Dream Shop - Old Shop Demolition finished. Demo photos added.

The interior will have three "rooms".

The "Clean Room" will be 20X12 and it will be insulated and have a mini-split HVAC unit. It will be drywalled and have a nice ceiling. It will be the fancy room.

The "Grinding Room" will be 10X12 and have plywood 48" high half-walls with glass above them. It will have a glass door to enter through. It has its own dust recovery and spark trap system as well as fan powered incoming fresh air. It will be pretty well sealed off from the rest of the hot shop.

The "Hot Shop" will be the rest of the area (the middle of the shop). It has a separate dust vac system from the grinding room along the benches and an overhead hood over the forge area. It has fan powered incoming air.

The grinding room and hot shop will have stainless steel benches with cabinets going down the wall above the benches. Between the benches and the cabinets will be covered with sound deadening and fireproof aluminum sandwich sheeting. Above the cabinets I will put drywall.
The walls in the rest of the hot work area will be covered with cabinets and such. I will drywall or panel any exposed places.
The hot work rooms ceilings will be open rafters as part of the ventilation system. I am likely to use that real estate to hang and display lots of cool stuff.

In the eves there is a big powered fan to draw hot air out of the shop.
 
The barrels belonged to "Whiskey Don" Frazer (1917-2014). He was the person who started the "Cuideagh O. Corn O Uisghebreathe" [Society of Tasters of Whiskey]. He bought them in Scotland back in the 1960's at the distillery that made the Frazer Clan Whiskey. They disassembled the barrels and shipped them to him in Virginia Beach, VA. He put them back together, but they never would hold tight without leaking. His plan was to buy many cases of Frazer Clan whiskey and re-barrel it to age for 25 years. He had lots of funny/crazy plans and was a pleasure to spend an afternoon or evening with. I was proud to call him my friend and helped take care of him as blindness and eventually death came. We slowly finished off most of his collection of rare old Scotches before he passed.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
The barrels belonged to "Whiskey Don" Frazer (1917-2014). He was the person who started the "Cuideagh O. Corn O Uisghebreathe" [Society of Tasters of Whiskey]. He bought them in Scotland back in the 1960's at the distillery that made the Frazer Clan Whiskey. They disassembled the barrels and shipped them to him in Virginia Beach, VA. He put them back together, but they never would hold tight without leaking. His plan was to buy many cases of Frazer Clan whiskey and re-barrel it to age for 25 years. He had lots of funny/crazy plans and was a pleasure to spend an afternoon or evening with. I was proud to call him my friend and helped take care of him as blindness and eventually death came. We slowly finished off most of his collection of rare old Scotches before he passed.
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Aye, now we ken. Very cool!
 
Stacy, congrats on the shop. It looks like it is coming along nicely.

I have a question for you; are you going to install a chimney for a coal forge? If so can you break down how you are doing it? For example are you going out the ceiling or the side of the shop?
 
The no windows part would kill it for me. The thought of spending any time in there and not being able to look outside or open a window for fresh air.... no thanks. One whole wall of my shop is windows and double glass doors, all with 3 layers of security glass. Plus I have an alarm system and insurance.

But hey, your shop; your choices!
 
If I was in the country, I would have windows, but they are not as great an idea in the city. Also, the walls are pretty much covered with cabinets and shelving. If I had the room and money for a 60X40 there certainly would have been windows. Fresh air is blown in constantly in this shop.

I am not putting in a coal forge. However, one of my projects I have the materials for is a propane powered chip forge. It works a lot like coal but uses a flame below the ceramic chunks to heat them up. It looks a lot like a coal forge with a round flame burner in the tuyere. You can use large ceramic tumbling media for the chips.

I considered putting in a tri-wall chimney but decided that the hood and vent would carry away any fumes and heat from the forges. I will have temperature sensors in the overhead to monitor this. If I decide to put the chimney in it will go out the roof just like a chimney for a wood stove.

Talking about wood stoves … I have a cook-top style wood stove I got from a buddy who never installed it in his house. He just put it in his den with a fake stovepipe going to the wall. When he moved he gave it to me. I am fitting propane burners inside to make the stove a heat source. I will put wheels on it so I can roll it out in the winter and roll it away when not needed. It can also keep tea or coffee warm.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
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I am not putting in a coal forge. However, one of my projects I have the materials for is a propane powered chip forge. It works a lot like coal but uses a flame below the ceramic chunks to heat them up. It looks a lot like a coal forge with a round flame burner in the tuyere. You can use large ceramic tumbling media for the chips.
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Hey Stacy, how are you going to handle the firebox and "tuyre"?

I've seen professionally made ones that have a sort of lattice work series of cuts in a shallow bowl made of refractory, but I'm not sure how practical that would be from a home made sort of approach...

I'm really interested in seeing what you come up with!
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I have the materials for is a propane powered chip forge. It works a lot like coal but uses a flame below the ceramic chunks to heat them up. It looks a lot like a coal forge with a round flame burner in the tuyere. You can use large ceramic tumbling media for the chips.
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Now that's a cool idea!
 
Hey Stacy, how are you going to handle the firebox and "tuyre"?

I'm still playing with that. I have thought of using titanium wires to make a grill. I could also make one from ceramic rods.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Hey Stacy, how are you going to handle the firebox and "tuyre"?

I'm still playing with that. I have thought of using titanium wires to make a grill. I could also make one from ceramic rods.
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I've been thinking about this a little bit since yesterday... Do you think it would be practical to make a bowl shaped firebox out of castable refractory and use crayons or whatever to make essentially a giant ribbon burner?
 
OK, really busy day. Started at 7AM with getting everything off the area to be graded. Dirt guy delivered all 40 yards yesterday. The bobcat guy was over at 9AM. We got the lot graded and the dirt spread in three hours, I put in the first part of the geo-grid grass paver system for the driveway. WE ran over to Jim's place at 10:30 and loaded the 1885 Star Lathe on the flat bet wrecker. That is Jim on the truck with the lathe. I'll post good photos of the lathe soon. It is a museum piece. A fellow came along to help who is a master a]machinist. When he say the lathe he exclaimed, "Oh, My God!" He said he has never seen anything like it. The handles and cranks still have their nickel plating and spin as free as if they had ball bearings. The box sitting under the lathe has a spare chuck, a centering jig, gears, cutting bits and all sorts of accessories. The unit needs a new coat of machine wax at he most. Jim was so happy to send it to a new home . He wouldn't take a dime for it. Suffice to say that there will be some nice knives in Jim's future.

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I have a work day on Saturday. My buddy, Mike, will meet me at the lumber yard and we will have them put a couple hundred 2X4s and 40 sheets of plywood on his flatbed wrecker. With a good size group of us, we will directly unload the plywood and pass it upstairs and lay the floor in one fell swoop. Then we can pass up the 2X4s for the shelving upstairs.

Anyone who wants to come over between 9AM and 11AM on Saturday is welcome.

I will take some good shots of the 1885 Star lathe and post them in a few days. It is amazing.
 
I got some good days out in the shop over the last couple weeks.
I floored the upstairs and put in the permanent gable braces.
I am starting the grinder room and forge area by putting the cabinets on the wall. This gets them off the floor to free up the area for the benches.
The wall cabinet doors lift and self store in the top.
There is a big stack of lumber and plywood in the middle of the shop to build the walls, shelving, and storage cabinets. When done there will be over 1300 sq.ft. of shelf and cabinet space.

Notice my little tractor scooter that I love to sit on when I am working on low things. It sure keeps my back from getting sore. Screwing down the flooring was a breeze on it.

I got out my old Senco drywall and flooring screw guns that load with a strip of screws and self-feed them to the bit. The batteries are too old to hold a charge well. After a strip of screws the battery needs recharging. It isn't worth buying new batteries since I doubt I will need them again. I'll probably offer them to someone for free.
I stuck a square drive bit in my cordless drill/driver and hand-held the strips. This worked like a magazine of 25 screws. I didn't have to fish a screw out of a box, orient it point down, and hold the screw in my fingers while I started it with the drill. I have several buckets of the screw strips, so I might as well use them up. I think the inspector is coming tomorrow to check things out.

I added a shot of the 1885 Star lathe.

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Man, that little lathe is slick!!!

I wish I had one, and the space to put it! Some day...
 
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