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Inside The Secret Underground Laboratory
- Thread starter Bruce Johnson
- Start date
The only reason the entirety of Southern California isn’t underground - as you know - the soil has a consistency like concrete. Difficult to dig in. But numbers like yours can’t be argued with. How deep is the Lab section, if I may ask?
Freekmagnet
Commercial User
Here's a picture of the neck blanks I made up today.
I know this is one of Bruce's "shop" threads, but I figured I'd post the fruit of the labors he illustrated few posts ago. There really is a little community of guys building guitars at the Secret Underground Lab. Besides Fourth of July, when fireworks are legal and every yahoo within a hundred miles drives to Fillmore to purchase and light off hundreds of dollars worth of fireworks, there is nothing else happening in this tiny town.
I know this is one of Bruce's "shop" threads, but I figured I'd post the fruit of the labors he illustrated few posts ago. There really is a little community of guys building guitars at the Secret Underground Lab. Besides Fourth of July, when fireworks are legal and every yahoo within a hundred miles drives to Fillmore to purchase and light off hundreds of dollars worth of fireworks, there is nothing else happening in this tiny town.
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That's amazing! Those physics don't work here in coastal Florida. You can only go so deep before you hit groundwater.
The basement of our building is 7 feet underground, and the ceiling height is 10 feet. So there are windows up high on the walls on both sides, which bring in a fair amount of sunlight, or we can open them for ventilation. The basement is like a giant ship's hull, made of concrete, sunken into an old sandy riverbed. It actually was a riverbed, I've heard, but we're up fairly high in relation to the rest of the town. We don't have any flooding problems. The basement stays dry without any real mold or bugs. It really is a wonderfully designed building, a high-tech place for 1914.
If someone gave me a million bucks to go build a new shop somewhere, I'd use a lot of lessons from this place. Go somewhere in a warm, dry climate. Dig a long, narrow trench in the ground, about 7 feet deep, running north-south. Build a long narrow building from concrete, maybe 15 feet wide x 10 feet tall, set into the trench. Ramps and doors on both ends. Two foot high windows down the sides, up at ground level. Make the roof slightly domed with a couple of vertical skylights. Cover the roof with gardens. That, to me, would be the perfect structure for a home and shop. Semi-underground, with excellent natural insulation and natural lighting.
And of course, a concrete floor, large barn doors at both ends, a big rolling gantry crane, etc. And a nice diesel generator or two in a similar semi-underground pit nearby.
That would be my dream home.
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Yes that building is beautiful in it's design and rustic beauty. Built in a age of old machinery and creative cooling. I remember the first time me and the wife saw that ramp down and thought..."are we supposed to go down there, is that where the shop is?"..but once you enter it's a different world with plenty of light, comfortable temps, on top of being surrounded by old machines of a forgotten era. I look forward to my next trip...the whole town has a wonderful feel to it that we love!! So cool you found such a great place to be!!
Jeremy was working here again today, doing metalworking in my machine shop. I showed him the processes for making some of the parts for the head assembly of my truss rods, and assembling them.
Here he is on the small cutoff bandsaw, cutting the blanks for a batch of aluminum cross bars. Notice how much he's enjoying doing monotonous machine shop work. Jeremy's got potential as a Luthier.
Cutting off brass slugs in the Barker mill:
Drilling parts on the Logan lathe:
Here's the final result; a batch of nine truss rod head assemblies:
Here he is on the small cutoff bandsaw, cutting the blanks for a batch of aluminum cross bars. Notice how much he's enjoying doing monotonous machine shop work. Jeremy's got potential as a Luthier.
Cutting off brass slugs in the Barker mill:
Drilling parts on the Logan lathe:
Here's the final result; a batch of nine truss rod head assemblies:
After the discussion of the depth of the building and the high windows from the inside, I had to google map it to get a better sense. 
Sorry for the stalking nature of this haha, but they do look like little prison windows. 
I guess I was hoping for something larger, but then you'd have them letting in heat as well as light!
I gotta say too, @Freekmagnet I'm super jealous of your hair!
Edit: the image capture is from 2012, so it's pretty out of date as to the current nature of the building
Sorry for the stalking nature of this haha, but they do look like little prison windows. I guess I was hoping for something larger, but then you'd have them letting in heat as well as light! I gotta say too, @Freekmagnet I'm super jealous of your hair!
Edit: the image capture is from 2012, so it's pretty out of date as to the current nature of the building
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I don't feel bad - I'm looking at you through your office windows right now.Don't feel too bad @Beej, I looked it up once too.
I'm watching you through your computerI don't feel bad - I'm looking at you through your office windows right now.
After the discussion of the depth of the building and the high windows from the inside, I had to google map it to get a better sense.
I gotta say too, @Freekmagnet I'm super jealous of your hair!
Edit: the image capture is from 2012, so it's pretty out of date as to the current nature of the building
That's our building, and it hasn't changed much on the outside since 2012. On the north-east side of the building, the basement units are about 480 sf each, and have one of those little 18" square windows per unit. The one right under the rollup door is Unit 2. The one to the left is Unit 3 (which I'm also leasing).
On the southwest side, the basement units are larger and longer, about 900 sf each. They each have two 36" square windows per unit. My main shop, unit 14, is made up of three of those units combined together, totaling 2700 sf. I have six of those bigger windows along my wall. I get nice sunlight through them during the day, and I open them for ventilation.
Here's a picture of my shop back in October 2013, when I was just arriving to start moving in. That's other people's junk in there.
She's actually a cardboard standup figure. A cute lady from the 1940's, I don't recognize who it is. She belonged to David, our previous building owner, but he left her here when he sold the building. She's still around here somewhere.
I've got my own Jessica Rabbit standup, who keeps Banjozilla company.
It's not a problem until they start talking to you.
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Even then, as long as you don't tell anyone else they're talking, you're probably good.
This is true.
I probably should have said:
When they start arguing with you, it might be time for them to go.
I probably should have said:
When they start arguing with you, it might be time for them to go.
