At least have a Steel / thick lumber work bench, bolted to the wall , with a bench vise large enough to hold a 4" x 4" post. Mount the vise so the jaws are over the edge of the bench, this way long flat material can be clamped while still touching the floor.

This is the foundation, refine your goal , all bike , home repair ,car repair , carpentry.

Goals:

1. Bike work

That's it.

I'm looking for some guidance on good working surface sizes, height, built-in bike stands, storage (wheels, frames, components, et cetera) and anything that makes working on bikes easy that a lackey like me might not know about. This is to be a full-on bicycle workshop.

A nice large solvent tank is great. Nothing is better than having a shiny drivetain!

Is there any plumbing? A drain in the floor is nice.

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Hmmm. No plumbing. Good idea though. Maybe I'll put shower/bath type siding a foot or two so up the walls so I can just hose it out in there. That's a really good idea the more I think about it. Thanks!

when you put your bench in think about your ergonomics, will you mostly be standing or sitting? it it a comfortable height to spend a couple of hours at? would a standard clamp stand work better or one of the new bb types?

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Jim

**Note above poster works for a retailer selling bikes and related gear*

  You could get ************

1 3-5 hp air compressor vertical tank $200 -250, Pipe up the shop in 1/2 " copper lines with 3 stations and One outside,buy the thin black or red 1/4" hose, you don't need 3/8" for bike stuff.

2 3 gal solvent tank $40 at auto parts store

3 Tool box "bottom of roll away" ball bearing drawers

4 A heavy bike stand Parker or build a pipe stand coming down from the ceiling (clear floor space) nothing to trip over, swings up & out of the way.

5 Find some 8 ft, commercial florescent fixtures, more light, cheaper vs small lights

6 A good quality 6 inch grinder / wire wheel "fine "

7 A sweet sound system FM / CD rig, with a remote control

8 racks, wheel hooks overhead,

9 And if you really go nuts, A glass bead blast cabinet, to clean / paint old frames

10 cordless phone .

"If you take a look in my eyes
you see I'll be a gansta 'till I die
That California chronic got me so high..."

My wife loves it when I roll through the house singing that. Skinny white kid from the suburbs.

All this shit's going away. Strip it down and start fresh.

Sweet. Perfect space for a bike garage. Are you going to put in a Computrainer and computer, or trainer? If so, you need an air cleaner, like the Friedrich models. Don't work out in that space without some sort of proper ventilation either.
Paint the floor after you fix the cracks. You need a small reefer of course. Maybe a microwave if you are hardcore. :)
Some great ideas above, too.

-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

I would paint it white inside , Figure your insulation - drywall, ventilation,

See how flat the floor is for possible, paint / how well things will roll / which way the spills will run ,,, - Looks like a slab - .

How high is the overhead ? , Flat roof / attic / high pitched A frame ?

You may have to go minimalist with lots of rolling fixtures.

Could you please explain how to build the pipe stand from the ceiling?

And also, what will you use the grinder to do?


Thanks so much,
Dan Trepod
www.aiatriathlon.com

I have made two of these , In a garage with an open overhead / rafters ( where most people hide their Xmas stuff ) .You can build an L shaped pipe clamped across two beams ,with the long end pointing down ( this would swing up and out of the way). This end can have a simple piece of PVC pipe cut in half with padding -as a cradle for the top tube or build a C clamp holder , padded vise grips , buy a clamp from Park tools . You can have a threaded fitting over head ,that you spin in a 4 foot piece of pipe with a clamp or cradle. Clean floor ,nothing to bang into below the bike.

For minor jobs ,removing wheels , checking shifters ,just a cradel will do . If you remove forks , bang on seat posts , a good clamp is required.

As far as the grinder, Its more for rebuilding old bikes , They make fine steel or stainless wire wheels , for cleaning axle threads , light rust of chrome , steer tube threads, grind the edge of a carbon fork tube after cutting it. Put a buffing wheel and some compound , get old brakes to shine again.

All this can be had at any SUPER STORE / Meg-low-mart .

Seal and paint the floor with a good epoxy paint,peg board on wall above bench,plenty of lights,heater/air cond

I use my attic space to store wheels, frames, and associated stuff. I created a "cooler" box on the north side to store tires, wetsuits, and scuba gear and protect them from the heat. It's vented to the outside and has some drying racks.

Plumb in a vacuum system with the collector and vacuum motor on the outside... keeps things a lot cleaner when you are servicing the vacuum bag.

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Jay

Cool project. My garage (2 car, no cars in it!) just came together a few months ago, with a dip stand, multiple chin bar, low back/(reverse)hyperextension stand, spin bike, trainer, etc.

Epoxy floor is an absolute must. Throw down some remnant carpet for at least part of the space. Build a rack that looks like a ladder on one wall, and set your bikes on posts that stick out. I used 2x6s for the ladder, and 1/2" ply screwed into the ladder legs for the little triangle-shaped posts that the bike top tubes rest on. Awesome... bikes are completely out of the way, and the "steps" on the ladder make for great storage for cleaning stuff, etc.

Insulate those walls before you drywall them, even though you'll still gets tons of heat/cold leakage around the door.

Make sure you have plenty of receptacles -- never can have too many. GFCI only, of course, and if you're going to have water around in there, then get the kind that are weather resistant (capped).

If you leave the joists above open, then run some 1x2 strips across them and use that for storing long things like lumber, pipe, scraps, etc.

Do not forget a TV! Get a cheapo used and mount it someplace out of the way for those trainer sessions.

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**************
Too f@ckin depressed from various injuries to care about having a signature line.

Sponsored by Blue Shield PPO.

Ooh!! I didn't see this thread. Some things I'd recommend that I didn't see listed.

Before you drywall:

1. Wire the place for sound. A nice stero in the shop is a must. In wall wiring is just nice.
2. Wire the place for cable. I have a TV mounted in the upper corner of my garage with CD, DVD, and cable. It's the best.
3. Wire the place for phone. It might be a pain to get a phone line from this house, but this will be really nice.
4. Have compressed air jacks in the walls. This is something I didn't do and wish I had. The compressor I use is pretty bulky and cumbersome to use. I'd love to have it in a corner, always on, and be able to plug in into just about any wall. If you don't do this, a compressed air hose hanging from a spool-winding-thingy is nice.

I'd also seal the floor with a nice concrete sealer. Any hardware store has the stuff. It helps things look really clean.

Hooks for bikes, wheels, and TIREs. Gotta have them.

Good lighting. Some large shop lights on the ceiling would be good.

Get a good tool chest. You know, one of those red boxes with drawers on wheels. They're great for parts too.



Have fun.

This has got to be the best thread since, uh, er, ah, the hottie thread? :)

Dan had some good ideas on the front page too. He's right about Allen wrenches. They are the socks of the tool world.

-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

Before you finish the drywall, run a complete set of electrical outlets direct from your main power box on their own fuse. Use grey outlets to distinguish them from your regular lines. Plug your radio, fan, etc. into the white outlets and only tools into your grey outlets. This way, when you are using a tool that takes a lot of electicity you don't have to worry about dimming the lights, turning off your radio, etc.

Why bother with the drywall? It just makes it harder to hang things from the wall and gives you something more to mess up.

Nice. That's a fun project. I just built my workshop in the back room of my basement. It will serve double-duty as a bike shop/home improvement war room.

Before:

http://jupitershunter.com/images/basement_old.jpg

After:

http://jupitershunter.com/images/basement05.jpg
http://jupitershunter.com/images/basement06.jpg
http://jupitershunter.com/images/basement07.jpg
http://jupitershunter.com/images/basement08.jpg
http://jupitershunter.com/images/basement09.jpg

I'll post a picture of my workbench later. It's based on this:

http://www.grampasworkshop.net/workbench.html

This is one very solid bench that you can modify as you need, and will definitely hold a big vice.

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Where did you get the flooring? It's awesome.

Nice, bright painted garage floor, and invest in a heater and a window airconditioner. Drain in the floor is a good addition, as well as air compressor, parts cleaner, workbench, pegboard, and a fridge and cot. You never know if you need a place to sleep.

Empfield suggests hanging the bikes from the rafters, bit I prefer using an Ultimate disply/storage stand.

It's RaceDeck flooring. I got it at http://www.garagestyle.com/ . The company that makes it, http://www.racedeck.com/ sells it only through distributors, and Erika at garagestyle gave me the best price at $3.50/tile and free shipping. It cost about $600 to do the ~160 square foot room, which was more than everything else I did(the whole room cost under $1,000). That sounds like a lot, but Pergo and other flooring solutions cost about the same, and the RaceDeck tiles go right on top of a nasty concrete floor with no problems. Uneven areas, no problem. Old adhesive, no problem. Cracks, efflourescence, well, you get the idea. If I wanted to put a traditional flooring solution in, I would have had to have the concrete refinished. As it was, these things snap right together, you drop them on the floor, and you're done. The job took less than three hours, and most of that was doing precision cuts on some end and corner pieces.

I'm very happy with how it came out.

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