1938 Cadillac: A big hole

I managed to cut about 3/4 of the required opening in the ceiling yesterday.  I realized that I already have a hole big enough to feed the conduit through for the width of the garage. That means that I only have to open half the length to finish it. If I can get another hour or so to finish the cuts, drill the holes and run the cable, I should be up and running. I would say that I would have it working by the end of the weekend, but I can't readily drill holes right below my sleeping baby, so I have to find some time to do it when she is awake. Maybe I can convince my smart, wonderful, attractive and loving wife to give me an insignificant amount garage time. :)

1938 Cadillac: I really want to work!

I was able to get a small bit of time this past weekend to try to wire up my compressor. When we first moved in, I thought the drywalled garage was a feature. Now, I can't stand it! For starters, it would have taken me 15 minutes to run a 220 V line in my garage for the oven and compressor. Now, instead, I am trying to figure out a clean and safe way of running it behind the drywall. First though was to run it in conduit on top of the drywall. I changed my mind because I would have to punch a hole in the wall to mate up to the breaker box anyway. Next, I decided to run the conduit inside the wall with a few small access holes. The problem here is that the ceiling is dropped with 2"x3" lumber which line up with the cross blocking. The only way I could manage that is to drill through every cross piece. That, in turn, would require access holes every 16". In other words, I would have to make a very large hole in the ceiling. If I'm going to do that, it isn't even worth using conduit.

At this point, I am thinking I will cut a hole in the drywall over the entire run and just install it without conduit. What that means is that I have to find my keyhole saw (unlikely), or buy a new one. I had been using a very flexible shark saw which makes nice clean cuts that arc and snake as the saw bends. That would be a fun patch to explain to people.

In any case, I now am planning to cut a hole from midway up my wall where the outlet will be mounted, up to the ceiling, 25 feet across the garage, 12 feet down the side of the garage, 3 feet around the corned and down into the 2 foot wide cavity I already opened up above the breaker box. If I'm lucky I will get most/all the pieces out intact so I can patch the holes. If I'm not lucky, I will have to buy new drywall, cut patch panels and fit them in. I suppose I could also take care of the section under the master bath that was missing due to a leak from the cracked shower base that the previous owners ignored while I am at it.

So, now that I have vented, I have to summarize. I really want to work on the car. I am eager to try out the compressor, blaster, and powder coating equipment. I could actually make real progress on the car even if I only get small amounts of time because the tools would quickly do the work that I do slowly. Also, I would have the ability to refinish something that I can only clean at this point.