Pole Barn 40X64X16

[Paul McGaha]

Your shop is just really, really nice Mike.

Congratulations. I'm sure you're going to have a lot of fun in it.

Good of you to share the build with us the way you've done.

PHM

[Mike Heidrick]

Getting some wall circuits and outlets in this past week and this weekend. Good buddy Tony came over and helped run a bunch of romex. Huge help. Megan my daughter helped out a ton as well. Glad to have great friends and family!

Adjustable boxes are used to make up the difference in the 1.5" thick plywood walls I will have.

[Bruce Page]

Mike, I've been looking forward to an update!
Thanks!

[Mike Heidrick]

I put four GFCI outlets at the start of the 120V wall circuits and then wired up the four outlets those plug into. Flipped on the breakers, reset the gfcis and tested every 120V outlet. Awesome. I went from one 120V wall outlet to 24. No more extension cords on that wall for awhile.

[Jerry Olexa]

you'll be glad later mike that you did this.. the shop is really shaping up and looking good...Good rresults.

[Michael Stein]

Bravo! Is this strictly going to be a personal shop? Assuming the tractor and such is also going to be housed inside? What an awesome facility to have access too!

[Mike Heidrick]

Bravo! Is this strictly going to be a personal shop? Assuming the tractor and such is also going to be housed inside? What an awesome facility to have access too!

Its my own personal shop at my house. I have plans to help teach people (and to learn stuff from others) to make things and to teach people to do their own DIY CNC machine builds. Kind of like a makerspace only my way - Mikiespace. No board of directors or panels of people to gum up decisions with politics. A complete full woodworking shop, CNC 4X4 Spindled Router, two metal lathes, CNC knee mill, manual mill/drill, 3d printing, and arduino and raspberry pi electronics is what I play with now. Going to also have a place for kids to come learn - my wife is a girl scout leader.

The shop is just a shop - no vehicle storage. Tractor has its own stall in the attached garage and once I move my equipment out of the detached shop it may move there. I am trying to have drive through access though to bring in materials and take out projects.

I had talked to others in the community and here at work about doing something in the city. They instantly went to millions of dollars ideas and did nothing about talk for 2 years. They could not get to the point of just starting out and growing out of it. I got tired of it and just did it myself. I like results not more talk. No financial motives - just motives to help others and teach kids that they can do stuff themselves and get them off the dam phones and ipads. In the end if no one else shows up I have a bad ass place to do the work I do now. My girls and I are out in them all the time.

Is it hard to find places for kids to make stuff in your area? Around here the 1st Saturday of the month is kids build day at Home Depot which is awesome. We have a couple robotics clubs but that is pretty restricted. What do you have in your area?

[Matt Meiser]

I knew I'd seen this picture before.

[Mike Heidrick]

Tonight I installed outlets for the compressor circuit, and a couple for a DC circuit (was not sure of the two spots where will be the best plug in spot).

Also ran four outlets up at about 13'. I found a Neon 2nd generation Yamaha Vmax sign on ebay that is going on one end of the shop or the other so I put up some outlets for it. I also installed the last four outlets and wired in a chamberlain WSCLEV remote toggle switch that I hope will control some outdoor lighting.

I still need to pick some outdoor lights yet. Not sure I like the two I got on CL.

I also ordered some L14-30 receptacles today and some more L6-30s for the north wall. L14-30 will be for the 3ph setup.

Thankyou very much for all the positive comments! Love reading them after being out there working on the shop all evening.

[mreza Salav]

late to this great thread, what a shop!
Congratulations. It's a dream for many....

[Mike Heidrick]

Thank you very much!

Today's progress:

Ran 12/2 romex for outlets for under cabinet lighting that will be under the binder bins at about 10'
Ran 12/2 romex for outdoor outlets on porch and the east and west garage doors

ran some 10/3 for a couple 3phase outlets and a 10/3 for a potential 1ph spot for my cnc router where I want 220V and the neutral

Built a pallet movable two sided easel and the wife painted a pallets worth of plywood white (43 sheets) using an airless system I borrowed. Its now on my list of tools to own I loaded and stacked the sheets while she sprayed them. I stacked them up after they dried back on a pallet.

[Bryan Lisowski]

Mike your new shop is great! The detail you have put into documenting this is also great. When I first started reading, I had to stop and get big bowl of popcorn!! Hopefully it won't be to much longer before you are finished and ready to work in there.

[Mike Heidrick]

Shot 53 sheets this afternoon by myself qith teh airless. Blew them off with compressor, unloaded from a pallet and loaded two sheets on my easel back to back, sprayed the two, then rested on edge for drying, and finally re-stacked them on the pallet after they were dry. At one point I had 35 sheets each resting on each other in a long house of cards base lol.

[mreza Salav]

That's a lot of plywood. I thought that you shouldn't put heavy load on new concrete for at least a couple of weeks until it cures enough (or that's how I treat new driveways/pads) although concrete still cures beyond that few weeks.

[Mike Heidrick]

I dont remember the number of days I waited. Did what the concrete guys said to do. It did not hurt anything whatever we did near as I can tell. I know i did not place the pallets on cut lines for a few weeks. A year later it still looks great.