Scale Garage Build

[ad456]

So according to my photos I started this in late April or early May, and as is typical of any of my builds the tantamount of my planning is "I want to make something I think is cool" and that's about as far as any plans ever go. I'm never in a rush and burnout and enthusiasm are sporadic and random with all of my projects but I'm rarely not doing something, even if it is just doing the "stare and think" part of a project. There is a rough plan but not much more and I can never actually describe what that is. The size i have going here is 48"W x 28"D x 20"H and its not going to just be a prop, its real purpose is photo booth and clean bench.

 

So to start i made a floor and 3(ish) walls from scrap wood i had, seemed a logical place to start👍 I got an LED strip that was being chucked out by my Mum when she redid her kitchen so that was a bonus. It'll do fine until i get a better direction of what I'm doing.

 

 

Then I found some stirling board and replaced the rubbish walls with slightly less rubbish walls.
 

 

I was lucky enough to be graced with a deal for a boatload of scale stuff from a top man which gave me an amazing start.

Then painted some stuff grey with the finest cheapest wood primer i could find in town and a couple of coats of varnish on top of that.

 

 

 

I got some sheets of embossed brick paper to see what i think of it and help me decide where to go next and am using a sheet of thin plywood as a door to decide what layout to use and am moving everything around to decide on a layout I like while i wait on inspiration to hit so I can progress further. I scored a plywood pallet from work and that has given me the material to get the final walls made at the right size, I did think about buying a sheet of ply to use but I knew if I was patient something would turn up that was free😉, I'll tear it down and replace them at some point.

 

 

So now I'm just slowly grabbing bits and bobs along the way to add to the garage to fill it out, shouldn't really be buying more as I could probably fill two with the stuff I have but that's not always really the point.

Last night I changed it up to a different layout to see what i thought.

 

 

Of course I needed some shelves above to make other projects be in arms reach incase the notion hits.

 

 

And an idea of the chaos surrounding the garage😂

 

 

So thats it for now until I feel the want/need/inspiration to do more. Could be days or months, but I'll update this when there's something worth showing......

 

[Willy iine]

Fun project!

 

I like making the accessories themselves.  It's cheap to do and fun, and original.      Keep up the great work.

 

[JimBear]

It really looks like some of garages I saw as a kid - a jumble of stuff and some order, only known to the owner/user to the space. Great, keep on going.

[ad456]

@Willy iine there may be some styrene work coming if the notion takes. I made the visor on the TF2 Blazer above from styrene sheet as my first finished venture. 
 

@JimBear that’s kinda all I know so art mimicking life there I guess

[Willy iine]

1 hour ago, ad456 said:

@Willy iine there may be some styrene work coming if the notion takes. I made the visor on the TF2 Blazer above from styrene sheet as my first finished venture. 

That's cool, nice job on the visor!.   I love working with styrene as it is 100% based on your imagination..  I mean I take a look at a photo of what I want to make and just start cutting and gluing.. no engineering required.. just cut and hope.. 

[Mad Ax]

Good work!  These scale garages have really come a long way in the last few years, I love what people are doing.  I started to make one from some Element Enduro SBK boxes but I just duct taped it to an old chest of drawers and it all fell down, I've got plans to rebuild with a solid wooden frame and add lights and scale stuff, but so far I haven't made the time to do it.  This thread inspires me

[ad456]

@Mad Ax you should make one, you'd enjoy it a lot. See if ya can find a few square ft while yer doing yer big tidy-up. I got on and spent 6+hrs tidying up more of my stuff and racked some cars and got a bit more breathing room this week.

 So it turns out to be months for an update, not a real surprise. 

So i got the sides replaced and left the wood high incase i decided on a peaked roof. Then i decided i could cram more in if I put in a mezzanine level, so took a bit of play and prototyped it and it was too small.

 

So I made a bigger one. And loaded stuff onto it.  Kinda needs shelves or racks.

 

So onto the MacBook and racking was designed and printed, pulled pork was had for eating and the boxes were reused.

 

And racking was built and filled

 

I also broke out the styrene and started a cabinet or shelf, depending on how lazy i am when i finish it. Printed a pillar drill and welding table and an army of bottles and drums. I decided a ladder to the mezzanine would use least space so started prototype that from kebab skewers.

 

 

And made a guard rail last night when I'd finished most of the racking.

 

Rearranged the bench and toolbox with more tiny screws and bit and bobs. The Chevrolet badge fell off the TF2 so that went one there too. I must do a pegboard on the bench at somepoint.

 

 

And here's where the whole thing stands as of now.

 

Definitely need to show some attention to the other side now as it's a bit sad. Must get a door decided on, look at windows and framing out the roof for proper kinda lights. And decide on walls as its seriously overdue!! Photopaper for boxes and printable decal paper are other things that are on my radar to look into.

[bRIBEGuy]

Looks great!

I've been meaning to start one of these for quite some time, but keep getting sidetracked by other projects, life, and a general lack of space to set something up.  One day!

Those 3D printed shelves look awesome!

[ChrisRx718]

All looks very cool - I'm immensely jealous of anyone who has the space to do one of these manly dolls-houses 

 

[Mad Ax]

I'm loving that!  The workbench kinda looks like my real one did last weekend 

I've got the space all ready for mine, plus the box parts from the Element Enduro boxes to build the walls, just need to build the frame with leftover timber batten.  We ended up using most of the spare batten for the new storage shelves and I'm gobsmacked at how expensive it is now, I swear I used to by a 9-pack of the smaller stuff for like £15, it's more than twice that now.

[yogi-bear]

just came across this thread, this looks very cool, and huge too!

[ad456]

Thanks folks!

@Mad Ax, might be worth looking in a second hand shop for an old table or something to repurpose or modify?

My main 1/1 scale bench seldom doesn’t look like that!

[Mad Ax]

10 hours ago, ad456 said:

 

@Mad Ax, might be worth looking in a second hand shop for an old table or something to repurpose or modify?

I've got an ancient pine chest of drawers that I've had since I was <7.  A few years back I painted the top black, it's a good size area for a scale workshop.  I can fit at least 3 1:10 cars on it.  Some months ago I cut open the boxes from my Enduro SBKs and stuck them around it with duct tape, unfortunately the tape wasn't strong enough and it came down a month later.  I just need to batten around the frame so I can tack the shop sides to it.

It's situated under my bunk bed, so it's already in a cosy location that's no good for anything else, also gives me somewhere to hang a false ceiling and some scale shop lights.

I can't remember if I posted a thread about it before.

Mine won't be nearly so detailed as yours - I doubt I'll assign the time to 3D printing any racking or stuff like that.  Just a workbench and a tyre rack out of styrene.

[ad456]

Dunno if this was wise but added a few inches onto it, now it's 78" wide. It was quite amazing how much stuff had to come out of there to swap it over. Now I have a big shelf and more room to build in.

After watching some youtube videos I had an attempt at painting concrete the other week on a spare bit of plywood. I thought it might be more interesting than a flat grey floor. Can't decide if I'm going to try and do it again on the actual floor. It was an interesting experiment though.

 

I also got the new floor primered and messed around in GIMP on the laptop and then used a poster splitter print it out so I could mess around with wall styles.

 

[JimBear]

@ad456 - I like the concrete floor - gives a bit of variation and it looks used, as opposed to the flat grey floor.

[toyolien]

That looks a nice size, and the floor looks great too. I did a similar thing to my scale garage, but I added expansion joints:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ad456]

Thanks folks, as soon as the weather sobers up again I’ll strip the garage and have a go at repeating the floor experiment. I’m think it was about 14 coats it took to do and I don’t really do any weathering as such. I will this time though. 

@toyolien I'm considering doing expansions as well but I’m not gonna fill them, I’m used to seeing chipped/unfilled joints so that’ll be what I’ll try.

[JimBear]

Off-topic @ad456, but the hotrod hanging around in the garage - is it scratch-built? Do you have any other photos of it? I am not going to get myself into another project, but I am always reminded of my childhood when I see things like that, spending many happy hours reading custom car magazines.

[ad456]

Kinda yeah. It’s a mashup from an Ossum cab I had printed for me, a SSD Trail King gearbox and a whole lot of random stuff. I started it last April and am coming about done now.