The Retropower Workshop!!

Project Undertaken 6th September and completed 9th October 2010

September 2010 we decided that we would address a few niggles with our workshop. As always, trying to do things as economically as possible, so the work was carried out ourselves (with much appreciated help from a few friends... you know who you are). I thought I'd put together a quick diary of this project for all to see!

The issues we wanted to sort out, were: 1) Our office was just in a corner of the workshop and was a dusty and noisy place to work - not ideal for phone conversations or electrical goods! 2) The 2-post lift was at the rear of the workshop and accessing it or indeed most of the cars 'in-progress' involved shifting cars outside every morning. 3) The extraction on our original paint booth was not ideal 4) We needed a little more general workshop space 5) We wanted to create a slightly more professional look to our premises.

The solution we decided on was to build a bespoke paint booth into the underside of a mezzanine floor, so we could take advantage of the space above it for storage and office space.

The first step was to excavate a pit for the downdraught extraction in the new spray facility.

We managed to get hold of a used mezzanine of the correct size, but we wanted a little more height, so the legs were exteded accordingly before the framework was constructed and bolted in place.

The inside walls of the pit were constructed in concrete blocks before the mesh flooring was cut to size and fitted. The walls are Galvanised cladding, and the ceiling in flat Galv sheet. The clever part is the air intake feed. We have sealed up the cavity between floor and ceiling and made up a duct which distributes the air down between each purlin, allowing us to feed the air in from above along one side, thus keeping the floor area relatively unobstructed.

With the booth intake and extract ducting installed and the chimneys up through the roof attention was turned to the office and storage. Shelving units from the workshop were shifted up onto the mezzi, and then the Office was constructed. We were very happy with this, considering we are not experienced builders!

here you can see the improved layout of the workshop, allowing four cars to be 'in-progress' any of which can be moved without shifting another. The 2-post lift can also be accessed without moving any vehicles in storage. The paint booth as you see it here is complete except for a good clean out and floor paint.