Greg G

What a day ! I was up early in anticipation of the concrete guys arriving at the shop at 8 am. Turns out we all delayed another hour to get up above freezing as far as the windchill goes. I havn't seen 6 people work together so well in a long time. Two working together here and there, jumping over strings, measuring tapes and tools. Working were Greg, Ken, Andy and the the 3 people from the concrete company, Jeff, Bruce (one of our old employees) and Chris. I'm guessing we got in around 22 or 24 man hours. Comunication was good especially since everyone was born in the US and speaks fluent English. Nobody got hit in the head with a board, hammer etc so it made for a good day.
There was a lot of finish digging, form building, material moving. We had to adjust the location of the site 6 inches so most of the forms had to be redone. Ken and I built the 2 foot tall by 22 foot long retaining wall/footing form. It's much like building a crate except you have to think inside out and upside down while holding you mouth just right.
Tomorrow a small load of gravel will be here early and that should be enough to finish out the site so that we don't use more concrete than we really need. With all that is left to do it looks like it will be Monday before we can actually pour the concrete.
It will be nice having a designated place to paint. No more borrowing or renting paint booths etc. This will get our total square footage up to around 5000 square feet. Some of it buildings, a couple of mobile homes turned storage and a shipping container.
More pics next week after the concrete is poured.

virginiavenom

saweeet.

cool beans.

what all do you guys do? just curious.

Mberglo

Cool. Now I have a paint booth I can borrow!

Greg G

Late yesterday we decided that we would go ahead and order some more gravel so that we weren't trying to get it at the last moment. I called the county shed in my district and found out that no one had ordered any yet for Friday. Their little truck loads are a pretty good deal. Not quite as good as buying a 27 Ton load for $300- but for a 10 to 11 ton load of washed #74 is not a bad deal to me for $125-. They arrived at the shop promptly at 8 am, dumped and took off as quick as we could pay them. If you need a load for a little project call the county shed in your district.
More later.

Greg G

We moved about 30 + wheelbarrow loads of gravel on to the site. We are trying to keep the gravel "grade" to 4 inches below the concrete floor. 4 inches thick is standard for car parking and driveways for cars. There will be plastic and reinforcement wire going on next.
More later

HOSS429

i may cruise by monday and watch the concrete dry ... i aint affraid of work ... i can stand and watch people do it all day

Greg G

oops

Greg G

The concrete guys were ready to get at it this morning.

starting the pour "Come on back"

pouring around one of the anchor bolt sets for one of the post

moving rhe concrete around

view from the west near the first shop building used for welding and metalwork etc.

view from the driveway

Greg G

As with any construction project the single item that falls into a gray area is concrete. You can prepare fo it, pour it and hope for the best. The pour went well but today when I did the "water test" I got to see what the results really are. It is apparent that we have an area that puddles up quite a bit. You can theorize as to what went wrong but soon have to come up with a solution. I'm hoping to grind an area of concrete near the drain basket down a little so it will drain properly. Remember, we'll be painting in here and don't want water splashing up on the car as you walk by sideways.
.
The puddle is right about where the left quarter panel would be when the car is pulled in.

another view

Yesterday as I was "watching concrete dry" I had a few minutes to put the "paint booth project" into perspective. This should probably be called "the finish bodywork paint booth building project".
The building when finished will occupy an area 40.5 wide by 33 deep which makes the square footage 1336.5. That's about the size of a small house. Not only is there site prep work, gravel, forms, and concrete involved but there are water lines, floor drains, sanitary sewer pipes, electrical conduits etc to deal with. One electrical issue is that the current 100 Amp service is behind the paint booth that will eventually be the side access corridor. We were needing to upgrade to 200 Amp service anyway and it will be underground entirely.

It will be several days before we can get back on this "project". Next segment will be the 40.5 foot long retaining wall/footing adjacent to the neighbor's property. That should be fun pouring a 10 yard truckload into a tall, skinny form.
More later on that segment and the electrical "upgrade".

Greg G

One of our objectives was to make the paint booth wide enough to park two Mustangs in the paint area when dry storage was needed due to bad weather and/or when we were closed and a Mustang had to be inside. It's only 16 feet wide but if you back the first one into the left side and pull the second one into the right side there is plenty of clearance between the right side of the 9 foot door frame and the front of the first Mustang backed in. It worked !

virginiavenom

looks good bro. I'm gonna have to make a trip out to check it out man.

looks nice.

Greg G

Thanks.
We'll be having a "Saturday Open House" later in the year. We'll have the grill going and be giving away COKES and other "sodas". That will be after we finish several jobs that we are currently on and get the "Paint & Finish" Building up.
Date to be announced later...

virginiavenom

good deal I'll be there if possible. just let me know.

Grabber Pony

sweet greg!! Im still waiting on my garage lol Where at in north alabama are ya anyways?

Greg G

Gullatts Mustangs
Vintage Mustang Restoration
Parts Sales $ General Service

Greg G

Map to Gullatts Mustangs
We will be having an open house later in the year

Greg G

The progress off the paint booth or might as well call it "Body Shop Building" is a little slow at the moment. There are always Cutomer cars to work on so it doesn't leave much time for anything else. We did bolt one of the post down to see roughly how tall the building is. Here is a picture. It is kind of hard to see the post standing up. It was real overcast when I took the pic.

As with all projects here they always seem to grow and this one is no exception. The building started out as a 24 x 40.5 (972 sq ft) "kit" which would hold 3 cars comfortably. We are adding 9 feet at the back which will make it 33 x 40.5 (1336.5 sq ft) 3 cars + 2 in storage against the back wall. Well while we are at it let's go ahead and add 20 ft to the middle 33 x 60.5=1996.5 sq ft. Almost 2000 sq ft. It will hold 7 working on and 8 maybe 9 "crammed in" storage. Something is telling me it may get bigger before the project is finished.
It will probably be a couple of weeks before the work on it starts up again. Talladega this weekend and the RCMC Show 5-12 will consume 2 weekends.
More later.....

shadow04GT

You should coordinate something with the club. Make some kind of event out of it. Nothing like a bunch of nice mustangs out front to draw attention to the place.

Greg G

Yeah ! One idea that comes to mind is a poker run or other driving event that ends here at our shop. Of course the food would be ready when ya'll get here.
Maybe even pudding for desert !

Mberglo

Make a stop at Ray Bryans and Larry's too. That would make a nice daytrip.