Beefy Garage Shelving

The back of our fireplace protrudes into our garage by 2 feet, and makes cubbies on either side. "Cubby" is another way of saying useless space. Some wooden bench-style shelving that extends to the ceiling could make it usable again. Hopefully it will get some of the clutter off of the garage floor.

First I started by measuring the dimensions of the walls and deciding how many shelf tiers would work well. Opaque tupperware-style bins are cheap and durable for storage, so I want to be sure that they will fit. With 9-foot ceilings 3 shelves should work fine, giving 4 storage locations.

I am going to use 2x4 "aprons" for the shelving which will function to transfer the load to the legs and the wall. In this project I am going to use only 2 legs for the shelves for the front, and then the framing in the wall behind as the other supports. So the unit will be built-in instead of free-standing. This has 3 benefits - the shelves will require less materials to build, be secured to the wall to prevent tipping or falling, and give slightly more volume for storage.



The left shelf unit ended up having one front leg otherwise too much of the otherwise small space would be wasted. I used steel joist hangers to attach the 2x4's on the left side.



The rear apron piece is secured to the studs with 3" epoxy-coated deck screws.



Left side with OSB tops attached.



Halfway there!



The right shelf unit is considerably larger and has both front legs for support. Also the top shelf is extended over the fridge to make use of that commonly useless space.



All of the shelf framing is topped with 3/4" OSB which is secured every 4-6 inches with 6D nails. I made the cuts on my nifty sawhorses.



The shelving is very strong, I am able to climb/stand on it with no visible stress, and I cannot pull it off the wall either.



Total cost: $50 - woohoo!

2x4 Sawhorses

Here are some sawhorses me and my bro built out of 2x4's. They cost about $20. The really unique thing about these is the cleat channels on each one which allow you to rip 8' x 4' sheets without having to lean over the sawhorses. You rip them almost vertically, and each sawhorse holds one of the pieces securely so no binding or snagging of the blade occurs. Seen here is a piece of OSB for the garage shelving.

Attached to the top are 2x3 "sacrificial" strips to protect the top from the circular saw blade when ripping large sheets of plywood or OSB.



They are nice and rigid. I'm glad I built instead of bought them.

New Garage Door Opener

Our old opener was giving us fits. Its a torsion bar unit so can only pull open the door, not push it closed. Its also only opens if you practically smash your car into it since the remote only works from like 5 feet away. I could probably get it warranty replaced but then I am still stuck with the torsion bar problem. I like positive door control on the way up as well as the way down.

So went and got a fancy chamberlain belt-drive. This thing is cool, it even has a battery backup so you can run it when the power is out. Awsome!



First things first. Need to assemble it. Little bar thing snaps together. And belt goes on. Attach to motor unit, done.



Then need to install the header mount and hoist it up. They gave me wussy mounts, not sure what I was going to do with those, cept maybe wipe my ass with them. I got some beefy 16 gauge angle brackets from Lowes. Lagged bolted it to the overhead studs. In the pic you can see the little mounts they gave me bent out of the way. Pathetic!



Then came time to install the door mount. The two little self-tapping bolt/screws they gave me were a joke.



I grabbed some more L-bracket to reinforce the door and put four 5/16" steel carriage bolts through it. They don't have to be that tight, as the pulling force is "in shear". If they are too tight they will crush the door panel anyways, its sheet metal on both sides filled with styrofoam insulation. Regardless, the door mount is rock solid now.



Installed the safety eyes and door control. Used my staple gun to secure the wires. I severed one wire, somewhere, with a staple. Doh. Had to replace the entire control wire. I reused some of the sensor wire off of the old garage opener, so it was all good. Reuse, foo!



Works great! Door opener was easy to setup, opens fast, is completely quiet, and has very positive control.

Bathroom Vent Fan Install

The first project was the bathroom fan, because it is noisy, small, and is venting directly into the attic (oops). This is one of those chintzy builder-grade fans that serves solely to satisfy code. I like to call these fart fans because they are for some reason always installed over the commode. This would seem to violate this essence of code which clearly states they are required to prevent excessive moisture buildup in bathrooms, which I would think typically comes from showers, not from last night's spicy enchiladas.



Once in the attic I realized why it wasn't properly vented. Our house is ranch, and the wall it is closest to it is an exterior wall which the roof tapers on. There is no way to get to the damn thing , save chopping a hole in the roof. A midget (ah-hem, little person) could probably do it, but a 6-foot, 210-lb fatass like me can't.

So I decided to find the power feed and sever it at the fan, so I could safely drywall over the old fan cutout and stay code.




The new fan I got from lowes is awsome. It claims 140 CFM, has a 6-inch outlet port, and it virtually silent. It came with a optional reducer to 4-inch pipe, which I promptly tossed in the garbage. The instructions mentioned the reducer as well, and they joined the trash as well. I got an 8-foot length of 6" aluminum ducting and a louvered 6-inch exterior vent.

I had built a ladder for the express purpose of installing the vent on the roof. Scroll to the bottom, you can see the vent in hand.

Installation went well despite roasting myself in the 120-degree attic installing the blower and ducting.

The old fan gets covered by the piece of drywall I cut out for the new fan.



First spackling job turned out like crap:



To spackle correctly you really need decent tools. All I had was an old rusty 4" mud scraper. Went to lowes and got me a tapered 12" mud blade and a mud pan that fits it.

Sanded the big imperfections off and then the second try was spacktacular(har har), at least by comparison.



My wife sanded the final coat and painted it as a surprise one day while I was at work. She did a great job!

Homebuilt 2x4 Ladder

I need some ladders to get on the roof. Good ladders are like 300 bucks. Screw that. I also need some permanent ladders to access the attic storage on either side of the workshop. I seem like a needy person.

My A-frame ladder is only 8-foot. I got up onto the attic storage from it once and realized I couldn't get back down. That was fun - it was like 90 degrees outside in the shade. That attic was way hotter.

A trip to lowes yielded some 12-foot 2 x 4's and 8-foot 2 x 3's. Then I realized I don't have sawhorses anymore. Son of a...



Some scrap wood outta do. Face-clamped the 2 x 4's (which act as risers) and measured out for notches.



Technically these are dado's. The 2 x 3's acting as rungs will sit edgewise in the dado's for strength. Circular saw, here we go!



They crack out real easy at this stage, and then I clean up the cuts with my chisel. For wood only, dammit.

Look at those pretty notches.

Set these aside, and cut the rungs.



Test fit on the rungs looks good.



Polyurethane glue in the notches. For strength, and its waterproof.

The ladder has rabies. This stuff hardened fast in the heat. Its was 100 degrees outside.



That's a lot of ladder. Should be enough to get on the roof, then it will be converted to a permanent wall-mount ladder about where it is now. It won't be tilted though.



Test run to the roof, the whole point of sweating in the broiling sun building the ladder. It is however about 4-5 degrees cooler where we live than "in the city". In hand you can see the louvered exterior vent I am installing for the new bathroom vent.



See works great for fat folks. Nice and sturdy.



Will varnish it later with some spar urethane.

Wireless LED throwies

I was digging around in the junkbox and decided to make some wireless LED throwies maybe whynot?

I used a modified ATX power supply, a 555-chopped MOSFET pulled from an old monitor, and coil made from magnet wire salvaged from a blender motor.

The transmitting coil was fabricated by putting some nails into a peice of wood and wrapping to get a consistent shape. When powered by the driver it generates an alternating magnetic field which can picked up by other nearby coils.

Throwie #1:
A a ferrite-core inductor, a diode, a capacitor, and LED. Half-wave only so it has to be right-side up.



Throwie #2:
An RF choke from a vacumn tube oscilloscope, and two LEDs. Rectification is by the LEDs, so it isn't polarity sensitive.


This spider has a choke for an abdomen and the legs make up the bridge rectifier.

Throwie #3:
A coil of hair-thin magnet wire with a diode, and LED. Polarity sensitive.



Throwie #4:
Space ship with bridge rectification from quad 4148 diodes. Very effecient b/c of large receiver and full-wave rectification, works in almost any orientation.



Throwie #5
Spider has choke receiving abdomen and the legs form a bridge rectifier. Four SMD LEDs for eyes in series to cut the voltage some.



Works through paper, plastic, thin metal, etc. Magnetic fields are not stopped as easily as electric fields :)



Here's a clip on the throwies in action: