First Shanty Build - UPDATED!

[ZodiacWI]

Well...

I bought many of the supplies to build the shanty today. Never did this before, and I enlisted a group of guys I regularly fish with to help. Actually, none of us have done this before.

Shanty changes over the day, from an 8x10 with one door and three Windows and a gable roof, to an 8x10 with a slant roof (one 8' tall wall, one 7' tall wall), four 24x36 sliding Windows, two semi permanent bunks (top will be movable, bottom will fold to couch), and a few other ideas.

The entire thing is completely over-engineered. I attribute that to being worried about strength, and want so much usability out of it that we go overboard.

First, the shack will be typically uses by me (three buddies I fish with and are helping get to use it also, terms of their help). And I will spend entire weekends in it.

I found windows at a local building supply store, single panes, not exactly what I wanted, but will work.

The outside will include a few features. Security is handled by a wireless alarm, hinged panels over the windows that hinge up to awnings, and a steel reinforced door.

Interior will be paneled, have a flip up table, floor will hinge up so you can stand on the ice to drill holes, and also for cold storage (fish, coolers). Lights will be interior 12V LED strips, in white and red (red for night fishing), shack will also have three LED flood lights outside to watch tip ups or just for lighting.

I only have photos of the supplies, but it looks like I need to link to them.

I'll post progress as it happens, assembly will begin next weekend.

What's everyone's thoughts?

[fishinchiro307]

Get after it!!

[CanIceCpl]

And add photosd too :-)

[ZodiacWI]

Just the windows I got. Aluminum frame, single pane sliders.




My truck loaded with most of the wood. Interior and exterior paneling need to be purchased yet.

[Newman1415]

Keep us posted want to see more

[osiris]

ill be watching

[ZodiacWI]

ill be watching

All I ask is that everyone doesn't laugh when it's done.

I subscribe to the theory that you build two shacks. First to build one, second to fix everything that's wrong.

With The Brain Trust (guys I ice fish with), we are trying to solve all problems at once, and generally when you do that, it never turns out well.

So we will see.

Construction starts this weekend, but I won't be able to finish it until probably some time next month.

[ZodiacWI]

Got the rest of the materials today.

The only things left to buy is a steel plate (reinforcement for the dead bolt in the door), a knob and dead bolt, and paint.

And of course construct the thing...

Ignore the messy garage.

[mud_n_fun]

I see a nice winter 2nd home in your future there.

[ZodiacWI]

Here's the amazing thing...

I came home, unloaded the truck, and told my wife the total cost...


I'm still alive.

[ZodiacWI]

Here's a couple more of things I just got yesterday...



These are exterior 12V LED flood lights I got from Amazon. They don't seem too bright. I guess we will have to figure it out when we're out on the ice. I've got three. One for above the door, then one for above each set of windows, to check tip ups at night.



These are 16' long LED strips. Bad photo, I know, but this will be the interior lighting. I can't remember, but they draw something like 5 amps an hour. I've got two sets in white.



And I've got two sets in red, for night fishing. I do an insane amount of night fishing, not just ice, but also year round. In a photo above you'll get a glimpse of my boat. I wanted to put these LED lights on the inside of this boat, so I don't have to have a flashlight in my mouth. It's not uncommon for me to get home from work on a Friday at 5, hit the water in the boat by 6, and stay out until 3 or 4 AM. My wife doesn't complain about me being out that long at night, and I figure I could do worse things at 4AM than go fishing. So I just keep doing it.

[ZodiacWI]

So other than a dead bolt, paint, and a steel plate. I still do need to buy a TV (I like Green Bay football a great deal, and would like to fish and watch football, never did it), and I think a wall mount heater for the shack.

[ZodiacWI]

And then I just found out about the IceShanty Militia. So I had to join.

Now I have to add a flag pole for the side of the shanty.

[dbuchmann]

I got my wall mounted heater from Northern Tool, has the thermostat and heats my 8x14 shack up to 65-70 degrees when its 0 out.  You can check out my build on here that I did last year.

[ZodiacWI]

I got my wall mounted heater from Northern Tool, has the thermostat and heats my 8x14 shack up to 65-70 degrees when its 0 out.  You can check out my build on here that I did last year.

Two questions,  do you remember the cost?

Does it have a non electric blower?

[da man cave shack]

I have the same heater as dbuchmann and no blowers and I think it was around $130ish.

[dbuchmann]

I'll go out to my shack tomorrow and get a model number for you if you'd like.  Originally had the one from Menards but it didn't have the thermostat so I returned it and got this one. One thing I did is take the actual thermostat and run it up the wall a little since it was really close to the floor it never shut off because of the cold air from the holes coming in along the floor.

[ZodiacWI]

I'll go out to my shack tomorrow and get a model number for you if you'd like.  Originally had the one from Menards but it didn't have the thermostat so I returned it and got this one. One thing I did is take the actual thermostat and run it up the wall a little since it was really close to the floor it never shut off because of the cold air from the holes coming in along the floor.

One with a thermostat would be awesome, if you got me a model number I'd be very grateful, but no hurry.

[ZodiacWI]

The build started yesteday.

I quickly realized two things.

First, this got way out of hand way too quickly.

Second, I'm entirely too out of shape for this sort of work.

First, we started with the floor. It was very slow going, we had something like five or six hours in to the floor. Of course, the floor is what everything is built off of, so we double, triple, and quadruple checked everything. We also spent at least two hours just trying out different ideas and laying things out and everything else.

Excuse the crappy photos, they were all done with my phone.



My buddy Nate, or his legs at least, measuring things out. This was Friday night, we started everything then.



Floor laid out, just before we called it a night, we borrow a nail gun, and it was broken. We got set back a few hours because we had to figure out what was wrong, and the owner did not want us to take it apart. We fixed it without taking it apart, the piston to drive the nail was seized inside. Chalk one up for Hornady OneShot case lube!



Saturday. The floor is almost done. It is made out of 2X6s, with joist hangers and 5/8" plywood floor. The floor here isn't attached, this is the part where we had to figure things out. We got some jigging rods out to  figure out where benches would be, window weight, everything.



That's my buddy Nate on the left. Sitting is my buddy Caleb. And I"m holding the window. We were trying to figure out window height so you could watch tip ups. We came up with a measurement of 43" at the bottom of that window. Man, this is a redneck way of doing things. If you see the chair Caleb is sitting in, it's up on blocks, we mocked up the height of the lowest bunk, that will fold to a couch!

Nate's dad owns a construction company, and he grew up in the business. So I wouldn't be this far unless it was for him. And Caleb is a mechanical engineer for a local paper mill. Yesterday he drew up plans for this on a piece of cardboard, then figured all the angles and cut every stud in two walls. He made this project go very quickly (once we started going). It will have a slant roof, so he even angled the top of the studs for the side walls so we don't have to notch 2X4s. I never would've been able to do that.

Those two guys are who I'm blaming for over engineering this project.



Floor almost finished. The blue shirt near the camera is neighbor Ryan. I'm in the blue shirt and hat on the right. See what I mean? Entirely too out of shape for this.



Nate sitting on the floor. I screwed up. This is the best photo I have of the finished floor, for the most part. But you can see the hinged door, we plan to put about 6 holes in there. Realistically, you can probably get eight holes there. But there was some strong discussion involving holes, and Nate would like one or two near the corner opposite where he is sitting. I decided against it a veto'd that. However, we did box it in, if we want to add another hinged door, we just have to cut the plywood out.

The floor is all nailed down, of course, and glued down. So it's solid and won't make noise.



The first wall. The shack will have two 10' long walls, one 8' tall, one 9' tall, and the roof slanting off them. Caleb did all the cutting for this, and if you look closely you'll see the headers for the windows he made. If you have a project, I REALLY recommend you make friends with an engineer.

The shack went from four windows, to three. One in each 10' wall, one in the wall with the door, an 8' wall. None by the bunks. This mechanical engineer friend of mine, decided that two windows per 10' wall would not work well, and bunk placement because a big issue. One window still gives us plenty of visibility to the outside, plus now I have a spare if anything happens. So there's that.



Wall was nailed together. Buddy from the fire department was building a garage, and donated almost an entire roll of this Permafelt. The insulation I got has a vapor barrier, but it can't hurt to have one more. And it was free!

Here, Ryan is cutting it out for where the window will go. If you look behind Nate, that's where he stepped NOT on a 2X4 and made it NOT tacked down! Had to re-tack it.



This is the finished wall. Crappy pictures, I know. Better ones will be done when the shack is together. The wall is on top of the floor. Three guys cannot lift this floor. We put it on snowmobile dollies, rolls great. The plywood that is hinged, has a crown to it, so the hatch on the floor is open, then we set the wall on top to see if we can straighten it out.

The steel trim on the right is white, to go with my galvanized roof. It's all Menards had in stock. My OCD won't let me put white trim on a galvanized roof, so that is getting returned, I special ordered the galvanized trim.

That's about it for this weekend.

It was slow going, we worked for about 9 hours. The humidity didn't help at all, most of us being out of shape is also a bad thing, this seems to be a young man's game.

But I've given up on this EVER fitting on a snowmobile trailer, and resorted to borrowing a car trailer to get it to the ice. Where the shack will be stored I can probably pull it with my truck, plus there's a few other design ideas in store, that I won't give up right now, but will tell everyone about once I figure it out in my head.

Next Saturday it starts up again, it shouldn't be hard to bang out three walls, since one is already cut, just has to be nailed and sheeted.

[WYIfish]

Those two guys are who I'm blaming for over engineering this project.   I don.t see engineering the issue as much as where's the beer?

[ZodiacWI]

Without releasing personal issues, one of us is a cancer survivor and does not smoke or drink.

I do, however, smoke and drink, but I will not around the guy.

He doesn't really care, just a respect issue.


We wait until he leaves, then we drink.

[ZodiacWI]

Back wall, the bunks will be against this wall, it'll also be the leading wall when towing it anywhere. No windows.



Finishing another 10' wall. That's synthetic roofing felt that a buddy gave me, then half inch plywood on the outside. This is the largest wall of the place, 10'X9'. We stood it up, I'm 6'2", it made me look very short.

Sorry I didn't get more pics, it was crazy hot, and building the other three walls took us about 8 hours. Total, we have 64 man hours in to this.


Today, we went out to where the shack will be dragged on to the ice, to check the landing. And spoke to the owner.

The landing looks good. It'll be stored in summer there, and only ran me $40. Which I just paid for then. The owner lives on site, with a bunch of people coming and going, and most of them I know, so I won't have to worry about off season break ins.

He's also scrapping a bunch of shacks that no one has been paying on, so I scored an interesting hitch that will allow us to pull this across the ice with a truck, I think it may be too heavy for a snowmobile.

The owner of this place said permanent shacks are going by the wayside now. People are going to portables, no storage, lighter, cheaper, easier to heat (than in the past), so he's only got five or six stored there now. He used to have an entire field of them.

So this shack will join the small (and getting smaller) shanty town on the lake.

This week I'll be out of town for work all week, so I won't even have a chance to paint this, which is going to set us back some...

But it is what it is.

Next weekend is final assembly...

Stay tuned.

[hardwater diehard]

The owner of this place said permanent shacks are going by the wayside now. People are going to portables, no storage, lighter, cheaper, easier to heat (than in the past), so he's only got five or six stored there now. He used to have an entire field of them.

Guess your the last of a dying breed...shame ...although I don't have a permanent  (my temperature fluctuates to much) I do enjoy watching everyone's builds and their unique designs ...some of you guys are both craftsman to a minimalist extreme and engineers ...making more with less but yet having it all and then some ..keep the pictures coming.   

[ZodiacWI]

Guess your the last of a dying breed...shame ...although I don't have a permanent  (my temperature fluctuates to much) I do enjoy watching everyone's builds and their unique designs ...some of you guys are both craftsman to a minimalist extreme and engineers ...making more with less but yet having it all and then some ..keep the pictures coming.

On the lakes I fish, I have noticed fewer and fewer. I just assumed a lot were like me, and we chased the fish.

We plan on fishing from this, but also using it as a base camp. We can sleep, eat, hang out here, and in the morning jump on some sleds and head out to find the fish. It's the Winnebago chain, so our options are almost endless.

[ZodiacWI]

Alright ladies and gentlemen... Here's the rest of the pics...

Sorry I didn't get any last weekend, I was travelling for work all week, then battling a cold, then it rained last Saturday.

This weekend a LOT got done, mostly because I want to go pheasant hunting next weekend (haven't hunted at all this fall for this shanty), and partially because I want this done.



This is the shack as it say Saturday morning. Ignore the messy garage. All walls assembled, only two painted.

I had a funeral to go to Saturday AM, so we didn't start working until about one PM.



First wall up and braced. This is actually one of the smaller walls.



Another view of the same, you can see the door/window wall against the garage. And the floor, the hatch is closed in this one.



Door/Window wall up, that's it for painted walls at this point.



Two walls, that's my buddy Nate with his hand up, and my buddy Dan in the window. They helped get this all together, and without Nate I doubt any of this would be done. This is an idea of size, Nate is an easy 6'2". The square wall is 8' tall. The window/door wall is 9' slanting to 8'.



Three walls up.



Four walls, frames at least.

Here we ran in to a problem. A ton of time and thought and money went in to this. And with all that thought, we screwed up the fourth wall. We sheeted the wrong side. So we had to tear the wall apart, and do it over. That's why all you see is the framing here.



Nate sheeting the final wall. Getting closer to done. We almost had a box. At this point, Dan had his 6 month daughter with him, and he had to take off, it was about 5PM. And we figured we could handle the roof ourselves.



Framed the roof on the ground. Then side it up top. This is Nate on a ladder. Each roof stud is screwed to a stud in either side wall. We used a propane lantern to help us, since I have no exterior lights.



Nate finishing screwing the roof to the walls.



Nate sitting on the roof, screwing it down. Horrible picture, I know. But after working on this for ten hours, I thought this was funny.

We got the roof sheeted with OSB. And that was that. We called it a night.

The next morning... I painted, installed windows and a door, and had a buddy install the steel roofing.



A couple sides, almost finished. Still have to cover the corners up with trim of some type, but mostly weather proof.



What I guess you'd call the "front", still have to paint the door and trim. But it'll work for now.



The largest side wall.



The wall with no windows is the bunk wall. No one wanted to sleep next to a window, so we left it out. I have a window for that side, but it's just a spare now.

All the windows are only single pane, the only part of the project I'm not overly excited about. But other than the roofing, I got the windows installed with screws and liquid nails, and the windows and door spray foam insulated.

[hardwater diehard]

Looking really nice ...keep up with the pictures

[P Meyette]

looks great but also heavy

[Chris338378]

That's a good looking shanty, good luck with it. 

[nocod]

nice build,cant wait for the on ice pics 

[ZodiacWI]

looks great but also heavy

Oh Jesus is it heavy.

It is at about 1500LBS without anything in it. Interior finished it will be around 2000 LBS give or take.

My original idea is not this. It got out of hand.

Originally I had a 2X4 floor with 4X4 runners. The walls were going to be 2X2, with some 1/8" sheeting, rigid foam, and I did not care if the inside had anything. My estimates were about 800LBS for that. Since the 2X4s and 2X2s were spaced PRETTY close together.

Then the idea went out of hand, and as soon as we had the floor and one wall assembled, I realized that the entire worry of weight went out the door.

So now, I'm not worried about anything even remotely close to weight.