Tugboat's shop overhaul

Brian and I had been talking about overhauling the shop for a while. It's gotten cluttered and crowded, with wood stacked around along the aisles, and oh, major PITA is the lack of power along one wall and at the end of the shop, where a large extension cord is supplying the power scrollsaw. If you want to run a dremel down there or on the port side, you have to unplug the scrollsaw and drag the cord over (heavy duty cord!). So with a 3-day weekend, we got to work. The before pics:

ABOVE: I got a little TV and a VHS player at the local Habitat for Humanity thrift store. The table in the center is a tablesaw. Lots of wood stacked on the right, hiding the tool chest. The large OD green object lower left is a genuine US Army radioteletype machine (current issue, minus the crypto unit). The Ferrari flag is so I can periodically go to American Le Mans Series races and wave a Ferrari flag on 20' of PVC pipe yelling Forza! (Back when there were Ferraris in it, anyhow).

ABOVE: Left, the wood pile, still hiding the tool box. The shiny silver stuff covers the hole in the wall to the storage building behind the shop. This was cut in the wall by the genius that owned the place before me. I covered it so the A/C doesn't have to work so hard. The rest of this is just wasted space, really.

ABOVE: More wasted space. The Musashi plans are inspiring, but not really helping with the shop's primary mission at this point. Also a few more wood piles here and there.

Above: Subtitle: 'Welcome to the Pit'

 

So, Brian K came over and we got to work! Lots of work. A fair bit of money spent on shelves and electrics, but hey, I'm doing the Cheapest Point of Entry cruiser, so I had a little money that I could improve the workspace with....
The Musashi plans got rolled up and stowed properly, and a pair of 8' long steel shelves were installed. Brian brought over a fluorescent light that got mounted to the bottom of the lower shelf for extra light. The bench is still messy at this point, but we were still working. The two outlets visible on the pegboard are now supplying power for tools on the port side, as well as the power scrollsaw. No more extension cord for indoor work! The small (8.5x11) pic of Musashi, labelled 'Musashi: Last of the Woodbenders' was allowed to remain on the pegboard.

Below, a better view of the shelving. Total cost roughly $50.

Below: The Ferrari flag is gone (moved to less-boaty surroundings), and a boat rack has gone on the wall. To the left, a new boat rack is going up, but leaves room beneath for us to mount the TV on a platform with the VHS and the DVD player.

Below, I caught Brian resting for a moment. We had just mounted my rotating tool rack on the wall to the left of Brian in this pic. The wood pile has gotten smaller because most of the wood has been sorted by size and stacked on those white shelves in the background to right)

Last pic, I promise! Brian really went to town in this area! He got the idea to raise the brown shelf-thing off the deck and mount it to the wall, freeing up room underneath it for the trash can. I had started cutting 1x6's for putting impromptu shelves to the left of where the brown thing is, and Brian started installing them. They add a surprising amount of useful space to the shop. Right now they are holding some of the many chemicals in the shop. (*Note: I didn't make the brown thing... Doctor Little Sister was yard-saling and found it, already with my name on it! So she bought it and there it is.)

That's all, folks! The extra outlets and the extra space really made a huge difference! I'll post more pics when we get the TV equipment properly jazzed-up.

 

1) Flag is no longer there. 2) Unless you plan on hanging a Porsche flag in its place, there is nothing better to hang there. Unless it's an Imperial German naval ensign.

Can't think of an American racing icon flag that's worth hanging there, short of Corvette Racing (of ALMS fame). And ALMS is on TV a lot less than F1, sadly. Something to do with less races and smaller audience. But I'll cheerfully sit and watch the 12 hours of Sebring, and I try to make the Petit le Mans in person, where I cheer for Corvette Racing, and any Ferraris, now that there aren't any racing against the Corvettes. I'd cheer for Porsche, but there are so many 911s running it's almost a foregone conclusion in their class.

 

When I manage to make it, I'm always in the Corvette Corral Hard to pass up free food (or are they still doing that part?)... I really enjoyed the steak dinner one year. It was kind of funny, I wound up with 2 extra adult super passes because of a mistake by the track, and they told me to give them away vice send them back, so I wound up hooking up a guy from the Porsche Club (PCA), which is always nice to be able to do. He and his wife drove out solely on my promising to meet them at the gate with the two tickets; not sure I'd have done that but it was kind of cool.
My bestest-ever souvenir from ALMS is a hat that I got. I used to cheer for Intersport Racing and they joked that I was their entire fan club (entirely possible at one point). At the Petit Le Mans one year, they won the national championship and each driver got a FANCY baseball cap embroidered with 'National Champion' and the category that they won. After the podium celebration, I beat the drivers back to the transporter and had started celebrating with the crew when they arrived. I ran out with a beer to congratulate them, and Jon (Fields) told Clint, 'Hey, it's our fan club! Give him your hat!' So I have one of the championship hats and got free beer from my friends at Intersport. I love those guys. The hat is in a protective case right now lol Best ending to the Petit le Mans EVER for me

If you have a spare Imperial German naval ensign, bring it to a battle!!

 

Indeed we do! At least Dave is repenting of his sissypants tea-drinking ways and joining the Dark Side I can't WAIT to see THAT build thread

 

@James... CPOE 2 is due to start around New Years. Gives me time to finish CPOE 1, and to finish my Gangut/Sevastopol commission work

@Mike - If you see a plans set you like next time you're in the shop, let me know and we can work an inter-library loan out if you want to use a set of them.

 

LOL that's just the 1/144 Musashi on the table in the center. When I finish the 1/96 Bismarck it'll dwarf Musashi. Say it with me: TEN FEET OF FURY.

 

Designed to unbolt at the middle into two more manageable sections, and use ballast tanks to float at the scale waterline.

 

One: LOL The Big Biz is on the back burner at the moment until I get my knees fixed. That will probably determine when Big Biz gets off the back burner.
Two: It'd be cool, but I was going to leave the bottom of the tanks open to sea (with a grating), which would preclude them from salvage use. That said, it might be very helpful, so I may change the plan on that.