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Finishing Touches on New Workshop

2K views 19 replies 12 participants last post by  blyne3 
#1 · (Edited)
This is the finishing touches to an old thread titled Starting New Work Shop. Move in to the Automotive End is next Tuesday, weather permitting. Here are some of the final pictures involving installing the boiler and pumps for in-floor heat, the finished office and coating the garage floor. A lot of work and expense went into the coating, but there are some good reasons for me to bear this added burden of expense, time and labor. At 70 years young, my eyesight gets dimmer every year and the fingers get stiffer and stiffer, causing lots of dropped nuts, bolts, screws, washers and small parts. I have to spend too much time looking for them on grungy, dark concrete. I am sort of a clean freak, so the dirt and grime shows up readily and this drives me to cleaning more often which is a good thing. And at the end of the day, I know I will have accomplished more and not near as stressed when I call it a day. Notice how light it is in the shop with no lights on. The sky lights have far exceeded my expectations, making the great lights only required for very cloudy days and after the sun is almost set. There is one picture with the overheads on and it was pouring the rain when that was taken.

Here are pics of the Boiler installation. Sorry the Pics are not in sequence. The fourth pic is what I had ready for the heating guys to finish the install (they had laid all the tubes back in early June, just before the pouring of the slab). The first picture is the propane fired boiler that provides the heating. The two PVC tubes are the fresh air inlet and the exhaust. The second picture show the manifolds hooked to the tubes and the 15 gallon hot water heater (electric), all the copper plumbing and the main circulating pump (on the floor next to the water heater). The fifth picture includes the boiler with the gas hooked up. The third picture is the complete system, but the two zone pumps are not hooked up. The red tubes are for hot water and blue tubes are cold water.

Trees
 

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#2 ·
Here are pics of the finished office with some of the basic furniture installed.

Obviously, the first picture is of the Crapper. The second pic is my sons drafting table (furniture and upholstery design). Third is my desk and the last is looking out over the garage floor before starting the coating process.

Trees
 

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#5 ·
After seeing the work that Rogers55 did on his garage floor and referring to his links to Wolverine Coatings, I decided to go with them vice Tenant, which is very similar in application process, near the same price, but uses one half the materials. I cleaned every thing out, swept the floor, used a leaf blower to blow it out and then used a wet or dry shop vacuum to get the floor as clean as possible. I then used a hooked wire on a broom handle to loosen up the garbage in the expansion joints and vacuumed them out. Next, I applied Sea Wash to remove any oils that may have dribbled onto the new concrete through the building processes. Then I rinsed for an hour or so and allowed to dry over night. Then I used Muratic Acid to etch the concrete. The first coverage was with 3 parts water and 1 part acid, but I was not happy with the results and did it again with 2 parts water and 1 part acid, which really did great. I then rinsed for about 2 hours and did a taste test to make sure it was clean enough. The heat was turned on the second day after rinsing so it was dry enough for the primer coat. It was to go on about 5 mils thick (about the thickness of a medium thick sheet of clear/black plastic). We had 6 gallons to cover 1400 sq ft so we used a notched trowel (3/32 inch) to do a rough spread and a 19inch roller to smooth it out. After 24 hours of drying, we then applied the top coat (color) and we used 12 gallons to cover the 1400 sq ft. This went on at about 18 mils thickness, using another notched trowel of 1/8th inch with more space between notches. Again the 19 inch roller was used for uniformity. 24 hours later, we put on the final clear coat (6 gallons, 6 mils) and we are ready to move in after 72 hours of cure time.

We learned a bit. First, my bud that has been helping with this project has been in the floor covering business for about 35-40 years and knows how to use a trowel!!! But he has not worked with epoxys that much and he took a smoke break about half way through the first 3 gallon batch was spread. He did not think the pot life was such a big deal, but with about a half gallon to go, it was heating up and becoming harder to spread. He though he would pour out a bunch and spread it real fast. What a mess!!! We had to get as much up as fast as we could but had to do a lot of smoothing over that area the next day. We lost almost a half gallon, but we had a bit of extra to spare. Lesson learned: pay attention to the pot life and keep the pedal to the metal when you start spreading this stuff!! The color coat went on very nicely but it really showed up the fiber glass hair that is mixed into the concrete for crack control. Had I known how it would show up, we would have given the floor a hair cut before and after the primer coat. The final clear coat covered more of it up, but there is still enough to make the finished product more skid proof. We rolled the final clear coat and we must have gotten it pretty close to the 5-6 mils since we used the last of it as we were backing out the door. We learned another lesson on this process at the very end. We had some dusty foot prints around the cardboard we were using for mixing the materials and my bud was cleaning these up as I was rolling the floor. He used MEK (an great epoxy solvent for clean up) and when I got there, it was slightly sticky and my foot prints are in that area. They will not be noticed but I know they are there. Any clean up of the surface should be done with a damp cloth, followed by a dry cloth!!!

First picture is cleaned out ready to start degreasing and pressure washing. Second picture is of etched and filled floor. Third is first run of primer coat. Fourth is Bud mixing the first top coat (color coat) and fifth is him troweling the top coat on.

Trees
 

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#6 ·
Last of the pics until I get into the moving in process. The 18 inch roller really lets you rapidly get the coating uniform. Wolverine recommended a 3/8 to 1/2 inch lint/shed free nap. I used the 1/2 inch and it worked great. It is important to not exceed your reach with the roller when you are laying out your strips. The second picture was taken when we were half way through the color coating and mixing the last batch of color. The last picture is of the finished floor (clear applied just as the primer coat except we spread using the roller only which worked fine.

Trees
 

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#13 ·
Looks great - you've waited a long time for that shop and worked REALLY hard building it - time to enjoy!

The foot prints are just like writing your name somewhere in the concrete during a pour!

I didn't put non-skid on my floor - there's enough Rambo dog-hair between the color and clear I'll be fine!

 
#14 ·
trees said:
Dinger, never thought about building an airplane so you have sewn a seed. But wait, I'm the janitor so I guess there will not be time.

Trees

Not building an airplane? I guess then it's a good thing you admit to being the janitor, because I don't see any medical board certificates on the walls....:thumbup:



In a while, Chet.
 
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