sykerocker 

End of the year update:

First off, I'm pretty much settled with the insurance company, and they have been a pleasure to work with. The last expected check arrived today, everything's been banked, and the contract with the rebuilding firm was signed back in mid November. I'm quite frankly amazed how well the coverage has gone, and what has been covered. Somewhere along the life of this house, it had one owner who was a decently talented do-it-yourselfer unfortunately with a love of taking some teeth grinding shortcuts and a complete indifference to building codes. Turned out, when he replaced the water heater he moved it from the original crawl space to the closet where the breaker box is located. As this guarantees that the building inspector will never sign off on the completed job as long as it's like this, the insurance is paying for the replacement/relocation back to under the crawl space. Despite it not being damaged by the fire. (I think I'm going to be sticking with Liberty Mutual for a long while.)

Thanks to some tool donations from forum members and my old third-rate tool box left over from when I ran the service desk at the Honda shop, I have a functioning workshop in the interim, and am at least able to keep up maintenance on the current fleet while I'm riding this winter. Lots of new hand tools have been purchase over the Christmas shopping season, although they're going to stay packed away until I get the garage finished and the new monster tool box installed.

After some fits and starts, the rebuilding is under way. Windows on the house have been replaced, I managed to get the matching siding for the motorcycle garage, and work on it starts tomorrow. Siding for the house is supposed to arrive 6 January, so hopefully I'll have the outside of the house done by the end of next week. Different crews are scheduled for the electrical wiring and water heater job, no firm date set, but shortly. As the garage building crew is the same bunch who's handling the house damage, there's hopes that the framing on the garage will be starting something on or shortly after 13 January.

As to the Armstrong: First real job for the temporary shop, I started tearing it down a couple of days ago. All components are being saved, will be media blasted once I get the cabinet installed, and the Sturmey-Archer hub will get torn down sometime this summer. Probably having the parts rechromed sometime in the future. Right now it's a frameset with the crank still installed, and the trashed seat stays tossed out. Something must have fallen on them, because they're badly bent, and the rear brake mount is broken off the one stay. The rest of the components will be removed from the frame once I've procured the necessary crank cotter, bottom bracket, and headset tools. For the moment, what left on the bike is more easily storable. I doubt if I can save the frame because there isn't one straight tube left from the heat warpage.

All in all, things are looking a lot brighter than they were seven weeks ago.

francophile 

I tuned out of this thread for a while during the holidays. Any use for a set of Park cone wrenches (I think DCW-1 through -4)? I picked up a like-new set in a recent purchase and now have my older, but perfectly capable, set up for grabs. Would love to send your way if it'll help. Not sure if I have anything else that would be helpful, but if there's something you lack, let us know.

sykerocker 

Yes, I could very much use them.

sykerocker 

0700 this morning, the lumber arrived! My contractor is on the finishing touches of repairing the damage to the house, so construction of the garage will probably start sometime this week!

Spent the weekend with muriatic acid trying to clean the pad. For all the bubbling and seething damn little came up, so I'm just going to end up painting or coating it in some manner once the walls are up.

repechage

double sent, see below

repechage

Should be framed in a week.

Are those 2x4's? or 2x3's? for the walls.

How much would be sandblasting the concrete?

sykerocker 

2x4's for the walls. The trusses are going to be made using 2x8's for the bottom pieces. I'm going to do the gable space as storage for our Christmas stuff (I'm getting awful close to a 'tacky house' when it comes to Christmas decorations), and asked them to build it strong enough that I can crawl around up there without hearing any creaking. I've considered the idea of blasting it, but will probably just paint the floor. I'd looked into having one of those professionally done floor finishes (with a Raleigh logo as part of it), but the cost would be more than what it'll cost me to equip the new shop. While the insurance is going to take care of all the structural rebuilding on both the garage and fixing the house damage, re-equipping the shop is going to be totally out of pocket.

francophile 

Before you get there, now would be a good time (temps permitting!) to seal up those cracks with self-leveling sealant. Doing this on the small crack across my basement slab dropped the humidity in the room 10-20% and my dehumidifier only runs a couple of hours a month versus a couple hours per day.

Product I used is by Sikaflex is sold at Home Depot and others and is here for like $9/tube: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Sikaflex...6110/300934565

It's self leveling and flexes with contraction/expansion - install is absurdly easy, just take a chisel and chip out the edges of the crack to make a V trough. Then squirt this stuff liberally down the trough, it'll sink in the crack and level out within1-2mm of the surface.

Actually wouldn't be a bad idea to go ahead and surface the top of it, don't they make a scrubby pad for that?

sykerocker 

Thank you. Noted, and I will follow up on that suggestion.

I'm definitely planning on doing something with the cracks in the slab, although it's probably not going to be done until the outer shell is finished. While we've had a gorgeous 75 degree weekend, and the next couple of days are going to stay in the mid-50's, it is still winter in central Virginia, and I'm probably not going to get anything done on the floor until early March. My repair crew is one incredibly talented gentleman who's doing everything by himself. He will have help on the big stuff. He's good enough that I'm already lining up a couple of other jobs on the house for him over the next 24 months once this is taken care of and all the bills are paid. Rough schedule at present is Jan-Feb to erect the garage, then I spend March finishing the inside. Paneling the inside walls in OSB, trim (windows and baseboard), finish the floor, lay in a storage space in the rafters, build my workbench (most likely going to base it on some kitchen cabinets), and route piping for the air compressor on the walls with hose outlets. Then, I start shopping for equipment.

Pleasant surprise for the moment: Dropped down to my local Harbor Freight and picked up one of those US General small rolling 5-drawer tool chests to move into my current temporary shop for a working tool chest. Quality of the chest is excellent, much better than the (admittedly low end) Craftsman chests I lost in the fire. Definitely going that route on the big one for the shop - just have to decide which size.

francophile 

That's going to be the cool part - being able to build things back up having the 20/20 hindsight of how you'd been using your shop and applying that knowledge to the new. It could be worthwhile to post an OT thread in here to ask for ideas, or maybe solicit inside this thread. Like, my absolute favorite thing ...

Whirlpool has their "Gladiator" series of (PVC based?) "Gearwall" systems that - as long as you don't purchase directly from them - can be very affordable and handy. The panels come in 32", 48" and 96" lengths and are roughly 8" or so tall, looking like this. You can interlock them tongue/groove to build full walls or simply do runners almost like picture-rail. There are a wide variety of lock-ins available. I got a package off Woot! a few years back that had I think six or eight 32" sections, several endcaps, two boxes of various lock-ins, and a wall cabinet. Installed it in sections. My favorite? In the garage, it's definitely the cabinet, but what I really love is the little gray trays I installed directly over my workbench which is where I keep small bits: Cable ends, bearings, crankset caps, cotters, etc.

Here are some of the items I use more than anything: the little gray trays, the clean-up caddy with bin and paper towel, the bike hook, and you can buy a huge multi-pack assortment similar to what Woot! sold me several years ago.

I will say their bike storage hooks ... I wish I would've known about them before I bought the Racor units I'm using now. Best part about the Gearwall units is you can hang things head-to-tail (bars up | bars down | bars up | bars down) and double your space.\

Oh, and my second favorite thing, which wasn't cheap, but after having the masonite and plastic pegboards warp so badly, I bought several 2'x4' DiamondLife stainless steel pegboards to hang larger parts - tires, rims, chainrings, tubes, wired tools, etc.

Anyway, I'm a bit envious you get to start over! I may be moving a wall that's shared between my garage and shop space in the near future and may use that as an excuse to finally (20yrs after buying the house) build a new shop table.

curbtender

My son bought the larger harbor freight rolling cabinets and put sliding top cabinets on the gear wall above them. Pretty nice.

Mad Honk 

So you are leaning toward the suspended double head repair stand idea? Great choice. Lemme know when I should ship it to ya, Smiles, MH

francophile 

Actually I need to correct myself for a minute. There are two products: Gearwall and Geartrack.

I linked in quote above the Gearwall product which comes in up to 8ft lengths and has 4 grooves in it. What I'm actually using for horizontal high storage is the Geartrack product which has 2 grooves in it and is 1/3(ish) the cost at-length. And I just saw Lowes has it on sale for ~$20 for a 2x4ft pack (no end caps, but someone is selling on eBay for like $8/4pc shipped).

Link to Lowes 2x4ft pack: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Gladiator-G...System/4755769

Edit: And the vertical bike hook is like $7.50 at Lowes 'til Jan 31st: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Gladiator-G...-Hook/50042354

dedhed

While I haven't personally used it, something like rapidair for the compressor piping is what is being used today. Our shop at work is plumbed with it.

Homeowner level
https://www.northerntool.com/shop/to...egory_rapidair

sykerocker 

Exactly what I'm looking at. My motorcycle mechanic went to that system when he moved his shop to its current location (two miles from my house), and I'm copying a lot of what he did. Yeah, it'll probably be overkill for the work I do, but when you've got a chance to build the 'perfect shop' from scratch, you don't skimp. Right now, he's letting me use his sandblasting cabinet to clean up and refurbish some of my stuff while I'm waiting for the garage to be finished and I install my own cabinet. Today's project is saving the shop vise (it's older than I am and huge).

francophile 

That's something I need to invest in. I got my vice at Harbor Freight at least 15-20 years ago and something is busted so the lockdown no longer works and it spins freely on the base. Super annoying when you need to pop off a freewheel.

sykerocker 

The one I’ve got is definitely over 70 years old (it was my father’s) and weighs at least 50 pounds. The biggest vises I’ve seen commonly available are about 2/3rds it’s size. I can crush freewheel tools in it if I wanted to, and is incredibly solid as a platform for removing free wheels. I remember one stuck on well enough that I moved the workbench it was bolted to before the cluster broke loose. There’s no way I’m giving this vise up. It’s also a damned good occasional use anvil..

TriBiker19 

Breaking a vise is pretty impressive.

francophile 

Apparently not the stuff they sell at Northern Tool and Harbor Freight! I've always leaned towards the less expensive stuff, once you repair the little manufacturing quirks it'll usually last a few decades.

I think I may go vintage this round, but legitimately have no clue what to buy in a 4" - 6" range.

curbtender

If you can find an old Wilton, good stuff.

sykerocker 

And, we've started!

BFisher

Good news!

Mad Honk 

Looks like my version of old skool building with 16" OC framing. Plywood or OSB? (not that it will matter much in the big picture) Good structure on the triple stud instead of hollow triples for the support. When you do the wiring run it from the top down instead of drilling through the studs to run it. It will allow you to make changes without having to tear into the wall. The other way is with a lot of conduit. Smiles, MH

sykerocker 

Periodic update: WE'RE IN THE HOMESTRETCH!!!!

As I'm writing this, the main contractor is finishing the last of the siding, and the two electricians moved in this morning to start wiring the garage. Repairs to the fire damage on the house are 98% complete. Repairs to the motorcycle garage were done about a month ago. Only question mark on the job is when the crew to install the garage door will be showing up. Expectations are the middle of next week, with the buildings completed by next Friday.

So far only one thing has gone wrong: One of the past owners of this place was a committed do-it-yourselfer, with wildly variable results on his work (this is why I had a main breakers upgraded the week we moved in). One of this guy's *****s was to replace the original water heater down in the crawl space with on standing one, which he put in the downstairs closet right in front of the breaker box! Of course this won't pass inspection, so the insurance company agreed to giving us a new water heater back under the crawl space. Which was installed on Wednesday. Only to have the main water line break loose about three hours later, probably from the shocks of getting the air out of lines. Seems Mr. Do-It-Yourselfer didn't bother gluing the PVC lines properly and I've had this little time bomb down in the crawl space for Lord knows how many years. Got the plumber back that evening to fix it (my PVC file tubes for spokes were better glued, and I don't do plumbing), and the recovery company sent their initial response guys back yesterday morning to pump the water out of the crawl space. Now just working on getting the crawl space dried out.

Overall, then end result I'm getting here has been a surprisingly positive experience. The original garage must have been a Mr. D-I-Y project, because the quality of the construction of the new building is incredible by comparison. One guy has stick-built the entire structure solo, and his work is meticulous as hell. The wife and I have already figured on having him back over the next couple of years for a few other long-term projects.

Hopefully, I'll start finishing the interior in about two weeks, with plans to have the shop up and running around 1 April. All in all, other than the irreplaceable loss of the Armstrong and my parts collection, I'm going to come out ahead on this. And the only out-of-pocket expenses will be finishing the stocking the interior of the garage.

francophile 

That's called "knowing your trade". Sounds like you got a talented craftsman, I see you already know that, and know you need to line up work with those guys to keep them around.

I recently stumbled across someone similar this when we were hunting for a contractor to relocate a shower. Guy is a one-stop shop, his dad had all of the kids master some building trade, and this guy orchestrates it all, if anyone in the family does it better than he can, he'll tag them in on the work.

My dad was a talented craftsman himself and passed a lot of that down to me and I often find myself disappointed with people we've hired, despite any glowing reviews from others. Super stoked to find the contractor we have now, but several other people have hooks in him, so we're lucky to get him in to do work for more than 1-2 weeks per year.