Industrial pallet racks are relatively cheap, super-stable, and allow you to free up floor space.
In Part 1 of this two-part series on shop upgrades, we looked at coating a shop floor with industrial epoxy. In this month’s article, we’ll look at some smaller upgrades, most of which can be implemented in just a few hours, but yield big benefits in terms of keeping your shop clean and organized.
Dust Collection System
Combining a dust-collection system with a downdraft sanding table is a great combination. (Photo: Matt Stinemetze)
“As anyone who has built a composite plane can attest, the dust is invasive,” says Matt Stinemetze, an engineer at Scaled Composites currently building a 2/3-scale Bearcat. “You grind a couple times over in the corner—and you are always grinding something—and next thing you know, it’s all over your tools, the plane, the shop, your clothes, and in your skin. Oh, the itch!
“When I was building a Long-EZ,” Matt continued, “I was in Chuck Coleman’s hangar. (Chuck is a test pilot, airshow performer, airplane builder and designer.) He’s built many Lancair IVs in the basement of his home, and he swore by using a dust collector. It was more than enough to keep the mess down until I got deep into the body-working stage.”
When Matt moved into his own hangar/shop, a dust collector was the first thing he installed. “Shop vacs just don’t do the trick,” he explained. “I drag the hose around the shop and use it where I need to. I mix micro, etc. next to the Y pipe, but you could plumb to a downdraft bench if you desired. They are bulletproof and worth their weight in gold—think shop vac times 10! Now, if I can just find a hose reel for that 6-inch dust collector hose.”
Industrial Pallet Racks
Those giant steel shelving racks you find in box stores? You too can get them, although you may have to look a bit. Having once lived in a shoebox-sized apartment in Japan, I learned the trick to efficient use of space is to stack stuff to the ceiling. Heavy-duty 14-gauge industrial racks are just as cheap as the smaller/lighter-gauge stuff sold at the hardware store, but much beefier and much more shelf space per dollar spent. Uprights are typically 8-, 10-, or 12-feet high and crossbeams are 8-, 10-, or 12-feet across. Drop-in wire shelving is cheaper, stronger, and easier than plywood.
Foot pads distribute the load and allow you to bolt to the floor if you wish. Make sure your crossbeams and uprights use the same tab/slot design. These crossbeams feature safety buttons to prevent accidental removal.
No special tools are required—it’s all tab and slot assembly—and you can easily put up an entire rack in 30 minutes. If you buy used items, make sure the uprights and crossbeams use the same tab/slot system (usually a teardrop) and have lock pins (a safety feature that prevents crossbeams from coming out of their slots). Uprights with foot pads will distribute the weight better than padless. You can usually find both new and used pallet racks on Craigslist. Expect to pay approximately $60-80 per upright, $15-25 per step beam (two required per shelf) and $10-20 per wire shelving (two required per shelf). The pallet rack in the picture cost $800 (new) and provides 270 square feet of shelving.
Cool Tools—Cry Once
Without getting into a debate about the technical merits of, say, Snap-on vs. Craftsman vs. Harbor Freight, from a purely economic point of view used top-of-the-line hand-tool sets like Snap-on consistently maintain or appreciate in value. Notice that I said “used.” If you buy new, you will never get your money back if you sell the tool. Buying used, high-quality tools is a way to enjoy your build with the assurance that if you ever decide to get rid of your tools, you can almost certainly get back all of your initial investment if you have taken care of them. Craigslist, eBay and VansAirForce.net want-ads can be your best friends in putting together a nice tool collection.
Overhead Air/Electrical
If you decide to put in new/additional lighting (see the sidebar below), consider putting in retractable air and/or power while you’ve got the ladder out. This is so much more convenient than dragging hoses/extension cords around, especially when the hangar is full of airplanes and projects.
Notice in the photo below that there is a steel sheet between the power retract and the wood truss. Excessive power draw through a coil retracted on itself can cause significant amounts of heat. Better to stick to the manufacturer’s 10A rating, but the “firewall” is extra insurance. Also note that the compressed air is fed by copper pipe. Yes, it’s expensive, but this is the industry standard for routing compressed air. Copper pipe failure does not create dangerous shrapnel as would iron or PVC.
Overhead retractable power line and air hose reduce clutter on the floor. The air line is fitted with Cleaveland Aircraft Tool’s lightweight air hose kit, which, combined with their quick disconnects, is an awesome “leader” between the heavier 3/8-inch hose and your air tool.
iRobot
For the purposes of this article, I purchased a like-new iRobot Roomba 770 floor cleaner off Craigslist to review as a replacement for the evening sweep. A fellow pilot raved about its ability to pick up cat and dog hair in her apartment, so I wondered how it would do with sawdust and aluminum. Not bad, it turns out.
iRobot’s Roomba can be set to clean every night. It’s pretty much geared towards picking up dust, pet hair and shavings, but if you have a hard time motivating yourself to pick up a broom, a Roomba can keep things from getting out of hand.
The 650 and higher series Roombas allow daily programming, and this seems to be the secret: The Roomba scoots around in a pretty much random fashion, so the cleaning is pretty haphazard. But when programmed to clean for an hour each night, in the course of a week, it seems to pretty much scour every corner of my 1800-square-foot shop. That said, Roomba picks up dust and shavings, not oil spills and 2×4 cutoffs, so serious cleaning is still up to you. Overall, I’m very happy with the Roomba, and it allows me to go significantly longer between sweeping up than otherwise.
Note that for large areas (like a hangar), Roomba may give an error message, so make sure you get one with a virtual wall lighthouse, which tricks Roomba into thinking the room is smaller than it is. After a few weeks, my Roomba seemed to have “learned” the layout of the hangar (or the human learned where to put the lighthouses) and it makes it back to its charging base 90% of the time.
MIG Welder/Steel Worktables
If you read my previous article, “So You Want to Get Paid to Build?” [Kitplanes, September 2015], you’ll remember that Bob Kuykendall of the HP-24 Sailplane Project recommended a single tool for any serious shop: a MIG welder. You can pick up a decent used welder for $300-500 on Craigslist, although in keeping with the top-of-the-line tools mantra, if you can get your hands on a used Miller 211 (about $700-900), you’ll never have any problems unloading it for what you paid if welding turns out to not be your thing. They are a pretty hot item.
Building a steel worktable is an easy way to learn MIG welding.
A great way to learn how to use a MIG welder is to fabricate some steel worktables. The table pictured took about eight hours and $200 to build. Use at least 3-inch wheels to make it easy to roll around, and make sure the bottom shelf is high enough for your broom (or Roomba!) to get underneath. For small tables, 1-inch square 16-gauge (1/16 inch) steel should be adequate; 1.5-inch square should work up to 4×8, and larger than that I’d recommend 2-inch tubing. Make sure you leave a couple inches of overhang so that you can clamp stuff to the table. You can make the tabletop and shelves from MDF or plywood; attach with construction adhesive.
Tool Storage
How about taking your plastic storage containers to the next level? “The last time our sponsor and friend, Andy Chiavetta of Aerochia, was in town I was finally able to get some pictures of his awesome portable toolbox,” says Elliot Seguin of F1 Team Wasabi. “Like Andy, I have been using the Plano StowAway tackle boxes for years. What impressed me about Andy’s rig is he was not only using the boxes, but the associated organizer rack also built by Plano. I was surprised how well the organizer rack fit in my old Craftsman two-shelf side chest. This seemed like something worth passing on.”
Below Andy Chiavetta’s toolbox are Plano organizer racks that hold the Plano StowAway storage boxes. (Photo: Elliot Seguin)
On the topic of tool storage, this is one area where I would not buy Snap-on class goods—you are talking mega-bucks but without the same resale profile as hand tools. Harbor Freight to the rescue! Yes, much of their stuff isn’t top drawer, but their U.S. General tool chests are actually considered by many to be a great deal (check out the many in-depth reviews at www.garagejournal.com).
Hopefully this article has given you some ideas about how to upgrade your shop. If you have your own brilliant idea for a shop upgrade, please send us a picture and a short description and we’ll consider using it as a shop tip in an upcoming issue of KITPLANES.
Lighting Done Right—An Interview with Jon Friedmann
Within the theme of shop upgrades, lighting deserves special attention. It’s one of the most important elements of good shop design: it enables quality work (much airplane fabrication requires close visual inspection), enables work at night and in winter when people most often have time to build, and strongly affects the “feel” of a shop.
Jon Friedmann is a graduate of Oregon State University with a bachelor’s degree in industrial education. His early career began as an electronics technician for a lighting controls company. He joined H.L. Stearns, Inc., a lighting manufacturers’ representative, in 1987 and has spent the last 25 years of his 30-year career applying and selling lighting solutions to engineers, architects, and contractors in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Jon has flown the RV-1, built and flown an RV-6, and is restoring a B cker Jungmann. A frequent contributor to the RV builders’ forum, VansAirForce.net, Jon was a natural choice to interview about lighting an aircraft workshop.
KP: Let’s start with the basics. What is good lighting?
JF: Well-lit shops provide even illumination throughout the space, avoiding dark areas or corners since contrast contributes to eye fatigue. Good lighting minimizes glare, provides good color rendering, provides appropriate lumens on task (typically measured in foot-candles, with watts per square foot being a rough proxy) and, of course, we aim for a system that minimizes the combination of installation and running costs.
KP: There is a huge variety of lighting options available. What are the pros and cons of the various types?
JF: Actually, there are really only a couple of viable options today: high-performance fluorescent and LED. Older technologies, such as HID (high-pressure sodium and metal halide), compact fluorescent (CFL), and T12, suffer from poor color rendering or related inefficiencies. High-performance fluorescent—T8 and T5HO systems—are my go-to sources. LED is excellent and getting better every day, but the cost vs. benefit isn’t quite there yet for shops and hangars as they typically are not using the lights long enough every day to justify the higher purchase cost associated with higher efficiency.
KP: How do glare, fixture height, reflectors, and wall colors affect lighting?
JF: All of these things are interrelated. Glare is a huge factor in lighting design. T8 (8/8-inch [i.e., 1-inch] tube diameter) with a lumen output in the 2350 range, depending on the system, is less of a concern than a T5HO (5/8-inch tube diameter) at 5000 lumens. The brightness of a T5HO bulb itself is considerably higher than a T8, so I reserve this source for higher ceilings; I start considering T5HO sources for 14-foot mounting heights or above.
You can, of course, still get similar lumens even at these heights with T8 lamps; you just have to use more of them. T8 lamps are easier to get a hold of and less expensive per bulb, so that is what I prefer unless we are in the 20+ feet mounting heights where T5HO starts to become a better choice than T8.
LED is very susceptible to glare introduction in the fixture. The beauty of LED is it is a very, very, small directional-point source. This allows us to design products that can take advantage of this precision and the efficiency that is gained there. In contrast, fluorescent tubes are not very directional.
Reflectors are helpful when you have an open ceiling, exposed beams, or trusses. Simple white reflectors are preferred over mirrored reflectors as they are almost as efficient and much better at controlling glare. White paint is typically a very good reflector for all surfaces—wall, floor, and ceiling. Texture can come into play, but gloss isn’t the best choice. Satin or matte will diffuse the light, reducing the chance of glare.
The darker the colors, the less effective the lighting system will be. If you have a finished ceiling, a painted white ceiling is one of the best reflectors you can have.
Age can be a factor and should be mentioned. The older we are, the less elastic our eyes are in their ability to deal with glare. It is also more difficult to see in lower light levels in general.
KP: So what are your recommendations for actual foot-candles per square foot?
JF: The quality of a lighting system is not measured only by raw lumens on the task. It is a combination of things including glare control, color rendering, and illumination level. We used to design school classrooms for 100 foot-candles. Today, with improvements in CRI, good glare control in the fixtures, and improved efficiencies (byproducts of technological advancements), we are lighting classrooms at 30 foot-candles.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is overlighting. If 50 foot-candles is good, 100 foot-candles must be better, and why stop there? goes the thinking. Not only is this wasteful, you can start to introduce unnecessary contrast and glare. Our eyes are amazing. We can navigate a parking lot at night with 1 foot-candle, yet function just fine out in the daylight of 7000 foot-candles.
That said, a typical layout we would do for a hangar/shop would start with an open floor plan. Most people do not know where furniture, shelving, equipment, etc. will be located, or they may move it around. I design for 50 foot-candles maintained average throughout the space. This is an acceptable level of illumination for general shop work. In areas that may require more, like rotating shop equipment, or for fine assembly, we recommend supplemental lighting in these areas—100 foot-candles is adequate.
Color rendering is a huge factor. With the exception of HID sources, which are woefully poor, most of the fluorescent low-tech phosphor products are being legislated out of existence. Soon, you will not be able to buy lamps that do not have good color rendering. CRI, Color Rendering Index, is how this is measured at the source. Ceramic metal halide (new HID) and older fluorescents typically range in the 60-70 CRI range; 80 CRI or so is the new standard. HID, T12, and many CFLs, will not meet this.
One last comment: One of the biggest mistakes I regularly see is people using screw-in sources of any kind, typically CFL or LED. Screw-in, self-ballasted products are shortcuts to a good overall lighting system and you will suffer for it.
KP: That leads into my next question: What is your opinion of fluorescent tube form factor LEDs (i.e., LED tube lights)?
JF: LED tubes are getting a lot of interest, but they are a bad idea as far as I am concerned. The LED tubes are gaining popularity because they are relatively cheap and easy to put into existing older fluorescent-type fixtures. I think their life statements are dubious. Since they are being put into a fixture designed for fluorescent, you gain little except energy savings. The lumen output is similar to fluorescent or a bit less, and life is similar, depending on the tubes. You will need to check the CRI (color rendering index) of the LED tubes to make sure they are decent, i.e., above 80, if you want to go that path. In addition, you need to consider whether the lumens you are using in your layout are “delivered” or “raw.” They need to be delivered, i.e., tested in the fixture you will be using, or your calculations are meaningless.
So I just don’t see the value in the tubes unless it is a retrofit of an older lighting system, and your only goal is to save energy, not to improve anything else. It is only a matter of time before technology makes tube LEDs obsolete. It is a shortcut with little value in my opinion.
That said, if you are set on going with LED, I would research fixtures designed specifically for LED. You will want to ensure it has good shielding, like a lens, to diffuse the brightness of the LED array. As I mentioned, make sure you are getting good CRI. The manufacturers like higher Kelvin temps because the LEDs are more efficient there. My preference is 3500K—excellent color and color rendering. 4000K is just too blue for my taste, 5000K even more so. I like the Acuity LB LED. These are simple wraps, nothing new about them, other than the LED arrays.
KP: Any comment on safety issues?
JF: While code exists for commercial hangar spaces, nothing exists for residential. The biggest safety concern is fire. We light a lot of hangars/shops with simple open strips mounted to the finished ceiling. Stupid simple, cheap, and very effective. However, the lamps are open to potential breakage. Every light source has some kind of heat associated with it. If you break a lamp, you will get a spark. Lenses covering the lamps offer some protection, however, they also tend to gather bugs, dirt, and are less efficient as a result. I like to see a lens on lower ceilings that might be subject to catching an errant broom handle, step ladder, etc.
KP: There is a free online software package called Visual Interior Tool. Have you used it, and if so, what did you think? Is it worth the effort, or can people do just as well with a calculator and a rough sketch on a piece of paper?
JF: Visual is actually considerably easier than trying to manually calculate things. It is an excellent tool. We used a “Pro” version of the software. One caveat: I see a lot of people misapplying the Visual tool by using unrealistic reflectance; 70/30/10 [ceiling/wall/floor] is our default. This allows for some furnishings, dirt accumulation on surfaces, etc.
Visual Interior Tool allows you to specify a lighting system (i.e., make and model of light) and room dimensions/reflectance. Visual then calculates the number of lights you’ll need to achieve your desired foot-candles at the work surface.
