Barncave Shipyard by mbp521 - Scale 1:1

[mbp521]

I wanted to share a project that I have been anxious to get started on for a few years now. When we built our house back in 2019, the Admiral was gracious enough to let me use one of the spare bedrooms as a shipyard in a temporary basis. Well, temporary has turned into a four year homestead. Back when I had first planned an out of the way place to move into, my initial thought was to purchase an unfinished out building and then finish it out the way I wanted. Well, not sure if you have priced any of these new out buildings, but they are ridiculously high, at least around here they are. A nice 20'x12' unfinished wood framed storage shed will set you back about $10K to 15K. Way to rich for my blood. I even looked at used ones, which are cheaper, until I pay someone to move it for me. So I decided to utilize a 12'x20' back corner of our barn. This was agreed upon with the Admiral and so plans were finalized and materials were priced and budgeted. Unfortunately, right after the pricing was done, we had a freak storm roll through and dumped 8" of rain on us in 5 hours. This caused the creek that runs through our property to flood and wash all the leaves, branches and other debris up against the fences and rip them all out of the ground. Well, the shipyard funding had to be used to replace about 400' of fencing, posts and toprails. Then Covid hit and lumber prices skyrockets and again the shipyard was put on hold. Well since that time I have finished up an a couple of builds and found myself complacent in my temporary(permanent) home. But now with lumber prices finally back down to a somewhat manageable cost and being inspired by other land based projects, one in particular @Cathead Outdoor kitchen build has got me chomping at the bit to get off my backside and get this done. So I have put my Caroline N project on a temporary hold while I spend time out in the barn, before the Texas heat kicks in, realizing my plans for permanent shipyard. 

 

So without further ado, here we go.

 

This is the planned corner of the barn where the shipyard will be.

 

Plans that I drew up back during the initial planning stage.

 

Day 1, the materials have arrived. Of course it rained the day before delivery, making things nice and muddy for the delivery driver. The forklift managed to dig some nice ruts in the ground, but the driver was able to get everything unloaded. Now I have a side project of filling in and smoothing out all the ruts and re-growing the grass. But anyway, the materials made it so time to get started.

 

Day 2: Moving all the junk that has accumulated in the corner out and putting up the first wall. As you can see in the below picture, I was so anxious to get started I didn't take the time to get everything out of the way yet.

 

Day three: I bribed my sons and son in law with beer and food to come give me a hand getting the walls up. Cheap labor but very helpful.

Still on day three, more of the wall frames going up.

 

 

Day four:

With my labor team exhausted, it was up to me to trudge on. Now that I had the framing done, I was able to work on the outside walls of the shipyard. I figured what better way to wall in a shipyard than with shiplap.

 

 

Day five. Electrical work. Didn't have a lot of time this afternoon to do much, but was able to get most of the electrical wiring and boxes done and the recessed lighting installed.

 

Day six: Now to the real fun, fiberglass insulation. Even this picture makes me itch. So I gear up in an old flight suit, a throwback from my Air Force days of which I can't believe I can still fit in, and start hanging insulation.

 

That is as far as I have gotten for this week. More to come as I progress.

 

-Brian

 

[Keith Black]

 Nice start, Brian. Being serious when I ask, are you sure you're going to have enough lighting? What may work now you'll find inadequate in a decade or so. You can never have too much lighting. 

[mbp521]

3 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

Being serious when I ask, are you sure you're going to have enough lighting? What may work now you'll find inadequate in a decade or so. You can never have too much lighting.

Oh most definitely Keith. I will have plenty of lighting. The can lights are just for the room itself. If you notice that on the ceiling joists there are blue boxes mounted there. These are for some 4' hanging LED light bars that I currently use in my "temporary" shipyard. Plus I will also be using the LED articulating magnifying lights that are on my bench now as well as LED light strips mounted under the shelves and upper cabinets that I will be installing. With all of the lights that I have planned, I may need sunscreen and sunglasses when I turn them all on.  

 

-Brian

[Cathead]

Fantastic project! And here I am looking forward to expanding from a 2'x4' workbench to a corner of a small spare bedroom! This looks really cool and you know I respect DIY projects. Will be fun to see it come together, and I love the exterior aesthetic already.

[goatfarmer11]

Oh how exciting.  Building a shipyard from the ground up.  I'll definitely be following along for this one!

[mbp521]

30 minutes ago, Cathead said:

This looks really cool and you know I respect DIY projects.

One of the things my grandfather taught me was to never pay anyone for something you can do yourself. Words I have lived by all my life.

 

33 minutes ago, Cathead said:

Will be fun to see it come together, and I love the exterior aesthetic already.

Wait until you see what I have planned for the door.

 

- Brian

[bdgiantman2]

That looks like going to become a sweet hobby office, Brian. Nice progress so far, and best of luck once all gets set up in there.

 

Brian D

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, mbp521 said:

With all of the lights that I have planned, I may need sunscreen and sunglasses when I turn them all on.

 Welp, a new shipyard was a nice thought. With all that light and heat it's going to make a dandy seed/plant starting room. Yep, I can see it now. The Admiral will have that shipyard project redesignated come next spring. 

[mtaylor]

Going to be nice shipyard or as Keith says.... Admiral's space come spring.    Are you planning heat and A/C or did I miss that?

[Canute]

Love the space. Having owned a horse barn/stable, like Marks asks: HVAC for your man cave? Straw is pervasive and you don't need it spoiling a paint job. I imagine Northwest Texas gets a wee bit toasty come summer, like San Antone does.

[mbp521]

3 hours ago, Keith Black said:

The Admiral will have that shipyard project redesignated come next spring.

That is a strong possibility. She has already been out there a few times measuring for curtains. Thank goodness I have another two stalls on the other side of the barn.😁

 

50 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

Are you planning heat and A/C or did I miss that?

I did forget to mention that Mark. I have a 3/4 ton mini split on order for it with a 12000 btu heater. Should be more than enough to keep me (the Admiral) climate controlled. 
 

8 minutes ago, Canute said:

I imagine Northwest Texas gets a wee bit toasty come summer, like San Antone does.

It can get a tad bit warm in the summers and quite chilly in the winter. The mini split should take care of it and I am going all out on insulation too. 
 

-Brian

Edited May 10, 2023 by mbp521

[yvesvidal]

Brian,

 

You are preparing for yourself a nice workshop! Congratulations. 

However, I do not see any space for piling up and hoarding kits of all kinds.... You need more shelves for future kits !!! 

🙂

 

Yves

[mbp521]

Thank you Yves! I do have several kits stored away that I might be able to find room for. If I come up short on space, that’s always a good excuse to add on. 😁

 

-Brian

[KeithAug]

Very elaborate shed Brian. I think however you have missed the most important feature from your plans - the lost bits black hole! Also you seem to omitted the "where did I put that "xxxxxx" craft knife" desk.  I hope you haven't got so far that you can't change the design!

[mbp521]

On 5/13/2023 at 3:52 PM, KeithAug said:

Very elaborate shed Brian. I think however you have missed the most important feature from your plans - the lost bits black hole! Also you seem to omitted the "where did I put that "xxxxxx" craft knife" desk.  I hope you haven't got so far that you can't change the design!

Thank you Keith for the reminder.  One thing I did incorporate into the design was wood floors. So much easier to find dropped parts.  I have a feeling that once I move out of my current spot in the house, that the hundreds of tiny pieces that I offered up to the carpet Gods will miraculously turn up. As for the "where did I put that "xxxxxx" craft knife" desk, science has yet to develop a remedy for this, so even with the new room, I am doomed to forever be on the search for that elusive knife.  

 

-Brian

Edited May 18, 2023 by mbp521

[mbp521]

Back with more.

 

Day seven:

I finally finished up with the itchy stuff. At least for the walls. Long sleeves, long pants, goggles and a mask was still not able to keep those tiny fibers of glass from making me itch. Maybe it was just a mental thing, but I'm glad to be done with that part.

 

Day 8 -10:

Time for the drywall. This is a slow process when you are hanging each sheet by yourself. Took me a few days to get this done. Thankfully my sons are coming over this weekend to help with the ceiling drywall.

 

 

 

 

Once we get the ceiling completed, it will really start looking like a room. I am hoping that I can con, swindle, bribe, or guilt my boys into putting the insulation on top of the ceiling so I can avoid the itch monster again. Also, my mini-split unit should be arriving some time next week. Once I get that installed It should make for a more comfortable working environment.

 

Well that is all for now. I'll post more after this weekends progress. Time to go and get some of this mess cleaned up.

 

-Brian

[Keith Black]

 Brain, looking really swell. Are you going to do the taping and bedding yourself? 

[mbp521]

10 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

looking really swell. Are you going to do the taping and bedding yourself?

Thank you Keith. I do plan on taping and bedding myself, that's the easy part, it's the floating and feathering all the seams that is a pain. Fortunately I plan on covering the walls with wood planks so I won't have to deal with all the sanding and dust floating creates. No messy texturing either.  

 

-Brian

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, mbp521 said:

I plan on covering the walls with wood planks

 If you run the planks horizontal you can make shelf space for all those tiny bits that take flight. 

Edited May 18, 2023 by Keith Black

[NavyShooter]

Very nice design.  I wish to see more details of your reloading bench though...I have a modular design for mine, with a metal bench, and a wooden work surface (no sparky!) and I have my presses setup on 3/4" ply bases that have a standard bolt pattern so I can swap my Dillon 550 and my RCBS out whenever I need to go from speed of production to precision of production.

 

🙂

 

I know you've mentioned HVAC, but I'll highly suggest adding a spot for a dehumidifier as well.  Humidity is a killer - both for wooden models (if that's your preference) but also for powders.

 

When building your powder storage box, I recommend a fully wood construction, with brass fittings (again, no sparky!) 

 

(Said by the guy who used to instruct the reloading course at the local club)

 

NS

[mbp521]

1 hour ago, NavyShooter said:

Very nice design.  I wish to see more details of your reloading bench though...I have a modular design for mine, with a metal bench, and a wooden work surface (no sparky!) and I have my presses setup on 3/4" ply bases that have a standard bolt pattern so I can swap my Dillon 550 and my RCBS out whenever I need to go from speed of production to precision of production.

 

🙂

 

I know you've mentioned HVAC, but I'll highly suggest adding a spot for a dehumidifier as well.  Humidity is a killer - both for wooden models (if that's your preference) but also for powders.

 

When building your powder storage box, I recommend a fully wood construction, with brass fittings (again, no sparky!) 

Thank you Brad for the useful information. I definitely try to avoid the sparky as much as possible! At the moment I don't have any good pictures of my reloading setup, and to be honest, with all the construction I have going on I am ashamed as to how much disarray everything is in. So much so that I really don't know if I could take a decent picture of it right now. However, it can be seen in my first post of this log in the fifth picture. It is the brown bench that has the blue tarp on the front of it.

 

The bench is currently mobile and is where I do most of my reloading, but it will become a permanent fixture once the shipyard is complete. Basically meaning that I will be taking the wheels off of it . I also plan to remove the tarp and build doors on it (because why not, it's not like it's already heavy enough). The bench itself is 7.5' long 36" high and 24" deep, made from 2x4's & 3/4"plwood, with a Formica top and it is a beast. I bought it from a guy here locally off Marketplace for $50. It took three of us to load it in my truck, but I just couldn't pass it up. I currently use a Hornady AP setup, that I absolutely love, for my everyday plinking rounds (.45 acp, 9mm, .556, 300 AAC). Before I was using a Dillon 650 setup, but I was constantly having issues with it (I bough it used) so I swapped to the Hornady a few years ago and I have been going with it ever since. For my precision rounds (6.5 CM, 7mm mag & .308) I use an old Lyman Turret press that I have setup to function as a single stage and just rotate the head to whatever caliber I am reloading at the time. All of my precision rounds are primed and loaded by hand and the powder measured with an RCBS Charge Master dispenser.

 

I do have a plywood cabinet that I store all my powder and primers in. It may make it to the new room and it may not. I am still hashing out those details as I go. Since the humidity doesn't get that bad here in North Texas I do believe that my mini-split will do the job needed to keep everything in good shape, but I will keep a close eye on it just in case. Especially since I will also have several of my previous wooden builds in the room along with the reloading supplies. 

 

Stay tuned, hopefully I can get some of my mess cleaned up enough to where I can take a picture of my setup and get it posted.

 

-Brian

[goatfarmer11]

You're making good progress Brian.  Hopefully you will beat that Texas summer heat.

[yvesvidal]

You should hire a couple of Mud specialists (usually from Mexican descent) to finish your drywalls. They are experts with the mud and will finish everything in less than a day. Then you can paint and seal all this dust and fibers.

 

Yves

[NavyShooter]

I love my Chargemaster!

Great work, and I look forward to your continued updates!

[mbp521]

Time for another update.

 

Day 11:

With the extremely appreciative help from my boys we were able to get all of the ceiling drywall put up. It took the better part of the day, but it is done. I was even able to talk them into putting up the ceiling insulation as well. I guess I raised them right.

 

Day 12:

Back to working solo. Today was taping and bedding. Another slow process. I tried as best as possible to minimize the amount of seams in the drywall, but there was still al lot to contend with. I have a few more seams on the ceiling to finish up with, the overhead work sure takes it's toll on the shoulders and neck.

 

 

Day 13:

As I was typing this, the delivery truck showed up with my mini-split unit. Just in time, the days are really starting to warm up.

 

Looking forward to this nice long weekend coming up to finish the taping and getting the AC installed. I might even be able to start detailing the walls. Thanks for stopping by.

 

-Brian

 

[Keith Black]

 Very nice, it's looking great. 

[leclaire]

Brian,

 

At the risk of exposing my ignorance, what is a mini-split unit? Obviously it has something to do with air conditioning and seeing two boxes suggests the split reference. How does this work in your case with one room to cool.

 

Bob

[mbp521]

23 hours ago, leclaire said:

what is a mini-split unit?

Hey Bob, a mini-split is basically a scaled down version of a home heat pump unit. There is an outdoor condenser with the cooling/heating unit inside the room. The two units are connected by copper tubing and control wires. This particular unit is a 1 ton designed to climate control about 550sq ft.  More than enough to keep my little 240sq ft comfortable. It is also a lot more energy efficient than a standard window unit. Nice part about it is it has a feature where I can control it from my cell phone so I can warm it up or cool it down before leaving the house. 😁 Gotta love that modern technology. 

-Brian

[Roger Pellett]

Probably my ignorance of building codes but if you’re going to put up wood sheathing, why do have to mud and tape it?

 

Roger

[mbp521]

3 minutes ago, Roger Pellett said:

Probably my ignorance of building codes but if you’re going to put up wood sheathing, why do have to mud and tape it?

Roger, since we live in the country and this room is out in our barn, I wanted to make sure that I could keep out as much of the creepy-crawly critters as I could. The wood sheathing has some gaps in it, so they can get in through there, but the taping and mudding should help seal some of it off. I also spray foamed some of the bigger gaps and caulked under the toe boards as an extra precaution to help protect the exterior walls. It may be a little extreme, but I wanted to do it right. 
 

-Brian