Workshop

The restoration of my car hit a major snag almost immediately. I didn't have a garage at the time, and I had hoped that I could do some amount of the work in the open air and rent space once I needed it. Of course, having someplace warm and dry (or at least dry) became necessary very quickly. Innumerable distractions arose, and every one of them seemed to coincide with good weather.

Thus, after getting the car in February, 2002 and finding such little progress on it through the summer's end I decided to have a garage built. That effort took a full year, but at the end of it all I had a garage that made the best use of the space available and well tailored to my needs. That effort and the results are described below:

The garage was constrained by the size of the space available to us. There was an area alongside our house at the top of the driveway. The area was relatively small, but was the only place available that would comply with the local building regulations, and could take advantage of building onto our existing house on two sides and economize on the effort. In effect, all we needed was a side wall and the front for the garage, along with a more substantial foundation laid over the existing slab used for parking. An architect was employed, and after three months, we had a set of plans and the approval of the municipal authorities. Another two months passed and we had a set of competitive bids, a building contractor agreed and construction began. Two weeks into the project the builder went on holiday- but the garage was then mostly complete- foundation laid, walls built, roof on. I was then able to paint the inside and to install the shelving. On the builder's return the wiring was put in, the exterior finished and the door installed over the next ten days. The builder then took the next month to re-finish finishing the exterior and to re-hang the door again, and again, and again... until at long last the job was finally and fully satisfactorily done.

Interior: 2.5 x 5 meters~ 8 feet by 17 feet roughly. Shelving: 120 square feet of shelving has been arranged around the walls overhead to leave the full floor space open. Flooring: A smooth, concrete floor was laid, this has been painted gray. Walls: The new walls were brick and the existing house exterior walls had been pebble-dashed (covered with small stones). All interior walls have been painted white. Gloss white was used to a level of about 7 feet to help avoid stains and flat white used on the areas above that and the ceiling to reflect light and avoid glare. The exterior walls were painted to match the house, and it looks as though the garage was part of the original construction (circa 1935).

Lighting & Electrical: The end of the garage has a workbench with overhead shelving. The work area of the bench has a single 4 foot covered fluorescent light above it. This provides more than adequate lighting for the bench, and the cover protects the light from breakage. A "safety" fixture was considered, but the wire mesh might still allow various thin items to be poked into the bulb, and wouldn't protect the bulb from splashes or projectiles. The cheaper, plastic diffuser covered light seemed better. The main floor of the garage was lit using two four foot fluorescent lights- one towards each end of the garage.

The electrical supply has its own breaker box in the garage, with separate circuits for lighting and equipment. The supply allows the use of spot welding equipment. The breaker for the spot welder (as shown on the right) was non-standard. The first attempt used a regular breaker but that reacted too quickly, and the welder couldn't draw enough current for long enough to work- it kept tripping the breaker. A "slow-blow" breaker (in the photo to the right this is the "C20" for a 20 amp slow circuit breaker where the others are standard B 32 amp for the electrical outlets and B 6 amp for lighting) as used for electrical motors was installed and fixed the problem. There are ten outlets available at the workbench so most equipment may be left plugged in, if desired (radio, dehumidifier, heaters, air compressor, welder and a drill press are usually left plugged in!). The special 20 amp outlet for the spot-welder was taken directly from the breaker box as shown in the photo to the left, and its position allows the welder to be used throughout the garage- had it been positioned at the rear with the other oulets its cord would not have reached to the front of the garage for any welding needed there. An intercom was desirable but seemed expensive- a readily useable alternative was a baby monitor- people inside could speak to me, but I could only listen and not talk back. Just what the wife wants, I suppose....

I built my own workbench- commercially available ones seemed expensive, and very short on storage space. It is 1.5 meters long by 600 mm deep by a meter high (roughly 2 feet deep and 5 feet long) and about 40 inches high. Given the size of the garage I needed to fully exploit the available area. The work bench would sit at one end of the garage and provide space to do all the jobs that needed to be done. It was made from wood, with a "frame" of 44 mm (2 inch) square boards at the top and bottom, with six 2 by 10 inch planks providing the vertical supports- two at each end and two roughly in the middle providing supports for the drawers. Each end, and the middle are closed off and reinforced using 8 mm (1/4 inch) plywood, as is the back. The top is covered with 18 mm (3/4 inch) plywood resting on the top frame. The wooden top is fully covered by a 3 mm thick galvanized iron sheet, with a front "rim" of 3 mm thick by 12 mm (1/2 inch) angle iron for protection. The bench sits slightly to the left at the back of the garage, leaving room on one side for a dehumidifier and room on the other for using a bench vise and for storage on the floor of bulky, heavy things (like an engine) off the main floor of the garage. The structure is very solid, and was intended to take the full weight of an Austin Healey engine (and more) if necessary.

The bench is outfitted with ten drawers, designed to hold a full set of tools, and then some. It has four two-inch deep drawers (for screwdrivers, wrenches, socket sets and pliers), three three-inch deep drawers (for hammers, clamps, cutting tools) and two eight-inch deep drawers, for body working tools, welding equipment and other larger items, and one very wide eight inch deep drawer for long tools and other items. There is also a wide, open space in which my MIG welder and air compressor stay when not in use. At some point (that's now been done, circa 2006) I may install a shelf in that space for welding accessories- gas bottles, wire, etc. A place for everything, and everything in its place, some of the time, anyway....

The lack of floor space was obvious and the need for storage was compelling- people had suggested that restoration needed three times as much space as a car needed. The solution was to install shelving sufficient to meet most of the storage requirements. This consists of four shelves 8 long by 2 feet deep, 3 shelves 14 feet long, by 1 foot deep, one 8 feet by 1 foot and one shelf over the work bench, 6 inches wide by 8 feet long. This gives roughly 120 square feet of storage space. It is then augmented by hanging suitable tools (or articles like body panels) from the wall. The shelving and wall space used for hanging then provides roughly the area needed, in a very compact building.

Items were labeled or tagged when removed from the car, and placed in zip-lock bags. Where possible items were kept together. Old items were not discarded unless completely without redeeming merit (scraps of rotten carpet of no discernable shape) or hazardous (asbestos). New items were compared with old to ensure that they were appropriate.

The winters in Scotland are relatively mild, but seem to last forever. An unheated garage would generally allow work in 40 degree temperatures, with relatively high humidity (70%+). A small dehumidifier has been set up, and that reduces the levels of humidity considerably, seldom rising over 35%, and usually rather less. Heating is more problematical, since the metal garage door will lose heat. At present I have two 1.5 KW Oil filled panel heaters. These can heat one end of the garage to a very comfortable level and allow painting of relatively small items to be undertaken without difficulty. The other end of the garage feels little benefit, however. The implications of these characteristics is that any re-finishing of the full chassis or body would have to wait until the summer months when the whole of the garage would be adequately heated.

Update: December, 2005- having spent some time working in the garage last winter and contemplating doing some painting in the near future I thought the heating needed substantial improvements. The oil filled heaters were modestly effective but took forever to warm up and even longer to have an effect through the whole of the garage. They were a passive system that radiated heat, slowly. I didn't want to leave the heaters on continuously however, and the garage tended to be getting warm just about the time I was finishing. So a forced air heater was acquired. This would get hot and then a fan would spread the heat far more quickly- so now I'd be warm within minutes of starting work rather than hours. The drawback was the fan- it'd be useful for bring the room up to temperature, but then the radiators would have to take over if any painting were to be done, with a sufficent time for any blown dust to settle and any components to be painted to themselves come up to temperature too. The fan heater is shown to the left too.

A radio and CD player.

Essential background music: Hits of '67