my "shop"

[willy3486]

I thought some of you would like to see my "repair shop". A little background on it. When I was a teen I would go to repair shops and see the old repair guys. I always wanted to get training, work in a shop then either buy or start my own shop. By the time I got out of tech college in the mid 80s TV shops were on their way out. So I never was able to have one of my own. I did buy and collect a lot of repair info, signs and such. I always planned to have a workshop to fix stuff and have it to look like a repair shop. One of the fellows who had a shop had used a old small store building that had closed.

So like a lot of folks I got married we raised our daughter then we spent about 20 years doing for our parents,my parents and the inlaws. My mom was the last one to pass a few years ago. So after I got done with the estate I had a little inheritance. I talked about it to my wife and we decided to get a dedicated workshop for both of us to use in retirement, we planned to split it and each have half. We went to look at portable buildings and when we saw this one it was perfect. We each have a area 12x14 and a 6 foot hall between the two. So we bought it. We wired,insulated and fixed it up. So we decided to set it up like a old country store.




We set it up as best we could to look like a old store. On the front I made a screen door like the old stores had. I also put up a coke push bar, coke push and pull signs on the door and I also made a door pull out of stainless rod and painted the back plate blue like I remember them. I got in touch with someone connected to a coke collection who found new reproductions of original stuff. We also have a coke thermostat on the outside.

As you come into my area on the wall you will see a old sylvania poster for a tube. This is a original poster.




As you get into my area I have a late 50s Zenith I hope to restore in the next year or so. I also have a old TV light on top. My wife restored the lamps shade as it was rotted. Her side she does sewing. You also see a few Zenith ads that are original . I lucked up about 3 years ago and bought out a few loads of old advertising from a former furniture store. They wanted it gone and the price was right.

Here is another look in that area. You can see some radios I restored, old tv shop calendars and other advertising. The on air came from a radio station in Kentucky.



Going down that side you see more radios and other pieces I collected. I have quite a few signs. I also have a old store tube tester in the corner.



Looking above that corner you see this



Next on the back wall you will see my workbench. I always liked the look of the Alemite benches used in old auto repair places. I knew I could never be able to find one I could buy so I made one similar to work with electronics. I have some of my test boxes there so I will probably change some stuff around at some point. The radio on the bench is the chassis for the Zenith piano radio I have.



The next picture was about a month or so ago. It was before I have all the stuff on the wall. But it will give you a idea of that area.



The next photo is of the wall at the end of my side to the middle. I have a RCA cabinet here. I have a second one in the house. You can also see the "youngs merchantile" sign I made. I bought the reproduction coke buttons and made a wooden frame in the middle. I then covered it in some leftover aluminum siding roll I had. I bent the aluminum over the wooden sides. I then projected the name onto it and traced it. My wife painted it.




One of my favorite autographs is this one. Its from Carol Kaye, she is a living legend to me. If you are not familiar with her look her up.



The next picture I have a record of Dottie West. I looked for one of her records for a while. The reason is Dottie was my second cousin. Although I met a lot of her siblings I never got to meet her. The autograph to the right is of the girls next door. They had a hit in the 80s called slow boat to China. I met them before they ever recorded a song.



The next photo is down the side of my wifes shop area. She wanted ot display some radios so there is some at the top. She took over one to play.


Above
A better shot of her side there.




Above one of the shelves on her side.



I hope you like the shop. Mainly its a place I can go to,work on stuff and leave it as it is and not have to move it until I get back to it. After I retire in a few years I may fix stuff for the public but thats a long way off. I thought I would post it if anyone would be interested. If you have questions let me know. If people are interested I plan on posting a video online of a walk through, I will post the link if there is interest.

[Alex KL-1]

Excellent! Congratulations! Is very cool to sum the hobbies (ambient wise); is inspiring for my and my wife future planning: my "audiophile"/sound+electronics room, with the sewing+painting space for my wife.

[jr_tech]

Are there pictures?

jr

[willy3486]

Originally Posted by Alex KL-1

Excellent! Congratulations! Is very cool to sum the hobbies (ambient wise); is inspiring for my and my wife future planning: my "audiophile"/sound+electronics room, with the sewing+painting space for my wife.

Thanks for the reply. We can go out there and enjoy a afternoon. The good thing is if we are in the middle of something we can just leave it until we get back to it.

[jhalphen]

Hi to all,

To view Willy's shop described in the post, you have to go to his album here:

http://www.videokarma.org/album.php?albumid=738

1st pix of the album below.

@willy3486: congratulations! on making real a dream of your youth after so many years. Also hat's off to so many hundreds of hours of hard work, the shop looks really nice inside & out.

Best Regards
jhalphen
Paris/France

[willy3486]

Thanks JR Tech, Jhalphen for letting me know the pictures does not show up, when I pull up the page it shows the pictures. I edited the post and changed the pictures. Can someone post if you see them or not after I changed them?

As far as the time just the shop took over a year to finish. I insulated it with Styrofoam 12 x12 squares. I had to stack them in the wall like bricks but they wedged in good and stayed put. If I had it to do over I would have used thicker sheetrock, when I first got it the store only had thin sheetrock like mobile homes. I had a harder time finishing it than I did thicker sheetrock. We did everything ourselves. Its about 50 foot from our house so we can just walk over. I still have my old workshop that one small room I will store things like text books and sams I won't use much. The rest of that shop will be a woodworking area. Along with restoring tube items I restored a lot of old woodworking tools to use to make and repair stuff. Now if I can just get caught up to spend a lot of time out there. I plan over the next month to clean and setup the woodworking shop. Then I have a couple of woodworking projects to do. We have been going out there on Sunday afternoons and I probably will be in there a lot more this winter. I usually stay inside when it gets winter.

[jhalphen]

Hi to all,
Hi willy3486,

All photos now display correctly in your first post.
Hopefully the thread will now attract more readers & comments.

Don't know where you're located in the US, but if wet/cold in autumn/winter beware of dampness/condensation which is not good for electronics or metal tools. Maybe some form of permanent heating required in these seasons.

Best Regards
jhalphen
Paris/france

[Alex KL-1]

Strange issue here in the VK... as it seems, at first photos are not displaying for the people but me (I see all images at first). Now, for me the photos vanished, and other members can see it... so, the issue is reversed to me (maybe software/PC/network I'm using etc produces this effect?).
I'm using Firefox on W10 just now.

[jhalphen]

Hi to all,
Hi Alex,

software "strangeness"! remember that VK is running on a very old version of forum software.

Best Regards
jhalphen

[jr_tech]

Thanks! I can see the pictures now.

Beautiful work/hobby area that should provide years of enjoyment.

jr

[Electronic M]

Strangely enough I can't see any photos in this thread...

I'm starting to wish the site owners would just migrate Videokarma to the new software like they did audiokarma and give us bigger picture gallery space and fix all the problems that have been piling up that are associated with the anachronistic software and server..

[init4fun]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Strangely enough I can't see any photos in this thread...

I'm starting to wish the site owners would just migrate Videokarma to the new software like they did audiokarma and give us bigger picture gallery space and fix all the problems that have been piling up that are associated with the anachronistic software and server..

Agreed, the pictures worked fine for me yesterday when they were first posted, and with whatever change the OP has made, they no longer appear.

I will open a thread in the Moderator area at AK and ask if there are any plans to update VK

[willy3486]

I am not sure either on what is going on. Although I work on computers for a living I am a hardware tech and do little with software. What I did was to copy one of the links on the photos here and paste them into the post. Some could see it and others couldn't. Then I changed to the other link on the photo and the ones who could see it now couldn't. Its a odd issue.