Scalemodelmedic's Field Hospital - aka my new mancave!

[Scalemodelmedic]

So at the back end of last year my modelling came to an end as me and the wife (who was heavily pregnant at the time) upped sticks from rented accomodation and bough ourselves a house.

One of the key features I was looking for was a garage I could convert to a proper modelling studio, and this one fitted the bill. In this thread I'll be dumping the progress so far.

The garage after moving in




First things first - I was never going to either need or want the whole garage for a studio - it's too big which would make it hard to heat, plus there's no way the mrs would be without a place to dump her seemingly endless piles of stuff... so I divided it in half with a stud wall.



The partition wall was insulated and sheathed with 12mm ply plus bolted to the metal truss. This also helped provide some extra support as I would be adding considerably to the load on the roof by introducing a suspended ceiling.



I battened off the existing plywood and insulated the external walls also.



Treated battens were plugged and screwed into the concrete floor and 22mm moisture resistant t&g decking screwed down.



I boxed in around the electrics but also included the top of the door as there was some wiring and a vibration sensor for the alarm. The previous owner was security conscious and I appreciated his efforts! This was all locked away under CLS timber and plasterboard.



I constructed a framework on the ceiling of joists and noggings to support plasterboard. The vaulted edges were due to some protruding metal from when I altered the trusses to gain ceiling height (big job!)





Here you can see the boarding nearly finished and the LED Downlights in place. The orange timber is TR26 grade safety handrail offcuts. I scrounged whatever I could from the skips at work to both keep costs down and also prevent needless waste.



A similar view after filling/sanding and paint. The walls and ceilings were covered with lining paper. Edges were caulked.





A workbench was constructed, MDF was used as the top so I could change it in future if it got battered over time. I ran a guided trimmer across the front in my router which flushed everything up ready to take some solid oak fascia on the front.



And last night I propped these pieces of oak veneer MDF up the wall to see how they'd look - I am quite happy with it !



Still got a bit to do but I hope to be modelling again real soon!!!

[1001kjk]

Love it

[Twokidsnosleep]

What a great job of construction, my hat is off to you sir for doing this yourself
Oh Man, you are full on into it!

Really like the desk with the oak behind it, maybe some paint storage shelving for above
Really interested to see what is next so will follow along and add witty repartee as necessary

[chief5437]

Great place you've got there! Looking forward to seeing the first video from the new cave

[Scalemodelmedic]

okay so more progress

from outside you can get a better sense of the size. It's a big project but I wanted a big bench, I've worked on a small bench for long enough.

Here you can see the left hand lower shelf. This is for my power tools and other large items




On the right hand side of the bench I've installed the upright and bottom rail for the right hand "cupboard". This will house my compressor and keep it out of the way. I use a pretty massive Clarke compressor with a big tank, it takes up space and makes a lot of noise hence it's got its own house under the bench. I am planning on changing to a tabletop compressor some day, but the Clark was a birthday present from my now deceased father so I am reluctant to stop using it for sentimental reasons regardless of its impracticality.

Those with a keen eye might note that the two side areas under the bench aren't symmetrical in size. This is because I use a pretty big camera and as such it needs a much bigger tripod than normal. I need some space to my right to let the tripod get its legs under the bench too!



Here's another view of the left side, you can see battens against the walls. These provide a service void for a bit of wiring. There will be sockets on the wall and whilst I don't mind conduit here and there I don't want it in shot really when I'm filming



and here's a test run of how I want that wall to look. The top shelf provides some extra storage as well as capping off the bench nicely. The shelf will be constructed from 22mm thick solid oak (stair treads to be precise) but because theyre in approx 900mm lengths I'll need to make some nice brackets to provide support at the joins.

The lower portion of the back wall will be lined with the oak veneer MDF and will also house the paint shelves. these will be simple strips of oak again about 50mm deep and provide the now "industry standard" array of paint bottles which we all love to see in videos.




As well as all this, I'm thinking about leaving the back wall empty right in front of where I work so I can put a Scalemodelmedic cross on the wall, but it will again be oak stained darker than the surrounding oak just to make it look nice. Not sure if this will come off but I can only try!


Really looking forward to doing some modelling but I can't rush!! Once the modelling starts I can't risk kicking out tons of dust doing DIY !

[FatFingaz]

That is looking superb, a lot of work gone into that which makes you appreciate it that much more.
Jas

[Paul]

Looking great Jon, cant wait to see it all finished

[Twokidsnosleep]

Keep going, it is looking great
What kind of room dimension are we looking at here ???

[Scalemodelmedic]

The room is 2.8m x 3.6m. Didn't get to work on it this weekend unfortunately...instead my son got invited to a kids part and attended most of the day. Yay.

[Coen]

Looks excellent Jon! Holy crow! The hard work is certainly paying off.

[Scalemodelmedic]

So it's been a busy period... but in amongst everything else, I got the garage sorted to the point where I can use it now!

I still need to sort out some extraction. I boarded over my vent point without marking it (MORON ) but can roughly figure it out with pictures... but truthfully I hadn't thought this far in front as to what I will be venting (i.e a booth or whatever) or where it will be... so watch this space I guess.

Anyway - progress:

Behind the work bench I added a series of timber noggings to support the paint shelves.



The oak cladding was pinned up and the electrics fitted. What a short sentence to sum up weeks of waiting, hours of wiring etc. It was a long delay waiting for my mate to sort but he's a busy man and like me has a young baby to look after. Here the backboxes are in position.



The sockets are in. Two doubles on the front of the bench - both brushed steel and one has USB ports so I can charge tablet/phone. These were pretty expensive. Naturally I need more power than this for my permanent lights etc, so I had three sockets put in under the bench using cheapo plastic hardware because you can't see it. This powers two desk lamps and my compressor!



The laminate flooring went down in a morning, real cheap from Ikea. The room instantly changed once it was down.



Behind the bench I modified some of my old bookshelves by chopping them down (they were too high) and using old MDF stair treads in between to make more shelving. This is for books and nice things. I have galvanised shelves for boxes of crap (which I have tons of since the move).



After a lot of cleaning and moving stuff round I got to this stage.... bench lamps were fitted into noggins with holes drilled so they sit flush. their power leads were snipped and re-joined through smaller holes in the bench so theyre very neat. The paint shelves themselves are 40mm wide strips of 28mm thick solid Oak. I was going to use brackets or flush mounts or whatever but I was so tired of waiting I just screwed through into the noggings...I at least aligned the screws. I just need to add the beading now (to cover the rough edges of the laminate)



And here we go - back to filming!! a LOOOOOOONNNNG and arduous journey but I learned a ton about DIY (remember I'm an office boy with no trade experience) and actually really enjoyed this project. To sit in there and just look around thinking "I did this" is really cool





thanks for looking!

Jon

[Joker56]

Nice one fella , don't forget the combination lock so the boss cannot disturb you once your inside
Sweet space well done

[Twokidsnosleep]

Awesome stuff, you should be proud of building that

[1001kjk]

Great stuff thanks for sharing

[Avgas]

Great DIY job there. Are you going to weather it?

[Joesdad]

You've done a pretty good job for an "office boy" there Jon
It can't be long then for a new vid......

[Tiger131]

Looking real nice And look forward to seeing some more of your builds in that quality place