New Day New Grow

So, I decided that I am not going to sit around and watch my business fly down the tubes and wait and see if my new book is going to be a success or not. I am a take charge guy who is down to his last $10K or so in funds, so it was time to get it in gear and make a new move.

I decided to go ahead and enter the "murky" world of dope-based commerce. You know what I am talking about; those fucking pothead kids who ride around yellin' about cheese and shit. Hey, fuck you chuck. We smoke excellent gold and none of that b.s. weed. We can't keep up with them, so we might as well profiteer off of them in a way that is consistent with the tenets of true communism and economic servitude, cuz' that's America cousin.

I spent a lot of time on a new cabinet design. I started on this design back in the summer, but money was tight and my old lady was being a douche bag about it, so I waited and spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about it, each and every piece; focusing on functionality, quality of construction and providing the user with a value that was beyond anything I have attempted before in all of my five years of growing, inventing and construction.

I took my design over to Casa DePot and bought the wood. No cheap shit for this kid. I spend real cake - almost $600 on the materials. VB Grade finish on the plywood. Full 1/2" thickness to provide insulation. Real rosewood for the exterior trim boards. This project is going to be quality through and through because it is going to spend time in my house and there isn't a piece of furniture in my house that we didn't drop serious bread on. My dinette set in the breakfast room has chairs that way over 90 pounds each. Solid monkeypod wood from Thailand. I shelled out $800 each for them 15 years ago.

This piece is going to be a faux dresser. It will be 4' wide by 2' deep by 2.5' high. It will look like a dresser that has stuck drawers. I made one once before for a friend who didn't get around so good and had/has nosy-assed neighbors who are constantly poking around his house. It had to be quiet and that one had to look like an old broken piece of furniture in the form of an end table, but you could grow an 18" plant in there that nobody could smell, hear or see.

Same principle here. There will be no noise. There will be no light leaks. There will be no smells. It will sit with antique dolls on top, even though the top will be hinged to open up. The front will pivot and drop flat, for full access. Like I said, the design took some time. This is my new mission for the holiday weekend. Build out the ultimate cabinet project and grow some serious ganja in a four-station perpetual garden that has room for 4 moms, vegging and cloning. Total wattage will be around 392 watts. Bloom will be 70 watts/SF with CFLs so we can get close, keep the heat down and still have some fun.

If it turns out the way I think it will, I will eventually film the working product and advertise it for sale here. I'm sure I'll spend about $585 on all the electronics and fans and whatnot, but we'll get there step by step.

A kid has to have a plan.

kwim, vern?

Cuts are almost done and I'll start assembling the cabinet this afternoon. I hope I did my measurements right; otherwise, I'll be supporting the local termite population.

Here's the first construction photo. This is the shell of the beast only. No trim work and no drawers. The idea is to illustrate the space and functionality.


Here I show the bottom sliders mounted so the box flip-down front doesn't dig into the carpet too deeply.

tagged, you're a very well "spoken" person, i'd be surprised if your book didn't do well

Well, i'm here for the ride! will this story have pictures, too?

ArcticBlast

Welcome to this humble thread and thank you for the kind words, or so I hope I may be allowed to take them.

Pictures? Oh, God. Not the inevitable shit with the phone cameras. I still have some shots of one of my god kids playing football on one of them that I never took off the damn phone.

I'll try, but technical shit confounds me. I've got most of the frame panels done. If someone will just hold them in place I'll get the frame finished and hang the friggin' outside walls. We could get there from here. I'll take some as soon as it looks like something other than an erector set that got dropped from an F16 going at Mach 2.

That's me, Mr. Techno-Wizard.

Okay, the basic cabinet is done now. It looks like it would be a folding table in its current state. I finished work tonight with a coat of KILZ Primer as my base interior coat of paint. Normally I do two coats of KILZ on my walls, but this would be overkill probably.

Tomorrow I will be putting on one thick coat of elastrometric roofing paint on the interior as the finish coat. I use this paint because it has better light diffusion properties than plain primer (and plain primer is great, don't get me wrong) but we are talking about a quality build out, so that means a high-quality interior paint finish that will last for years and years, taking whatever I throw at it; or so it is to be hoped.

If the paint will cure up tomorrow I will go ahead and put the trim package on the cabinet. The trim lumber (rosewood) will hide all the construction gaffs that I have made (a rather clever design feature for this new line) and give the finished case good the look of a high-end piece of furniture.

The production models will offer either:

1. no exterior finish (buyer finishes it anyway they like).
2. painted finish (lower cost than no finish, as the cost of lumber goes down).
3. Stained finish (two (2) different stain schemes).
4. Poured epoxy finish (top poured epoxy) and stained finish option (will add cost and time to cure).

I took pictures of the basic box tonight. Tomorrow I'll take a couple of the KILZ primed cabinet (to document the step for sales literature) and one of the completed interior with the elastometric paint job complete.

Once I have the trim package on I'll take those pictures and then post the whole lot of them.

The trim package will include the faux drawer fronts for the front, the trim boards for the top, bottom and sides. I also have a false post (decorative) that holds the front in place so that nobody accidentally pulls it open by tearing off the drop-down trim board that hides the sealing and sound insulation system - which is first-rate as you will see in the pictures tomorrow - that I am hoping will demonstrate the true value of this line of boxes I am developing.

The concept is simple; people who live in apartments or homes that want to grow but do not want (for whatever reason) to go with a closet grow or an outdoor grow would have these high-end pieces of furniture that can be used as either surreptitious grow boxes or home safes; their use is up to them.

The business end is a simple business plan of offering three (3) standardized unit sizes:

1. The Presidio - the box measures 48" wide by 24" deep by 36" high and has two-chambers. The mom chamber will easily support four (4) queens plus a generous area for vegging and the ventilation and power systems sub-cabinet area. The bloom chamber area will support four (4) plants with a staggered SCROG system area that features a pull-out garden box to make maintenance (feeding, etc.) a snap. I figure this one will end up with a price of around $1,500 on average, with an upside to around $2,199 for loaded finishes and lighting options.

2. The Del Monaco - the box measures 36" wide by 24" deep by 30" high. Split design ala' the Presidio, with room for three (3) queens, while the bloom chamber is designed for two (2) blooming bush-style plants at a time. This case-good will look like a lowboy or a dresser. I figure this one will end up around $1,000 with an upside of around $1,500 for loaded finishes, lighting options and other goodies.

3. The Carnahan Estate - the box measures 21" wide by 24" deep by 24" high. Single chamber box with a complete ventilation and lighting system designed for ultra stealth. This unit will look like an end table and have a flip-top access system (as do the others as you will see in the photos). Unlike the Presidio and Del Monaco, this unit will not have a fold-down front apron, but will come with an attached lamp (to explain the cord). This unit will end up around $500 and I expect it to sell the most as many people who want to grow some smoke (or protect their valuables) would be attracted to the design that is simple, relatively inexpensive and offers a high degree of functionality and quality.

That's what I'm working towards - I'll include one more model that is a more vertically-oriented cabinet with HID and LED lighting options. If it turns out to be a commercial endeavor, great. If the ultimate deal doesn't look like it will cut the mustard (or be too hard for me to sustain as a business) then it will be a pleasant diversion and the guy who ends up with the cabinet will be quite happy I'm sure.

That's where I am with this project so far.

So here are the rest of the construction photos. The first one shows another prospective of the cabinet shell. The lower swing out shelf is actually the front of the box. When the box is fully trimmed out, this will have false drawer fronts attached, trim and knobs.

The top (open in first photo) is the top of the box. It will be trimmed out with rosewood moulding around the edges (hiding the gap you see in the second photo). This is where the epoxy finish comes into play for that part of the deal. I'll pour the top using a 2-part epoxy (hot top) and put neat things in it.

The second photo shows the box with top and front closed. My intention here is to showcase the quality of the construction (such as it is) and quality of the materials that went into the construction program.


Here we are all closed up. Note the gap at the top - this is where the trim boards will go and cover this all up!

This next series shows some of the inner touches. The one photo shows how I did the joints. This cross-joint gives me a double-seal around all edges. No light leaks and no air leaks. It all works only one way.


The second photo shows the hidden piano hinge. I used a piano hinge on the front wall and on the top. This gives us a real nice box without having to rely upon the standard 4-screw hinges which always end up twisting and then nothing fits. The box also has hinge plates to hold everything open that needs to be open so that you don't have to worry about the top slamming on you when you aren't looking and we all know how that happens...


Joint detail...

Finally, we have to paint out. I made an error. Instead of doing 2 coats of KILZ and then the final coat of elastometric paint, I did one coat of KILZ (first two photos) and then I did the first coat of elastometric paint. Well, it wasn't one coat coverage, so I had to do a second coat with that super expensive paint (second two photos).


From another angle - note the spottiness of the coverage...


In production, I'll do two coats of KILZ and then a coat of elastometric and that will be the end of that.

The final coats...


And this one...


Tomorrow, I will hang the lights and things will start to get interesting.

Today's work was to design the light boxes. I would have done this months ago, but there would be the inevitable field adjustments. In the current case, I wanted to do the light box with the lights paired back-to-back and run the wires down a center wiring channel, but that ended up with a distance of 10" between lamps, so I had to ditch that idea and move on to Plan "B".

I was grateful for the opportunity to see what would work and what would not work. I intended to purchase these 60 watt lamps that are available at Home Depot that would end up reducing the total number of lamps, but...

Walmart offered an unbeatable price on the 42-watt units, so I went with those. If they turn out to give shitty performance, I can trade up to the 60 watt units and bring the total wattage up to 360 watts in the bloom chamber. That seems excessive, but we will test out the systems and see what we get.

So, I built two angle designed light panels, each one holding three (3) fixtures (note initial two construction photos below).


I then drilled out the panels to provide ease of access to the electrical wiring.


I used a drill for this that was left to me by my deceased FIL; he bought it in 1955. Still works (barely) and it gave me a laugh or two compared to the battery powered powerhouses out there today. (Editor's note: the drill previously owned by my deceased FIL has bought the farm and was enshrined in a manner that was fitting and proper, given my feelings for the man; in other words, I shitcanned it without further ado.)

The wiring is cut down extension cord wiring and it is fairly easy to work with, so there's no big mystery with the set-up. Once the wiring was checked, I took the stuff back off and did two (2) coats of KILZ and a coat of elastomeric roof paint (both being ultra-white) to give us some great reflectivity.
Here's the mounted angle boards ready to receive their respective light fixtures (simple surface-mounted closet fixtures that cost $1.79 at Casa DePot)...


Here we have two of the giant T-4 CFLs in rack to give us an idea of how they will go about concentrating light for the benefit of a certain plant.


Here we have the lights all racked up in battery and ready to go. Note the simplicity of series wiring being used to concentrate all the electrical into two (2) rack cords, instead of having to resort to six (6) rack cords to get the rack in battery and ready to fire.


Once that was done I went ahead and assembled the units back and did a test. Along the way I whipped out the DAP latex caulk and did the righteous thing on all joints. This is great caulk and is most easily applied with your fingers, so now we have ultra-tight boxes and the lights are in.

DAP and me were meant for each other...


I'll hang the combo thermometer and humidity meter to keep track of things.

More on the next installment when the ventilation arrives.

Here's the second set of photos showing the completion of the light set construction for the bloom chamber. These are 42-watt CFLs and we can see that they put out some watts, ohms, volts and current - the whole nine yards. The net chamber size for the bloom chamber is 23.5" wide by 21.25" deep by 34" high.

Let's see a little sunshine...


Another angle...


How bright is it in there? Trust me, you need yo' frickin' sunglasses Maynard.


OMG, it blots out the camera's ability to distinguish anything other than INCREDIBLY BRIGHT FRICKIN' LIGHTS! Oh My F!#%!@%$cking God!

Today was a bit more frustrating. Lots of interruptions that took away from my opportunity to get the job done. I did work on the shelving system (extra trip to Casa Depot for $100 in brackets and supports). I'll be done with them tonight I hope; finishing depends on a few variables, so I might as well post what I have done today
in case things take a turn towards even more frustration.

I started by nailing down the wiring for the lighting group so that they lay flat and I didn't have any tape in the way or potentially something to shake loose in short order (I'm thinking about shipping in the future, here).


Then I snaked in a power line, bored a hole in the rear of the cabinet, mounted a new female plug and then carefully puttied around the hole. It was already a snug fit, but I'm thinking about mites trying to get at those plants and decided it would be a better idea to err on the side of caution.


And a little closer...


So, the first photo shows the bloom compartment wiring after the temporary tape was removed and the wiring affixed to the box using wiring nails. The second and third photos are for the installation of the box power cord with photo detail of the sealant.

wow dude, you're keeping busy! awesome so far

ArcticBlast

Oops. Got that kind of screwed up. We'll see if we can get better.

The next series of shots shows the construction detail of the shelving system in the bloom chamber. I'll be offering independently adjustable shelves, so bloom stretch can be adjusted on the fly for all four planters in a given run.

Editor's Note: repeated photos have been deleted.

I had many things to distract me today; mainly in the form of one of my businesses having come back to life and needing my attention. I was more than happy to oblige it as it usually puts bacon on the MPD Land table of bounty; it just hasn't done it this year or last year. Having said that, it would put an extra $12K in my pocket right at the time of the year when it can be expected to do the most good and on a number of levels, this cabinet manufacturing company business proposal not being the least of my concerns. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than being too busy to post and work on this concept as that would mean I was (once again) billing time out at $200 per hour and that is where this kid wants to be - oh so badly...

Anyway, back to the salt mines...

I did manage to get the shelving system in on the vegging/mom cabinet and I am working on the lower tier lights now, as I have already mounted the upper tier lights. Those lowers have my attention, so on with it. Once the lights are done all I have to do on the inside is the ventilation system and those components arrive tomorrow. So I should be set to start on the exterior trim work over the weekend and be straight with what needs to happen to move the ball forward.

Time will tell; it always does...

So today was a bust. I didn't get started until after lunch as I had to really hit it for my consulting business and turn out a report for a prospective client. It turned out to be 158 pages and for a day's worth of real work I must say I was pleased and I hope the client will come through and select my firm for this consulting assignment. The timing couldn't be better on that score.

So that meant I didn't get revved up until after one o'clock and it was a good day to work as it was snowing fit to beat the band here in Houston. I cut all the faux drawer fronts for the flip-down front. This enabled me to realize the cut order I gave to the fellow at Casa DePot last week was not wrong; he had cut the boards the wrong size, so I ended up buying an extra sheet of $45 plywood for the fun of it.

Then my toys arrived. The first was the delivery of the air filter which met my needs, but the quality didn't meet my expectations and I hope to not be disappointed when actual operations begin. I paid $45.00 for it delivered to my door. It has a 4" collar and I assumed would fit to the fan.

The fan arrived next and very late in the day (dammit!). This unit cost me $78.00 delivered to my door and the unit was not complete. The supplied screws for the mounting bracket were the wrong size and I was not pleased, but not surprised. This vendor (High Tech Garden Supply - HTG on eBay) dicked around with getting the order packed and out the door, so I figured this is one vendor you don't need to take a chance on if you are going to be shopping for gardening equipment on eBay (or off, for that matter).

The bracket was no longer workable, so securing the unit to the cabinet was going to be an issue and required some patient thinking to come up with something that approached a workable design. This was not the end of the world; I knew I had to face this day and make revisions to the design on the fly to accommodate whatever the fan industry had a available for this purpose. First things, first. I had to test it and see how loud it was. The advertisement said only 47 Decibels of sound, but inside the box without any dampening it sounded like a fucking airplane engine warming up for a short runway takeoff. Holy shit, this would just not do at all. I need absolute silence for this to work out for my plans. Luckily, I have lots of felt and foam I can use for just this purpose. We won't let something like a little vibration get in the way of the pursuit of total excellence in stealth grow cabinet design & construction.

The first real job was to measure and cut the hole for the plenum box and that's where we ran into a huge problem. The farging plenum box had the wrong size collar and I only realized this AFTER I had cut the hole for the mounting flange in my box divider wall. This was a real pisser, but not the end of the world either. I have extra wood for just this kind of an emergency. If something goes wrong we can always regroup. It will cost more in time and back pain and migraine aggravation, but we can get there with a whole new divider cut to order. It just won't be pretty and it won't be easy, but it will get done. The Casa DePot people need to get their inventory organized but I was asleep at the switch myself, so there is plenty of blame. Hopefully they will have the exact one I am looking for when I go to return these pieces tomorrow.

On the other hand, I did pick up some wire mesh called wire cloth. It has 1/2" square spaces and these are the perfect size for me as I will be growing plants only 21" to 24" high and would not expect any branches larger than that coming out of the screen (if there are, the resulting stress will work for me in making the branches stronger - or so it is to be hoped). I'll have those SCROG cages done in no time. My old lady will have the car first tomorrow, so I will do the SCROG cages tomorrow and if I get those done before she gets there, I'll do the trim work on the drawers and get them hung on the front pronto.

I'll get that duct work squared away or I will be defeated trying and have to yank the divider out and put in a new divider. This will take a whole lot of time as I will be only interested in getting the new one in place with an absolute perfect fit.

The rest of the trim needs attention (I did the major trim boards today) and I need to look at that, as the one trim board on the front is not to my liking and I need to come up with a better way of affixing it - more nailing and screwing seems to be the order of the day for that. Once I have that in hand, then I need to do the staining and polyurethane coats on the exterior to finish out the box. I picked a rich, red-brown chestnut stain that I will do the drawers and trim boards with and use the polyurethane over everything else. I haven't made up my mind on what to put on the rosewood panels. I need to also put some more on the ends so that they have some real detail look to the sides. Remember, the more this box looks like a high-end dresser, the more likely people will dismiss this as "just a dresser" and give it no more thought as a pot-growing contrivance and that's the exact standard I am hunting for here.

Comments and advice always appreciated.

Okay, so some pictures and some of the play by play commentary.

This first set of photos shows some of the trim detail. I did the trim in some really nice wood across the front (top & bottom horizontal boards) and filled in the countersunk holes and that was that.


I then cut the vertical front trim boards. These are 90 degree angle boards used to cover the flip-down front panel seam that runs vertically up each side wall. When the flip-down front panel is all the way up, closed and locked it will look like your typical higher-end trimmed dresser that sells for around $900 to $1,500.


Then I laid out the drawer fronts. These are also cut out of higher-end rosewood finished VB grade plywood, so they look really excellent (my photography skills notwithstanding). These are faux fronts and I cut them out and then attached the knobs and laid them out on the front (cabinet now laying on its back) to check the layout and they look great.


The third picture was taken with the cabinet laying on its back and you can see the huge piano hinge that holds the flip-down front firmly in place. When you open and shut it the hinge allows the front to pivot without any problems. I even dropped it a few times to see how it held up and there was no stress whatsoever on the hinge. Perfect!

The rest of the day was spent cutting and nailing the trim boards that I used to dress up the faux drawer fronts. Boy, my lack of skills meant it took a lot more time (and pizza) to get done, but now this job is done and I can move on into the ventilation system.

First, let's get a hold of a knobby one...


Now everyone go to the elves' toy shop and watch those midgets nail boards ALL GODDAM DAY!


Cut, trim, nail, repeat. Pete and Repete were nailing boards. Pete got done first, who's left?

The ventilation system was much more problematic than I thought, but I knew I would have to adapt a design as field conditions warranted, as I didn't know what fan I would be working with until it arrived and the same was true for the filter.

The fan is a 175 cfm Vortex 4" fan that is supposed to be around 47 decibels, but sounds like a plane warming up on the USS Abraham Lincoln for a strike mission. My original plan was to use a duct plenum to attach it through the wall and if the plenum was insulated, so much the better. A floor register would be perfect. I found one at Home Depot and brought it home, made the cut and found it had a 5" collar instead of a 4" collar.

F@$%$#%#$%!!! Scratch that plan.

The next plan was to build a series of wall baffles. These a re 1/2" thick pieces of plywood that are wrapped in felt and have foam glued on top. Mating up the fan to the filter proved to be a problem as the fan would not set straight (what else, for fuc&*&#$!#@$ sake!). Then I built a collar out of 1"x2" and started on the panels.


Felt mounted on the plenum board wall with one strip of foam affixed thereto.


Now we finish the board.


Then we need to insert it where it will act as the rear wall baffle on the exhaust side of the filter/fan combination.


Then one side can be attached to the left side of the cradle (fourth photo) to start the box.

I'll add some fiberglass insulation to pack it all in nice and tight and when I'm done there will (hopefully!!!) be no noise from the dreaded fan as I will dampen the intake side and the output side coming out of the filter.

Start packing it in!


That's nice and tight. Should be very little vibration. Enough to feel in the wood, though.

That's the problem. I wanted no noise and no vibration.

That means someone has to put something else up on top of the unit to cover the noise (which I will wager will be less than that exuded by a 20-gallon aquarium air pump) and something to cover the vibration. A 5-gallon or 10-gallon aquarium would be good for in the house - it has to be easily movable - like a tabletop water fountain. In the garage I'll just park it next to the chest freezer and nobody will be the wiser (or so it is to be hoped). This is an issue I will be coming back to with new means and methods for killing noise and vibration. Maybe the collar could be padded...

Tomorrow I'll finish off the box and put a top on it that will be a series of baffles for the benefit of the intake side. If you look to the top photo, you can see where there will be a huge hole for the plenum box. We'll be connecting to this hole. For the fresh air side, I'll run a piece of 1-1/2" PVC from the left side wall to the right side wall. Simple, lightproof and effective for allowing the air to move from the vegging compartment, to the bloom compartment. The fan will then be sure to suck out the air from the bloom chamber and expel it from the sealed ventilation box out the back of the cabinet.

Once I get this done, I will be left with the following tasks to complete the project:

1. Hang the remaining trim pieces on the box.

2. Stain the exterior (I have chosen a very rich red chestnut stain to bring out the best of the wood details).

3. Do multiple coats of urethane to seal the box (a project that will take a week if it takes a minute).

4. Hang the last set of shelving inserts and lights.

5. Install the lock for the cabinet front (I've engineered a slick solution for this).

6. Install the electrical panel for all lines. My design leaves me with a 500 watt box. This is a third of what I was burning with my closet grow, but I think the production will well exceed it because this is obviously designed to be a perpetual garden. I have two (2) plugs for the lights in the bloom box that have to go through a timer. The fan system must also go through a timer as in the winter months I will want it to cycle less so the box stays nice and warm (I already installed an electronic temperature/humidity gauge in the bloom box) and I will run it constantly in the summer to keep the temperatures under 100F. I have three (3) for the light systems in the vegging/mom's cabinet, so that is a total of six (6) plugs for this box and that fits on a single power bar and it's all guaranteed to run without tripping anything.

I'm toast and can't think of anything else to add to my do list. We must be getting close.

First thing this morning I installed the cabinet locks. I started by drilling through the side of the cabinet through the cabinet wally, through the cabinet frame and then through the door frame. I did this with a 1/2" drill bit and then realized I could get to the same place in the road by flipping up the top and drilling through the top lateral frame rail and into the door lateral frame rail (note pictures). This allows me to use a 1/2" dowel as a plug that holds the flip-down front frozen in place if someone should come along and yank on the faux drawer fronts.

Complete lock (this shot shows the top lateral frame of the cabinet with its hole drilled through the frame rail and then through the frame rail of the flip-down front door, with the "lock" ready to be inserted).


This was much better than the side plug approach that could not be easily hidden and I despaired of my decision to drill a big-assed hole in the side of the cabinet, but that is why God invented wood putty which I liberally applied to the problem and hopefully that will be the end of this issue.


In practice, I can tap the plugs out with a screwdriver or pair of scissors and use a hammer to fit them in snugly and this is the kind of fit I want as I don't want them sliding out if someone is yanking on those drawers.

Next, we go back to the ventilation system and finish it.

The endgame is now in site. In this first series of photos, I created a frame for the fan itself - and then to make sure I maximized my opportunity to make the fan noise a non-issue - I packed the fan/box shell with fiberglass insulation. I then built a frame on top of it and then built a simple box upon the frame and put a top on it with drilled holes. I covered both sides of the top with felt, as well as the box sides that supported the top of the plenum chamber.

First the packing...


Now the top...


The result is a nice little box that is now ready to be connected to the sidewall that separates the mom/vegging chamber from the bloom chamber.


This box presents a singular issue in that I already cut a huge hole in the box sidewall to accommodate the Home Depot aluminum plenum box that ultimately had to go back and be returned because the throat was the wrong size. In the production model this will be a non-issue, but it did make things a bit trickier for me.

In the final analysis, I had to built a complete frame and mount it on the plenum top and connect it to the thruwall/sidewall of the cabinet. I cut each out of 1/2" plywood, anchored them carefully using corner braces to ensure everything fit real snug, then I disassembled the whole nine yards and lined the entire inside area with felt to further dampen those noise vibrations.

Let's put a wall in or two...


Get ready to close it up...


Now we have a complete plenum box...


The ultimate result was one to be proud of. You have to be listening very carefully to hear the fan running and this is at full blast! If you put a water garden on top or ran a stereo in the same room you would never, ever hear the fan. I think I can get the rest of it killed by putting in one more baffle on the exhaust side, but we will have to see.

Tomorrow I will paint out the inside with two (2) coats of KILZ for all wood items, mount the shelving and lights and then start the exterior finishing - stain and then coat after coat after coat of urethane. I plan on doing six (6) coats of urethane to see what we have before I make a decision on the number of coats the production series will actually have.