It had to happen that as soon as I acquired the Helicycle and bought a lathe we ended up selling the old house.  After 2 years on the market and a bunch of jerking around we finally accepted an offer (for a fraction of our original asking price, of course). 

One of the motivators in settling for a lower price is that we had found a new place on top of a hill, 360 views, and a large outbuilding which has turned into the new airplane factory.

I started by gutting the outbuilding, tearing out the walls and retiling the floors.  All the wiring had to be redone, drywalling, and finishing.  White white white.  It looks like an operating theater now.

I built worktables, installed shelving, and redid the lighting.  Between the move, and the refitting of the shop, I did not get anything done on the aircraft until well into fall. 


It looked huge right up until the airplane and helicopter fuselage and frame were brought in.  Now it’s quite snug.

My personal vow is that we will NOT move again until the airplane and helicopter are finished.  What a PITA to move that stuff.

Lots of shelves and countertop space.


New pegboards gave a chance to reorganize the tools.  It’s nice to have them all neat and logical again.

I was pretty lost for a couple of months during the move with everything in boxes.  If I needed a wire stripper it was an hour-long treasure hunt through boxes.

Much, much happier now knowing where everything is.


Just prior to selling the house (and the REAL trigger for getting a good offer), was my taking receipt of a Grizzly G0516 Mill/Lathe.  This is a couple of steps up from a little mini lathe.

Yes, yes, I’ve read all the reviews saying a 3-in-1 is not as good as separate machines, but I have limited space, and don’t see myself using it every day. 

I have played around and made some small items so far.  Fun.  Looks like it will more than meet my limited needs.


One of the more luxurious aspects of the new shop is having a bathroom and shower.  A small electric water heater caps it.


Unfortunately the water run to the shop was buried less than 12 inches from the surface underground.  The biggest single project I undertook was to dig up the old water run, and dig a new trench (by hand) 36-48 inches deep. 137 feet long.  There were two spots where ledge prevented a deep lay.  The pipes are about 8 inches deep at those points.

I ran a conduit with 2 x1”insulated PEX pipes.  In the house there is a loop manifold.

In the shop I put two circulator pumps. One just loops water through the feed and return.  The second circulator loops the feed through  the hot water heater and back out the return.

I can program the timer to loop hot water 1 minute out of 10 or 1 minute out of 20, depending on how cold it is out.

If I get super motivated someday I will add a thermocouple to the return and optimize so I am not
paying as much to heat the ground.


One section of the shop is set up as an office/lounge with a desk, couch, comfy chair, laptop, internet and a TV.


Comfy shop, beautiful wife.  Should be a good place to work and play.

Tags: ShopNotes