The Great Workshop Tidy of 2023

[Mad Ax 8326]

Thought I'd post this here, since it's not really 100% RC-related.

The workshop has been in its current format for a few years now, and we haven't really moved stuff around too much - just gradually brought more and more things in.  Over the years it's got way out of hand, and my wife has been complaining (quite legitimately, I might add) that she can't get to her storage area because my storage area has been overflowing into the central aisle.

So, I've booked a week off work for the sole purpose of sorting it all out, making more space, and making life easier for both of us.  The original plan was to draft in some help, pull all my cars off the storage space, sort them all out and put them back again.  However, since the workshop was in such a state, there was no space to put anything when it came off the storage area - so, first, I had some tidying to do...

I began last Sunday morning.  With the rear roller door up, the back of the shop looks like this:

What we call the storage area is at the top of that ladder.  It's only a crawl space, but I can stack my Really Useful Boxes up to 4 high (you can just about see some behind the blue ramps and the grey roof box).

Under the ladder is, well, a spare ladder, plus some wood, an FTX box, and other random junk.

This will be the primary focus of my attention today.  It's my spray booth.  It's a timber bench that my wife made many years ago, with RC paints on the top rack and misc paints underneath.  Over the years it's got into a right old state, it's a flat surface so it mostly gets used for putting things on, meaning I can never paint when I want to.  Plus all those household paints are largely pointless, we rarely need them, so they should be up on the storage area.

This was how it looked at the start of the day.  This is actually better than it usually is since I cleared it 2 weeks ago to paint my daughter's Lunchbox body.

 

[Mad Ax 8326]

You may have spotted a little thermometer and humidity gauge on the back wall.  Very useful for painting out of season.  I have a set of halogen lamps which are very effective at heating the area, so I can paint in cooler weather if I need to.  One drawback is the direct light from the lamps makes the thermometer read higher than the ambient temp.  So, I made a little shield out of a paint cap to help it read ambient temp, and also to keep the overspray off, which no doubt affects the readings too.

I cleared off all the old paint tins from the top rack, and added these end panels out of scrap plywood.

I then carefully measured by guesswork and blindly added this dividing panel in an accurate fashion.  This is to separate PS from TS, so I always know what I'm painting with before I paint with it.  Also I removed all the modern "this product is dangerous" labels from the caps of my unopened tins so I can see what they are without having to remove the plastic wrap.  That way I know what tins are fresh and what are part-used without having to pick them up.

[Mad Ax 8326]

Also went through all my brush paints, thinner pots and other assorted junk and put it in a plastic tub, which I made the perfect space for.

The next job - which took an absolute age - was pulling all the rubbish old tins of wall paint out from under the bench, brushing of all the dust, and stacking them where they will be right in the way of next week's job.  Then I literally just put back hobby paints and hobby paint stuff - automotive paint tins, cleaners and thinners, random tubs, pots and boxes that make for good stands when painting, rubber gloves, offcuts of lexan, a random tub of matt black wall paint, my old extractor fan (I'll get around to fitting it one day, but it's no small job) and the box for my cheap Aldi spray gun stuff.

fin.

[BuggyDad 2990]

8 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

Plus all those household paints are largely pointless, we rarely need them, so they should be up on the storage area. 

You say "storage area", Stacey Dooley would say "tip" 😬

[Mad Ax 8326]

6 hours ago, BuggyDad said:

You say "storage area", Stacey Dooley would say "tip" 😬

well Stacey Dooley isn't here, and if she was, house paint would be the last thing on my mind.

[Re-Bugged 9310]

That will keep you busy for a while 👍🏻

I wonder how much stuff you will find that had been forgotten about 🤔

Keep up the good work. 

[bavee 947]

Gogogo @Mad Ax! Good luck cleaning out!

[tamiya_1971 559]

I'd kill for a space like that! When we moved 17 years ago to a larger house, I lost unfinished basement and a deep garage with 2 sizeable workbenches. 

[Willy iine 17797]

@Mad Ax  Nice project!  Looks like it will keep you busy for a while.       Does your paint booth have some sort of ventilation?   

I'm like over 95% done with building new cars so not worth it any more, but if I was going to do it again, I think I would install a more permanent paint booth setup in my mudroom with a similar curtain setup like yours and have an exit fan professionally installed either on the wall or ceiling.  👍   I think even a large stove hood fan would work as the one in my kitchen is quite powerful.  It would have no problem suctioning through the large panel filters I consume like toilet paper while painting..

 

 

[Mad Ax 8326]

4 hours ago, Willy iine said:

Does your paint booth have some sort of ventilation?   

Not at the moment, it's something we've planned on but not got around to.  Generally I'll open the bottom of the roller door and open the pedestrian door at the other end, provided it isn't too cold.  Otherwise, I'll only work in there for short periods and go outside when the paint cans start talking to me.

We recently bought an air cleaner from a workshop clearance, which is supposed to extract dust from the air, and I also have that big industrial extractor (under the bench) which was previously set up in the spray booth in the loft at my flat.  The loft was easy to extract from, it had some vents in the ceiling that were already the right size so I piped the extractor directly to it.  It ran without a filter for a couple of years and the turbines are now coated in paint dust, ideally I need to find some kind of panel filter for it, and I'll need to cut a hole in the workshop somewhere to pipe it out - that's the scary bit, it's not convenient to do it on the wall behind the bench because that goes into the neighbour's garden, otherwise it means running flexi tube for quite a long way to find an awkward place to vent it.

[markbt73 4906]

15 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

well Stacey Dooley isn't here, and if she was, house paint would be the last thing on my mind.

Had to Google her, as us Yanks are unfamiliar. My goodness...

Anyway, nice work! My wife and I recently were forced into an impromptu remodel of our entire downstairs, including my workshop/office. A sewer drain backed up and flooded everything about an inch deep, trashing the carpet. It has taken three weeks, but we finally have everything cleaned up, new click-lock flooring installed, repainted, reorganized, got rid of a lot of things that were just taking up space. it's much nicer now. Feels good to tidy everything up, no matter how much it feels like a waste of time before you start.

[Mad Ax 8326]

Well, I'm 2 days in, I'm £200 lighter, and the workshop is just about navigable.  Will upload some photos while I wait for the house to be vacated, then back on it - final few shelves to fit and then I can start properly reloading it.

[Mad Ax 8326]

This is how things were at 9:30 on Sunday morning.  Those boxes on the mezzanine level run all the way down as far as the window in bottom left.

I cleared the area under the ladder, by moving the bike outside and wheeling the tablesaw to the far end of the shop.

This is how it looks from the top of the ladder.  The section from the ladder across to the roll of carpet should be accessway, but it's full of more boxes.

[Mad Ax 8326]

I started pulling boxes out and moving them to the shop floor, revealing yet more boxes behind

Buddy arrived to help me out.  We totally filled the shop floor.

Empty space.  Those old shelves at the back are flimsy but we figured we might save them for use later.  Wooden box covers the top of the window, which was installed before the office underneath and is too high.

Workshop floor.  Oh my very goodness, I thought to myself, what have I done!?

[Mad Ax 8326]

Found my old Lego.  I thought I had a lot more than this, but this is all that's there.  That red buggy was one if my favourite custom designs.  Built it when I was around 13.

View from the other end of the shop.

Fitted loads of uprights to put the shelves on.

At this point we were pretty much out of time, so we headed in to rest our aching backs and order a takeaway.

I was awake literally all night worrying about how we were going to get it all finished, and where we were going to find the timber to build the shelves.

[Mad Ax 8326]

We cut up a spare loft board to make the lower shelf.  Had to double-stack it because it wasn't long enough.  Started piling the NIB collection in underneath.

My buddy grabbed my camera while I wasn't looking and snapped these shots

NIB and shells area done, although I may add another shelf later.  Still need to properly sort through all the shell bits as there are loads of misc parts that could be better sorted.

 

[Mad Ax 8326]

Bottom shelf has a 35cm gap, to allow for big storage boxes.  I'll keep the unfinished projects in boxes so all the parts are easier to store.  Finished projects will go in begs, like the Prerunner that can just about be seen on the 1st shelf.

The next sets of shelves have a 22cm gap - this is fine for touring cars and buggies sitting on a butter tub.  Should get loads of cars in here.

By the end of today, there will be more shelves here - probably with a different spacing.

4.8m lengths of treaded timber.  Overkill for the shelves, but it was the cheapest square meterage we could find that won't sag, like MDF will.  So far I've spent around £120 on wood, also £80 on a new cordless drill that takes the same batteries as my other cordless drill, so I don't have to keep swapping bits for drilling and screwing.  If I'd known it would cost this much I might not have gone this route, but it'll be good when it's done.

I'm on my own today, but I'm all peopled out anyway, it's good to have the place to myself for a change.  Got a bit of admin to do, then I'll be back on the case.  I've got 3 days before I'm away on holiday and all this has got to be cleared by then.

[Willy iine 17797]

NIce progress @Mad Ax!!  👍

[bavee 947]

Looking good!

And owhhhh. Is that a NIB Desert Fielder .

[Mad Ax 8326]

4 hours ago, bavee said:

And owhhhh. Is that a NIB Desert Fielder .

It's in the NIB area but actually it's a built bare chassis, run a few times, with an unpainted body and MCI Prerunner repro decals.  And it will be up for sale soon, as I need to clear some space!

[Mad Ax 8326]

Tuesday started with a huge pile of stuff still to sort...

But before I could do that, there were shelves still to cut and fit.  Every time I did a journey up the ladder, I carried another car up for storage.

The first rank of shelves is shorter to allow for the big rig boxes.  Baton across the back of the ply shelves stops them sagging and also stops boxes being pushed right over, as it's around a 9 foot drop to the concrete floor.  I dropped my SRBs box off there earlier this year.

Putting in the final shelves behind the big rigs.  Part of this area will be hard to get at when the rigs are in place, so I'll store stuff I don't need to get at often in there.  Also added baton stoppers to stop me from pushing everything off the shelf when I'm sliding the rigs in from the other end.

View from the other side - short shelf unit and baton stoppers, and big rigs at the other end.

[Mad Ax 8326]

Making progress with the load.  Cars bagged to keep the dust off.  This is the main storage area for lone cars - I had planned to put projects here and runners on the other side, but space limitations dictated it would be a mix and match, there's no real structure to it - basically what fits where!

I pulled a late one, to make sure I had all the wood cutting done and shelving in place before I came in for a shower.  I was done for 8pm, which wasn't so bad after all, and meant I could chill out with a bit of TV.  I usually spend time in the studio on an evening but I was exhausted after all this.

Today has been another crazy day - a few more pics to follow once I've taken care of some household stuff  

 

[Mad Ax 8326]

I started this morning with a pile of empty boxes

Plus some broken ones

Still loads more to do, though

All the shelves now in, starting to load up the project boxes

NIBs and body section now filled.  To be fair, many of these bodies are of no use to me so I really should thrown them out, but I might screw some permanently to a piece of plywood to use as monster truck fodder.

There's a couple of rare gems in here though - an unpainted Calsonic Primera with original decals, a painted light-runner Calsonic Primera body, two unpainted HPI Miata Mk2 bodies, a and some other stuff I've forgotten about already.

[Mad Ax 8326]

This photo was taken just after midday, and I was starting to feel a little nervous.  I'm running out of space already and there's still loads of boxes to sort!

And this photo was taken just after 4pm, when I was starting to clear up ready for my evening duties of school run, dinner cook and bedtime.  Everything is in - just!  There's not space for one more car  

I've still got a bit of clearing to do tomorrow - the stuff down the far end is mostly empty boxes and packing material, I want to throw it all away but I also want to sell some stuff now, so I'll have to keep it.

So - tomorrow's plan is to get back up here as early as I can (I do the morning school run on a Thursday, so it'll be a later start), finish clearing all this junk in the storage corridor and tidy up the non-RC corner, which is the big right at the back to the right on the above photo.  Once that's done, I'll hopefully be able to store some of my huge stack of empty storage boxes there (the rest will have to go, I'll put them up on a local free for collection site).

I've still got around 10 storage boxes still containing parts for cars, these need to be decanted into smaller boxes or bagged and put in drawers so I can grab them if I take that car racing.

[Mad Ax 8326]

Doing all this has opened my eyes to just how many cars I have - current count on CarManager is 90, although that doesn't include some of the big rigs or trailers, and I think there's a couple in the house that aren't on there either.

It's also made me realise just how many things I have that are literally this close to being finished.  That Desert Fielder that just needs paint - although I'm going to pass that on for someone else to have the joy of it, since I already have an F150 Baja - I thought that was in a poor state, but actually it just needs tyres and a receiver.  I'm not a fan of the body design I did, so I want to get a new one from TBG, but just maybe I can save some pennies with the paint killer...

That yellow Jeep body has been in my collection for so much longer than I can remember, but I've had no idea what to do with it.  But then I found a Reign K2-3S chassis (remember those..?) and I've got some old Maverick axles hanging about.  With a set of TLT wheels, it would make a neat little mud bogger, or some crazy mega truck type thing that I can cruise around.  Or, y'know, just build to sell, because, seriously, I've got way too much stuff!

There's a spare M03 chassis.  It's all complete, been sitting in a box for years.  Then there's that Mini body that my wife painted, and some Minilight wheels.  With a basic set of shocks, it'll fit nicely on my Ikea shelves in my bedroom - regular cars won't fit there but SWB M-chassis will.

I also forgot just how many shelf cars I have.  I haven't displayed them on shelves for ages, since I mostly have race cars / runners on the shelves - so much more convenient when I want to go for a drive than climbing the ladder to get them out of the box.  So, why do I have those shelf cars?  Well, I have no idea.  I don't know if I'll ever display them again.

Keep your eyes peeled for some cars appearing in the trades section next week