Building a Shop

[Huskerplowboy]

Back last November, my wife and I sold our acreage and moved to town, renting a house while we have a new home built on 2 acres. The house is underway finally, although not as far along as I'd like. The time without having a shop to tinker in has been tough, that's for sure.

So, begin my next big project. I have decided to build my pole building myself from moving dirt to driving nails and screws. Many would think I'm crazy, but that's what 7+ months without any "play time" in a shop will do to a guy!

About a week ago, I placed my order with Cleary for a materials only package for a 30x40 building with 12' ceiling height. First estimate is that the materials will show up around July 13th.

I'll be posting progress as I go...

Building specs:

30'x40' with 12' ceiling
poles and trusses 8' on center
1' overhangs on the roof (all sides)
18'x10' (or maybe 18'x11' if I have the headroom) overhead door on one end
Concrete slab throughout (probably late this year or first thing in the spring)
Wainscot around the perimeter
A few windows and a walkdoor

 

[Huskerplowboy]

I started on the dirt work a while back, over a month ago, can't remember exacty. 10 gallons of diesel later, and I have the 30x40 shop area plus about 10' on each side leveled out. Due to the natural slope of the land, I decided to cut the shop into the slope rather than build it up. I did so to avoid ending up with a tallish, steep approach in front of the overhead door. The deepest corner was 1.5-2' of cut, and the end for the door was mostly at grade level to about a 6" cut or less. The permeter will eventually be backfilled/graded to form a bit of a valley around the building to let water run away from the slab, even in the back. I finished roughing out the perimeter transitions this afternoon.

3 pics. One shows an overview of the shop location from what will be our garage. The other 2 show the dirt pile I've made with my little 2320. There's another smaller pile too.

 

[Huskerplowboy]

3 pics:

 

[mjncad]

OK, I'm curious as to your house foundation. It looks like poured concrete, yet it has texture like it's CMU or other block construction; but the proportions aren't correct for CMU.

Is it an ICF foundation? It doesn't look like it to me.

A 2-acre lot backing onto a corn field is quite the open space you have.

I'm looking forward to seeing your latest project come to fruition.

 

[Huskerplowboy]

Yup, it's poured concrete but the outfit that did it has aluminum forms with a brick-look shape/texture to them. Makes it look a little different than just a plain/flat concrete wall.

 

[wedge40]

I have to ask.. What's the 2by on the box blade for?

Wedge

 

[Huskerplowboy]

The board is part of my laser leveling system I'm playing with. I have a dewalt rotary laser level and detector. I clamp the detector on that board so its the same height above the blade as the laser is above the desired grade. The detector has about a 3" window where it'll detect the laser line, so if I can keep it beeping, I'm within 3" of level.

First time I tried it, I just tried listening for the beeps by running at low rpms, but the 2320 would struggle as soon as it started cutting much without being rev'd up. This weekend, I duct taped an old Ipod ear bud over the speaker on the detector. If I plug the ear buds into the input jack on my Work Tunes radio earmuffs, I can hear the beeps over the engine even at full bore in a heavy cut.

 

[davo727]

Is that illinois? Beautiful field of corn. I grew up in a house next to a field like that in N Illinois. But had some rolling hills.

 

[Huskerplowboy]

Nope, it's NE Iowa. I remember growing up in Nebraska back when "Knee high by the fourth of July" actually applied to corn!

 

[Duffster]

Nope, it's NE Iowa. I remember growing up in Nebraska back when "Knee high by the fourth of July" actually applied to corn!

Now it is knee high by the 4th of June and head high by the 4th of July