Wolfe_Man
Don't Label Me!
I've been on Pirate since 05 and moved over here but have never posted much, just enjoyed reading and learning. With what happened I moved over here and figured this may be interesting to some plus give the new site some content.
My hobby has been building hotrods, classic cars, 4x4, welding, fab etc, basically anything with an engine or working with metal for the last 25+ years or so.
I have/had been building cars with my buddy Ron for the last 19 of those years but he retired and moved to Washington a year ago.
We had been working out of a 30x45 (10 foot walls) shop we had built in his backyard. We called ourselves RnG Customs (Ron and Gabe) over the years the things we've built have been in 14+ magazines and many SEMA shows (www.facebook.com/rngccf if you're interested in past stuff). I dont think we did too bad for some backyard/shadetree hacks.
When Ron told me he was moving I decided to duplicate the shop in my own backyard with some small changes and code update requirements. The changes I decided were 12x9 garage doors vs the 14x8 used before (was a pain to get lifted vehicles or the 4 post lift in during winter) and new code required brace walls since the long wall is over 40' long. Since I had to have a brace wall I decided to use it and build a compressor room and a corner for my little CnC Plasma table. The biggest was half of the shop I did scissor trusses to make more room for a 2 pot lift since I was limited to a 10 foot tall wall/16 foot peak height. This gave me +-3 feet more clearance in the middle (where the cab would be).
This also meant I needed a new name and partner as well. I found a partner in my youngest sibling/brother Ben with a 16 year age difference (I'm oldest of 6). He's young but has the "old school" hotrod gene and work ethic in full force. Plus, he plays a mean guitar ( for amusement you can see him here https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=1139875286143721 ) . The name came one beer fueled night (after working our asses off building the shop) as my family owned 5 bakery's/donut shops growing up in SoCal. My brother had a vision of an old 5 slot mag burning rubber and drew it up.
Where I live since I am on just under a half acre I cannot do a metal building or pole barn style, It has to be stick built/stucco and match the house and be no larger than 80% of house plus 16' peak height as well. We/I started about 18 months ago and yes it's a slow build but its my youngest brother and I building on the weekends after our day jobs with the help of some friends. The only parts that were farmed out was the concrete/foundation and stucco. Everything else was done by us and one hell of a learning experience.
We grew up pretty poor so roofing a house (every house we grew up in) or adding a wall (with 6 kids sometimes you have to add a wall to make a bedroom) was no big deal but I had never framed an entire building and make sure it would pass inspection too.
The foundation took 4.5 truckloads of concrete and is a min of 4" thick in middle. The guys did a great job and even when it rained on it I only had 2 small depressions/water puddles.
After the foundation was poured I got busy at work then it took a bit to figure out a lumber package so it sat for 6 months or so.
When I finally ordered the lumber we got busy and had all the walls built in 2 weekends. It could have went faster but it was mid summer in the high desert and we had no shade in 110+ degree heat so we did most of the work morning then again in evening.
Since we were using scissor trusses on half the building we only built 3 walls, the 4th wall went up after placing all the trusses (by hand, that was fun)
Continued next post....
My hobby has been building hotrods, classic cars, 4x4, welding, fab etc, basically anything with an engine or working with metal for the last 25+ years or so.
I have/had been building cars with my buddy Ron for the last 19 of those years but he retired and moved to Washington a year ago.
We had been working out of a 30x45 (10 foot walls) shop we had built in his backyard. We called ourselves RnG Customs (Ron and Gabe) over the years the things we've built have been in 14+ magazines and many SEMA shows (www.facebook.com/rngccf if you're interested in past stuff). I dont think we did too bad for some backyard/shadetree hacks.
When Ron told me he was moving I decided to duplicate the shop in my own backyard with some small changes and code update requirements. The changes I decided were 12x9 garage doors vs the 14x8 used before (was a pain to get lifted vehicles or the 4 post lift in during winter) and new code required brace walls since the long wall is over 40' long. Since I had to have a brace wall I decided to use it and build a compressor room and a corner for my little CnC Plasma table. The biggest was half of the shop I did scissor trusses to make more room for a 2 pot lift since I was limited to a 10 foot tall wall/16 foot peak height. This gave me +-3 feet more clearance in the middle (where the cab would be).
This also meant I needed a new name and partner as well. I found a partner in my youngest sibling/brother Ben with a 16 year age difference (I'm oldest of 6). He's young but has the "old school" hotrod gene and work ethic in full force. Plus, he plays a mean guitar ( for amusement you can see him here https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=1139875286143721 ) . The name came one beer fueled night (after working our asses off building the shop) as my family owned 5 bakery's/donut shops growing up in SoCal. My brother had a vision of an old 5 slot mag burning rubber and drew it up.
Where I live since I am on just under a half acre I cannot do a metal building or pole barn style, It has to be stick built/stucco and match the house and be no larger than 80% of house plus 16' peak height as well. We/I started about 18 months ago and yes it's a slow build but its my youngest brother and I building on the weekends after our day jobs with the help of some friends. The only parts that were farmed out was the concrete/foundation and stucco. Everything else was done by us and one hell of a learning experience.
We grew up pretty poor so roofing a house (every house we grew up in) or adding a wall (with 6 kids sometimes you have to add a wall to make a bedroom) was no big deal but I had never framed an entire building and make sure it would pass inspection too.
The foundation took 4.5 truckloads of concrete and is a min of 4" thick in middle. The guys did a great job and even when it rained on it I only had 2 small depressions/water puddles.
After the foundation was poured I got busy at work then it took a bit to figure out a lumber package so it sat for 6 months or so.
When I finally ordered the lumber we got busy and had all the walls built in 2 weekends. It could have went faster but it was mid summer in the high desert and we had no shade in 110+ degree heat so we did most of the work morning then again in evening.
Since we were using scissor trusses on half the building we only built 3 walls, the 4th wall went up after placing all the trusses (by hand, that was fun)
Continued next post....
