Ideas for a Dedicated Construction Space?

Having received the blessing of my amazing half, I plan to start on a CH750 Cruzer this fall. I have a 15' x 30' space inside my shop building that would be relatively simple to enclose, and given the flexibility of a nearly clean-sheet design, I wanted to see if anyone has any suggestions for "must have" and "would be really great" things to include in a (almost) dedicated airplane building space.

Plenty of power in the building, so I plan an outlet every 24" around the perimeter.

My eyes aren't getting any younger, so will plan on overhead fluorescent lights. Any lighting issues that a novice airplane builder might not expect?

Compressed air can be plumbed in - should it hang from the ceiling, or should there be a few quick connects along the perimeter? Or both?

Also, I know that a lot of aircraft have been built in garages and living rooms with 8' ceilings, but I have the opportunity to put the ceiling at any height up to 14' or so. For several reasons (including heating/cooling costs) I'm thinking a 10' ceiling would be fine, but are there reasons to go higher?

I'm excited to get started on this lifelong dream and am open to any and all suggestions. Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Curtis Eggen on June 21, 2013 at 8:36pm

Thanks for all the pointers, Randy. Good tips. I think HF has a little rolling mechanics stool that I'll add to my shopping list. I wish there was one closer to us, but I guess that's why we have mail order.

Do you have multiple air lines, or do you just swap drills/guns on one hose as needed?

If I may flaunt my ignorance, can the rivet gun tip be modified with a standard drill bit? I figured it would have to be machined in order to produce the "rounded" rivets... or am I just over thinking this?

Great panel, by the way!

Permalink Reply by RANDY L HALLOCK on June 21, 2013 at 11:08pm

Thanks Curtis      I ran a air hose to the top of my shop, put a T and hung two 25 foot coil air hoses, the kind that springs back up when not in use. Tied them apart by 4 feet. I had to stretch up to reach them. They worked great because the spring tension helped hold the drill or rivet gun up, made them weight half as much. Believe me when you are drilling or riveting a thousand holes in the wing they get too heavy to hold up by yourself. I got a rivet gun from Zenith and found I wanted another one so I didn't have to change the tips so often. I purchased one from Harbor Freight and used a standard drill bit to round the tip to match the one from Zenith, no machining necessary. The tips were soft, they drilled very easy, It actually worked better than the one from Zenith. I don't remember what size drill bit I used to round out the rivet gun tip, I think between 3/8 and 7/16, I started smaller and worked up to the size that made the rivet just right. I also had 3 air drills to have all three bit sizes to do most of the drilling for all the riveting. There was times I used all three drills in less than a minute, Couldn't have done that with only one drill. There cheap, less than 15 dollars at Harbor Freight.

Permalink Reply by Curtis Eggen on June 22, 2013 at 8:38am

More good stuff. I guess if I screw up a tip, worst case is buy a new tip and try again. I imagine I should get used to that concept! Thanks again.

Permalink Reply by Paul on February 17, 2015 at 7:26pm

One thing I have really like having is a pneumatic cleco tool, only $80.00 at the yardstore.

http://www.yardstore.com/browse.cfm/4,4345.html

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