Fire recovery update / the New Shop

scsmith42 · 11-20-2008, 09:53 PM

Several folks have asked me about how things have been coming on reconstruction of my shop following the fire back in June.

My plans are to incorporate my personal woodshop into a new building that will house the post-production equipment for my milling and drying business. Last year I made the decision to expand my farm based kiln drying business to include “post processing”, i.e. manufacturing S2S and S4S lumber, 1/8” veneers, extremely wide plank flooring (up to 16” planks), etc. The material will primarily be quartersawn red and white oak (up to 20” boards), with some flat sawn thrown in for good measure.

The building footprint is approximately 83’ wide and 64 feet deep, which works out to 5,300 square feet. In addition to the woodshop equipment, it will house an inventory room (humidity controlled) generator room and a parking area for a dump truck to accept the shavings and sawdust from the equipment

Throughout this year we’ve been working on the building, and have done everything ourselves here on the farm except for the pouring, placement and finishing of the main slab. We did form and pour all of the side walls ourselves. We purchased the trusses pre-manufactured, but borrowed a 25 ton crane and set them ourselves. We also installed our own tin roof, set our own posts, plates, and did all of our own site grading, as well as installation of the electrical, plumbing, and radiant heat infrastructure. We even manufactured our own concrete for the walls on site (I have both 1/3 yard and 1.25 yard concrete mixers).

We’ve taken a “green” approach to building; the posts for the building are recycled utility poles, a lot of our construction forms have been manufactured from beetle-damaged pine that we milled ourselves, the siding will all be made from salvaged trees, and the floor has radiant heating. A lot of the insulation will be provided by recycled scraps cleaned up from spray-foam insulation building sites, (as opposed to the scraps going to the landfill).

480 volt 3 phase power will come from a 220KW diesel generator that we intend to run on bio-diesel made here on the farm.

Here are a few photos of the building progress:

This is a shot of some of the grading work (we had to backfill and compact almost 6’ in places), and the initial posts being installed. The posts are installed between 5 – 8’ below grade, with a 24” wide, 2’ thick concrete collar poured around the bottom of them to provide for uplift resistance.

This is a photo of us setting the first truss in place. We milled all of our own plates; the largest of which is a 6” x 14” x 34’ SYP plate. I’m operating the crane.

Here’s a good shot of me operating the 25 ton crane.

Setting the final truss. FYI this is a 61' span.

This is the back side of the building, taken during construction. We built the site up by almost 6’ in places. This photo was taken before we formed and poured the concrete wall on the south side (but you can see one of the walls that we’ve already poured in the middle of the photo). The portion of the building in the foreground will be the generator room, and the lower portion on the left is the dump truck parking area (shavings and sawdust disposal).

149 yards later we had a slab! This was the start of the pour of our 6” thick, radiant heated, insulated steel reinforced slab. We poured a 4000 psi, 3.5” slump mix with a water reducer to improve pumping. If this slab ever cracks I will be very surprised!

The finished slab (taken immediately after the green saw cut)

An aerial view of the building after removing the forms for the slab pour. The log cabin to the left of the building will become my office, and the log cabin in front of the building will eventually be moved to a different location on the farm.

The next steps are to finish getting the building dried in, set the generator and do some preliminary electrical work. After that, I will move forward with replacing the shop equipment that I lost, and also installing the 4 head moulder, straight line rip saw, 25” jointer/planer, and the 37” wide belt sanders that I’ve purchased for the new building.

Hopefully, sometime in Q1 ’09 we will have everything in production, and our new web based business set up (the future www.quartersawnoak.com)

Appearance wise, we certainly won’t be in the league of some of the pristine shops owned by fellow NCWoodworker.net members, but hopefully will end up with a rustic but tasteful shop that is comfortable and well insulated.

Scott

TracyP · 11-20-2008, 09:56 PM

Great looking progress, please keep the photos coming!!

FredP · 11-20-2008, 10:03 PM

WOW.....

um Scott? do you ever do anything on a small scale?

nice setup man! I for one will be coming by when its done if for no other reason than to drool all over it!

woodArtz · 11-20-2008, 10:03 PM

Uh... WOW! I can't wait to see the final version.

jeff... · 11-20-2008, 10:05 PM

Dang man - you don't let no grass grow under your feet now do you?

rsitzejr · 11-20-2008, 10:06 PM

Wow Scott, fantastic. Let me know if you need help, I'm only 20 minutes from you.

ptt49er · 11-20-2008, 10:06 PM

Scott, when you do it, you do it right!!

That's going to be one nice shop!!!

redhawknc1 · 11-20-2008, 10:09 PM

All I can say is....WOW!!!!

Trent Mason · 11-20-2008, 10:16 PM

Whoa!

Can't wait till next year's shop crawl. Five hours of which will be spent at your shop.

Keep up the good work and keep the pictures coming!

DaveO · 11-20-2008, 10:54 PM

Scott, I was wondering what the new building was going to be at the last Shop Crawl. Man, when you do it right, you do it it RIGHT. I really look forward to your business taking off. I would much prefer to buy from a friend than a stranger.
I am still looking forward to helping you mill those logs from the Green Square project...give me a ring when you get around to it

Dave