too expensive on amazon and I didn’t want to fabricate up a hanger setup as I got too much to do already :laughing:

I am going to fab up some bolt on plates that’ll connect two of them together which will help them roll more true inside the track
 
Cool.

I forgot I wanted to better explain what I mentioned earlier, in case it's helpful to someone.

Black line is a piece of small wire rope, pulled tight. Red is 3 links of chain. Blue is power cord.

They never jam when being pulled. I usually weld a little ring mounted to the hoist to push the chainlinks back if they're mounted too far sideways from the beam.

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I get sidetracked pretty easily due to ADHD shiny object. :laughing:

I hung LED light fixtures in my steel storage container project, but currently, I’m plugging them in to an extension cord to power them on. They are 4 four bulb fixtures that plug into each other up to maximum 4 fixtures.

So I need to wire up my 40’ container and a 53’ box trailer I have loaded with stuff also. I started with my steel storage container mounting pvc boxes in it.
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Aeeeell then, ifn I’m gonna run power out to my container, I may as well run power out to my 53 box van that I’ve been wanting to do for 20 years now. Aaaaand, ifn I’m gonna run power over to it, I may as well run a line of weather proof outlets along the wall under the left side of my shops leanto.

First, I got power run to my container and lots of lights hung inside it from magnets. I ended up digging a trench to run the power feed under ground to my container
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And den, I ran power from there over to the other side of my shops left side leanto and box van trailer
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Now, I have to do a cleanup of that job, then get back to installing my steel racks. I’m at the point of that job where I have to move some material which won’t be fun but has to be done non the less.
 
Neighbor came over and helped me move my house siding in boxes (yeah yeah yeah, another project I need to finish up after buying the siding over ten years ago and getting it up on one eve) I needed it out of my way for the steel racks I’m setting up.

I got the framework bolted together for the A frame double shelves steel racks done and in place. Next will be installing the shelf support arms and then the steel shelves.

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Got four of the same size (got two more same height but shorter floor leg) cantilever steel racks up into my container and ready to be moved into place.

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But first, I have to move all this 1-3/4” .125 wall DOM tubing sticks out of the way. Sucks I gotta move them twice. Once out of the way, and then up onto the new steel cantilever racks.
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As it sets right now, hopefully after my dentist appointment tomorrow I’ll feel like working on it.

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Got things moved around a bit getting setup for the steel racks completion phase.

I moved steel over to the other side of the container to make room for the cantilever steel racks along the left wall. There’s a bunch of .125 & .188 wall DOM sticks plus three 1-1/2” .125 wall DOM sticks of tubing. Enough to build one and mostly a second tube chassis.
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Today I cleaned up the A frame shelf support arm retaining pins and WD-40 them up good.
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And then I moved all the shelves and support arms from my semi pup storage trailer over into my container… whew!
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Got around half the shelves support arms mounted. Having some trouble with alignment one a couple uprights. It was made slightly out of tolerance when it was built before the 1970’s. I gotta ream out a pin hole on some of them but should be in like Flynn after that.

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