# Tool Talk >  Took the first step towards building my shop

## Frank S

Everyone who knows me are probably familiar with my work shop or lack there of conditions.
For many years I have worked under my tent shop I've moved it around several times It is pretty good in the summer , great for providing shade and blocks much of the summer winds But it is horrible in cold wet dreary windy weather especially when the winds are out of the NE or east.

For the past several years life has always got in the way of my starting my shop so today I decided to at least take the first step. 
So since life on a farm always has more things that need doing than can get done I finally decided that if I just get 1 column standing I will be able to say that I am starting on my shop. So today this happened
Of course first I had to pull some stumps that had been nagging me for a long time then remove a tree from a fence and remove the fence but those were not going to stop me from my goal. I removed a tire from an old 24.5" truck rim then welded it to the bottom of a 7" sch 80 pipe. the pipe was not long enough to suit me since it was only 12 ft long I welded a 10 ft section to it then dug the hole with my backhoe . I went down 6 feet deep before I struck hard pan. now my column is not long enough again I wanted 18 ft walls. I added another 4 ft to the pipe. then hefted it into the ground with my backhoe



I am not cementing these columns in the ground I prefer to have a large base on them then back fill with dirt & clay tossing in a bag of portland every few layers adding water and tamping 
Tomorrow I will try to get my whacker packer running It should run just fine since it only has about 30 minutes of run time since brand new. but I've had it for several years I hope I drained the gas out.



Once I set up my scaffolding (I have enough to set up an 18 ft high run about 60 feet long so working from a ladder is never in my job description) I will fill each column with sand dirt gravel and used motor oil I have a concrete vibrator that I will strap to the columns to pack the dirt and oil inside of the columns. 
There are a couple reasons for my doing this 1 is it makes them infinitely stiffer 2 it prevents them from ever rusting out from the inside and 3 it deadens any sound transmittal should I decide to add things to them like a thick plate for hammering on or mounting a bench grinder on. also by being stiffer if I weld a pull ring to them they won't have a tendency to bow, they wouldn't anyway since so much else will be welded to them in the form of building materials and bracing.

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Jon (Nov 30, 2018),

NortonDommi (Jun 18, 2020),

PJs (Nov 30, 2018),

Scotsman Hosie (Mar 9, 2019),

Scotty2 (Mar 8, 2019),

Toolmaker51 (Nov 30, 2018),

volodar (Nov 3, 2019)

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## Jon

This is gonna be a great build. I had not heard of the scaffolding trick.

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## Frank S

I am hoping to be able to devote at least a couple days a week to the project Yesterday I dug out my plate compactor and as usual or I should say normal for me when I used it last I didn't take the little extra effort to completely drain the fuel then pour in a little of the $25.00 a gallon chain saw fuel and run it for a few minutes on that stuff to preserve the carburetor I just fille it with fresh gas and tried to run it.
Note the redimix 2cyl fuel has stabilizers and does not have the additives that pump gas has it will last a lot longer in storage not 2, 3 or 4 years but much longer than gasoline. 
Anyway the compactor did start and kind of ran as long as I kept it 3/4 choked but it would not rev to full RPM I ran it for a while packing the hole around the column. It settled the fill over a foot and a half. Then I finally managed to get the packer moved out of the way added more fill packed some more added fill and kept packing until the packer decided to quit running. About this time I decided to bite the bullet and drain the tank pull the carb and clean it then life gets in the way once more. 
But right now the column is as solid as a 100 year old OAK tree I just need to add another foot of fill then set up a section of scaffolding next to it and fill the inside. I'm already thinking that I may have wished that I would have made it taller in case I want to add a mezzanine floor later on but I'm never satisfied I probably wouldn't be satisfied if I had a shop with 50 ft tall side walls LOL

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## Toolmaker51

I have 15'6" walls...will lose 10" to trunk and branches of wireway directly above machines, 277v lighting conduits, and 110v receptacle conduit. Areas without big stuff below, can have small mezzanines for storage, reloading and a ''retreat'. Won't be ideal headroom unless joists are glue-lam, I-beam or stronger materials with less height than 2x10 lumber, and correspondingly thin built up flooring. Under the roof peak, above truss joists I'm saving the 13'odd height x 80' as an air rifle range...with target retrieval lines.
I cannot reasonably expect acquiring more square feet. In my mind, added square feet are even more expensive than what you 
start out with, unless steps are taken first utilizing cubic space efficiently.

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## Frank S

When you work on equipment especially excavators you want all of the height you can get so 18 is about the minimum I can stand depending on where I wind up locating the bracing in the trusses right at the peak of the roof I will have 24 ft clear with the trusses being planned on either 15 or 20 ft CC spacing this will help out a lot. I told the wife I wished that I could make the walls much higher. She said if I had the NASA Apollo Assembly building I would want it to be taller. She has a point LOL

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baja (Oct 25, 2019),

Scotsman Hosie (Mar 9, 2019),

Scotty2 (Mar 8, 2019),

Toolmaker51 (Dec 2, 2018),

volodar (Nov 3, 2019)

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## Toolmaker51

I had some tortuous hand-wringing on occasion to replace flat roof with trusses, and how desirable more height is. Few options with brick structure, even with original purchase less than a couple years rent or lease. I view roof cost versus repairs worthwhile, accepting height still better than any other affordable structure in town. Not sure height would increase market value in accordance that roof did [250%].
Now if I was rural like Frank S, those factors would be different. We originally considered rural, but dividing home from shop property seemed advantageous. Main consideration, wanting to sell one entangles both.

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## Frank S

Got started making my trusses out of the salvaged trusses I have had for 5 years
Piecing them back together and doubling them while I am at it. since the old building was 120 ft and mine will only be 60 ft I have enough to make the amount of trusses I need 
Doubling them will make them almost 3 times stronger than they were before since I am adding more bracing and once installed there will be horizontal and diagonal bracing from truss to truss. plus I won't have a 70 ft span my span will be more like 60 ft much less by the time I add in corner bracing from the columns to the trusses the span will be reduced another 6 to 8 feet. 

About half completed 

Probably no work tomorrow , Life it going to get in the way have to go look for a new cook stove.

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## Frank S

Two trusses ready 3rd almost half 2 more to go after the one I'm working on now. 
I only hope I'm going to have enough salvaged materials to complete all 5 without having to buy any new stock

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## Frank S

At the rate I'm going by the time I'm 90 I'll have my shop finished
I now have most of the trusses made no 2 are exactly the same for reasons which will not be apparent until the building is complete
this one will be 1 of the center trusses A full double truss that later I will be able to hang a beam on to become 1 rail of a bridge crane 
It is 68 feet long 6 feet high and stiff enough to be carried while laying flat 

This is the master corner column I will be mounting a crane on it which will be able to swing from outside to inside the building.
the crane is an old brick crane removed from 1 of the trailers I rebuilt Instead of sending the crane to scrap I figured I'd use it some day



The hole is almost 8 feet deep here I am filling the cavities in the wheels with a mixture of dry cement and clay the clay is moist so once I have them tamped full the cement will absorb the moisture 
 
Now begins the filling and tamping clay rock and some cement is used in each 6 inch layer then packed down to 3 or 4 inches 


The final layer is just clay and dirt since eventually when I get ready to pour a concrete floor I may have to remove some of the fill

Now for the crane pedestal
.
The next step will be to establish the 2 remaining corners see you in another 4 months LOL

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baja (Mar 9, 2019),

KustomsbyKent (Mar 10, 2019),

Scotsman Hosie (Mar 9, 2019),

Seedtick (Mar 8, 2019),

volodar (Nov 3, 2019)

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## Frank S

As tall as this shop is going to be setting the trusses when I get to that point is going to be a small challenge I own an Austin Western rough terrain crane but ther are 2 problems with it first it is still a couple hundred miles away and second it doesn't have an engine and needs a lot of work.
My forklift only goes up 12 feet it will not maneuver well on the soil here except for right in the shop area but I had to cut up the make shift scrap lattice boom height extension that I made to take down the old shop where these trusses came from
The boom was made out of parts of 2 of the trusses and I don't think I ever published it but I had a small 2500 lb winch mounted on the forklift to lower the trusses to the ground. It was a hoggy trashy thing but worked great for what I needed it for now I will have to do something different.



Also I could use the forklift boom that I made by putting it on the forks of the back hoe but it is not long enough even with the loader raised all the way up and tilted all the way back it will be about 6 feet too short
http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/f...6137#post65975
So sitting here while it is raining I am studying my quickest options knowing that what ever I decide will be another use it and toss it when done unless I wait until my crane gets here and I get it running before hand

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## KustomsbyKent

Frank S, 
Is it worth considering to rent a telescoping boom lift for a week? You'd have to have all your trusses all set to go, but if you did, it'd be short work with a Skytrak or similar. Those can usually lift 38' or more, and I've seen them listed to rent for ~$1500/week. It might be money well spent to have get the trusses all set up quickly, and not be distracted by other projects.
Seems like you'd probably spend more than $1500 by the time you go get your crane from 200 miles away, find and install an engine, and fix anything else that's needed.

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## Frank S

Not really Kent; I cen get my crane hauled to me for nothing I just have to catch my bud coming this way to get some repairs on his truck or trailer or passing by otherwise empty on his way to pick up a load. I have a couple engines that would serve just fine with transmissions mounted just not sure about the pump mounting until I see the crane.
However the skytrack idea is not a bad one, The guy I got the crane from also has a skytrack that I have used a couple times in the past I can get it to use for a lot less than just the transportation would cost me to rent one. The closest equipment rental to me that would have anything suitable to lift the trusses is over 80 miles away.
Obviously we have the means to transport but it is not an on demand thing once I got the skytrack it could be 2 3 or 4 week before we could return it ourselves or have the rental company pick it up at $ 4.00 a mile round trip $2.50 a mile if they deliver and pick up that would work out to a 320 mile fee less a 25 mile discount or 100 miles total for the 2 trips, 220 miles at 2.50 or say $550.00 on top of the 1500.00 The only reason I know these figures is I had thought of renting a small dozer last summer 
The other thing about just knocking together something to use on them back hoe is I would not be under any time constraint. Since I have the quick connect on the backhoe I can drop the bucket and bake a short stinger of about 8 ft for it instead of having to build something for the loader end the stinger on the hoe would let it function more like a knuckle boom and I would have it for lifting the bridging girts and purlins then later the sheet metal 
But first I have to sort out my scaffolding to make sure I have all the bits to erect scaffolding along both sides of the building.or at least enough on opposite sides so I can set 2 trusses without having to move it first I think I still have enough to make an 18 ft tall scaffold to cover both sides completely but may have to make some small bits

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## Frank S

Well I have finally set column #10 in the ground Time to set up the rest of the scaffolding come up with more scaffold boards Laser line the tops for trimming set some trusses at least 2 so I can add in some wind bracing then set the rest of the trusses and bridge them all together. Plus I need to go to my mine site and excavate another 100 yards of flex base select fill clay to level out the inside floor area then another 4 to 500 yards raise the outside grade on the south side some sloping slightly away from the building so I will be able to have a hard packed area at least 50 feet wide around the side and back of the building Trucks don't do well in the sandy loam unless it is right after a really hard rain.
What I really need is to come up with a small tracked loader or tracked skid steer for a while. My old 755 backhoe is just too old too slow and too cumbersome at times when just moving material.



I have all 5 trusses completed the 3 center trusses are doubled for the possible later addition of a light weight bridge crane the West end truss will be stiffened by x bracing Tabernacle style to truss #2 and will have a I beams welded to the bottom of it for a tri fold rolling door set to allow access to the whole west end of the building depending on which way the doors are rolled, Haven't decided about the East end yet I may opt to only have a 30ft single rolling door or a pair of 15 foot doors to give a 30 ft opening. I may add an 8ft wide 53 ft long mezzanine attached to the top of the container then build a 12 by 40 ft office on top. Or just place my school bus on top and make my office out of it but still add the mezzanine.

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Jon (Apr 18, 2019),

KustomsbyKent (Apr 18, 2019),

Scotsman Hosie (Apr 19, 2019),

Toolmaker51 (Apr 18, 2019),

volodar (Nov 3, 2019)

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## Frank S

In case anyone is wondering all columns have at a minimum a 24" diameter base welded to them and are from 6 to 8 feet in the ground the holes were dug to penetrate into the blue gray white hard layer below a red clay layer. Since I could not afford to put down concrete footers below each column this became the next best alternative and past experiences show this is often as good if not better than concrete with a few exceptions such as the columns having direct contact with the soil instead of being bolted or welded to a plate secured in the concrete. However these columns are not plain pipe they are oilfield grade tubing designed to be buried 1000's of feet into the earth to last for decades in all types of soil strata I have used the same grades of pipe in construction of both fresh and salt water piers they may eventually rot or rust through but not in my children's and possibly my grand children's life times.AT 64 and half years old if it lasts for 30 years I'll be happy.

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baja (Apr 19, 2019),

Scotsman Hosie (Apr 19, 2019),

Toolmaker51 (Apr 18, 2019)

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## Toolmaker51

Dang, I better get busy? 
Can't leave that lathe hanging forever.
But one project this weekend is collecting truck supplies. It's supposed to head south for a little rejuvenation. 
And I'm 66 8 months. Those bricks, I want FORTY years out of them. Built 1897.

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## Frank S

There was supposed to be a rough terrain man lift show up for some repairs but is hasn't made it yet. I told the guy that I would do what ever repairs it needed then might want to use it a couple of weeks I'd cut him some slack on the repair ticket if he did the same on rental but he had to buy all replacement parts if any were required. Sounded like a good deal to him but I haven't seen it show up yet. I need to go meet one of my distant neighbors and talk to him about his tracked bobcat see if some trade work can be worked out whit him.

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## KustomsbyKent

Awesome, I can't wait to see some trusses getting set!

Those tracked skidsteers are nice.... but spendy. Hopefully you're able to work out a trade deal.

I am in the midst of repairing my 1968 Melroe Bobcat M600 to use around the acreage. I've used my old AC WD tractor with loader for some stuff, but boy is that cumbersome compared to any skidsteer.

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## Frank S

> Awesome, I can't wait to see some trusses getting set!
> 
> Those tracked skidsteers are nice.... but spendy. Hopefully you're able to work out a trade deal.
> 
> I am in the midst of repairing my 1968 Melroe Bobcat M600 to use around the acreage. I've used my old AC WD tractor with loader for some stuff, but boy is that cumbersome compared to any skidsteer.



yep, Except for the fact that I am mining my base and fill from less than a 100 yards away it would almost make sense for me to get a 6 yard or a tandem dump truck for hauling it would also make sense for me to spend some time and get my Kubota KH191 excavator going for the excavation instead of using the backhoe.
But hey I could be having to do this with a wheel barrow and shovel. And I never know there could be a D10 dozer show up with a coal blade on it to be modified Stranger things have happened in my world.

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baja (Apr 19, 2019)

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## Frank S

Today 6 12" I beams 45ft long showed up to be used as the top perimeter of my shop along with a skytrack we call the monster mash when you look at the picture you will understand the name 





welded 2 together then later cut to length

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baja (Oct 25, 2019),

KustomsbyKent (Oct 24, 2019),

MeJasonT (Oct 25, 2019),

Scotsman Hosie (Oct 28, 2019),

volodar (Nov 3, 2019)

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## Rikk

I wish I lived next door to you Frank. Between your big stuff and my normal human sized stuff, we could build, fix and/or rule the world.  :Lol: 

Funny thing.. When I get the emails from here showing pictures and snippets of new threads, I can usually tell if it's one of yours just by the pictures.  :Lol:

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Scotsman Hosie (Oct 28, 2019)

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## Frank S

> I wish I lived next door to you Frank. Between your big stuff and my normal human sized stuff, we could build, fix and/or rule the world. 
> 
> Funny thing.. When I get the emails from here showing pictures and snippets of new threads, I can usually tell if it's one of yours just by the pictures.



Rikk, that could be said for half the guys here on HMT.net
It seems though that I have Larry & Curly for helpers.
Everything was halted today around 10Am due to 40° weather misting rain and 25MPH winds.

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Rikk (Oct 25, 2019)

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## Frank S

A little better progress today even thought eh wind was 20 to 30MPH most all day

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KustomsbyKent (Oct 30, 2019)

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## Frank S

3 days of climbing scaffolding dozens of times, hanging off the rungs of the scaffolding while welding is just about to get old for this old man. However I can see the light in the tunnel growing nearer with each passing day I think it may the a search light on a UFO or a train but the shop is coming along.
now have 4 of the 5 trusses in place and some temporary x bracing welded in place just encase things have to go into slow motion for a while I don't want the wind to wreck what I've already done.



that's me playing monkey while welding



Just after sundown yesterday

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baja (Oct 31, 2019),

KustomsbyKent (Oct 30, 2019),

mwmkravchenko (Oct 31, 2019),

Rikk (Oct 28, 2019),

Scotsman Hosie (Nov 4, 2019),

Scotty12 (Oct 30, 2019),

Seedtick (Oct 30, 2019),

Toolmaker51 (Nov 3, 2019),

volodar (Nov 3, 2019)

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## Frank S

To be honest I should start a thread called how not to build a shop building.
A few things I have been thinking of doing to it as time goes along. First off I have a School buss that is just sitting in the woods collecting weeds around it. It has a good diesel engine I need to pull out to be installed in one of my "B" model macks that I want to turn into a pickup or a flat bed straight truck the buss though body wise is in great shape and would make for some really good mezzanine storage atop of the shipping container So what I will do is remove the body from the frame cut it off right at the windshield cut the skirt off the body so the bottom of the floor of the buss will sit flat on top of the container roof This will make a great storage area up out of the way of everything else.
There is a good chance that I may do this to the 2 trusses on the West or Entry end of the shop a lot depends on how much excess materials I have laying around 

If I do then I can construct a 15 by 68 ft. office space between them and still maintain the clear span opening for a 3 top hung sliding door opening allowing me to have a 44 ft wide opening from either side or just open a 22 ft. wide single section
this will also mean I will have a place to construct an elevator to lift materials to the mezzanine where the school buss will probably be placed and then on up to the office floor.
But it will also mean that the building will wind up being 28 ft tall in front instead of the 24 ft height at the center of the trusses now 
But it will give me a lot more sq footage. Actually by the time the 45 ft machine shop van is attached to the South side and the 26 ft tool and bolt storage van attached outside of the East or the rear of the building I will have close to 6000 sq ft of useable floor space while still only having to pour a 4000 sq ft slab 
The plans are also to add a 38 by 40 ft lean to canopy on the south side to park my tractors and other equipment under

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## Frank S

My Idea of acquiring a pair of old steel bridge trusses got shot down the County road department decided to leave the old bridge where it is as a hysterical monument 
Not the one I showed in the picture but similar in design, about 8 miles from the house is an old bridge that has a span of 70 ft and is 17ft 4 inches outside to outside.
Last spring they were talking about giving it to anyone who would haul it way We checked with the county this morning only to learn they had changed their minds.
Anyway life and climate change is going to be in the way for the next week or so I have to rebuild a pickup engine and the weather is supposed to be rainy and in the 40's to low 50's for the highs the rest of the week.
Maybe I'll get the chance to order the "C" putlins in the mean time.

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## metric_taper

Frank, did you make those steel trusses, or trade? Are the perlins going to be steel?
You must not have an anal building department, or you can sign off as PE.

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## Frank S

> Frank, did you make those steel trusses, or trade? Are the perlins going to be steel?
> You must not have an anal building department, or you can sign off as PE.



I demolished a 68 x 100 clear span building about 6 years ago it had 11 trusses some were damaged so what I did was repair then double 3 of them, the 2 end trusses were undamaged so I attached the 12 x22 lb beam to the bottom of them.
the trusses in the old building were on 10ft spacing with almost zero bracing but they had crane rails hanging under the trusses at about 15 ft from either side of the building and a 35 ft long 2 ton bridge crane hanging on those the old building had stood for 40 years before the company who owned it sold it to a friend of mine they removed the cranes and the rails causing some damage to the trusses 10 years after my friend bought the building there was a freakish snow storm for the area where it was located the 15 inches of snow load was more than the damaged trusses could withstand or it may have been the 2" 16ga round tubular purlins the building was constructed with to support the roof either way one section of the building collapsed as it did the whole roof came down on 1 side in a domino effect further damaging the trusses I had removed a large portion of the damaged roofing and had started raising the trusses back to height the columns were also only made out of 11 ga 4" sq tubing 9 of these were bent during the collapse I had just about all of the trusses back to height and partially repaired but held up with temporary jacks with very little additional bracing I had all of the materials to construct tabernacle bracing from truss to truss when I became ill and I had to put the project on hold for a few days during that time we had an Ice storm very common here in Texas but not having competed the additional bracing the combination of the weight of 3 solid inches of ice inadequate bracing and 60 MPH winds brought the building back down this time we decided to just demolish it So I salvaged everything salvageable.

Skip to the current building 5 trusses on 15 ft centers 2 single thickness trusses with 12' beams 2 trusses that are doubled with 2 1/2" spacer tubes between them additionally held together with 10ga by 6" by 12'' long strips of metal welded on top and under the trusses tying the 2 sections together making a truss that is 4 times stronger than a single width truss the 5th truss currently is 2 trusses sandwiched together but I damaged it slightly in moving it around previously so I will re build it and possibly use my remaining materials laying around to make it a triple width truss 
What I call Tabernacle bracing is essentially a lattice type brace that would resemble a bar joist down the center of the building the full height of the center of the trusses there will also be a grid work of horizontal bracing run diagonally between the trusses.
By the time the building is complete it should be capable of withstanding the errant 100 year snow or ice storm
As far as the building and plans department of this county they called me last year to offer consultation for a proposed project in town but I had to tell them that I am not a licensed PE

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## metric_taper

You are lucky your living in the free state of Texas. Here the local county elected supervisors have all taken campaign donations (bribes) from the contractors, union carpenters, masons and other labor-trades organizations, so they have enacted county ordinances that are extremely against a private land owner from doing work themselves. Inspectors leave the contractor work un-inspected, and harass a DIY home owner. When I built my big garage (dinky compared to yours) in 1984, and started it without a permit. I got caught, as the roof was up and on it, but I had to pay a fine to continue work. They did let me show them my calculations for the steel beams, and I was lucky they did not force me to hire a licensed PE, I had the strength of materials course during my engineering schooling, but never had the desire to be a PE, as I worked for an avionics company for my career. The inspector that caught me, had a vendetta and showed up at all the zoning variances, and acted as a dictator. At the time they had an ordinance that prevented a detached garage from exceeding 1000sqft, so I had to request a zoning variance. And the inspector was hard over putting me not in a residential garage classification, but an industrial classification (factory workshop). Some requirements were good for a 2hr fire wall to the adjacent property. Our set back here is 3ft on detached buildings. So I ended up with the water resistant sheet rock 1/2in under the vinyl siding, and 5/8 fire rated on the interior side. I'm out in the county with no fire hydrant to service the volunteer township service, and they have to haul water via tank trucks. It took many years before this inspector stopped being an ass. I had to get a permit for electric wiring, and at the time I had to take a test to show competence with the NEC requirements, before they would issue a permit. He overrode the NEC by requiring me to install the bonding screw in the outbuildings circuit panel to ground the neutral and grounding buss bars together, for reasons that I've never understood. He was the boss that wrote and administered the electric test, and he never worked as an electrician. That is the problem with inspectors, they all want to make rules vs. inspect compliance to the codes.
I built a 2 story garage, the base is 32x30, and the 2nd floor 40x30, as I found out that I needed 22 ft Ibeams, but they come in 5ft intervals, so 30ft was available and shipped from Chicago to a local seller, and I ended up with a 8ft cantilever overhang that makes a great car port over the 3 garage doors. I have the machine shop at the back of this as an 8ft by 30ft space, (way too small) and the 3 stalls are 22ft deep (only baby 1/2 ton trucks fit in this). I'm filled to capacity with a Model T Ford truck, the skid steer, and the 96 Dodge 1/2 ton consuming most of the space. 

I can imagine your fighting the weather, and that's going down hill fast. You clearly have a worry about wind loading racking the building over, those trusses are big sails.

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## Frank S

Metric Taper we call it the free state of Stonewall county as much of Texas especially the cities are run by idiots with less than a little common sense. But even out here you wouldn't want to put up a permeant structure without some due diligence of mother nature. Most who have lived around here for a while all know that when you build something over 8 ft tall you need to take into account that the winds have at times reached nearly 90 MPH during storms and the hail storms can pitch base balls at you horizontally so no one it their right mind has composition or cedar shake roofs and steel roofs on the houses are secured with 3" long screws through the decking into the rafters and lots of them. 
I have a 53 ft trailer load of 2 to 4 inch cold storage PIR closed cell double backed insulation to install in the roof that is in 4 ft by 8 ft panels stacked 8 ft high on the trailer, that I got for hauling off I will install straps to the bottom of the purlins then wedge the panels between the purlins as I install the sheeting on the roof It won't be a perfect insulation technique but as good or better than the 2 inch vinyl clad rolls that are normally used.I'm not as interested in the heating in the winter as mush as a thermal barrier from the sheet metal roof in the summer.

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## metric_taper

> PIR closed cell double backed insulation



OK Polyisocyanurate, I think this is the stuff the home stores sell with aluminum foil on both sides. I've seen this thicker stuff show up on craigslist by the truck load, it's used, so I don't know what industry had it for surplus. 

I hope the weather holds so you can make headway. 
We had our first snow Monday night, and some more tonight. This is way earlier then normal, by 1+ months. As well highs in the upper 30s to low 40s for the next week, statistically 55 is the norm. I'm still not done with outdoor chores for the fall.

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## Frank S

> OK Polyisocyanurate, I think this is the stuff the home stores sell with aluminum foil on both sides. I've seen this thicker stuff show up on craigslist by the truck load, it's used, so I don't know what industry had it for surplus. 
> 
> I hope the weather holds so you can make headway. 
> We had our first snow Monday night, and some more tonight. This is way earlier then normal, by 1+ months. As well highs in the upper 30s to low 40s for the next week, statistically 55 is the norm. I'm still not done with outdoor chores for the fall.



the same stuff but not foil backed this stuff has a 1/16" thick water resistant paper cladding on both sides you can hold a piece of it under water for days and it will not dissolve the paper or absorb hardly any of the water.
You can support a 4"thick panel on saw horses at the ends and 2 men can stand in the middle of it.
it weighs .878 lbs per sq ft and will be just over 3,600 lbs weight added to the roof or about equal to a double layer of the vinyl clad roll insulation 
this stuff has an "R" value of between 7 & 8 per inch. deducting a few percent for probable gaps and heat transference of the steel purlins I expect I will have an approximate total R value in the roof of around 26 to 28 the walls and doors will be insulated with the same stuff so the building should be cozy enough

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## metric_taper

> the same stuff but not foil backed this stuff has a 1/16" thick water resistant paper cladding on both sides you can hold a piece of it under water for days and it will not dissolve the paper or absorb hardly any of the water.
> You can support a 4"thick panel on saw horses at the ends and 2 men can stand in the middle of it.
> it weighs .878 lbs per sq ft and will be just over 3,600 lbs weight added to the roof or about equal to a double layer of the vinyl clad roll insulation 
> this stuff has an "R" value of between 7 & 8 per inch. deducting a few percent for probable gaps and heat transference of the steel purlins I expect I will have an approximate total R value in the roof of around 26 to 28 the walls and doors will be insulated with the same stuff so the building should be cozy enough




The foil backed stuff I see is not in any way capable of being loaded. I've had it damaged from wind load in the back of the truck. They have it in 1/2 and 1" thickness only.

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## suther51

A local amish sawmill owner gets seconds of the poly iso foam. Last winter we put 3 inches in the walls of the older part of our house (plank construction). From just two layers of leaky plaster and lath to poly iso, what a difference. Also what a difference in price, I have seen used sheets going for $50 a sheet, we paid about 23, wish we had done the whole house this way. Foil face by the way.

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## Frank S

> The foil backed stuff I see is not in any way capable of being loaded. I've had it damaged from wind load in the back of the truck. They have it in 1/2 and 1" thickness only.



Just cutting through the paper backing on this stuff I have will take out the blade of a box knife in a few strokes. 
Some of what I have has a taper to the sheet beginning at 1/2" going up to 1 1/2" thick and some @ 1" going to 2" and some @ 2" going to 3" so what ever it was ordered for it must have been for a specific purpose. I just turn the tapered sheets thin to thick to come up with the thickness I want

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## Big Sexy

Frank you say you are getting too old, but I suspect you and I are a lot alike and couldnt imagine letting anyone else do the welding.

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## Frank S

> Frank you say you are getting too old, but I suspect you and I are a lot alike and couldnt imagine letting anyone else do the welding.



your are correct there

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## suther51

If I understand correctly the taper is a standard used in flat roofs to add a slight pitch for drainage.

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## Frank S

At around 4 PM this afternoon the wind died to dead calm we got 2.7 inches of rain yesterday so no possible fire hazard to the dead grass around the shop.
The wife was doing something in the house so I knew I wouldn't have to put up with her objecting my deciding to set the truss since I had already been running the backhoe and she would be paying no attention to hearing it. 
I put my fork boom extension on that I had made special for this task then raised the truss in place with the help of a palm sized chain com a long and a couple of large C clamps it was ready to be welded in place. This may have sounded easy but I had to climb the scaffold several times and go on top of the container several times to accomplish the task but it just goes to show that what I had been telling all my friends that these trusses could be installed by one person was true
Now I am ready to move on to the next phase of the shops construction.

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## metric_taper

Frank, you must have some eye alignment trick to put the truss up, and get the bottom to be nearly in the correct place to weld. Seems that with the fork extension holding it up, that you could slide one side to where you need it, but getting the other side correct via your tractor must have some trick involved.
I bet you figure out how to put the purlins in without a helper.

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## Frank S

Metric_taper, there was no way to slide the truss from side to side as the device straddled the center support. at most I could fudge movement with my little come a long about 2 inches.
The truss was canted slightly to one end which allowed me to sit that end down on the top plate then climb up and secure it with a rope then I lowered the other end until it just touched carried the coma a long and a C clamp up and the weld stinger. With the other end sitting firmly on the top plate almost perfectly over the column I welded the end I was working on then went to the opposite end and repeated what I had done.
From start to finish it took a couple hours but a lot of that time was in just maneuvering the long truss up and over the things on the ground like the container and the tent where I have a trailer being worked on. then getting as close to center with the backhoe and as square to the building as possible, not easy with a machine of that size with actually limited maneuvering room when you stop to think about it. We had about as much if not more difficulty in positioning the Skytrack forklift when we set the first 4 probably more since I was not the one operating it the guy who was is a truck driver not a machine operator. and the 3rd guy helping had shoulder issues and 3 fused vertebrae in his neck preventing him form doing much more than hold a rope on the ground.
I'll get the purlins up I'm sure. I may make some more mods to the extension and mount it on the hoe then probably remove the fence on the garden side and drive across it, no problem there since I haven't tilled it under yet

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## Frank S

Today another rare no wind day so I thought it might be prudent to secure the center of the truss before the winds start howling from the NE next week.
The quickest and easiest was to utilize a section of a remaining left over truss. Surprisingly it took longer to install it than it had to get the truss in place yesterday. I have another section which will be used to connect the center truss to the 4th truss just as the center is connected to truss #2 . However I will be setting up a rolling scaffold before I do that one since I detest working from a ladder over 20 feet in the air

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## metric_taper

I can't imagine the fun of going up the ladder with the stinger lead. I bet #2 or #4 copper lead would be a gravity fight.
I was up on a 12 foot ladder yesterday to clean out gutters, once my feet are over 6ft off the ground, it starts to become enough to instigate self protection protocol. 
Scaffolding at that height would be too scary for me. The aspect ratio of foot print to height and bouncy planks with no guard rail, would exceed my sanity check. 
Has to be a good feeling to be at this stage of the assembly.

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## Frank S

> I can't imagine the fun of going up the ladder with the stinger lead. I bet #2 or #4 copper lead would be a gravity fight.
> I was up on a 12 foot ladder yesterday to clean out gutters, once my feet are over 6ft off the ground, it starts to become enough to instigate self protection protocol. 
> Scaffolding at that height would be too scary for me. The aspect ratio of foot print to height and bouncy planks with no guard rail, would exceed my sanity check. 
> Has to be a good feeling to be at this stage of the assembly.



I'm not vertically challenged in the least but I am very vertically cautious. The stinger lead is #0

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## jdurand

How are the new mini MMA welders? I know not for production use but tiny, some come with shoulder straps. Using one of those on an extension cord seems a LOT easier than hauling #0 wire around.

example
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32888224338.html

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## Frank S

> How are the new mini MMA welders? I know not for production use but tiny, some come with shoulder straps. Using one of those on an extension cord seems a LOT easier than hauling #0 wire around.
> 
> example
> https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32888224338.html



the main problem I've found with the mini welders is their limited duty cycle for the amps required to get the job done. I imagine they might be OK just doing the 10 or 15 minutes of welding to secure the trusses to the top beam if they could develop enough penetration but even the smallest of these by the time you had to haul a heavy duty extension cord up then come back down for the machine then come back down for your helmet and rods and find some way to secure the machine to the structure you might just as well toss the stinger lead over your shoulder put your hood on backwards with rods in your pocket climb up tie off the stinger leaving a few feet of whip and be confident you will have enough amps to do the job.
Back when I lived in Germany for 3 years I had a little welder that was about 16 inches by 4 inches by 12 inches tall that could run on 220 230 240 380 400 or 460 v just by where you tapped the connector at it weighed a hefty 40 lbs though and powerful enough to weld with 5/32 rods a few minutes at a time

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## jdurand

Thanks. I don't do a lot of stick welding now so I think I'll get one for the new house. I'm certainly not taking the huge old AC/DC welder with me (the one on wheels that sits under your bench). I've got decently long wire on it, hopefully I can sell it for a few $ here before moving.

I see some of the small ones are MMA/TIG, might get one of those and try my hand at TIG.

My MIG works on 50Hz, so it's going with me.

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## Frank S

Yes jdurand, a small welder with duel capability would be the cat's paws

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## Crusty

FWIW - I bought a Lotos TIG200 TIG/MMA welder for around $550 on Ebay and I'm happy with it once I reworked the foot pedal to operate the way that I like. They're sold by Home Depot online but you can save about $100 by buying on Ebay. TIG welding is a challenging skill yet to be learned but it's doing a nice job with stick and the next thing I'm going to do is add a switch to my stinger handle so that I can use HF start when stick welding because it's so much easier than contact starting. They also sell several other welders in different configurations (there's a combo welder/plasma cutter that's calling me) and you may find a model that fills your basic needs at an affordable price and I'd expect the quality to be similar.

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Toolmaker51 (Nov 11, 2019)

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## jdurand

> FWIW - I bought a Lotos TIG200 TIG/MMA welder for around $550 on Ebay and I'm happy with it once I reworked the foot pedal to operate the way that I like. They're sold by Home Depot online but you can save about $100 by buying on Ebay. TIG welding is a challenging skill yet to be learned but it's doing a nice job with stick and the next thing I'm going to do is add a switch to my stinger handle so that I can use HF start when stick welding because it's so much easier than contact starting. They also sell several other welders in different configurations (there's a combo welder/plasma cutter that's calling me) and you may find a model that fills your basic needs at an affordable price and I'd expect the quality to be similar.



Don't have Home Depot in Russia but there's Aliexpress. The welders I see there are around $30 to $50 USD delivered for a 200 amp stick welder and $100 for a combined stick & TIG. There's some offerings in local home store but of course they're limited and more expensive.

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## KustomsbyKent

on the portable welders that do Stick and TIG, review the specs closely, as many can only TIG steel, NOT aluminum. So just pay close attention to be sure you're getting what you really want.

Frank, nice progress on the building!

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Toolmaker51 (Nov 11, 2019)

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## jdurand

I believe I will want a HF/LIFT switchable welder for optimum use. Haven't looked too closely for what's available.

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## Frank S

Made the 150 mile round trip today to the steel supply and picked up some purlins for the roof and the north side of the shop
the purlins are 30 ft long

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## Toolmaker51

Nice load of material there Frank S. And the suppliers in a BIG right proper building with O/H cranes!
What kept you from hauling it home?

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## Frank S

> Nice load of material there Frank S. And the suppliers in a BIG right proper building with O/H cranes!
> What kept you from hauling it home?



3 things. their unreasonable unwillingness to part with it, the $$$$$$$ to buy it and I took the wrong truck with me to accomplish the job. but I did tell them I'd be back
I'd just a soon taken the whole building equipment and inventory and all.
However if I could locate the correct QL thinker in the pool of universal intelligence and link up with it I cold tweak the laws of the universe then think the building and contents instantaneously transported to my place. Like in the novel Moving Mars by Greg Bear where Charles Franklin and young President Casseia manage to move mars to another solar system to end a war with Earth.

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## metric_taper

> 3 things. their unreasonable unwillingness to part with it, the $$$$$$$ to buy it and I took the wrong truck with me to accomplish the job. but I did tell them I'd be back
> I'd just a soon taken the whole building equipment and inventory and all.
> However if I could locate the correct QL thinker in the pool of universal intelligence and link up with it I cold tweak the laws of the universe then think the building and contents instantaneously transported to my place. Like in the novel Moving Mars by Greg Bear where Charles Franklin and young President Casseia manage to move mars to another solar system to end a war with Earth.




Frank, you must have edited out something in the earlier post showing your truck ladder rack loaded with steel, as Toolmaker must have seen something that said you didn't haul the load. Unless he was joking about hauling the whole supply warehouse home.
These perlins look like 2x4 rectangular stock. Not sure, as your photos didn't show the ends. So how heavy is each one of these 'sticks' to put up on the trusses? I assume you are welding them in place. I think you wrote somewhere that you salvaged all the tin from the original building. 
At least you can keep working this through the winter.

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## Frank S

> Frank, you must have edited out something in the earlier post showing your truck ladder rack loaded with steel, as Toolmaker must have seen something that said you didn't haul the load. Unless he was joking about hauling the whole supply warehouse home.
> These perlins look like 2x4 rectangular stock. Not sure, as your photos didn't show the ends. So how heavy is each one of these 'sticks' to put up on the trusses? I assume you are welding them in place. I think you wrote somewhere that you salvaged all the tin from the original building. 
> At least you can keep working this through the winter.



Toolmaker 51 was referring to the cranes in the building. He and I have gained the ability to see each other's thought which may not otherwise been fully explained. we do joke with each other quite a bit.
the purlins are 6 x 2 C purlin 30 feet long and 4 x 1 1/2" c purlin 30 feet long there were 10 pieces of the 6 inch and 5 of the 4 inch additionally there was 1 6" connector sleeve channel 25 feet long and 1 4 inch connector sleeve channel 20 feet long. the total weight was around 1,000 lbs. Not much of a load for the old truck but enough of a load on my wallet for a while. this material will be enough to construct 1/4 of the roof and half of the North wall so in effect I will have a lean to for a while LOL 
I may have to invent a trick way to get things installed doing the work largely by myself. Also I will have to fix some straps or clips to hold the 4 b8 panels of insulation in place between the purlins before I put the sheet metal on the roof the sheets are 36 ft long that in itself will be a challenge at least for the first couple of sheets 
Yes the purlins will be welded in place with angle clips as well and bridging straps to prevent what is known as rollover buckling.

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## Crusty

I do understand how expensive buying steel is and why you were the only one impressed with my cheap steel truckload score. 

The thought that you have to repeat this purchase 3 more times is daunting - keep buying a lotto ticket every week, you could hit. 

Still though, working in an airy shed is better than under a live oak tree. I mix diesel and ATF in a gas can which I use in sprayers to liberally coat my tools every time I think about it and keep them wrapped with poly tarps when not in use and they're fairing pretty well under a tree, so it's possible to continue work without a bona fide workshop.

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Frank S (Nov 14, 2019)

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## Frank S

What to do with an old school bus. I know I will remove it from the chassis and place it on top of the container to be an office and storage combo









Just wait until you see what I do with this

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Rikk (Nov 19, 2019),

Toolmaker51 (Nov 18, 2019)

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## metric_taper

> What to do with an old school bus. I know I will remove it from the chassis and place it on top of the container to be an office and storage combo
> 
> Just wait until you see what I do with this



You don't goof around much!

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## Toolmaker51

> Toolmaker 51 was referring to the cranes in the building. He and I have gained the ability to see each other's thought which may not otherwise been fully explained. we do joke with each other quite a bit.



Frank S is correct. I [we] read posts and visualize, or look at jpgs and assemble the details. He was born with it.
My perspectives are induced. 
I think he slipped little sumpthin-summin in my lime sherbet.

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## Frank S

> Frank S is correct. I [we] read posts and visualize, or look at jpgs and assemble the details. He was born with it.
> My perspectives are induced. 
> I think he slipped little sumpthin-summin in my lime sherbet.



Tm51 to think my 3rd grade teacher told my parents that I was educationally stupid due to my dyslexia. And no you never outgrow it you learn to use it to your advantage by seeing everything mixed up in your mind's eye

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JoeVanGeaux (Nov 30, 2019),

Toolmaker51 (Nov 18, 2019)

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## Toolmaker51

[re post #61 ]
I fully believe that. Also positive there are _different unrecognized forms_ of autism, dyslexia, etc, highest in the very most creative people. 
A hammer, violin, paint brush or pen and paper, we see people all through time with incomparable abilities; even with less initial exposure to one medium or another. 
In other words, the teacher and the system in place may well had been those with limitations.

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## suther51

Took the high n mighties all kinds of time to determin what my "defects" were around 3rd grade. 5th grade teacher accused me of cheating when I got good grades on geometry tests in stead of the normal 0% to 20 something %. I still have no use for the individual. There really is a silver lining if you can look for it. The "dyslexia" still shows its self occasionally but my mind does tend to go on strike at a certain level of complexity. Simple computer programming I could do, with the more complex programming my attempts were so overly complicated as to be usually non functional. Just couldn't see the forest thru the trees. Found my niche as my bosses fixer-carpenter. Odd job for someone who sees the world in an odd way. Found my silver lining. Looks like several others here also have, it is good to have company.

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Toolmaker51 (Nov 19, 2019)

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## Frank S

Removed most of the scaffolding from the South side of the building today. some to be used on another project some to be used in another place.
This is turning out to be how not to build a work shop

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## Rikk

Great progress considering you are working mostly alone or with minimal help. I'd bet it will be built better than if you paid for it to be done.

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## Frank S

> Great progress considering you are working mostly alone or with minimal help. I'd bet it will be built better than if you paid for it to be done.



The only help if you can really call them that was for setting 4 of the trusses, or the wife holding 1 end of a tape measure occasionally.
I doubt if it will be built better or even as good as it would if I were paying to have it done. For one thing I would not have allowed it to be built from scrap, for another I can be a down right demanding tyrant when I'm paying for the labor because I expect anyone working for me to be proficient in their duties and to know how to do their job. Lastly having designed numerous pre-engineered structures the design would have been such that the thing would have been completed 6 months ago. but where's the fun in having something built for you.

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## Rikk

> The only help if you can really call them that was for setting 4 of the trusses, or the wife holding 1 end of a tape measure occasionally.
> I doubt if it will be built better or even as good as it would if I were paying to have it done. For one thing I would not have allowed it to be built from scrap, for another I can be a down right demanding tyrant when I'm paying for the labor because I expect anyone working for me to be proficient in their duties and to know how to do their job. Lastly having designed numerous pre-engineered structures the design would have been such that the thing would have been completed 6 months ago. but where's the fun in having something built for you.



I'm with you there. If it's in my skill set, you can bet I will do it and pay much closer attention to detail than anyone else would. That is a huge project, in every sense of the word, I'm not sure if I'd take it on, good job Frank!

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## jdurand

> I'm with you there. If it's in my skill set, you can bet I will do it and pay much closer attention to detail than anyone else would. That is a huge project, in every sense of the word, I'm not sure if I'd take it on, good job Frank!



Ditto, and also on demanding if it's something I expect the contractor to know how to do. We used to have tons of trouble getting PC boards fabricated in the USA, they often acted like they'd never made a board before. They couldn't quote anything until we had the design complete then they would say "no, can't do that" or "we will have to charge a lot extra for that".

We now use exclusively reputable Chinese manufacturers. We ask what they can do, they give us a list. If we want something special, it's a cheap add-on or even free. AND they ship early with boards that match our requirements.

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KustomsbyKent (Nov 25, 2019),

Rikk (Nov 20, 2019)

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## Frank S

Even as electronically challenged as I am I can print and etch a PC board albeit it would have to be a fairly simple one.

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## Frank S

Hard to tell what I am doing in the photos but I am preparing to add an anti-room to the side of the shop to provide a space for the stairs to the school bus and a shop restroom. One pipe has a wheel welded to the bottom like all the rest of the posts have and one already had concrete on it so instead of breaking the concrete off I decided to just burry it the total size of the area will be 8ft by 15 ft

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## Frank S

I drug out an old deer hunter's stand that I picked up a while back for the angle iron then cut it apart.
The 3x3 angle iron is now the perimeter for the floor of the anti room This gives me a ledge to sit the sheet metal on later when I get ready to add rebar for the floor I will weld that to the angle iron to tie everything together,

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## metric_taper

Hows the cross bracing task? Hope the weather is holding during this fall.

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## Frank S

> Hows the cross bracing task? Hope the weather is holding during this fall.



Just picking my battles one at a time.
Will be ordering all of the rest of the roof purlin tomorrow or the next day then to look at cash flow again LOL

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## Frank S

Time to stop playing around building trick gadgets to assist me in building the shop and get started flying the materials to the top
I loaded the gin pole hoist with my spreader bar and 10 of the 6" 30 ft long purlins then drove to where I wanted to stage them for lifting

Once I was where I wanted to be I decided to only lift 3 purlins up to get started I didn't want to have to try and fight all 10 of them while needing to position the first 1 in place also even though I know the hoist will lift all 10 of them going that high and having to boom out with that much weight just didn't make any sense to me from a safety stand point While having to try and control any rotational drift from the ground to I sent up the first 3 

3 down er I mean up many to go

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## Frank S

I flew the remaining purlin up to stage them for installing late yesterday afternoon.
Today was mostly a windy day but did manage to get 2 more welded in place during lulls in the wind. My fire Marshal wife stood fire guard and every time a single spark hit the ground she made sure it did not ignite the dry grass in the yard I keep telling her that if I would set the grass on fire and let it burn then she wouldn't have to worry about a fire taking off besides that it would reduce the number of grass burs next year as well But hse won't hear of it LOL.
So I went to the woods and cut fire wood 

the gin pole crane works swimmingly

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KustomsbyKent (Dec 26, 2019)

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## metric_taper

Every part you assemble, has to be a good feeling towards a roof that sheds weather. 
Looks like the slope is low enough that the stacked perlins are not sliding. 

My garage has a 6/12 slope to the west and 4/12 to the east. Everything slides on 6/12. And it was damaging to my feet installing the asphalt roofing, as it was right at an angle where blood flow was inhibited to the toes. Squatting on a 26 degree roof. That was 22 years ago, and I still have nerve damage. It was a pain, as the hammer would slide, as well shingle bundles. The killer was 5 roof windows, that required step flashing, so an enormous amount of time was spent squatting to cut the shingle, then place the flashing. And this before I owned a pneumatic coil nailer. Worse is those windows don't let enough light in for the attic room, and all I worry about now is a hail storm taking them out.

Should be interesting seeing the insulation install, I assume that takes up the perlin height.

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## Frank S

More is the reason why the closeness to a true 4 ft spacing was important to me. the insulation I have was my kind of acquisition FREE the panels are varied in thickness so I might wind up needing to stack as many as 3 together but many are nearly 4 inches thick which will wedge into the "C" of the first purlin and tight to the back side of the next. Most panels are 4 ft by 8 ft in size but there are a few pallets of 4 ft by 4 ft 
here is a picture of the panels they are closed cell (polyisocyanurate or rigid polyiso foam (PIR)) self extinguishing sandwiched of the same type and quality of that used to make cold room storage facilities with a very high R value per inch of thickness 
I will wedge them into the purlin then screw retaining strips below so they cannot fall out 



Not that I would trust doing it but a 4 inch thick panel supported on both sides is rigid enough to walk on when new

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## metric_taper

I was going to ask how you were going to keep the insulation in place, and figured you would post this when you got to it. 
How many trailers of material do you have? Sorta looks like you collect them  :Big Grin:

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## Frank S

> I was going to ask how you were going to keep the insulation in place, and figured you would post this when you got to it. 
> How many trailers of material do you have? Sorta looks like you collect them



Between my bud and me I think we have 17 semi trailers, 6 van or household goods trailers 4 flatbed 1 curtain side van 1 flatbed with a Conestoga kit making it a van that you can load like a flatbed, 2 sliding axle equipment type 2 step decks and 1 RGN (removable gooseneck lowbed Plus a couple shipping containers 2 P30 step van bread truck type trucks and a 28 ft U haul truck then there are the small utility trailers I have made over the years last count we have 4 or maybe 5 of them ranging in size and capacity from 4 by8 @ 3000 lbs to 8 by 20 @ 15,000 lbs 
So yes you could say we collect them

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KustomsbyKent (Dec 26, 2019)

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## Frank S

This is turning out to be how not to build a work shop.
Only getting 2 purlin installed per day when there are 40 of them to install is not my idea of how to build a shop. 
Moving the mobile scaffold takes quite a bit of time since I have to set the steering n it where I imagine it needs to go then chain it to my pickup so it can't runn off then push it a ways then get out and turn the steering wheel so the unit can straighten up, push it some more until it is about straight and has moved enough to the side to set the next couple of purlin then pull it back to where I need it. turning the steering wheel is Armstrong steering since the engine is not running hence no power steering and doing this while it is not moving makes that task that much harder. Thinking backwards now I wished I would have flew the next section of purlin up from the beginning. If I had I would now have nearly half of the purlin up for the roof and could have saved some moving time of the scaffold unit. But I was thinking about something else when I started then it was too late once I shifted the first time. Anyway now I have only 2 more purlin I can install then I have to move a bunch of stuff that is in the way for the next side or shift back and finish the other half of this side, but once I start on that side I am going to do the whole side as I go. I feel I have wasted a window of good weather although the wind has not been the most cooperative at times

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## Toolmaker51

Could chassis be moved better from front; a heavy [2 5/16"] trailer ball on forklift or frontloader, lifting front end so wheels aren't contacting ground? Maybe pull tires and weld up a landing gear?

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## Frank S

> Could chassis be moved better from front; a heavy [2 5/16"] trailer ball on forklift or frontloader, lifting front end so wheels aren't contacting ground? Maybe pull tires and weld up a landing gear?



it could providing there was room between where the shop is and where I have my vehicle detention center that I call the dog pound because there are more Mack bull dogs than other critters Also that pencil sharpener is sitting smack in the way of things 
Right now it would be difficult to use the receiver on the fork carriage of the front end loader due to having the gin pole and hoist on it. My duel wheeled fork lift spends more time buried in the ground than rolling it is barely maneuverable around as long as I can remain on the area where I have hardened it up with the select fill clay drive of the edge of where that is and it sinks to the frame. hence the pushing and pulling from the rear 
one helper who could either drive the pickup or could steer the bus while it was moving would have been a big help. 
Jane won't drive the pickup because the size of it and having to push or pull the bus chassis scares her and she surely is not strong enough to steer the bus.

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Toolmaker51 (Dec 26, 2019)

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## Frank S

Even after having to take time to change a tire then go to town get fuel have the tire fixed and a few other go to town things that had to be done.
I managed to get 4 purlin installed today these area at the highest part of the trusses so my scaffold was more of a its there as a fall stop than anything else since the center of the trusses are over 6 feet from the bottom of them it meant climbing on them and working while standing on the braces or sitting on top of the truss to weld them in place.

This puts the to the point of either doing the back half of the same side or moving a lot of stuff to do the other side. Or going ahead and sheeting what I have to give me a 30 ft by 36 ft roof over head. On the one hand having a partial roof would be better than no roof but that means having to change up what I am doing. IT would mean I would have a completed area to put the project that is currently under the tent though and the tent has to come down soon anyway. Heck I have almost knocked it down already.
But I think I will carry on and install the other 10 purlin on the second half of the side I am working on then sheet the whole half then move everything from the other side and not have to take a step forward while taking 2 backwards. 
The stuff that needs moved is the 3 axle set currently under the tent and the 50 ft trailer that I have on dollies and can only be moved sideways 



Once I finish with the roof these bar joists will be used to make a 30 by 40 lean to on the south side of the building
 
these white standing seam panels will be the roof of the lean to.
originally the bar joists and the panels were used as a cover for a large RV 
I have almost enough panels to make a 30 ft wide lean to the full length of the building 


This pile of pipes is what I will be using to run my air system throughout the shop I have close to 2000 feet of 1 " 1 1/4" and 1 1/2" pipe in that pile with a smattering of a couple hundred feet of 2 " & 2 1/2" pipe more than enough to plumb an air system with.

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## Toolmaker51

A lot of pipe! Run a branch to St. Joseph? I'm not a big consumer of compressed air . . .
Maybe I can find an unfracked reservoir in OK or southwest KS. Never mind, you are busy enough.
Actually, I have a 3ph dual voltage 80 gallon upright and 60 gallon reservoir, in opposite corners. One for quiet, one where the action is. PLENTY!

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## Frank S

I knew those clouds in the sky yesterday were not going to be friendly to my quest. Sure enough woke up this morning to the sound of moisture trying to fall from the sky. A Foggy drizzle just enough to make it less than appetizing to weld with an AC stick machine

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## Frank S

> A lot of pipe! Run a branch to St. Joseph? I'm not a big consumer of compressed air . . .
> Maybe I can find an unfracked reservoir in OK or southwest KS. Never mind, you are busy enough.
> Actually, I have a 3ph dual voltage 80 gallon upright and 60 gallon reservoir, in opposite corners. One for quiet, one where the action is. PLENTY!



When it comes to pneumatic tools, I am a firm believer that they are like having fire arms behind every door stashed in every corner hanging on every wall under every place one can be hidden because the walk in closet gun safe will no longer hold any more,you will only have too many air tools when there is not a square foot of work area left unoccupied with one. I plan to have drops water traps and filters with the possibility of also regulators through out the shop many areas will have manifolds of quick disconnects and shut off valves before every manifold. Many of the locations will have the 3/8" and 3/4' inch quick connects 
This will hold true for electrical outlets as well. I haven't decided what to do about center bay work stations should the need arise, I might decide to embed recessed conduits for future use. I hate having cords or hoses strung out all over the floor that have to be moved to roll a tool box or drive a forklift or vehicle through an area.

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Toolmaker51 (Dec 29, 2019)

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## Frank S

I have been needing to remove a power line that used to go to my well from the poles but getting up there was becoming a vertical challenge. My 30 ft ladder was several feet too short and too wobbly to suit me at that kind of height anyway I no longer own a pair of climbing gaffs and haven't climbed a pole in 30 or 40 years or longer anyway. It seemed silly to even think about trying to erect a scaffold that high and next to impossible by myself.
So what I did this morning was to put on my safety harness with a fall arresting loop on the back and my safety belt with tie off lanyard then hooked myself to the hook on the hoist and raised myself up, hooked my lanyard around the pole and released the clips that held the line to the insulators and tie off on the pole, lowered myself back to the ground and job done no more overhead obstruction. total time from ground level back to ground level less than a couple minutes

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## jdurand

So you're saying you were just hanging around.

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## Frank S

> So you're saying you were just hanging around.



My mother used to threaten to hang me up on a hook by the suspenders on my overalls for some of the things I did I finally made good on her threat and hung myself on a hook. 
I had thought about making a Bosons chair then I thought why make something that I already had better. It worked so well that I was able to remove the line without damaging the loop clamps that held it in place because I had the lanyard around the pole and my legs wrapped around it to stabilize myself freeing both hands to work on the line

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## Toolmaker51

> When it comes to pneumatic tools, I am a firm believer... plan to have drops water traps and filters with the possibility of also regulators through out the shop many areas will have manifolds of quick disconnects and shut off valves before every manifold. Many of the locations will have the 3/8" and 3/4' inch quick connects 
> This will hold true for electrical outlets as well. I haven't decided what to do about center bay work stations should the need arise, I might decide to embed recessed conduits for future use. I hate having cords or hoses strung out all over the floor that have to be moved to roll a tool box or drive a forklift or vehicle through an area.



In full agreement. 
My case;
Pneumatics get 3/4" perimeter line and QD's, keeps 3/8" hoses off lanes of rolling stock. 
A pair of lines overhead with reels either side of centerline.

Electrics;
120v perimeter with outlets spaced same as air QD's. Aside vacuuming, 120v doesn't figure big with me. Power feeds and work-lights; small buck transformers already hung on most respective machine tools. 
Machine tools [98% are 3ph 60hz 440v] all get drops from the 8" square wireway main or branches(*1), more volume [20% area is 931 12ga THHN conductors and grounds!(2*)] never require fully. Have 360' worth, bought surplus $10 each, to run main plus 3 branches, and elevator style [rectangular 2x4] for 2 or 3 ganged light switch stations at doors.
Have three VFD's for 380v 50hz machines, greatly simplifies wiring scheme. 
Still don't have a big amp receptacle/ plug or dedicated disconnect for the Lincoln 250A stick welder, real long pigtail. 
Have surplus [excess] lighting fixtures. But they'll work out; 120v LEDs pendants into conduit receptacles, flush + 1/2" for drywall, to enable work at night. After wireway is up I have many 12' fluorescent T8 277v fixtures. Via 3-way switches, allow whatever lighting for work at hand, including night lights for egress.
Now equipped with shear/ punch/ beader/ brake/ bender, I'll fabricate separators for each branch of wireway, to further enhance cooling, tracing, adding circuits.

Yes, there will be a build thread, once family things are done in CA, around 1st of February. A brick structure, 6500 sq ft, 16' ceiling free span, loading dock high, 1 ramp, needs one more though. Machinery [except grinding and sawing] all in place and leveled. 
Yes. IT HAS TAKEN FOREVER GETTING THIS FAR!



*1 https://www.google.com/search?client...w=1600&bih=736
*2 https://www.hoffmanonline.com/stream...6140&pRID=2123

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## Frank S

yesterday and today the wind was almost dead calm Lost yesterday due to having to do the wife wants to go to get groceries thing which could have waited another month or 2 by my estimation of the pantry, freezer and fridge but the boss is the boss.
so this morning started trying to get the back hoe started at around 9 am in 20's something temps. it wasn't having it. the old battery just didn't have enough reserve to get a good crank over speed. Out comes the 30/60/300 Schumacher. Charge a while then spin over a few seconds then charge a while again. repeat and repeat get frustrated go round up a couple electric heaters place one at injector pump the other on the opposite side of the block. Sun's out nice and bright the hours tick by the temps climbing but back hoe parked north side of building shaded from the sun. I refuse to use a starting aid on the old engine last thing I need is to turn it into a drug Addick. It either starts or it don't and I go do something else. So one final attempt flip charger up on the 300 amp setting give it a spin it starts and blows black smoke for several minutes while warming up. By now it is noon half the day gone wasted the rare calm wind. 
Fly 4 purlin up weld them in place fly the remaining 6 up weld 2 more in place by now it is getting on past 4 PM all and all a productive day best so far on the roof project but now need to move the mobile scaffold. get everything moved out of the way and say the heck with it I'm supposed to have a new battery come tomorrow or Thursday and Bob may be able to stick around for a couple hours to help steer and move the scaffold Going to be too windy to risk welding tomorrow sparks started a couple of small grass fires today even in the almost calm wind but the Fire marshal wife took care of them with her shovel 
4 more purlin, 4 more purlin I keep saying then I can sheet the whole north roof.

Did I say I only have 4 more purlin to put up on that side?
Oh yeah part of yesterday was used in welding in the last crapy brace between the trusses.
This officially uses up every last piece of the old trusses from the building I took down

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## metric_taper

Hope your New Years dinner has something special from the trip to town.
I bet there were a few expletives used to get the diesel running. But you beat the beast into coming alive. And you got a good day in. Can't wait to see the insulation and roof sheeting installed.
I learned with my first car (62 Pontiac Safari Station Wagon ~71) that oil viscosity was everything to getting it started when winter temps in North Dakota were -40F. As well a huge Cadillac battery. Mobil One just started being sold, and it was the missing ingredient to cold weather engine starts (5W-30 it was $2.90/qt, when regular oil was $0.65). Every auto also had engine block heaters, either one that installed in a freeze plug, or separate tank in the heater hose line, and there were dip stick heaters as well. I don't see that anymore, as synthetic oils seem to be the norm in all autos. 
A new battery, darn things have gotten expensive. That should fix your tropical temp. engine start problem.  :Smile:

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## Crusty

I once talked with an old trucker who ran the Montana outback regularly during the worst of winter when it gets really cold. He told me that one of his secrets was to carry a heavy canvas tarp and a bag of charcoal. When it got so cold that his diesel gelled he spread the tarp over the left side tank and engine and then built a charcoal fire under the tarp off to the side to heat and reliquify his diesel and warm the oil in the pan so that he could get his truck to bust off. He also had electric as well as coolant recirc heaters installed on his truck to keep it liquid once it was running. It sounded really dangerous to me but he'd been doing it for years with no unplanned fires.

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## metric_taper

> I once talked with an old trucker who ran the Montana outback regularly during the worst of winter when it gets really cold. He told me that one of his secrets was to carry a heavy canvas tarp and a bag of charcoal. When it got so cold that his diesel gelled he spread the tarp over the left side tank and engine and then built a charcoal fire under the tarp off to the side to heat and reliquify his diesel and warm the oil in the pan so that he could get his truck to bust off. He also had electric as well as coolant recirc heaters installed on his truck to keep it liquid once it was running. It sounded really dangerous to me but he'd been doing it for years with no unplanned fires.



I recall truckers using acetylene as an engine start helper. But that can end up bending a connecting rod, that is what I was told when watching this. So I have no idea how they metered that. Preheat igniters must not have been a standard diesel component back then.

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## Frank S

> Hope your New Years dinner has something special from the trip to town.
> I bet there were a few expletives used to get the diesel running. But you beat the beast into coming alive. And you got a good day in. Can't wait to see the insulation and roof sheeting installed.
> I learned with my first car (62 Pontiac Safari Station Wagon ~71) that oil viscosity was everything to getting it started when winter temps in North Dakota were -40F. As well a huge Cadillac battery. Mobil One just started being sold, and it was the missing ingredient to cold weather engine starts (5W-30 it was $2.90/qt, when regular oil was $0.65). Every auto also had engine block heaters, either one that installed in a freeze plug, or separate tank in the heater hose line, and there were dip stick heaters as well. I don't see that anymore, as synthetic oils seem to be the norm in all autos. 
> A new battery, darn things have gotten expensive. That should fix your tropical temp. engine start problem.



If I would take the time to pull the injector pump and re build it, that would go a long way to curing the starting and low power problems with the old gal. The problem with these old minimatic pumps is with an off the shelf rebuild you might as well be shooting craps in Vegas trying to locate one that is a quality reman. To do it my self would mean the backhoe would be down for the length of time to order in replacements for any worn parts, the price of new NOS is not in budget. I know a pump guy in Florida who used to be good if he still does that sort of thing who used to be fairly reasonable. Maybe this coming summer when the need for the backhoe will be lessened hopefully I will be able to do the pump and injectors

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## Crusty

Nope they weren't. Before electronics you just had mechanical pumps which squirted fuel into the cylinders at the right time and the heat of compression caused it flash. If your fuel was already jello however it would never even get through the fuel filter ahead of the pump so you had to take measures to keep your fuel flowing. At the truck stops where it gets really cold there are #1 diesel (kerosene) pumps along side the #2 diesel pumps and truckers there mix their own magic proportions of #1 and #2 diesel in their tanks to hopefully keep it liquid.

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## Frank S

Talking about using acetylene as start aid for a diesel can be a very bad thing but it can be done the problem is the acetylene's explosive reaction to high pressures. Just a whiff OK but flood the breather and watch the head bolts stretch or a con rod pretzel like too much nitrous in a street racer. 
Propane is not as bad but still dicey same with starting fluid the only engines that were actually designed to be started with ether was the old 2 stroke Detroit's they even had a port or a chamber where you could place ether balls an puncture them to get the engine to start ether balls looked a little like paint balls only larger. Drop one in slam the lid and spin the engine over if you didn't get white smoke , do it again soon it would start and eventually it would become so addicted to the stuff you advanced to using cans of starting fluid.
Once while I had my old Dodge welding rig I ran out of gas way down around Langtree, South of Ozona Tx. my welder was diesel and the truck was gas I laid the tip of my torch in the throat of the carb used a wire to spin the engine over then turned on the act. until it started I adjusted the flow until the engine was running around 2000 RPM closed the hood to the safety catch then drove the 45 miles to the nearest gas station, dodgy at best but better than walking in the middle of the night. 
My dad was working on an old Autocar that had an air starter we had several inches of snow on the ground went out to start it up whirrll went the starter but no start rolled the air compressor out filled the start tank gave it another go still no go dad came out with a shop rag soaked in gasoline, shoved it in the breather and said start it boy. I gave it a whirll this time it caught and ran. My dad said a little bit of ethel will do it every time always remember that son. 
Todays water gas doesn't work quite as well but I've found that the premix chain saw fuel you spent 20.00 a qt for works great pour a little on a rag and shove it in the breather tube the vapors will be enough to kick off an older engine that doesn't have an intake warmer if you have those it must be disconnected or risk exploding the intake don't ask me how I learned this.

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## Frank S

> Nope they weren't. Before electronics you just had mechanical pumps which squirted fuel into the cylinders at the right time and the heat of compression caused it flash. If your fuel was already jello however it would never even get through the fuel filter ahead of the pump so you had to take measures to keep your fuel flowing. At the truck stops where it gets really cold there are #1 diesel (kerosene) pumps along side the #2 diesel pumps and truckers there mix their own magic proportions of #1 and #2 diesel in their tanks to hopefully keep it liquid.



My friend just returned from a Canada run his fuel turned to jello on him over night. poured some of that liquid heat in his tanks to get his fuel liquid again but the only way he could get the engine to start was to wave a propane torch on each of the unit pumps and the fuel line to them finally after a couple tanks or propane he and the call out mechanic got it started. Said he learned as valuable lesson either leave the engine running so the return fuel will help keep the diesel in the tanks warm or be low on fuel when you cross over into an area where they offer winter fuel at the pumps This ultra low Sulphur stuff they call diesel today is not supposed to be as bad as the older diesel but it will still thicken up when it gets cold enough.

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## Crusty

I'm familiar with that problem. I once had 275 gallons of jello to deal with in Denver when it dropped to -18ºF overnight and my truck stopped running at 5 am, despite fueling with "winter blend" diesel in Amarillo plus adding a jug of Power Service (the accepted standard fuel treatment) to it and a piece of cardboard on the front of my radiator to keep the engine hot while I was stopped. The fuel outside of the engine block still got so cold that it jelled anyway. I had to shut down for 3 days and get a motel room until it warmed up and I could get that Cummins busted off again. If I'd had recirc coolant fuel heaters it likely would have stayed liquid but they're expensive and there's hardly ever a need for them in the Lone Star. I don't think that fuel in Amarillo was 100% winter blend.

Another thing I learned - those plastic air lines that you see on trucks these days get fragile like glass at -18ºF and touching one is enough to make it snap off.

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## Frank S

> Another thing I learned - those plastic air lines that you see on trucks these days get fragile like glass at -18ºF and touching one is enough to make it snap off.



You think? :Angry:  :Gunfire:

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## Frank S

> I don't think that fuel in Amarillo was 100% winter blend.



 Oh its winter blend alright just that it is winter blend for the Armadillo area may be good enough to get you over Veil if you don't stop and are not driving through the slushy stuff. 
Stopped in Green River one time back in the 90's, in the wife's little Ford Ranger to gas up just as they were putting the stickers on their pumps stating their fuel had winterizing agents in it. I'm thinking OK diesel sure but gasoline? went in to the fuel desk to ask what's up. Oh its a new mandate by the state to winterize all fuels.
So what does that do to the newer vehicles with electronic fuel injection systems?
Well it shouldn't hurt them the state says it is safe. 
OH sure and Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, do you have the MSDS on the stuff in your pumps if so where is it posted for all to read?
No I've never seen it.
Then contact your fuel supplier and have them fax it over to you I want a copy and am not leaving until I read it for myself.
45 minutes later I finally get a call back to the fuel desk and am handed 20 pages of fax to read 15 pages of WARNINGS for various vehicle models DO NOT EXCEED bla, bla, bla percentage or risk damage. The wife's Ranger was not on the list.
I asked the manager don't you think that you might want to post a warning on your pumps telling customers there cold be a potential risk factor when using your fuel unless certain precautionary measures are not taken?
After reading the MSDS he called their supplier and had them come out to test the blend. When we stopped by there on our way back form Seattle the manager spied me coming into the store ran over and said you can never know how much money you might have saved this fuel center the supplier had just dumped the additive in the tanks and hadn't bothered to run a blender down in them some of the tanks tested 60% above the maximum allowed. we got our tank filled for free our breakfast and a host of travel goodies that I would have never spent the amount of money they would have cost to by, as a thank you.

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## Crusty

I was thinking that maybe their latest fuel delivery was winter blend but there was still a significant amount of summer blend in their tanks when they were topped off. I fueled at a Pilot and I suspect that their deliveries are on a regular schedule whether they need refilling or not. But yeah - Amarillo cold and Great Falls cold are two quite different conditions.

Funny you mentioned Vail. I once camped out 2 days at the top of Vail Pass because it was too icy to come down the backside.

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## Frank S

Wind has been howling at times today not all that cold but if you are in the wind a good pair of Carhart's are in order. way too much wind to be 25 feet off the ground trying to weld though

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## Crusty

I'm just hanging out today too. I finished my last project and haven't decided what to start on next. It's almost cold here and overcast like it's going to rain but it still hasn't.

FWIW - I bought a Lincoln welding shirt/jacket that's made of heavy khaki and I like it a lot. It's comfortable to wear while I'm working in a variety of weather and the snaps on it make it easy on/off, plus there's snaps on the sleeves so I can close them up and not get them caught in the lathe or mill. The only pocket is on the inside so it doesn't get snagged on stuff - in fact I've yet to snag it anywhere on anything plus I haven't burnt a hole in yet. It's as good as Carhartt.

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## Frank S

Yeppers nothing like snaps.
it didn't quite get down to freezing here this morning kind of a change from the previous couple mornings whre I saw 18 on the digital even though the weather guessers say things like 25 or 28 I go by how thick the ice forms on the pet bowls when it is thick enough thatI have to use a hammer to break it then I know it was colder than any 25° for 2 or 3 hours. Yesterday and the day before even though it froze hard enough to freeze the hose bib on the pump house even though covered with the useless foam cover it tells me it was on the chilly side becaue the inside of the pump house has a thermostat that switches on the heaters when below 45 so the freeze has to happen between the insulated wall and the valve on the bib. My solution for this is I bought a 8" frost free hose bib so no water will be inside the pipe outside of the wall just haven't gotten it installed yet Probably should ahve done that today LOL

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## Crusty

You were just waiting for the right motivation (like a busted hose bib) to install that freeze resistant one.  :Cool:

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## Frank S

> You were just waiting for the right motivation (like a busted hose bib) to install that freeze resistant one.



Yep no since replacing it as long as it works but on the same token I really don't need to pump 600 gallons of water on to the ground even though this sand could use the moisture

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## Frank S

For the last couple of days it had been windy so nothing much done to the building I did manage to get 2 more purlin welded in place but I have a truck and trailer in for servicing and to do some other repairs. The sort of thing that gets in the way of progress but at the same time helps to pay for future materials to be used on the building plus he came hauling a Dodge pickup he had only recently had a transmission replaced in but the shop where it was done had not bothered to pull the torque converter off and place it on the front of the transmission before mounting the transmission. When trying to stab an automatic in this fashion you may think you are saving yourself some time but the couple minutes to pull the converter and guide it onto the input shaft and insure that everything aligns up correctly almost always results in damaging the pump seal or cracks the housing. the ruck runs and moves just fine but it pours ATF out of the front seal. 
They shop had kept his truck for months and months continuing to shove it aside until finally he had, had enough of their excuses, loaded it up and brought it to me.
If I had a lift or a pit this would only be an hour's job
Some reasons why I need to get finished with the shop

some of these are for restore and some to repair for sale 

This hanger queen needs to go I need to get it sand blasted painted and put back together
He and I have a lot of money tied up in it and still need to dump a few thou more so we can either put it to work or rent it out

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## metric_taper

> This hanger queen needs to go I need to get it sand blasted painted and put back together
> He and I have a lot of money tied up in it and still need to dump a few thou more so we can either put it to work or rent it out



I'm confused, on this 3rd photo, that old trailer with the sideways casters, is that the "hanger queen", or did you mean something else.

At least your not looking at white cold stuff everywhere.

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## Frank S

> I'm confused, on this 3rd photo, that old trailer with the sideways casters, is that the "hanger queen", or did you mean something else.
> 
> At least your not looking at white cold stuff everywhere.



Yep it has been sitting there going on 8 months now I have about $3,500.00 worth of air springs air lines air valves brakes bearings seals slack adjusters and misc. parts for it waiting on more parts, sand blasting painting and rebuilding the hyd cylinders but I may have to had the cylinder shafts ground and re chromed 
I have trailer sitting on a pair of tandems pulled from a couple dry vans that way instead of having to drag the tri axle group out from under it I simply rolled it to the side 
I now officially have half of the purlin installed so I can begin sheeting the roof on half of the building then I will roll the Kaylin Siebert trailer up next to the container out of my way so I can continue with the other half of the roof.

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## Frank S

Well there is now 1 sheet of metal on the roof giving me 108 sq feet of covered area not that a 3 ft wide strip 36 feet long 20 plus feet up in the air would do much to protect from the elements

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## Toolmaker51

> Well there is now 1 sheet of metal on the roof giving me 108 sq feet of covered area not that a 3 ft wide strip 36 feet long 20 plus feet up in the air would do much to protect from the elements



It would here, occasionally. 
Often have rain or sun beating down one side of the yard, not the other! Of course, it would likely take path transverse to the roofing slope.

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## KustomsbyKent

It's progress forward tho!
You must have nicer weather than we have right now... it was a balmy -15F this morning, with a breeze... It has warmed up to 1F so far.

Hopefully the next sheets go on smoothly, and you'll soon have some roof coverage that helps.

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## Frank S

Was planning on getting more sheets up today but as soon as I started to move the backhoe crane to grab some more the wind got up. it was supposed to blow all day after switching from the South to the North West I caught it during the lull during the change of direction. 5 to 10 MPH breezes don't seem like much until you think about wrestling a sheet of metal that is half as large as a the canopy of a parachute in area and you currently only have a single sheet to stand on things can go south in a hurry. once I have 3 or 4 sheets down the risk management factor drops by a huge factor For 2 or 3 guys it would be a moot deal just fly them up and shift them one at a time in place with a guy on either end and a guy starting somewhere near the middle to get the first couple of screws in. In the past I've been on roofs with a stack of sheets in winds so bad the crane operator refused to bring us another bundle.

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## Frank S

After several days of wind and being tied up on another project I finally got back to the work on the shop 
26 this morning but the wind was blowing out of the North around 15 MPH. went out at 7 to feed the animals and break ice on their water bowls.
Figured the day might be another wash out but around 10 the wind began changing direction and dying down the temp was in the upper 30's so hooked up an electric heater on the backhoe by 11 I tried to start it the wind had calmed I hoisted 7 sheets up then started screwing them down managed to get 4 before the wind decided to make a brief blow not real bad but enough to make it hard to drag the 36 foot long sheets around so took a brief break then got back up there and screwed down the remaining 3 then went and loaded 6 more hoisted them up by now it was around 3 in the afternoon had the last one screwed down by 5 then Jane told me we needed to go cut some more fire wood incase rainy weather comes in Tuesday like they think 
Any way I now have 40 feet of the 61 feet of the north roof completed

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Toolmaker51 (Jan 19, 2020)

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## Frank S

The North Slope is done.
the photo taken around 3:30 this afternoon while leaning against the South East corner column.
Now I have a lot of stuff to move before I can begin installing the purlin on the South Slope
thins like this

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## Rikk

Making good progress Frank! Can't wait to see it finished.  :Thumbs Up:

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## Frank S

> Making good progress Frank! Can't wait to see it finished.



It has taken over a year to get this far, It could take another year to get it far enough to have doors on it

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## metric_taper

> It has taken over a year to get this far, It could take another year to get it far enough to have doors on it



Having half the roof up, when you see how much more to go, and the worst of the winter is yet to come, I understand. 
Do you have any concern about high winds and the columns racking over? I know you buried them deep and in Portland cement infused clay.

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## Frank S

> Having half the roof up, when you see how much more to go, and the worst of the winter is yet to come, I understand. 
> Do you have any concern about high winds and the columns racking over? I know you buried them deep and in Portland cement infused clay.



I do have some concerns enough so that I have some more bracing made up to weld in place and some cables installed for wind stabilization currently my biggest concern is the fact that the ends do not have any columns just the corner columns the North West and South West columns are hero columns the one on the south has the structure for the brick crane tied to it half way up so very little concern there. On the North side the Container stabilizes those but I can still detect more than movement than I felt there should have been when I was dragging the sheets across Probably just imagination and a combination of natural flex due to there being no walls in place. If the building were only 10 or 12 feet to the eves and it had that much movement I would have been really worried.
Today the winds are gusting close to 30 MPH and from the ground feeling the columns I don't detect any movement at all, That's not to say there is not any I just don't detect any.

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## Frank S

Moving a few small things around so I can start getting ready for the south slope of the roof
things like a couple dozen scaffold frames

the truck and trailer are the only things that were not here to be moved in the picture
Especially the A frame

This is the way it looked at noon

My wife calls what I mostly use as an anvil Thor's hammer can't imagine why 

2 of our dogs trying to protect the tent canvas they were upset when we took it down

the spreader bar cam in handy for lifting the tires and rims up on the trailer bed 
took 6 at a time in 2 picks 

new temporary resting place for the trailer

my moving dollies 

Only the axle group and some small bits left in the way

It was getting close to sun down when the wife and I called it a day then went and cut a small load of wood before dark

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## metric_taper

> Only the axle group and some small bits left in the way



Looks like you got a workout today moving stuff. Should be interesting to see the other side go up.

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## Frank S

> Looks like you got a workout today moving stuff. Should be interesting to see the other side go up.



Yep I earned my bologna sandwich LOL
tomorrow is going to be a wash out though I have to finish up the getting my Masda back on the road after doing a rebuild on the engine getting it back in the truck and firing it up I let it run for a couple hours the other day so want to change the oil & filter put the hood on and call it done. So I can drop the transmission pan on my 93 F350 to see if the problem that developed today is just the internal link has come lose or if I'm going to have to pull it and replace the forward clutch pack It is a 4L0D which means it would almost be cheaper to locate a flywheel clutch & housing and a peddle tower and drop in the Mack quadraplex that I have than to overhaul the automatic if it happens to be fried But I have been threatening to do just that for nearly 6 years now.
I also have a 92 F250 I need to take and get inspected and tagged and a 98 Dodge D2500 that belongs to a guy who had the transmission rebuilt but the transmission shop damaged the front seal when they installed it so I need to drop the trans replace the seal pull the torque converter put it on the tranny and re install it like trans mission shop should have done in the first place, instead of trying to stab the trans on the converter while it was mounted to the engine which will cut the seal 9 out of 10 times

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## jdurand

I was starting to make progress on cleaning up here, got to get everything not being packed sold, given away, or trashed.

until

My wife said she needed my help with the special cake she was making, it looks like it's made of bricks. It's for a sort of cook book that she's working on. I gave her some tinned steel to make separators for the cake pan...what now?

She said "I've got all the ingredients, I'll give them to you as you need."

oh

I'm making the cake. Can't I just have it and eat it too?

The looks aren't quite what she was going for, took some pictures and she'll think about revision 2. Anyway, tastes good, but then anything chocolate does.

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## Frank S

Everything cleared away , bus scaffold in place and the remaining purlin staged for lifting

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## Frank S

staged and the coupling sleeves welded on the first batch to be raised

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## metric_taper

Looks like you got the next week planned out.

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## Frank S

> Looks like you got the next week planned out.



Well I got the Masda engine back together and the little truck going so that was one project out of the way.
I have the tilt steering column in a 91 F250 scattered in a hundred pieces waiting parts to rebuild that. 
I have the steering cylinder from my friends Prevost RV torn down waiting parts for that 
And to top it off in moving the equipment trailer I put my old 93 F350 in a pretty hard pull and stacked the friction rings in the forward clutch pack so now it only had forward gears and even tries to move forward in neutral Reverse and park so going to have to pull that and rebuild the e4OD transmission. I've done enough of those transmissions to know exactly what parts are going to be needed before I pull it I might drive the Dodge 2500 under the covered area and go ahead and drop that transmission and install the front seal just to get it off of the list.
But before I do any of these if the weather and winds are even half way favorable I'm going to install some purlin tomorrow I hope.
added note with the masda this now makes the entire running gear having been rebuilt by me the diff, the tranny, u joints, new clutch and slave cylinder 4 new tires new shocks new brakes on the front the front bumper and a tow bar set up. tie rod ends and new battery so the only thing left mechanical that I have not done to it would be the ball joints and they are in good shape As I did an alignment on it when I did the tie rod ends.
the little truck should be good for another 200K now except it may need a muffler soon.

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## Crusty

That Mazda saga reminds me of my old axe - I've replaced the handle three times and the head once. It's been too useful to just retire it.  :Cool:

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## Frank S

> That Mazda saga reminds me of my old axe - I've replaced the handle three times and the head once. It's been too useful to just retire it.



I had an axe like that.
The masda saga all started with my bud making a nuisance bid on an auction so low we thought it would be impossible to win. When he went to pick it up after winning the bid just for giggles and grins he tried to start it, it started but the starter didn't disengage and burned out the Bendix the little truck was straight body wise with still good paint and the interior was surprisingly like new inside. So he drove it up on the trailer and headed straight to see about getting it safety inspected and the starter replaced. after replacement of the starter and a couple emissions sensors it passed inspection He drove it around a few days and noticed the diff had a sound in it and the clutch felt weak so He brought it to me mainly because we wanted a little chase vehicle and one that could be towed behind an RV or a truck for a mode of transportation after delivery or to drive to pick up a truck. the rest so they say is history.
But my rebuilding the engine was because it overheated on me on my way back from inspecting the Prevost RV another friend was buying I could have gotten away with merely replacing a head gasket but with 220,000 miles I decided to pull the engine and go through it instead. it really didn't need the new rod and mains bearings the cam bearings the timing chain or new pistons wrist pins and rings but it got them anyway. I didn't bore it because there was less than 0.003" taper to any of the bores might as well still been a new block the same with not turning the crank as there was no appreciable or even noticeable wear to the old bearings I even saved the old bearings in case we wind up with another engine that just needs a patch job which is something that I would almost never do except for a stationary engine used on a pump or piece of aging equipment, that wouldn't justify the cost of a proper rebuild.
My dad would have done this in a Texas second but not me, he would have split a frog's hair 4 ways if it saved fifty cents, I draw the line on splitting frog's hairs to 3 ways

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## Frank S

4 more purlin in place enough purlin on top to complete that section
the scaffold relocated and 4 more purlin on top ready for the next time. 
Only purlin remain on the ground

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## Frank S

today turned out to be another of those climb up climb down walk back and forth run the back hoe Armstrong the steering of the bus scaffold climb up over and over 
I'm thinking I would get less of a work out in a Gould's GYM with a retired Drill sergeant as a trainer Almost any cardiologist will tell you that once you reach a certain age you absolutely need to walk a mile or 2 every day and climb several flights of stairs. But none of them have ever thought about doing this while clambering over steel trusses 20 odd feet in the air while pushing or dragging 3 to 6 80 lb purlin in place My cardiologist would have heart failure just thinking about it.
All purlin are on top of the building now 
7 are welded in on 1 section and 3 welded in on the other section so I guess all in all I managed to get 5 welded in place today at times the wind did get bad enough to make me head for the ground but it mostly cooperated

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## metric_taper

It is the best exercise method. I can't work out in a gym, or on my wife's tread mill. But put a push mower or some human labor project at my hands (snow removal) and I see the benefit to my life (and I want to do it).
I bet your tired at the end of each day.

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## Frank S

Only 3 purlin left to get welded in place

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Crusty (Feb 1, 2020)

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## Frank S

I'm preparing the base for the beam column that will be in the east wall. Later on more steel will be added to the column to make it the head piece for a rotisserie , which will also double as a weld positioner and an anchor post for frame pulling it will also the door stop for the double sliding 26 ft. door that will be on that side 
But I wanted to have an extremely solid embedded base under the column so I started by excavating a hole just over 6 feet deep or about a foot and a half into blueish white clay
.
then dropped in 3 truck rims and used my plate packer to vibrate them into the floor 


The worst thing was before I could even get started compacting I had to pull the carb off the engine and clean it as the last time I used it I forgot yo drain the gas and pour in a small amount of $30.00 a gallon stabilized chainsaw fuel then run the compactor a couple minutes on that stuff



As you might see the gin pole set up is proving to be quite the asset 



dirt back filled and packed 


scrapped away to expose the rims for welding a connecting beam to them



The connecting beam welding in place, more wheels and beams to be added tomorrow

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## metric_taper

Darn, the photos are not viewable Frank.

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## Frank S

> Darn, the photos are not viewable Frank.



Try them now I deleted them and re loaded them

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## metric_taper

So is there any end of the depth of clay? Looks like your well below any frost depth. But I'm guessing you want to get below where rain/surface water can enable the clay to cold flow with the intended load your planning on this 'foundation'. I assume you've mix Portland in to solidify the plastic nature of the clay, as you did with your columns.
I don't understand what this rotisserie is. I think of a rail road engine rotisserie at a maintenance facility, but I can't think of a semi-trailer repair analog. I'm sure you'll post photos when you get to this.
Looks like more roofing to install when the winds are right.

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## Frank S

Maybe if I had called it a spit as in bbq. the column will eventually have more vertical steel added to it to beef it up and to hold a carriage with a spindle on this a rotating assembly will be added which can be used as a welding positioner or the head piece to attach one end of a semi trailer or truck frame to in order to turn it on its side or upside down. As you can imagine this will require some substantial amount of steel as the rotator will have to elevate up and down to a certain degree. 
What I am calling bluish white clay is almost a shale like substance. hard enough that if you want to dig it by hand a pick is helpful. If I was only concerned with moisture inclusion, frost heave or settling due to weight loading I could have stopped digging at a foot possibly 2 feet deep. I have all of the columns in the building embedded between 6 and 8 feet to make them have roots more like a giant redwood than those of a palm tree

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## metric_taper

I didn't think of a rotisserie to rotate a huge trailer. But that makes too much sense to get to places without straining yourself.

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## Frank S

> I didn't think of a rotisserie to rotate a huge trailer. But that makes too much sense to get to places without straining yourself.



I have a thread here somewhere with a trailer turned up on its side. there really isn't much need to lay a conventional flatbed semi trailer on its side or turn it upside down but it can be handy 
For specialty trailer like low bed or those that have axles which slide far enough forward to lower the tail end of the trailer to the ground it is most helpful to get them up on their side or completely turtle .
The problem is it takes a massively strong assembly to accomplish this safely. being able to handle big and heavy stuff has never been a problem for me until now. Before I used to have a 25 ton forklift and a 35 ton crane with the 2 machines I could pick up and carry a fully loaded semi trailer.
So now I am going to construct a device in 1 end of my shop to be able to lift one end of a trailer and will use my big A frame gantry to handle the other end.
But first this all boils down to constructing the column to handle 10 to 15 tons of weight without bringing down the building in the process.

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## Crusty

I've been watching Matt Cremona on Youtube build a heavy retrieval trailer for his urban logging and sawmill operations (he's come home with some huge hardwood tree trunks before) and he used a similar spit to easily spin the trailer as he tacked and then welded it all together. It looked handy and like a good idea idea to me.

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## Frank S

> I've been watching Matt Cremona on Youtube build a heavy retrieval trailer for his urban logging and sawmill operations (he's come home with some huge hardwood tree trunks before) and he used a similar spit to easily spin the trailer as he tacked and then welded it all together. It looked handy and like a good idea idea to me.



That's what I am hoping for, if nothing else I am thinking of installing a service pit in line with it and when not in use both could serve a duel purpose as a BBQ for cooking a Brontosaurus should I ever get a chance to kill one

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## Crusty

I'll make the drive up there for some Fred Flintstone brontosaurus ribs.  :Cool:

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## metric_taper

Frank, I assume the project is on hold with the snow and weather that I think the weather maps had over your location.

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## Frank S

> Frank, I assume the project is on hold with the snow and weather that I think the weather maps had over your location.



I don't know what would you say





It was 4°f here at 4 Am

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## metric_taper

I see, your doing a snow load test on the new building!

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## Frank S

> I see, your doing a snow load test on the new building!



better to do it now with the building in a vulnerable state and know it can take it than to have it happen after everything is in place and have to worry if I should have done it differently LOL
Seriously it is not something that concerns me in the least from anchorage stabilization to column slenderness ratio to the load capacity of the truss spans purlin spans and spacing. We have already had 45 MPH wind gusts hit the building with a half completed roof and minimal bracing.
Something that at this time I do not plan on doing is when I was fabricating the trusses by doubling the 2nd hand trusses I did so because at one time these 68 ft long trusses had beams hanging from them running the length of the old 120 ft long building and 2 bridge cranes trolleyed under them with 3 ton hoists on them The company had hung the beams 20 ft apart and a pair or 25 ft long beams on trolleys under those as the bridges for their overhead cranes. Placing all of that additional loading just 10 feet to either side of the center of the building hanging from those slender trusses.
The up side may have been the rail beams added strength and stability to the trusses when the company sold the building to my friend they removed the cranes and rails, then he experienced a 12" snow followed by 1/2" ice causing the roof to collapse. 
When I did the examination and calculations of the roof structure the numbers just didn't jive with the damage that had been done, until I was able to do an up close inspection that was when I found out there had been cranes in the building which had been removed. Eventually I found where during the removal the bottom of several of the trusses had been cut through by a torch the structure had no chance for survival under that amount of snow.
If at a latter date I decide that I want an overhead crane I will add columns and have the rails on them not hanging from the trusses alone

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## metric_taper

That was an incredible amount of snow you had. I expect you had some melt today. But now your in a mud mess for a bit.

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KustomsbyKent (Feb 8, 2020)

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## Frank S

Most of the snow was gone in 3 days and on the 4th all of it was gone in the 76° temp. we had that day.
had 2 clear days to get some work done then on Monday back down in the low 30s and rain most of the day rained off and on all day Tuesday and Wednesday morning then dropped to the low 20s before warming to the low 40s in the afternoon although a little windy.
This is what I am trying to get finished fabricating to go in the large hole I have dug 
In the construction industry it could be called a HERO or HERCULES or Master column which is usually the strongest column in an building and may or may not have more than a single specific purpose.
Which this one will be and will have.
More that just being a column to support the near center of the end truss and to help prevent racking or twisting of the building in high winds. this column when calculated in conjunction of the to corner columns on the opposite end of the building form a triangle of support but this one will be employed to serve as the basis of a rotisserie or power end of a spit for turning trailer or other large items on their side or upside down this will also serve as a rotary positioner for fabrication of large weldments as well. 
Given the nature of the future intended use and strength I wanted to build into the column I figured it would also be prudent to include a hard mount for future jib cranes to be swung from the column. Once the column is in place and later the corresponding tabernacle bracing which will run the length of the building connecting the trusses together and radiative bracing leading from the attachment point of the master column to the next truss I will be more than able to secure a pair of 20' long jib cranes from the hard mount I have fabricated, which will allow me to hang 2 ton hoists or larger from them. If I were to limit the length of the jib cranes to 12 feet or less I could safely install 4 ton hoists from them once every thing is tied together as I anticipate eventually doing.
Part of the reason for the elaborate pipe work on this column was due to the 12" beam I had planned to use turned out to be about 8 feet too short so I had to use my 10" beam which was only 19 lbs to the foot and only has a 4 inch flange making unsuitable as a standalone beam for the column without a lot of build up. Of course the face which will have the elevating power head would eventually have more structure added to it anyway but that would not ad sufficient section to the column to resist twisting forces and bending moments of jib cranes so other that the power head it would be little more than a glorified door stop 
Now as it is with over 80 feet of 3 inch pipe welded to it I think all will agree I have accomplished 80% of what I was seeking with a safety factor of 2.5 or better

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## Frank S

We woke up to frozen water at the hose bib on the pump house but the water to the house was still flowing although slowly. I didn't think it had gotten all that cold last night just in the low to mid 20s but it must have been there for most of the night. However that still didn't explain the tap being frozen I have an automatic thermostat controlled system to keep the inside a toasty 46° I opened the door and the light was on meaning the system was functioning then I noticed that I had somehow moved the heater the last time I was in the pump house and the tip over switch was not making contact so the only heat in there was coming from the 150 watt heat lamp. which should have been enough anyway I repositioned the heater so it would come on and about an hour later everything was thawed the temps had risen to around 30 as well.

Then we went to a town about 40 miles away by the time we got back around 2 PM it was in the low 40s.
Even though the pump house is mostly insulated I think I am going to wrap in in plastic for good measure. then latter on in the spring I plan on cladding it with some of the insulation sheets that I have to make sure it is sealed and if I can strike a deal with the lady who owns the 2 large brick buildings nearby that are falling down I might brick it. There are probably 20,000 3x3.5 by 12 red bricks that have already fallen in on those buildings. If she is willing to part with them I might even think about pouring a footer around the foundation to the house and brick it eventually.
But anyway what I actually managed to get done today was to turn the master column over and finished welding up the areas that I just couldn't get to in the overhead position
Now it is just all but ready to drop in the hole

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## metric_taper

> Most of the snow was gone in 3 days and on the 4th all of it was gone in the 76° temp. we had that day.
> 
> 
> Attachment 33531



I was thinking this hole would have filled with melt water. Must be high ground.
So what is the layering/mixing method you have with portland and existing soil?

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## Frank S

> I was thinking this hole would have filled with melt water. Must be high ground.
> So what is the layering/mixing method you have with portland and existing soil?



We could have NOAH's flood and hardly have puddles around here.
I have a limited amount of Portland so I mix in a fair amount of stove ash as well the stove ash I have found will act much the same as fly ash when making lightweight concrete extending the volume. Basically I'm not too concerned with actually creating a concrete mass in the hole I ma more inclined to just use the Portland and the stove ash to help stabilize the soil as I return it into the hole the plate compactor gives me about a 125% over compaction and doing this 6" layers at a time I might even be getting a little more than that. I have made such a large base that any likelihood of further settling of the column would be almost less than zero

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## Crusty

Yup. Ya gotta live in the Lone Star a while to understand what a scarce and precious commodity water is over much of the state. Don't have to worry much about getting below the frost line either. That ought to provide a robust anchor for an equally robust hoist.

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## Frank S

> Yup. Ya gotta live in the Lone Star a while to understand what a scarce and precious commodity water is over much of the state. Don't have to worry much about getting below the frost line either. That ought to provide a robust anchor for an equally robust hoist.



A lot of us out where I am at use a Lone Star beer bottle cap as our rain gauge sometimes takes 2 or 3 rains to fill it 
other times I've seen it fill a 3 lb coffee can in an hour or at least before it stops raining.
Other times it will be raining sideways so hard a few miles away that you get drenched with clear sky overhead

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## Frank S

Had jut a tad bit more welding to do near the very top that I missed yesterday then did this.
I swear I think I could lift the limit of the hoist with the gin pole laying flat out.
That gin pole crane, mounted on my backhoe has proved to be one of my most valuable builds in a long time

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## suther51

Frank S, I have been thinking to look at this thread to see what model your ford backhoe is. I just noticed that it is a 755. A freind of mine just bought a 1970's 555 (e?). He is planning on using it for a business he is planning to start delivering amish built sheds. When he explained his intent (using front bucket mounted forks) I advised him that it most likely was not the machine for the task as all the weight would be at the tip of the forks, what ever length he may get. That puts the weight a long way from the front wheels, not to mention the visibility issues of setting a shed on a trailer. I would be interested in any input you may have. The only way that i can imagine this machine working would be for him to use the dolly wheels that are used with the Mule shed moving machines and used the backhoe like a overgrown Mule. https://cardinalmanufacturing.com/
Thanks, with your experience I hope you have some advice.
Eric

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## Frank S

> Frank S, I have been thinking to look at this thread to see what model your ford backhoe is. I just noticed that it is a 755. A freind of mine just bought a 1970's 555 (e?). He is planning on using it for a business he is planning to start delivering amish built sheds. When he explained his intent (using front bucket mounted forks) I advised him that it most likely was not the machine for the task as all the weight would be at the tip of the forks, what ever length he may get. That puts the weight a long way from the front wheels, not to mention the visibility issues of setting a shed on a trailer. I would be interested in any input you may have. The only way that i can imagine this machine working would be for him to use the dolly wheels that are used with the Mule shed moving machines and used the backhoe like a overgrown Mule. https://cardinalmanufacturing.com/
> Thanks, with your experience I hope you have some advice.
> Eric



That was my whole reason for doing away with the bucket and fabricating a fork carriage enabling me to use standard forklift forks.
Also without the bucket I have a better visual perspective of what I am carrying or lifting.
Even at that the loaders on back hoes do not make the best forklifts.
Mine is the 755B with some C model up grades with an operating weight of around 18,000 lbs. Even with that much operating weight and most of it on the rear tires I find that if I am not careful I can lift enough to bring 1 rear tire off the ground so I extend the hoe and swing it if need be to counteract the weight on the front.
I have 1100-16 12 ply tires on the steer and carry 80PSI in them and I have seen them mashed nearly flat with the loads I lift even with the 36" hoe bucket full and extended all the way to the rear as far as it will go the tires will look half flat very dodgy to do any maneuvering in that condition. 
Your friend's 555 is a lot smaller than the 755 as well. I don't know what it should be able to lift and carry nor do I know much about the Amish sheds you are referring to but if it were me and I had no use for the HOE I would remove the boom assembly and mount an 8000lb class 3 forklift mast in its stead. or look around for a tractor style forklift such as a Wiggins International Case or even Ford
then he would have something like this but the dolly's under one end would be best no matter what

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## Frank S

The column is welded in place and back filled halfway. once I get a few more layers of fill compacted I have a few more braces to be welded in place then I can fill and cover
OK what to put in the hole for a base under the back pipes .
How about a completely useless RV Bumper 

ep Just a fit packed into the floor for an hour then welded to the pipes and the column 

first layer covering 

inside mounting boss for jib crane

outside mounting boss for jib crane

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## suther51

Thanks Frank S,
Your reply seems to reinforce my gut feeling about the situation. I have not spent much time on machines like backhoes with forks. Most if my time is on 8000 lb class forklifts with a smidge of time with a hyster hs200 in the 12,000 lb class range with 7' forks. My friend is new to this kind of endeavor. I try to guide as best as I can but that is only worth so much. I am afraid he will have to gain his own experience, I just hope it is not too much the hard way. I agree on your suggestion of a forklift but he is intent on a more versatile piece of equipment. My experience with bucket forks is on a much smaller scale but disappointing non the less. A fork carriage certainly would be best but i am afraid that will be a tough sell. Time will tell i suppose. Thanks again, too bad those Mules are so expensive. 
Eric
Ps, am enjoying your post on your shop build. Thanks for posting

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## Frank S

suther51; everyone knows I am all for multipurposing machines by making something do what it was never designed for. When I was contemplating adding forks to by 755 At first I was simply going to add a bar to the top of the bucket and buy a pair of forks to hang off of that leaving the bucket in place then when I needed th bucket I could just remove the forks or flip them over backwards. the Geometry and shape of the bucket looked to me like I would be limited in what I could carry and as you mentioned would not be able to see anything. My bucket is 84 inches wide 64 inches deep and almost five feet tall it is called a 1 3/4 yard bucket but I have scooped up 2 full yards several times with it a little 6 yard dump truck cannot hold 3 full buckets of material.
I thought about the pin on forks to attach to the cutting edge of the bucket as well but I quickly 86'd that idea due to my knowing how I have a tendency of demanding the last lb of capacity from a piece of equipment I figured the first thing that would happen would be I would rip the cutting edge right off the bucket or the connection of the forks would break. additionally I already owned the class 3 forks and a pile of caterpillar excavator rock guards that were just laying around the carriage was born out of them and I couldn't be happier with how things have turned out especially now that I have the removeable gin pole and hoist set up on it. One day I will build a gin pole that is half as long as the one I have and get a heavier duty hoist for it.
Also like you mentioned about your friend being new to the game and experience being a good teacher, the rest of that statement could be learning from the experiences of others can be a money and a life saver.
In my case for building the things that I do, I have over 55 years under my belt of doing the things that I do but each new construct is still an unknown until it is put to use almost everything works nearly as planned but many times needs some tweaking to become viable

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## Frank S

Fill in and packed then packed some more then more fill and packed again and again until I had the hole filled right up to where the last subterranean brace was to be welded in now all bracing is in I finished filling the hole but haven't packet it down yet as my plate packer began acting up there is probably trash in the carb as ther is no inline filter on the machine 

No explanation needed here we all know what this picture means

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## Frank S

The morning went well I now have 9 sheets up and have completely used up 1ne pile of sheet metal now I have to dig a lot of shorter sheets off of another stack before I can lift anymore to the roof

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## Frank S

From now on it will be piece meal for the roof the longest sheets I have left are under 25 feet long This would be just about right as the old building I tore down was 68 feet by 120 feet a large part of the roof had caved in due to Ice and snow there was only about 100 feet of one side that the sheet metal was not bent up due to the collapse of the roof I have used 22 sheets on the north side and 9 on the south so that would just about account for the full length sheets I had.
I managed to get 2 sheets down to make a full length run and 2 more for a partial before the cold front started to come in kicking the wind up to some 25 MPH gusts maybe the wind will be more favorable tomorrow.

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## metric_taper

I hope your doing OK Frank. I've not seen an update in 11 days.

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## Frank S

> I hope your doing OK Frank. I've not seen an update in 11 days.



Thanks for checking on me. I've been doing boring things for the past several days like completely rebuilding the tilt steering column on a 91 F250 extended cab Diesel pickup I bought for $350.00 to get it ready to be inspected so I could put tags on it and other boring things like replacing the hub seals on a low bed semi trailer and tuning up a 15 year old 029 Sthil chain saw so it would start on 1 pull because it had been too windy to get on the roof to lay the last couple of sheets.
Got the pickup inspected and registered today the chain saw running 3 or 4 days ago, parts came in for the semi trailer and finished it yesterday rebuilt the carburetor on my ingersol rand club car carry all II cut a load of fire wood Monday. This afternoon the wind died so I finished the roof on the building
.
Might be a while before I get much more done to it can't decide if I want to start on the North wall or start making columns for the lean to extension. But in the mean time it is that time of year to clean out the chicken house and till up the garden.
There is never a dull moment around the Frank house

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## metric_taper

All is good, you have a completed roof. Days are getting longer. Task list gets longer......

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## Frank S

> All is good, you have a completed roof. Days are getting longer. Task list gets longer......



Yep and along with a completed roof it opens up my willingness to work on some things that I would normally put off until I am fairly certain the weather won't dump something out of the sky when I am only half way through the project.
There again once I have the additional 33 by 61 feet of roof area of the lean to completed I can remove the gin pole rig and the fork carriage then put my loader bucket back on to hauled the 200 cubic yards of select fill and clay base I have partially excavated and stock piled to get the floor leveled up and packed But that also means Some of the projects if I start on them will have to be completed and out of the way.
Like I keep telling the wife we worked out of a container and a trailer with nothing but a canvas tent now for 6 years at least now we have more than 10 times the covered area than we had even if it take us another year to get the walls and doors and 3 years to get a slab every weld every screw every bolt and nut and hunk of metal is like adding embroidery pipping to a hat for decorations the HAT is there already. and it can be worn plain just as well as dressed to the 9's

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## Frank S

hard to believe I haven't posted to this page in a month.
But can't say that I have done a whole lot to the building I spent some time getting my old Cab over Freightliner running then removed the pair of 150 gal. fuel tanks and mounted a small 70 gallon square tank on the frame behind the cab. Since the old truck is only ever going to be used as a yard donkey there is no need for the massive tanks plus with them hanging off the sides of the frame they were a little too close to the ground for my liking That and I didn't want to get them damaged since they are in good shape.
After completing the roof I wanted to get my machine shop van moved into position before adding the lean to roof extension This meant that I needed to mine a lot of select clay fill to pad up a hard area for the trailer to rest on. and to prevent getting stuck trying to move it meaning the gin pole and the fork carriage had to come off and the bucket be installed so I could transport materials from the pit I am mining them from about 100 yards down hill from the shop. Before it is all said and done I will need to move between 400 and 600 cubic yards of material this will take a while as the old backhoe is really in need of some majorly expensive work if I wanted to have full power available. But one step at a time either spend tons of cash on it that is needed on the building or nurse it along at reduced power and get the job done 
I can carry about a yard and a half full bucket but can only climb the hill in low range at a creep or a yard at a time still in low range but twice as fast So far on my click counter I have climbed that hill 95 times 50 times before I could locate the trailer
Hooked up ready to roll
 
First attempt proved not enough pad build up

After another 10 loads 

The trailer is in place within about 6 inches from where I wanted it ,close enough

After another several trips up the hill I still don't have the pad completely ready for the parts trailer because after I get it in place I am planning on removing the axles and dropping it close to the ground 
the parts trailer is behind the freightliner

Digging the trench for the electrical conduit

By the time I have all of the fill in the shop the conduit will be almost 3 feet below the surface of the eventual slab

Conduit connected to the homemade 6x8x4 J box

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KustomsbyKent (Mar 30, 2020)

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## metric_taper

> By the time I have all of the fill in the shop the conduit will be almost 3 feet below the surface of the eventual slab
> 
> Conduit connected to the homemade 6x8x4 J box



What is the plastic pipe you used for the buried conduit? Looks like 3". I assume you have the wires installed already, unless you have some Greenlee power puller, and a helper to feed the wires.
Looks like your doing all the details toward the next big task of building walls.

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## Frank S

> What is the plastic pipe you used for the buried conduit? Looks like 3". I assume you have the wires installed already, unless you have some Greenlee power puller, and a helper to feed the wires.
> Looks like your doing all the details toward the next big task of building walls.



Its the gray 2" sch 80 electrical conduit plus 2" sch 80 propylene fast line tubing under the floor so no connecting couplings except at the preformed long radius elbows to the riser tubes expensive stuff to buy but for some reason a 100 ft length of it had been left on the property, probably from a previous oilfield test drilling operation. on a neighboring property. yeah I truly am blessed like that. 
Pulling the 3ga wire through the line wasn't all that bad I ran my Greenly fish tape through one direction then pulled a 1/2" braided rope back through attached the 3 conductor wires then pulled tension on the rope walked to the other side fed the wire as far as they would go then tighten up the rope again, it went pretty well would have been easier to have had someone pulling the rope or a capstan tugger but its done now and I have power in my machine-shop van once again.

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## Frank S

This morning I couldn't decide if I was going to build a headache rack for a pickup or get up on the roof of the shop. the shop won out for a while at least.
Anytime one uses reclaimed materials such as sheet metal for the roof there are bound to be a few screw holes which will allow the roof to leak.
One good way to fill these holes is to use a heavy duty aluminum tape the kind that is used on metal duct work this tape is durable and will last a long time It will last almost forever once I eventually apply paint to the roof 
I used up a roll and a half of the 160 ft long rolls and have one side completed the other side is over 2/3rds complete

After doing this this morning I built a headache rack for one of my pickups

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## Frank S

Finally at long last I made some time for the shop actually I have been moving a little fill clay all along but no real noticeable progress in my mind anyway.
Oh I blocked and leveled the machine shop trailer hauled maybe 50 to 60 bucket loads of fill things like that. but still no construction other than dirt work
I decided when I woke up this morning that if a container is going to arrive in a couple of weeks I needed to get back to focusing on the shop instead of rebuilding transmissions building a forge that I have only 2/3rd done rebuilding my wife's mower deck renovating a bathroom and all of the varied other distractions.
So first I decided that I should finish taping the holes in the roof and get that out of my way so I could remove the last tower of scaffolding.
that done scaffolding removed I mined up some more fill then hauled about 25 loader buckets full and 10 bobcat buckets full then I moved the buss scaffold to the West end wall of the shop so I can hang some sheet metal 
How it looked in April after blocking and leveling

after 50 or 60 bucket loads of fill

More fill

Todays fill

This would make a pretty good deterrent to anyone wanting to take something 


Eventually all of the grass area you see in the last 2 pictures will have to be excavated and filled I will have to excavate about a foot deep then add back in 18 to 30 inches of fill then someday there will have to be a 30 cubic yard apron poured there

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Rikk (Jun 8, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Jun 8, 2020)

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## Frank S

More fill and some sheet metal on the West end 



As long as the shop is nothing more than a roof over head there is not a lot of need for lighting during the day even once the walls and doors are in place if I were to install some sky light panels most of the time artificial lighting would not be required for most things. except on cloudy and rainy days when there will be limited light from the sun.
However the lack of lighting means daylight hours only and most of the time this is just fine but for those times when something has to go out the next day and it is already sundown.

So I bought a couple of 100 watt ultra thin UFO high bay LED lights to see how much light I can expect to have given that I place 4 or 5 on each of the 3 center trusses about 10 feet apart I could go with fewer larger lights but the fewer the number and the brighter the lights the deeper the shadows are more fixtures affords a better overlap which helps to reduce or eliminate shadowing this is what a single 100watt fixture does 

No flash taken 50 feet in front of the shop

No flash taken from the S.W. corner of the shop

no flash looking up at the roof

I think I will eventually have 12 to 15 of these in this section of the shop and 6 in the second section 
2100 watts total of lighting in the 6000 square footage of the eventual size of the shop will use less electricity than the lighting I had in my old 6000 sq ft. shop and have twice the illumination I had 15 of the 500 watt halogen and mercury lamps in that shop the energy consumption was around 7.5 KW and only produced around 105,000 lumens of useable light 
These things cost about the same as just the bulbs of the other kind of lights plus put out nearly 1.8 times as much light per unit @ only 100 watts power consumption per disk. Additionally I will probably set them up so I have 3 to 6 zones so will only have the lights on that are needed 
All calculations are approximated

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## Toolmaker51

We are on the same page. Few things worse than working with inadequate or detrimental lighting. I have 12' T-8 fluorescent fixtures and a good supply of tubes. Thank you Habitat for Humanity/ Restore! How I arrived at quantity bought? Took an old photography light meter to work, the mall, every shop visited for readings. Those with lighting good OR not enough for machine environments. Then I contacted manufacturer of said lights, they have a PC or CAD program that determines layouts based on room dimensions, intent of work going on, even orientation of the fixtures themselves.
After ceiling goes in, I'll mount direct to surface, preserving every possible inch of headroom, originally 15'8". Makes bulb replacement easier than when they hang by chain [though tubes are just 4']. Thought is to wire them 3-way in 3 separate banks, controlling them from either door [entry & roll-up].
Over the years, noticed certain jobs are not done under light other than incandescent, which are now LED. Typically jewelers, precision assemblers, some types of inspection, etc. Where I have that going on will get augmentation, by secondary LED lighting, suspended from above, and controlled there. 

Since I'll live there eventually, [no...not a cot next to the lathe!] and nether wire or electricity will be less expensive than now, all this makes sense.

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## Frank S

> We are on the same page. Few things worse than working with inadequate or detrimental lighting. I have 12' T-8 fluorescent fixtures and a good supply of tubes. Thank you Habitat for Humanity/ Restore! How I arrived at quantity bought? Took an old photography light meter to work, the mall, every shop visited for readings. Those with lighting good OR not enough for machine environments. Then I contacted manufacturer of said lights, they have a PC or CAD program that determines layouts based on room dimensions, intent of work going on, even orientation of the fixtures themselves.
> After ceiling goes in, I'll mount direct to surface, preserving every possible inch of headroom, originally 15'8". Makes bulb replacement easier than when they hang by chain [though tubes are just 4']. Thought is to wire them 3-way in 3 separate banks, controlling them from either door [entry & roll-up].
> Over the years, noticed certain jobs are not done under light other than incandescent, which are now LED. Typically jewelers, precision assemblers, some types of inspection, etc. Where I have that going on will get augmentation, by secondary LED lighting, suspended from above, and controlled there. 
> 
> Since I'll live there eventually, [no...not a cot next to the lathe!] and nether wire or electricity will be less expensive than now, all this makes sense.



The nice thing about those fixtures you have is as time goes on you can eliminate the ballasts and install the 4 ft led tubes your ceiling at 15'8" is borderline between high bay and low bay Places like Walmart and stores of similar ceiling heights who use fluorescent lighting make my eyes bleed (that's what I call it), my eyes will start to have an itchy burning sensation almost from the moment I walk inside until I walk out. If I have to be in one of those places for an extended period of time say more than 15 or 20 minutes my eyes will be watering so bad and burning that I can hardly see.
And I know what it is they have too many fixtures installed per zone string so they are having a voltage drop in their circuits This is also due to the long distances from the panels to the end of the lighting strings even though they are in compliance to NEC codes I feel if a step up an wiring ga would reduce this effect. 
My shop is no where near as large as many commercial buildings so voltage drop due to line length will be much less of a problem, However that being said for my zones which will be further away from the panel than the shorter ones I will be using a 10 ga feeder wire to the string then run 12 ga from there on and possibly 14 ga for the last fixture on the string but I will rung only 3 to 400 watts worth of fixtures per zone.
I am also thinking about going with wireless RF controlled switching with motion detectors for areas where persons may not regularly occupy, like in the storage vans and containers. Delayed ON switching for each zone is also a possibility to lower the inrush current load on the LED drivers. Smokestack heat sinks to wick away heat and block radiant heat from above may be an option as well cooler drivers on the LEDs will allow for more lumens and longer life 
http://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocum...369913_ENG.pdf

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## Toolmaker51

Yes to all that Frank S about lighting including excess. I'm certain irritation is due resistance of code determined wire size and the flickering it causes. 60-something a second among several hundred fixtures? Sure thing. The lighting didn't bother me till now, because not working in a shop [commercial], where my exposure was constant. 
LED conversion will occur. Each time I've been ready to invest, the tech improves and price drops, so for once delay isn't costly. Once drywall encloses overhead, I'll blow insulation and heat won't be an issue. At 4" in 12", the roof peak is almost 12'.

and the Lutron link is in my electrical bookmarks!

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## jdurand

My wife and I agree on bright lights, her new kitchen is getting three 18W LED ceiling lights. The workshop will get something like two 32 or 48 Watt lights.

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## Frank S

Today was dig haul spread pack dig haul spread and pack some more 
the process is agonizingly slow but it beats having to do it with a wheel barrow and a shovel
started out with little to no stockpile excavated then hauled about 35 buckets full
dug and hauled another 15 or possibly 20

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Toolmaker51 (Jun 16, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

I'm no soil engineer, or geologist; or decent gardener, lol.
Looks same as 'our' red dirt, comparing stockpile angle of repose. Identical to that around my building, elevation 849' [about 75' higher than Missouri River] and completely different than house at 997' [our famous black dirt]. Dense, dry, fine and packs like roadway. You can mold it cleanly enough to use as concrete forms. Astounding somehow, considereing our locales are 650 miles apart. 
And to offshore forum members, that's a 9-1/2 hour flatland drive.

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## Frank S

> I'm no soil engineer, or geologist; or decent gardener, lol.
> Looks same as 'our' red dirt, comparing stockpile angle of repose. Identical to that around my building, elevation 849' [about 75' higher than Missouri River] and completely different than house at 997' [our famous black dirt]. Dense, dry, fine and packs like roadway. You can mold it cleanly enough to use as concrete forms. Astounding somehow, considereing our locales are 650 miles apart. 
> And to offshore forum members, that's a 9-1/2 hour flatland drive.



Yes it is a red Corse sandy clay with the correct moisture content while packing it will pack down so hard that it takes a pick to break it up by hand and once fully compacted it remains stable

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Toolmaker51 (Jun 17, 2020)

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## Frank S

This morning my wife thought I had finally stripped the cogs off of the last remaining brain cell in my head when I told her I was going to arrange a few things which would eventually lead to adding another bay on the shop should ZI ever require it. 
She said Frank you have already gone from building a 4000 sq ft shop to one that will be 6000 sq ft and you are no closer to completing it than you were before you decided to make it bigger.
Why do you think you want to make it larger now instead of latter if you need it.
So this brings me to how I came up with the idea I have some storage van trailers that are parked just inside my fence out next to the highway in front of the shop. I will need to relocate them eventually any way, so why not pre plan on how to make best use of their storage capabilities. Right now they are full of stuff that most of it will be place in the shop once it is closer to completion. but where the trailers are located it is most difficult to transport materials or equipment from them.
So I decided to spend some time now and save even more time latter by relocating the trailers or at least prepare an area where I will be relocating them. To not do this might mean I would not be able to place them where I want them due to the amount of fill I still need to add, plus once I park and ground the tool room trailer it may be completely impossible to place one of them anyway.
So I began the day moving a load of bar joists which will be used for the rood between the shop and the machine shop trailer. then I moved my forklift that has been parked at the end of the container on the North side of the shop ever since the container had been placed there.
Then I moved my steel rack and a lot of other materials which was in my way 
then pushed off about a foot of the soft dirt and refilled with the rejected fill material I have been mining for the shop floor. Since the area will not be brought up to grade any time soon the reject fill would serve to harden up the soil enough to place the first trailer there Plus by leaving the area about 2 feet below the finished floor level once I remove the wheels and tires entry to the trailers will only be about a foot above the eventual slab Also I plan to put the trailers with about a 25 ft bay between them which may eventually be roofed over 
And that is how the insane mind of the Frank functions

while pushing the sand out of the way I unearthed this little guy. I gave it to the cats to play with pretty sure it eventually escaped since I didn't see them try to kill it

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Toolmaker51 (Jun 18, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Stripped cogs or not, they beat unobtainable crystal balls any day of the week. 
My immensity of space is far more conservative, only ~ 1/2 acre or so. So trailers and floor work space are a little more valuable than the property they sit on. 
Found out long ago, whatever is conceived is best left flexible. Never know when extra roof trusses, equipment or other such treasures fall into our lap.

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## Frank S

> Stripped cogs or not, they beat unobtainable crystal balls any day of the week. 
> My immensity of space is far more conservative, only ~ 1/2 acre or so. So trailers and floor work space are a little more valuable than the property they sit on. 
> Found out long ago, whatever is conceived is best left flexible. Never know when extra roof trusses, equipment or other such treasures fall into our lap.



I used to have a crystal ball well not crystal but black plastic, but I dropped it and the glycerin the orb floated in ran out. From then on any question posed to the ball came out as answer not available.
relocating the second trailer can come much later as access to where it will be relocated will not be restricted by anything other than a door. Another reason it may be a while before I move the 2nd trailer is in order to do so I will have to use my Freightliner to move it which means I will have to make a 200 yard long road leading way from where the trailer will be dropped .

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Toolmaker51 (Jun 18, 2020)

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## Frank S

For those of you who may be wondering why I seem to be constantly increasing the projected size of my shop before even considering putting the walls on it I direct you to a thread on another web side the first post of the thread has a link to a video of what ultimately I hope to be building
Another venture and KBS Coatings

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KustomsbyKent (Jun 22, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Jun 19, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

That will sell like hotcakes; riders and material haulers alike.

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## Frank S

> That will sell like hotcakes; riders and material haulers alike.



Through my reworking the design I bent a couple of the applied for patents and one of the current patents so bad that me and the patent owner sat down and together had to write up several new points for him to submit to his attorney. But I didn't tell him about one main item I have designed to replace some componentry I'm writing that one up myself as a standalone which will not be use restricted so if this thing goes south between us I will have it and he wont be able to incorporate the system if he decides to take it elsewhere.
One thing in the new configuration that I made sure to incorporate is the platform can reach dock height something his can not do I feel that dock high capability will expand the market potential. Think about a pallet of machine parts needing to go to shipping warehouse or vice versa cutting fluids and what ever. or the landscaper who picks up a pallet of sod then delivers it to the jobsite.
Variations and options for the machine will add versatility which I have preliminary designs on but not set in stone as of yet

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KustomsbyKent (Jun 22, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Jun 19, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Oh my, I should say so. Can tell of dock height issues all afternoon.

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## Frank S

A 20 ft container arrived Monday morning One good thing was Bob's day contract had been called due to mud so he got here about 9:30 then the driver showed up around 10 Am. We took him to town to take advantage of the wide flat area un chained the little tractor on the back of his trailer and backed it away from the container then undid the locks holding the container down I used my toe jack to lift the container and place our slide shoes under each corner then Bobe backed his trailer up tot eh side and T boned the drivers trailer with a block of wood between them we winched the container side ways as Bob moved his traler a few inches away from the drivers trailer then I had the driver slowly back up while Bob winched as soon as the container was off of the drivers trailer bob pulled away we moved the little tractor to the front of the trailer chained it down signed paper work and we were ready to take the container to put it on the ground we letf the driver there to finish out his 30 minute break. The driver said he has had containers loaded and unloaded 1000s of times with cranes and large forklifts but never had he seen it done the way we did it and almost never as fast as we unloaded him said once he delivered to a job site and had to wait 3 days for a crane to unload him and there was a rig similar to Bob's sitting there had he known it was that easy he would have hired that driver to unload him. 
I told him it only looked easy because we had those slide shoes and the toe jack to put them under the container otherwise we might have damaged his aluminum trailer. He said he hadn't thought about that.
By 10:45 the container was on the ground located in its final resting place 




 
Now that that is done and I have made the end trusses for the lean-to it is time to get some work done

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## Frank S

Yesterday Jane and I managed to get the last of the poles in the ground even with all of the safety inspectors and the building inspectors all having to put their 2 cents worth in 
First off it was the job site superintendent sending the building inspector into one of the holes as it was being backfilled

then the civil engineer showed up to make sure the fill was properly compacted

Then the safety officer had a conference with everyone before we were allowed to go back to work How can anyone be expected to ever get anything done with all that supervision?

I figured that today I might get 2 of the end trusses up but was going to have to move the bus scaffold and lower its height some how.
But then this morning I had barely finished breakfast and my 4th cup of coffee dreading the prospect of what was ahead for the day, About this time some guy who is not chopped liver.

By the end of the day in near 100° heat this is what we had done. When there is a second pair of hands around to help hold things and move things quite a bit can get done even with taking more breaks than working. Crawling out to the middle of a bar joist that is only chained off on one end and resting on top of the pole on the other to release the lifting strap several times is so much fun I recommend it to everyone Just don't tell Jane what I did. 


Sometimes all you need to do is just hang around much better than trying to back walk crawl across now 2 loose structural members one if them held in place by a single pair of vice grip pliers on one end

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Toolmaker51 (Jun 28, 2020)

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## Frank S

Fighting 25 to 35 MPH winds from about 7:30 this morning having to straighten the last 2 bar joists and hang them then finish welding the rest of the structure. Plus melting a circuit breaker in the process Don't know but figured it was going bad for a while and the 106° temperature this afternoon probably didn't help. 
But maybe this week end the winds will die down some and I'll get the roof on

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## metric_taper

> Plus melting a circuit breaker in the process Don't know but figured it was going bad for a while and the 106° temperature this afternoon probably didn't help.



Did the bus bars do a melt down that the breaker 'clips' into? I did a repair last year for a neighbor where a 25amp electric heat breaker did this. General Electric brand panel. I think it was some sort of plated spring brass on the breaker that probably was bent during original electrician install, sometime in the 60s. The basement was damp as well, so not the best of environments.

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## Frank S

> Did the bus bars do a melt down that the breaker 'clips' into? I did a repair last year for a neighbor where a 25amp electric heat breaker did this. General Electric brand panel. I think it was some sort of plated spring brass on the breaker that probably was bent during original electrician install, sometime in the 60s. The basement was damp as well, so not the best of environments.



Na what happened is 3's and 5s' look alike when I had wired up a temporary 6ga cord for a welder the 30 amp looked like a 50 amp it had been working fine for quite some time but once it tripped the first time it tripped more and more frequently until I got tired of it pulled it off and looked real close so new breaker with a 5 not a 3 problem solved

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## Frank S

Well pretty much at the halfway point on the lean to roof now. Would have been finished by now if was using straight new metal. But my standing seem sheets have been used at least twice before and have been transported lots of the sheets have damaged edges which has to be hammered back in shape before the next sheet will interlock over it. plus I only have half enough full length sheets so am using half sheets every other space.
got nine sections on yesterday then ran low on screws and had a threat of weather so knocked off around 2:30 in the 106° heat to go after screws.
Got started this morning and by 2:00 again the thunder wind and lightening brought things a halt but now am right at halfway.

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## Frank S

Around 8:30 this morning we finished up on the roof now all I have to do is to close up the weather observatory ports

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## Toolmaker51

"weather observatory ports"? Anything like screen doors on submarines...

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## Frank S

> "weather observatory ports"? Anything like screen doors on submarines...



Naa those only keep out the flyfish

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Toolmaker51 (Jul 5, 2020)

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## Frank S

The past couple of days have been non starters so far as getting anything accomplished.
My friend from Ct. was planning on pulling out early on Monday morning so he and I spent much of Sunday removing a dew things from the container that he felt I should have like a 200 amp 24 circuit electrical panel a bench grinder an air tank, an old heavy wooden work table truck batteries for my Freightliner and forklift plus several other items then re packed the few of his house hold items which had to be removed in order to get out the things we wanted I insisted he lock it up. Then we inspected the Prevost RV for any maladies which may require attention prior of his trip home. I gave it a quick greasing of the zerks as the last time this had been done was when he was here previously. I swear someday I am going to install a 4 ft wide 60 ft long grease pit in my shop complete with alcoves containing shelving and drawers, cut into the walls of the thing just for instances like Sunday. We spent the rest of the day discussing the venture he and I are hoping to get kicked off soon. He pulled out around 3 Am on Monday Jane and I spent most of the morning doing what I hate more than anything else in the world, spending money in town restocking our monthly supplies, which meant the day turned out to be a wash out for working in on or around the shop and it already appears as though today will be a repeat of the past 2 days since I need to repair a flat on my tractor and do some much needed mowing of the fields

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## Frank S

Hard to believe nearly another month has passed by and it seems that nearly nothing has been done to the shop project.
Still thinking about a maintenance pit design. could really use one right about now with a low boy trailer in the shop that I am having to hunt down air leaks in the brake system. with a pit I could walk underneath and wave my ultrasonic leak detector over all of the lines valves and fittings and possibly locate the leaks in a short time but as it is crawling around laying flat on my back trying to reach areas nearly inaccessible is a pain not to mention the fact that there is no concrete floor by which a creeper could be utilized compounds an already bad situation. but be that as it may I have done a few things to the shop.
I've moved a lot of outside equipment and other stuff around and cleared an area that will eventually become a 2nd covered area between 2 dry van trailers which will eventually yield an additional 4000 sq feet but that is a ways down the road yet.
Getting started insulating the North wall and installing the sheet metal plus welding some structural members for the anti room which will become the rest room and the stairway leading up to the school bus body is slow going as instead of using up my current limited supply of C purlin I opted to utilize some to the 1000s of feet of 2" round purlin tubes I salvaged when I got the rest of the shop materials. I have been welding 2 tubes side by side to make a 2" by 4" weldment then tacking on short lengths of 2x2" angle iron pieces to contain the insulation it is a slow process as I have to straighten some of the tubes as I go along 

the Anti room is not any less involved since I am again using up salvaged materials only this time it is 4x4" sq tubing for the frame work which will become the landing to enter the buss and the ceiling over the restroom

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baja (Aug 7, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 4, 2020)

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## Frank S

Well I have the floor joists welded in place for the buss entryway landing will weld in some girts between them to support the eventual floor surface. 
Now probably it may seem a bit extreme to use 4x4 sq tubing for the joists but that was the materials on hand.

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baja (Aug 7, 2020),

mwmkravchenko (Aug 6, 2020)

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## metric_taper

> Well I have the floor joists welded in place for the buss entryway landing will weld in some girts between them to support the eventual floor surface. 
> Now probably it may seem a bit extreme to use 4x4 sq tubing for the joists but that was the materials on hand. 
> Attachment 36116



I'm surprised to see that 'dog leg' in the left side support beam. I assume it's because you had 3 longer pieces of square tubing, and why waste a few feet cutting them the same. Good thing you don't have inspectors around, as I believe they never let a beam have a welded joint. Not that I don't believe you have excess structural integrity, both in the strength of materials, and quality welds.
I have I-beams I've spliced, but only when no one is looking. But I know I have full depth weld penetration, and a limited 2nd floor load.
Nice progress.

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## Frank S

> I'm surprised to see that 'dog leg' in the left side support beam. I assume it's because you had 3 longer pieces of square tubing, and why waste a few feet cutting them the same. Good thing you don't have inspectors around, as I believe they never let a beam have a welded joint. Not that I don't believe you have excess structural integrity, both in the strength of materials, and quality welds.
> I have I-beams I've spliced, but only when no one is looking. But I know I have full depth weld penetration, and a limited 2nd floor load.
> Nice progress.



The reason for the dog leg will become apparent once you see the stair way The dog is not in exactly the spot where I need it so may have to add to it but it was already made and close to what I wanted for the stairway there will also be a wall under the beam so a dog leg will have no effect on structural

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## Frank S

> Good thing you don't have inspectors around, as I believe they never let a beam have a welded joint. Not that I don't believe you have excess structural integrity, both in the strength of materials, and quality welds.
> I have I-beams I've spliced, but only when no one is looking. But I know I have full depth weld penetration, and a limited 2nd floor load.
> Nice progress.



We used to build lots of beams for pre engineered buildings, the longest we made was 3 Hero beams of 180feet in length it was a boxed beam with a 8 feet tall web 2 inch flange thickness 2 1/2 feet wide with 12" of crown supporting 90 ft long bar joists the building was about 372 feet by 186 feet outside dimensions clear floor with a 6 inch thick foam impregnated lightweight concrete floor on the 2nd floor with a wood surface flor on that,but yeah no dog legs though lots of spliced together steel. What the building was to be used for was an airconditioned indoor footfall practice field with a gymnasium in the 2nd floor yeah people in the middle east have strange ideas

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## metric_taper

> We used to build lots of beams for pre engineered buildings, the longest we made was 3 Hero beams of 180feet in length it was a boxed beam with a 8 feet tall web 2 inch flange thickness 2 1/2 feet wide with 12" of crown supporting 90 ft long bar joists the building was about 372 feet by 186 feet outside dimensions clear floor with a 6 inch thick foam impregnated lightweight concrete floor on the 2nd floor with a wood surface flor on that,but yeah no dog legs though lots of spliced together steel. What the building was to be used for was an airconditioned indoor footfall practice field with a gymnasium in the 2nd floor yeah people in the middle east have strange ideas



I have to assume these beams were designed by a structural engineer, and included the strength of a proper weld in the calculation to safety and failure. I just know that a field hacked beam that is welded is not approved unless it is in the drawings for an inspector to validate as built to the PE approved drawing. And there will be many specifications as to ASME welding methods.
I've dealt with inspectors on my home projects here in Iowa. They are underskilled people hired by the county, and as they 'took the inspector class' they are now experts in all building methods. I see more that the building trades and contractors have paid campaign donations (read as bribes) to the county board of directors to ensure local code ordinances that inhibits DIY from doing any part of construction. I so far have been able to get permits, but that requires putting up with their anal efforts to stop all non hired out work. You are lucky you live in a state that has not taken your right to build from you.

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 11, 2020)

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## Frank S

> I have to assume these beams were designed by a structural engineer, and included the strength of a proper weld in the calculation to safety and failure. I just know that a field hacked beam that is welded is not approved unless it is in the drawings for an inspector to validate as built to the PE approved drawing. And there will be many specifications as to ASME welding methods.
> I've dealt with inspectors on my home projects here in Iowa. They are underskilled people hired by the county, and as they 'took the inspector class' they are now experts in all building methods. I see more that the building trades and contractors have paid campaign donations (read as bribes) to the county board of directors to ensure local code ordinances that inhibits DIY from doing any part of construction. I so far have been able to get permits, but that requires putting up with their anal efforts to stop all non hired out work. You are lucky you live in a state that has not taken your right to build from you.



Yep, I was the senior engineer in the company and had sometimes as many as 30 engineers in most fields on my staff. All card carrying members of KSE (Kuwait Society of Engineers) I even had my own licensed QA&QC for weld testing and welders certifications. Most of our major projects such as that one were overseen b y a consulting firm out of Holland. For a number of years my office our staff and the factory was utilized at night by many undergraduates to study and complete their required projects prior to receiving their diplomas. Even a few post grads would take advantage of our equipment and machines available for projects of their own. In 2018 I received an email from the KSE stating that my name was being dropped from roll for failure to complete a NOC ( no objection consent) since I had retired and was no longer in Kuwait I couldn't see any reason to keep up my dues renewal and hadn't paid since 2013.
I know what you mean by local Muni's building inspectors. back 30 years ago when I owned a company called Nationwide Installers I had to deal with some real looser in my time. Brooklyn, Queens, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Chicago just to name a few of the larger ones had some of the dare I say stupidest inspectors on their parole you could ever have the displeasure of dealing with. Some of them would remind you so some guy or gal who had been inspectors in small towns hired only because they had a heart beat. Plus there was the hand behind their back factor as well. 
Funny you should mention Iowa though. I met a man in Davenport who had his head screwed on correctly and in my opinion was all around knowledgeable in his duties

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## mwmkravchenko

Nice to work somewhere that you don't have to worry about frozen ground over the winter moving things around for you.

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## Frank S

> Nice to work somewhere that you don't have to worry about frozen ground over the winter moving things around for you.



That's true however all of the columns and posts are in the ground between 5 to 8 feet with truck rims welded to the bottoms.
I've had to design structures around swamp muck saltwater infusion from Oceans as far as 30 miles inland, seasonal soil heaving due to high annual rain fall and long dry spells on gumbo clays, Shifting dunes, fluid rock, and bed rock,and annual frost heaving, but never actual permafrost. 
I placed the large diameter rims under the columns to serve as footings and wanted them deep enough to not be effected by any movement of the sandy loam soil above in most cases I was able to excavate through the layer of red clay into a harder bluish white layer below.

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## mwmkravchenko

> That's true however all of the columns and posts are in the ground between 5 to 8 feet with truck rims welded to the bottoms.
> I've had to design structures around swamp muck saltwater infusion from Oceans as far as 30 miles inland, seasonal soil heaving due to high annual rain fall and long dry spells on gumbo clays, Shifting dunes, fluid rock, and bed rock,and annual frost heaving, but never actual permafrost. 
> I placed the large diameter rims under the columns to serve as footings and wanted them deep enough to not be effected by any movement of the sandy loam soil above in most cases I was able to excavate through the layer of red clay into a harder bluish white layer below.




Well at 5 feet down you are safe for the area where I live near Ottawa Ontario. Where I grew up that would have to be a 8 foot depth. Fun and games everywhere I see!

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## Frank S

> Well at 5 feet down you are safe for the area where I live near Ottawa Ontario. Where I grew up that would have to be a 8 foot depth. Fun and games everywhere I see!



I excavated rather than simply bore and fill with concrete or do a perimeter beam of concrete and slab floor before starting the project for several reasons with the main one being funds. Sure I probably could have sought financing which would have meant putting the place itself up as security. there is no mortgage so that would have meat literally that a huge portion of my monthly retirement income would have gone to pay for the shop. I was not willing to do that just so I could have a shop plus I would have had to down size my expectations by a huge factor and on top of that a lending institution would have demanded things I was not willing ot provide as well.
I could have just done large footings and anchored the columns to the concrete footers by using a cubic yard or more at each column by tapping into our savings and paying for them as I went but why spend money when there is an alternative that works just as well. That money can go on earning some interest and still be there to either borrow against or use in case of an emergency.

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 11, 2020)

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## mwmkravchenko

> I excavated rather than simply bore and fill with concrete or do a perimeter beam of concrete and slab floor before starting the project for several reasons with the main one being funds. Sure I probably could have sought financing which would have meant putting the place itself up as security. there is no mortgage so that would have meat literally that a huge portion of my monthly retirement income would have gone to pay for the shop. I was not willing to do that just so I could have a shop plus I would have had to down size my expectations by a huge factor and on top of that a lending institution would have demanded things I was not willing ot provide as well.
> I could have just done large footings and anchored the columns to the concrete footers by using a cubic yard or more at each column by tapping into our savings and paying for them as I went but why spend money when there is an alternative that works just as well. That money can go on earning some interest and still be there to either borrow against or use in case of an emergency.



I'm agreeing with you completely.

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## Frank S

Well I now have the lower step landings in place next comes something that I hope resembles stairs.
The problem is I have used up my supply of 4" sq tubing So I will have to come up with something different from here on out

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mwmkravchenko (Aug 11, 2020)

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## Frank S

Since I had used up the last good lengths of the 4" sq tubing that I had I needed to come up with something for the stair stringers I have a good supply for now of angle iron to make the risers and tread supports out of. I do have a couple sticks of 4x4x3/8" tubing but I have other plans for it and didn't want to cut it up. This was when I thought of the side rails of the upper deck I removed from a trailer to use the frame portion as the base of my brick crane.
I had saved the rails thinking I would come up with a great application for them someday 
It looks like I found it

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## Toolmaker51

snipped;



> This was when I thought of the side rails of the upper deck I removed from a trailer to use the frame portion as the base of my brick crane.
> I had saved the rails thinking I would come up with a great application for them someday 
> It looks like I found it



Yessir, it ain't scrap until you can't hold onto it, for making into something else. Been doing so a long time; way before it went mainstream.

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## Frank S

The stairway is coming along nicely the upper has the risers installed on the stringers and only have to weld in tread edge support angles then that part is done until I get around to cutting the treads out of the 2x12 oak and pine planks that I have. If I had enough oak I wouldn't bother with edge supports but the angles will also give a good place to mount toe kick plates should I decide to fully enclose the stairway 
The bottom section is complete I have the base anchors driven in the ground a couple feet and welded to it now I need to weld it to the landing is all

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mwmkravchenko (Aug 18, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 16, 2020)

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## Crusty

My daddy said "Son, you're gonna drive me to drinkin' if ya don't stop buzzin' that Tombstone Lincoln".  :Cool:

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KustomsbyKent (Aug 17, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 16, 2020)

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## Frank S

> My daddy said "Son, you're gonna drive me to drinkin' if ya don't stop buzzin' that Tombstone Lincoln".



Crusty I'm pretty sure this is the same Lincoln welder I found in a trash pile some 20 years ago Since I didn't have any need for it I gave it to my bud before leaving for Kuwait I don't remember if I ever hooked it up to see if it worked or not but after returning from Kuwait I eventually tore down his shop that had collapsed under the rubble was this machine he says he doesn't remember ever using it and had forgotten even having the thing, it was buried in a pile of stuff he had hauled from my old shop so that alone makes me suspect it is the same machine. After I hauled stuff out here I had just left it tossed in another pile until maybe last year or the year before when I discovered it again and decided just for giggles and grins to see if it still worked I opened it up and blew out years of accumulated dust dirt mud daubers nest and oiled the cooling fan.
As you can see it still works. I have had thoughts of adding a rectifier and choke along with a fine adjustment variac like what is in a round top AC/DC machine but then I think why bother I have a 300 amp Airco DC machine it is just still packed away

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## Crusty

Just funnin' - those are near bulletproof welders.

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## Frank S

> Just funnin' - those are near bulletproof welders.



I started learning how to weld on a Lincoln coffeepot then when I was 14 I bought a 200 short hat with a 4 cyl Wisconsin

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## Frank S

It doesn't matter if you have no walls no doors and no floor as long as you have a roof overhead and a little bit of light so one can be brought in on a hook at midnight it is a shop
This is the power of just 2 100 watt UFO high bay LED fixtures

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 29, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

"...brought in on a hook...". I'm guessing that means tractor with sleeper came in with the tow rig?
Spectacular in my book, no question. 
Reminds me of a former garage turned concert venue in Kansas City. They gutted interior and walls, the new sides are garage style sectional (overhead) glass doors. Closed, it's warm in winter, fully open rest of the year.

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## Crusty

I been in shops that didn't have lighting that good installed for normal use. It's surprising to me that two 100s are giving off that much light.

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## Frank S

> I been in shops that didn't have lighting that good installed for normal use. It's surprising to me that two 100s are giving off that much light.



2 100s put out 24000 lumins I think the work lights on the wrecker may have been on as well

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## Frank S

Update on the truck. Bob had called me and told me that his truck had suddenly lost power and started knocking, so I told him to put it on a hook because obviously running it was going to cause more damage.
This morning I got a little better story about what had happened he as driving along and suddenly the truck started puffing white smoke then lost power running like it only had 5 cylinders then it made a few knocking sounds but not regular just once in a while he had to drive it about 3 miles to get to a safe place to park then called me. I said OK start it up because any damage done is already done anyway. as soon as it started up the cloud of white smoke filled the shop and that is hard to do in a shop that is basically just a roof with a couple of trailers and containers along the sides, but I didn't her any knocking;
SO I began pulling the top end apart once I had torn in deep enough to get to the injector nozzles I started pulling the caps and nozzles out when I got to #5 I found half the tip was missing, so more parts needed to be removed to pull the head. No damage to the head or top of the piston a couple tiny nicks in the crown nothing to write home about though. and in the combustion cavity I found 5 or 6 small pieces of the tip ranging in size from a mustard seed to a bell pepper seed. I couldn't resist the size comparison detail, No wall damage to the liner so now if the parts get here early enough tomorrow maybe I'll have it running tomorrow night.

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## Toolmaker51

Size comparisons are handy as to relative size. Actual dimensions tougher, as we don't know whether scale is Brassica hirta or Brassica juncea varieties; choices are far wider in referring to bell peppers...

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## Frank S

> Size comparisons are handy as to relative size. Actual dimensions tougher, as we don't know whether scale is Brassica hirta or Brassica juncea varieties; choices are far wider in referring to bell peppers...



I could have easily said compared to grains of blasting media ranging from gr#1 through gr #3 
A couple of the partials were small enough that a few more cycles bouncing around they could have been embedded in the crown of the piston or worse yet slipped between the piston and the cylinder wall the additional labor alone could have cost him more than the tow, and he knows how aggravated I get when someone knows something has gone wrong but elects to ignore it and try to keep going thinking they might save a buck or 2 when there are other options.

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 29, 2020)

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## jdurand

If that's what two 100W lights do, maybe I DO have enough light in my wife's new kitchen. She likes it bright, I ordered three 18 W LED lights for that. 3.1 meter ceiling. She'll let me know when we get there.  :Smile: 

Now, if they'd open the border so we COULD get there...

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## Frank S

well all of the parts didn't arrive before noon Sunday and a couple didn't show up until Monday morning but the truck was running and gone by noon anyway 
Now if only the factory will pull their heads out of their umm, and send me the correct parts so I can get his Landoll sliding axle low boy out of the shop I could get started on the tri axle that has been a hanger queen since before the shop[ was here

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## Frank S

Well I now have 4 lights in my shop completely connected Eventually there will be 4 to 6 zones in the main shop area I probably won't have more than 500 wats per zone.
Right now I have them divided into 2 zones 

the switches on the left are for the inside of the container one switch will light it up enough to find stuff while #2 will make it daylight 
the 2 switches on the right are the first 2 zones in the main shop I ran 3/4EMT to each zone so I can add as many conductors as needed later 

This is what a single 15 watt light does inside the container

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## metric_taper

Frank; Where did you get your UFO high bay fixtures from?
I see them on eBay, but don't know about quality, they seem to differ in heat sinks.
I thought 3/4" conduit was big enough when I wired my garage in 1990, but back then I had TW insulated #12 wires, and pulling in 10 of them was a real workout. But I over wired it for 120 and 240 wall and ceiling outlets. I see the NEC allows 16 THHN #12 s. But I bet that's still a tight fit.

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## Frank S

> Frank; Where did you get your UFO high bay fixtures from?
> I see them on eBay, but don't know about quality, they seem to differ in heat sinks.
> I thought 3/4" conduit was big enough when I wired my garage in 1990, but back then I had TW insulated #12 wires, and pulling in 10 of them was a real workout. But I over wired it for 120 and 240 wall and ceiling outlets. I see the NEC allows 16 THHN #12 s. But I bet that's still a tight fit.



I got them off Ebay from a seller in Delaware the lights are obviously china made as are 90% of all these types of lights even big branded companies like Sylvania GE Osram have a huge percentage of their products made in the PRC 
I bought mine on an 80% discount sale which tells me they were either an overstock or an item which was soon to be discontinued.
They may or may not last for a long time if they do, GREAT. if the don't , fine. I'll do like I have had to do with every other type of lighting I've used in the past. replace them. 
The light assemblies weighed a little over 4 lbs each or about the same as the domed high bay of the same size did but they have a higher quality offered in the UFO style that weighs 9 lbs each with double the amount of heat sink These would be the ones I will probably be purchasing as I add more lights to the shop. I only bought these first 4 because I wanted to get some lighting up without breaking into my piggy bank at this time.

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## Frank S

Elvis has left the container.
In my 53 ft intermodal container I had 3 lathes, a Cincinnati horizontal Mill and an American Vertical mill. plus there is a lot of other stuff in there so the only part I could do any work out of was right at the entrance. I am thinking that soon I may need to have a couple of these lathes put in service or at the very least have them under power incase I may want to sell one of them. 
The first step was how to get the LeBlond 26x40 lathe out without having to remove everything in front of it Now that I have the electrical panels in place the fork carriage on the backhoe is too wide to fit inside the container meaning the Cincinnati was going to be difficult to get out and return after the lathe was out.
I used a couple comealongs and lots of pry baring to turn it to an angle allowing just barely enough room to slip the 6000lb lathe past it, a long chain connected to the backhoe to pull it reduced the amount of jacking and baring for this task.









in its new home inside the Allied moving van/ machine shop van

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 11, 2020)

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## metric_taper

> in its new home inside the Allied moving van/ machine shop van



I have a very cheap China copy of your lathe. Same size and weight. Replacing the original 12" 3 and 4 jaw chucks with Bison, and Pratt Burnerd brands made all the difference. D1-8 spindle taper. My user name came from this lathe, as the manual say's the internal bore is MT#6, which is absolutely wrong. It took some figuring but it's a 90mm metric taper, which I still need to fix the #4MT adapter slug as it was machined wrong from the factory. The minor diameter is .004inch smaller then it should be, so it rocks in the taper. Feels like it's home, but it's not. These metric tapers are some sort of DIN standard. More irritating, you can't get the specs without buying them, like everything DIN.
I have a #2 Rockford horizontal Miller. 1930s era originally overhead line drive, but it came with a Lima conversion (bolt on kit with Ford model A transmission, and 3 phase motor). Sadly, it never gets used with the Wells-Index vertical right next to it. That and the #9 Brown and Sharp spindle taper has limited tooling. I would get rid of it, but it is stuck as the first machine in a long 8x30 foot machine shop location. And I can't move it past the other machines like you've done. For the age of the machine, it has power feed in all three axis.

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Frank S (Sep 11, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Sep 11, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

That's exactly what I'd have done.
If I had a backhoe, 100' of chain, an observer, plus a few other necessities....Still trying to graduate beyond Egyptian rollers and pinch bars.

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Crusty (Sep 12, 2020),

Frank S (Sep 11, 2020)

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## Frank S

> That's exactly what I'd have done.
> If I had a backhoe, 100' of chain, an observer, plus a few other necessities....Still trying to graduate beyond Egyptian rollers and pinch bars.



I had to do my own observing pull a few feet or a few inches as sometimes the case happened to be didn't want Jane inside the container trying to give me hand signals which I probably wouldn't have been able to see anyway, while trying to move a 3 ton obtrusively shaped object past an equally obtrusive unveiling object of the same weight, with less than a couple inches of clearance for one to pass the other. The possibility of rendering bodily harm would have been astronomical.

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 11, 2020)

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## Frank S

Found the perfect place to park my little 12x36 Sheldon lathe. the gray cabinet at the opposite end will eventually be relocated to another location out of the van

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mwmkravchenko (Sep 15, 2020)

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## Crusty

Ditto what TM said. I end up doing things like Fred and Barney* did them too, except that I have a chainfall hoist and a High Lift jack which often come into play.

Horror Freight has about the cheapest transport grade chains that I've found and every time I get a little extra money I order another 20'er.


*Fred Flintstone, Barney Rubble

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## Toolmaker51

Lol. I'm a Fred. 
Who's Barney? That numbnutts forever absent with work to do. 
One thing about jacks and rollers, aside from minding fingers it's very safe. 
Going to be a lot soon, shipping some 'arn home accumulated during this CA stay.

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## Frank S

LOL, all of the Barneys I even met turned out to be carbon copies of Barney Fife.
Since I am wanting to start on the East wall as soon as possible. I decided while I was moving furniture around inside the shop that I might as well get something moved that has been in the shop since before it was even a tent. Besides hopefully I will get to sand blast and paint it soon then I can put it back together.
I have a pair of trailer tandems under both ends so I could move it sideways off of the tri axle assembly group and have moved it from 1 side of the shop to the other to get it out of my way So in order to move it out of the shop the dolly's had to be rotated 90° No way to lift it with my backhoe and I didn't want to try and drag the A frame over it so that only leaves cribbing and jacks 





It is amasing how much stuff will accumulate around or under something in a few months

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 13, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

> That's exactly what I'd have done.
> If I had a backhoe, 100' of chain, an observer, plus a few other necessities....Still trying to graduate beyond Egyptian rollers and pinch bars.



Amended. Because mere rollers and pinch bars, in reality are less then bare minimal; 1/2 ton A-frame gantry & hoist, smaller lever and chain hoists, jacks, 7' Johnson lever dolly, 20, 16 and 10 gauge shims, metal and wood cribbing, pallet jacks, flat carts, bottle jacks...
and no Barney, whether fife, piccolo, trombone or alto sax.

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mwmkravchenko (Sep 15, 2020)

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## Frank S

Ever since I started the shop project I have had a thought of how to incorporate the tent door into the structure. the tent door some may remember was an 8 1/2 ft high 20 some odd feet long gate like wall I constructed to close off a side between my 2 shop trailers and serve as a door when needed to access the tent from the front side. 
So today after digging a hole in the ground then used my plate packer to embed another truck rim to serve as an anchor for a post I wanted to put in the East end of the shop so I could start building a wall there.
I started thinking about the tent door once again. being 8 1/2 feet high it would have meant I could have the wall half way to the top plate almost instantly all I would then have to do would be to insulate it and sheet the inside to protect the insulation after taking a look at it I decided since the sheet metal had been run lengthwise making it horizontal and I want the sheet metal running up and down I decided to stand it on end and trim it to fit the slant of the roof I would still cover nearly half of the proposed wall area just all the way up in one section. plus it was the exact correct width to cover the entire end of the container and the elevated work space above.
never waste time with a grinder or a saw when you have a torch available

I have it clamped in place will have to dig some dirt out of the way before I can plumb it to vertical then weld it in place

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mwmkravchenko (Sep 15, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Instant wall! Instant shipping. 
Let Amazo, fleabay or cheap offshore labor beat that!

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## Crusty

> ...
> never waste time with a grinder or a saw when you have a torch available



A quote that's worth remembering.

But I've found that my stand mounted handheld Milwaukee Bandsaw is so quick to use and fast at metal cutting that it's become my goto tool for small (6") cutting jobs.

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## Frank S

the East wall is coming along nicely actually except for continuing to complete the full height of it the wall is as far as it is going to be since the entire remaining area will be a pair of 22 ft wide doors I am thinking that as soon as I finish the repairs on the trailer in the shop I will build the west wall which will be 20 feet of wall and a single 48 ft wide door.
To most the size of the doors I am wanting is probably mind boggling but you have to remember I live in farm country more importantly cotton and Hay are the principal crops the equipment can be huge. Just today 3 tractors drove by with their attachments folded they still took up the entire road and part of the easement on both sides and were bout 15 feet tall. try to imagine needing a place to work on one of those inside during the winter that is why the front door is going to be 48 feet wide and 17 feet high

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## Frank S

I have a couple of tools that I thankfully don't need very often, but that doesn't take away from them being extremely valuable when I do need them.
The problem with both of them is they lay flat on the floor taking up lots of space not that I mind that so much as my shop and storage areas are large anyway. However since they are only around 7 inches tall they either get shoved under something but still stick way out in the way or I am constantly having to find a more suitable place to store them hopefully out of the way. most places in a shop that is out of the way winds up being a repository for anything and everything that needs stored out of the way meaning these tools wind up on the bottom of a stack of somethings.
Well I think I solved that issue today once and for all I hung them up like pictures on the wall 1 weighs around 200 lbs while the other weighs around 75 lbs 

The only bad thing I can think of now is everyone who visits my shop will see a pair of transmission jacks hanging on the wall and will assume that I am willing to repair their transmission

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## metric_taper

> The only bad thing I can think of now is everyone who visits my shop will see a pair of transmission jacks hanging on the wall and will assume that I am willing to repair their transmission



Or they'll want to borrow them. And then you have to fetch them when needed, and might forget where they went. Worse, they come back broken, as that's been my experience.
But you know where they are at now.  :Lol:

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## Frank S

> Or they'll want to borrow them. And then you have to fetch them when needed, and might forget where they went. Worse, they come back broken, as that's been my experience.
> But you know where they are at now.



Not many around me who would even know what to do with one of them if they did ask to borrow.
There are only 2 guys in the whole county who I would lend them to anyway. 1 is a car mechanic in town he runs the only state and DOT inspection place in the county. he has seen them and thought if ever he needed to pull a transmission that required the larger of the 2 the truck was going tob e delivered to me instead of his place 
The other guy lives about a mile from me he and I often trade hours with each other he is a diesel mechanic /welder / sometime machinist so we have a few things in common I borrowed his transmission jack once then built my own large one for the next time I needed to use a jack he somehow over loaded his jack and blew the seals so I let him borrow mine as mine is also larger by capacity than his, his jack being only 2000 lb and mine will lift 4000 easy.

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## Frank S

Have made some real progress on the North wall

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## Crusty

Now there's more between you and the North Pole than a few strands of barb wire. Just in time too.

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## Frank S

> Now there's more between you and the North Pole than a few strands of barb wire. Just in time too.



Actually I have the wall completed all the way to the corner now just haven't taken a picture yet I still have to wall in around the bus but I want to leave the windows exposed for ventilation and light

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## metric_taper

I thought I read in a previous post about insulating the wall. Is that some sort of rigid foam board?

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## Frank S

> I thought I read in a previous post about insulating the wall. Is that some sort of rigid foam board?



Yes you can see the start of it in post #199

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## Frank S

We installed the roof over the stairway today

This picture shows the start of the insulation

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baja (Sep 26, 2020),

Christophe Mineau (Sep 26, 2020),

KustomsbyKent (Sep 26, 2020),

Scotty12 (Sep 25, 2020)

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## Frank S

Getting a few more things done while I have a helper
yesterday we got half of the drop roof installed between the shop and the Machine shop van then this morning we completed that section
I had another 8ft by 25 ft gate that was just begging to be used on the shop
This also used up all but 2 ft of the remaining standing seam panel I had by welding short sections together to make a gutter 

then after that we moved back to the North side of the building and worked on the stairway enclosure

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mwmkravchenko (Sep 29, 2020)

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## mwmkravchenko

Getting it done. Looking good to Frank!

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## Frank S

Got the end cap on the west wall finished except for the flashing 

Since the west wall will be a 48 ft wide roll up curtain door there is not a lot left to do to it maybe 20 ft and the remainder of the stairway

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## Frank S

Well I guess this means the shop must be done now. 
I needed to make a run to town today so by the time I got back I really didn't want to climb scaffolding, deciding to give my knees a day off Eddy and I hung the front door then we chained it closed and bolted the chain from the inside so now no one can enter the shop without climbing up and going through a window on the bus

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 30, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Admiring the deceptive murals surrounding said door; I'm sure it will vex trespassers and miscreants...

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Frank S (Sep 30, 2020)

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## Frank S

> Admiring the deceptive murals surrounding said door; I'm sure it will vex trespassers and miscreants...



Absolutely.
No one who lives near me or even in the neighboring counties would ever dream of entering a place with a chained door especially one chained from the inside even with open windows or in this case missing walls

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## Crusty

Kinda reminds me of a bear outhouse.

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mklotz (Oct 1, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

> Kinda reminds me of a bear outhouse.



This explains lots of things...

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## Frank S

> This explains lots of things...



The picture is actually quite fitting since if you look closely at my picture you will find the welding machine and behind it a diesel can, where the diesel can is sitting is almost exactly where the toilet will be located

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## Toolmaker51

> Attachment 36695



Long ago, I recall stories of men building boats in their basement. Only later did chink in the plans appear; without means to extricate said project from under their house. 
This is different, no-one recollects any bus on a shelf....

But it's one hell of a dual glazed set of windows! Terrific indirect and glare free lighting too. Or charge admission for tourists to see a real American shop in operation.
Last one not so unusual, I toured a woodworking furniture factory quite like that. It occupies a big abandoned but renovated church. The vaulted ceiling makes room for an elevated walkway, a balcony to see operations in their entirety.

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## Frank S

> Long ago, I recall stories of men building boats in their basement. Only later did chink in the plans appear; without means to extricate said project from under their house. 
> This is different, no-one recollects any bus on a shelf....
> 
> But it's one hell of a dual glazed set of windows! Terrific indirect and glare free lighting too. Or charge admission for tourists to see a real American shop in operation.
> Last one not so unusual, I toured a woodworking furniture factory quite like that. It occupies a big abandoned but renovated church. The vaulted ceiling makes room for an elevated walkway, a balcony to see operations in their entirety.



Back around 1980 while I was building an oil drill rig behind this guys shop he was building a natural gas sub station compressor inside his shop. To give a little perspective of his shop it was maybe all of a 40x40 concrete tilt wall building with 14 ft ceiling it had 2 garage doors only 8 feet wide and maybe all of 9 feet high. I walked in the shop one morning to find his guys welding a skid together that was 20 feet long and 12 feet wide. I'm thinking Houston you are going to have a problem but since at the time it was none of my concern I ignored it. A few hours later a cement truck showed up and they filled the skid with concrete.
This is really going to be interesting I was thinking.
weeks later they have this thing just about built and it is almost all the way to the ceiling as well.
Only then did the owner come to me and ask what I thought would be the best way to get it out of the building. 
Well George, as I see it you have only 2 options well actually 3 but the 3rd one wouldn't suit your customer. plan A you knock down a section of the tilt wall and drag the thing out with a dozer, plan b you remove the roof and lift it out with a 100 ton crane. Plan A might mean the roof could collapse and plan B might mean you drop it 
what's plan "C" he asked? you sell the place to the customer and they turn this shop into a natural gas substation by routing their pipeline through town. 
He opted for plan A and wound up with a 16 ft wide 14 ft tall door

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## Frank S

Which is one of the reasons why I will have a 48ft wide door on the front it will be next to impossible to build anything inside that will be too large to get out of the building, that and the fact that lots of farm equipment can be 40 plus feet wide if it can not be folded up due to malfunctions the height plus the size makes this building worth 10 times more in an estate sale for after I'm gone

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## Frank S

With each passing day the building becomes more and more of a structure edging closer to being a closed in building. When I start thinking about the eventual population of equipment and projects it has started to make me wonder if I may not be coming claustrophobic already thinking of where I will score more materials from to increase the size of it.
NA Just kidding. Once it is completed and the eventual slab is poured, which will have to be after several good paying projects are run through it, I know it will be a tight squeeze for some of the projects to be brought in and they will have to be on a time in and time out basis to keep the clutter down but aside from a sand blasting shed and an environmentally stable paint booth large enough to fit something like a bus in the size of the shop is pretty much what it is.
Today we tackled the East wall and end cap I ran out of flashing and a friend is bringing me a roll in a couple of days other wise the East is ready for doors

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Toolmaker51 (Oct 2, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Epic.
No other suitable term applies.

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## Frank S

> Epic.
> No other suitable term applies.



In the past few weeks we have watched pile after pile of materials diminish and in some cases completely disappear.
It is hard to believe or even imagine that at one time with the exception of 5 pipes 4 I beams and a stack of purlin all of the materials for this building was hauled here as salvaged materials. I would have barely been able to have built a bare bones 2 car garage for the amount of cash I've spent on this thing.

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## metric_taper

> In the past few weeks we have watched pile after pile of materials diminish and in some cases completely disappear.
> It is hard to believe or even imagine that at one time with the exception of 5 pipes 4 I beams and a stack of purlin all of the materials for this building was hauled here as salvaged materials. I would have barely been able to have built a bare bones 2 car garage for the amount of cash I've spent on this thing.



Being in the right place at the right time to harvest that original building helped.
But it's your sweat equity to do all the work to dismantle and haul away, and erect at your site, that enabled this.
Your support columns are clever in using scrap wheels and drill piping, and knowledge of clay subsoil mixed with cement.
Delivered concrete has gotten crazy over the years. That is a minor hurtle to you.

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Toolmaker51 (Oct 3, 2020)

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## Frank S

> Being in the right place at the right time to harvest that original building helped.
> But it's your sweat equity to do all the work to dismantle and haul away, and erect at your site, that enabled this.
> Your support columns are clever in using scrap wheels and drill piping, and knowledge of clay subsoil mixed with cement.
> Delivered concrete has gotten crazy over the years. That is a minor hurtle to you.



I have been watching several different auctions again lately.
The thought of eventually needing well over 100 yards of concrete plus the distance to the nearest plant has started me thinking about the possibility of maybe finding an old but working portable batch plant. a screed, power trowels and all other needed article's then once the pour and any additional slabs are done sell everything.
My reckoning is I could probably cut the cost of my slab by 70% even with hiring labor. Plus who knows if folks within 10 to 15 miles of me knew I had a batch plant I could wind up needing to provide small amounts to them to be hauled in a 1 1/2 or 2 yard trailer. I used to rent them all the time and they are nothing to build

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## metric_taper

> I have been watching several different auctions again lately.
> The thought of eventually needing well over 100 yards of concrete plus the distance to the nearest plant has started me thinking about the possibility of maybe finding an old but working portable batch plant. a screed, power trowels and all other needed article's then once the pour and any additional slabs are done sell everything.
> My reckoning is I could probably cut the cost of my slab by 70% even with hiring labor. Plus who knows if folks within 10 to 15 miles of me knew I had a batch plant I could wind up needing to provide small amounts to them to be hauled in a 1 1/2 or 2 yard trailer. I used to rent them all the time and they are nothing to build



You think big with getting your own batch plant!

At my local home supply, 1cuft bag of cement is ~$10. How much is that bulk I wonder. I think the current price of concrete delivered here locally is $160-$180/cu.yd. It was $48/yd in 1988 the last time I had it delivered. And that's made with crushed limestone aggregate, which is too soft in my opinion (and why the life cycle of roads here is short, as it is porous to the salt water in the winter, and freeze-thaw spalling is common). I paid extra to have washed river gravel from igneous rock used. But under the entire state is only limestone near the surface. The mix is a 6bag per yd of cement to make the strength yield using limestone.

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Toolmaker51 (Oct 3, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Hey, Frank S, metric_taper; 
you guys should check out homemadetools.net. People there lap this kind of thinking like big bowls of lime sherbet. 
Ohh, wait a minute....

Like Iowa, our soils can be poor support to concrete pours. The perimeter of my building is unpaved, floor is acceptable, but really want [need] 4' under my DeVlieg. That's about 18 yards. There also is a walkway/ forklift ramp needing rebuilt.
While getting a personal batch plant is thinking big, there are potential customers afterward. I see them likely completely unaware there a truck shop and machining facility of considerable size connected to it. A safe bet is 10-or 15 miles is 1/3 or 1/4 the possible customer radius. One then feeds the other.
That's basis of my intent, instead of concrete I'll rent hard to find tools. Very low cost, high deposit, and agreement guarantees they have NO liability protection. Two pages of 8.5" x 14" legal boiler-plate un-needed, a simple "Receipt of this warrants user has no recourse to injury or property damage, public or private."
.......but then "Shall not be infringed" is unclear to some, and over past several decades.

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Frank S (Oct 3, 2020),

metric_taper (Oct 3, 2020)

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## Frank S

Progress on the shop may, or I should say will slow down for a while. Today was the last day I had my helper from out of town also we have exhausted most if not all of the long sheets of sheet metal. And for the second time in a week we have ran out of screws again. When he arrived I had a bag of 750 then bought another 200 then another 500 and we might have had 3 left when we quit at noon today. 
I think I'll order another 1000 next week rather than pay the high prices of the hardware stores within 75 miles of me.
Here is what we did this morning

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mwmkravchenko (Oct 5, 2020)

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## Frank S

> You think big with getting your own batch plant!
> 
> At my local home supply, 1cuft bag of cement is ~$10. How much is that bulk I wonder. I think the current price of concrete delivered here locally is $160-$180/cu.yd. It was $48/yd in 1988 the last time I had it delivered. And that's made with crushed limestone aggregate, which is too soft in my opinion (and why the life cycle of roads here is short, as it is porous to the salt water in the winter, and freeze-thaw spalling is common). I paid extra to have washed river gravel from igneous rock used. But under the entire state is only limestone near the surface. The mix is a 6bag per yd of cement to make the strength yield using limestone.



It has been a lot of years since I have found the bulk deals I used to find but at one time I bought a freight tanker load of bulk Portland for ten dollars a ton at a derailment site. I hired 3 dry bulk vacuum tankers to pump it out of the freight tanker. However stupid me, I sold the cement to a batch plant for a huge profit, instead of thinking that 20 years later I might need it for my own slab

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mwmkravchenko (Oct 5, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Oct 4, 2020)

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## metric_taper

> It has been a lot of years since I have found the bulk deals I used to find but at one time I bought a freight tanker load of bulk Portland for ten dollars a ton at a derailment site. I hired 3 dry bulk vacuum tankers to pump it out of the freight tanker. However stupid me, I sold the cement to a batch plant for a huge profit, instead of thinking that 20 years later I might need it for my own slab




It would probably be a solid chunk if you stored it that long, but maybe you have some water vapor proof storage vessels. It screams to be hydrated. I've learned that even the bags that have a plastic film between the paper structural sheets, let moister in. Really disappointing when you find the 3 bags you got on sale are solid. And absolutely do not store on concrete as that exudes moister, and keeps the cement below dew point (the lesson was delivered this way). So I shall see in a few weeks if storing the left over bags in a dry wall mud pails with a sealed lid keeps it dry. That was 3 years ago. I have a critical repair task of my storage building, that is 3 feet from a retaining wall, about 3 feet high. The wall is tilting outward and letting the sand below the building slump along with this. The building is on a concrete slab, made from that crappy limestone aggregate, that I mixed myself. The freeze thaw is making that slab punky. Soft enough that a ground hog (marmot) dug through it 3 years ago, and undermined the building and filled the floor area it could with 2 feet of the earth from below the building. I hate ground hogs, and they are my enemy. And as this building is above the surrounding area this attracts them for a winter home that is dry. They have some instinct that knows the winter melt will fill a den if it can't drain out. I accidentally made a hill for them. They hibernate in our climate.

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mwmkravchenko (Oct 5, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Oct 4, 2020)

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## metric_taper

> Progress on the shop may, or I should say will slow down for a while. Today was the last day I had my helper from out of town also we have exhausted most if not all of the long sheets of sheet metal. And for the second time in a week we have ran out of screws again. When he arrived I had a bag of 750 then bought another 200 then another 500 and we might have had 3 left when we quit at noon today. 
> I think I'll order another 1000 next week rather than pay the high prices of the hardware stores within 75 miles of me.
> Here is what we did this morning




I think you said a 40 foot rollup door was going to be installed in these openings. Or is this one of those aviation hangar style doors that folds in the middle?

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## Frank S

> I think you said a 40 foot rollup door was going to be installed in these openings. Or is this one of those aviation hangar style doors that folds in the middle?



What I have is a 17 by 48 foot billboard tarp that I will attach at the top and attach a long heavy pipe at the bottom with flanges on each end to form cable spools. with cables wound around on the ends then up to a set of pulleys and over to a winch when I wind the winch the spools on the bottom of the door will unroll while rolling up the tarp. I could also add another feature by attaching some braces and stays then roll out the tarp as an awning canopy. This would be a huge PLUS in the summer afternoons.

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mwmkravchenko (Oct 5, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Finding 3 bags of solidified quick set is disappointing enough. Imagine 3 tankers worth?
Three monoliths; each in the most unusable, oddly shaped, and significant size imaginable.
DAMHIKT...please.

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## metric_taper

> Finding 3 bags of solidified quick set is disappointing enough. Imagine 3 tankers worth?
> Three monoliths; each in the most unusable, oddly shaped, and significant size imaginable.
> DAMHIKT...please.




I recall seeing a discarded cement truck mixing assembly that had concrete set up inside. I could only assume that the hydraulic motor rotating the drum failed, and there was no way to open the hatch door, rotate this to the bottom, and remove the contents. I bet there was cussing.

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## Toolmaker51

At one time, my fertile brain pondered why ready mix truck drums were so shaped.
Let fertile here also mean too young for sorting out that stuff. Seems I was never too young to wonder or ask "Why?".

Besides center of gravity, sufficient volume without pouring out, keeping minimal surface exposed to air [drying too quick]; sometimes the tapers aid removal of a dried plug. Of course it has to be dismantled and circumferences torched open...Also told they keep sacks of rock salt in the cab in the event of trouble, to retard or throw the mix out of drying cycle, but ruins the load.
Frank S; I relinquish the floor....

A peremptory response to my DAMHIKT; ~ 2008 economic crisis [properly labeled, compared to COVID 19 'crisis'] I was laid off. 
My region was a little distant from a real metro area and decent employment. I went to work fixing rail cars, which is considerable business around here. Anyway, two concrete chassis arrived with cement stuck to the walls, about 4" thick in places. 
After freeing up the sliding dump shutters, guess who was smallest and newest to climb inside with sledge, engineer hammer and a few chisels...
Ohh the 08"s, such good times; brought to us by a bank who's name only gets mention as perpetrators. 
I only know how much it set one family back, many caught up far, far worse.

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## Frank S

Actually a dry mix batch plant is little more than silos or storage units to hold the Portland cement and other chemicals added to a mix which determines the plasticity of the pour the amount of time a mix can remain in the mixer drum accelerants for faster cure rates and a host of other things added in very small quantities, plus a pair of conveyors to haul sand and aggerate up for pouring back down into a mixer truck where water is then added to the mix. The heart of an operation such as a wet plant is a mixer drum often very large ones at that but most of the wet plants or portable batch plants that I have seen use a drum or an old mixer truck which is no longer suitable for highway use. Those will just sit there and turn mixing the concrete the pouring into tippers or loaders or even powered wheel barrows which transport short distances usually staying on the same property to the pour of the day. 
In many countries where it can be very hot or there are long distances to be traveled or long travel times due to road and traffic conditions the mixer trucks will have a 3 to 500 gallon water tank mounted on them in addition to their drum these will leave the dry batch plant then start to mix near or at their destination or wait in line turning the dry contents until it is time for them to wet up . A project I was involved with in Oman had not only a huge dry batch plant but over 100 mixer trucks on site and 5 pumper rigs. the mixer trucks would start loading for the next days pour at their companies batch plants sometime in the night the days pour started at around 4 AM and by days end nearly all trucks would have visited the on site batch plant at least twice Huge screeds would spread the pumped concrete dozens of ride on power trowels worked feverously throughout the day. 100s of whip vibrators would be pushed up and down the footing and wall forms. Miles upon miles of plastic sheeting would be stretched over the slabs and 1000s of workers were so tired you would wonder if they would show up the next day. many wouldn't

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Toolmaker51 (Oct 4, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

> Actually a dry mix batch plant is little more than silos...<snipped>



Is it just me? Always fascinated at how knowing fragments of another vocabulary [as here with concrete construction] make such a description, well, perfectly descriptive? Played out visually, that would be not as clear, and depending on film editors knowledge, probably not proper order.

That old saw about one picture equalling X number of words is not exactly true...

And one more; when our deligated donkey's posterior tries telling us the 'service industry' is basis for a strong economy. 
K, read this. Try estimating how many contracts were cut to build, place and operate this plant; just the first time. How many re-riggings did it take for ROI? 
You cannot copy, print and staple an economy. But they can stay home during a pandemic of hype.

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## Frank S

My tall helper had to leave so I finished up closing in around the stairway with 2 of my arc enemies.
All either one of them would do was just lean against the wall as if they were doing something 

I'm supposed to have several rolls of flashing coming soon to use as trim and to close in around the windows of the bus office but that project will wait until the rolls show up

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## Frank S

The end of an era my bus scaffold has come to the end of the line I do not foresee any more bus stops for it so I started removing the scaffold sections. I needed the plywood for the stairway landing so I pulled half of the scaffold down I might leave the other half where it is until I am sure I wont need on the roof again for a while. But I plan on building a more maneuverable scaffold on a much smaller truck chassis but this means it will have to have drop legs for stability as well so it will be a more permanent build possibly even self propelled

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## Frank S

Gone but not forgotten. the 4 sheets of 3/4 treated plywood will be repurposed as floor material for the stairway landings 
the 2x4s will be part of the stud wall for the restroom

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## metric_taper

> Gone but not forgotten.



Those two archenemy's are still around to help you.

So is the bus frame scrap iron now? I hauled a load of steel in yesterday and here the going rate is $60/ton. But I bet those straight beams are worth more as material.

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## Frank S

> Those two archenemy's are still around to help you.
> 
> So is the bus frame scrap iron now? I hauled a load of steel in yesterday and here the going rate is $60/ton. But I bet those straight beams are worth more as material.



No the frame is not scrap iron by any means.
The reason why I left the hood on it for all this time is there is a good cummins engine hiding under there. I have an old B755 Mack cab fenders radiator and hood that would feel right at home on it with a 20 foot roll off or dumping flat bed behind the cab. I can whack off the frame behind the axle and still have more than enough room.

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## Frank S

I probably wont be able to get this trailer much closer to where I want it than it is right now

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## Frank S

And so the next step begins. The task is to lower the trailer about 3 feet.
This will entail separating the chassis from the box. Fortunately I had this in mind when I built it making the chassis and sub frame separately. 
I will begin by cribbing up at the rear all the way to the sub frame which extends further back than the chassis then place 2 cribbing stacks on each side nearer the front one stack on each side will be under the trailer to allow it to be raised off of the chassis after I gouge the welds free the other stacks will be placed much wider apart so after the box is raised I can work a house moving beam between the box and the chassis and let it rest on the cribbing then it will be just a matter of removing the jacks and smaller stacks of cribbing and driving out from under the box. After that it may get interesting lowering the box in stages 
the beginning of block stacking

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## Toolmaker51

> I probably wont be able to get this trailer much closer to where I want it than it is right now



Sure you can.
With a couple layers of paint...

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## Frank S

Worked some on the stairway today 
the landings and treads are in place. I ran out of 2x12s so for now the top 4 steps are 3 2x4s each 
Now I have to get the walls and railings up so no one can miss step and fall

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## metric_taper

> Worked some on the stairway today 
> the landings and treads are in place. I ran out of 2x12s so for now the top 4 steps are 3 2x4s each 
> Now I have to get the walls and railings up so no one can miss step and fall



Watch out for the building code police.......Oh, I forget, you're in the free state of Texas.  :Big Grin:

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## Frank S

> Watch out for the building code police.......Oh, I forget, you're in the free state of Texas.



Texas has its share of liberals and NIMBYs I assure you. Fortunately I live far enough away from any city that if enough nukes were dropped to wipe out every city larger than 50,000 in the state the fall out might not even reach my place. Not that I am advocating for anything but Texas could loose 25 million of its population and the rest of the world might never realize they are gone since only 3.8 million do anything productive anyway.

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## Frank S

Most of the day spent removing my not so temporary, temporary welds gouging with carbon arc and oxy/act to finally get all of them removed.
A long time ago a guy said he would trust one of my tack welds to hold 2 sections of a bridge together I hope he was kidding but after having to cut out some 50 or 60 welds ranging up to 4 inches long I need to re visit my method of making a temporary weld.
However they are all removed now and I did manage to begin the lift in preparation for separating the box from the trailer chassis

It takes a lot of blocks I bet I have to use a 1/4 of my cribbing blocks on this task alone

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## Toolmaker51

"Temporary" here doesn't mean less important, as Frank S proves daily, and fact we get treated to each next post. It's what makes progress occur, dependability.
So in applause of tenacious welds; whatever their purpose. 
It's bad economy spending rod or wire on poor welds, which are rotten insurance. 
1'll bet he'd agree this preserves materials for re-use too, lacking groves of I beam trees. IYKWIM

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## Frank S

> "Temporary" here doesn't mean less important, as Frank S proves daily, and fact we get treated to each next post. It's what makes progress occur, dependability.
> So in applause of tenacious welds; whatever their purpose. 
> It's bad economy spending rod or wire on poor welds, which are rotten insurance. 
> 1'll bet he'd agree this preserves materials for re-use too, lacking groves of I beam trees. IYKWIM



And so far there is no indication of an iron ore deposit on my property so setting up a foundry and making my own beams is probably not feasible

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## Toolmaker51

> And so far there is no indication of an iron ore deposit on my property so setting up a foundry and making my own beams is probably not feasible



That's what we used to call a "Be the first on your block, to be last on your block" situation.

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## metric_taper

> Texas has its share of liberals and NIMBYs I assure you. Fortunately I live far enough away from any city that if enough nukes were dropped to wipe out every city larger than 50,000 in the state the fall out might not even reach my place. Not that I am advocating for anything but Texas could loose 25 million of its population and the rest of the world might never realize they are gone since only 3.8 million do anything productive anyway.



I don't think building code enforcement is a liberal issue, it is from developers and construction trades bribing government with "campaign donations", to force DIY'ers to hire out work, as well the tax assessor arm wanting more property tax. All this is independent of political ideologies, and more into the power of county, city, state, federal elected clowns building up overgrown government. They want you and I to pay for their grave stone epitaph.
That's how I see it working. Smart people do not run for elected office, they run their own business, as you can't make intelligent decisions arguing with idiots, and you don't do that with left or right ideologies, but with risk aversion management to maximize ROI. So we are left with morons that want to win a popularity contest, with a big ego. And then they take the bribes and continue inept government operations.

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Frank S (Oct 17, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Oct 17, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

re post #297 , by metric_taper.
It's correct, that assessment on legislating building codes and politics in general. 
The true codes, I think are works of art; such as NEC, NPC, NBC, NFPA, and certain local adaptations like Los Angeles County electrical or New York fire. The idea experts produce these, assure regards to public safety, material specifications, how they are built, and connection to infrastructure. All's well (broadly speaking) in government, until politics enter.
A good example is a neighboring city. Police and fire departments country-wide think 25% ratio of private homes versus rentals is the maximum density for managing safety. It's parking, utilities, schools, traffic, trash collection, fire control and so on, legitimate benefits of incorporated cities; big (major) factors in property value.
---------However----------
Property developers make w-a-y more per square foot on rent, especially big apartment structures and office leases, than single family homes. So, aforementioned city's council of five members are and have been real estate agents, ongoing for decades. What rent/ own density prevails there? 40? No. 50%, No. It's over 70!

Some few politicians have their head on straight, until coerced by lobbyists and lawyers, which ALL represent special interests. Those "Special Interests" is just polite description for agendas of conniving schemers. 
Save those _few_ politicians, the crowd are in politics, drawing sophisticated version of welfare because they won't get or hold a real job.

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## Frank S

As TM 51 sated in post 298 there is nothing wrong with true codes originally developed by professional trades persons in their respective fields. They shared their knowledge of their life long experiences for what worked and what might work and what wouldn't work. this is also true throughout the vastly spread out disciplines in the fields of engineering.
Back when I used to install electro hydraulic equipment all over the USA and in many other countries as well Do you think that my being a registered and accepted contractor in my home state was sufeincent for many other places like LA county in CA or King county in WA or in the 5 dens of iniquity of NYC? plus many others? not on your life. In La county for instance not only did I have to have a contractor's permit with the state of California. no problem since I did work all over the state anyway. but I had to obtain at a minimum of a "B" electrician's license. OK you say that is nothing but a few tests and if you can pass a test in one state you can pass the test in another. This is not necessarily true even for a licensed practicing in your home state "EE" in some cases. and if you are not an "EE" there are several more hoops to jump through. But any out of state contractor can obtain their permit with enough time effort and money spent. The way I found to be the easiest was to hire a licensed electrical contractor from LA county each time I had an install to do there eventually he was instrumental in helping me obtain my "B" then we only needed to bother him to be present for the final inspections.
the NYC BSA and MEA folks were more interested in the machines themselves and GOD forbid you had wrapped a colored wire with green tape if it wasn't green underneath even if the wire was wrapped in green for its entire length. 
Here in my shop if the books states that a 14AWG wire meets national standards I have 12AWG if say a 1/2" conduit can be 70% filled with conductors I have 3/4" and a 30% fill or less. This leaves me with plenty of space to add additional circuits later on should the need arise. 
The building may look like a hodge-podge of assorted recycled scrap materials "Which it Is" but it will still be standing long after many other buildings have been torn down.

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Toolmaker51 (Oct 17, 2020)

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## Frank S

Fully up on blocks with the beam in place now I have to remove the chassis which still could be a chore

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## suther51

My grouch with codes beyond the lunacy of some of them is when industry can loby to have their super gadget required by code regardless of price asked. This is the pursuit of profit not safty. Money spent on training and teaching common scene would have much greater returns to society.

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## Frank S

DOWN:
after sliding the beam in place there was little left to do but see if my hard work was going to pay off 
I started out rolling only a few feet at a time then checking everything

GONE but not in 60 seconds LOL

the best and probably the safest way to down work the cribbing that I've found is to set up a second set of cribbing inside for the jack. This allows the layers to be lowered in small stages and if something happens to slip there is only a few inches anything can fall I like to lower 3 inches at a time across a 12 ft span side to side 





then after lowering a section or 2 I can drop the rear by a couple sections or more at a time

DOWN;

I will probably have to use a cigarette paper to chink the gap before calking LOL

Level enough until I have it on the concrete blocking pads


Look the steel genie left me something

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## Toolmaker51

> <snipped> install electro hydraulic equipment all over the USA and in many other countries as well Do you think that my being a registered and accepted contractor in my home state was sufeincent for many other places like LA county in CA or King county in WA or in the 5 dens of iniquity of NYC? plus many others? not on your life. In La county for instance not only did I have to have a contractor's permit with the state of California. no problem since I did work all over the state anyway. but I had to obtain at a minimum of a "B" electrician's license. OK you say that is nothing but a few tests and if you can pass a test in one state you can pass the test in another. This is not necessarily true even for a licensed practicing in your home state "EE" in some cases. and if you are not an "EE" there are several more hoops to jump through...



Perfect example where oversight turns into overreach. I don't have trade licenses, but know many who do in several fields. Their reaction is the same. Regions that don't accept persons from elsewhere do a disservice regarding local taxpayers. How much better can their scrutiny be, compared to say, CA and NY? I suspect lesser entities feel inferior, especially with utilities. Does hiring out-of-area indicates inadequate local talent? We can guess who is pulling those strings......let's just say it ain't the puppets.
News flash; water, electricity, sewage, natural gas follow physics, natural law and related phenomena the same everywhere. Even loos in Australia.

P.S. Such a thing as the "Steel Genie"?? 
What goes under the pillow to get him/ her to show up dispensing gifts? Don't know lyricism well enough to mention order of C-channel, purlin, square tubing and bar grating, and mezzanine just sounds Arabic, but no, a Latin derivative.
And don't tell me rub a brass lamp.....respectable Steel Genie can't really live in a nonferrous vessel.

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metric_taper (Oct 18, 2020)

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## Frank S

The steel genies reside in the slag cauldrons, they are almost impossible to contact and none that I know of ever looked like Barbra Eden . most looked like Jafar and sounded like Johnathan Freeman. If you are real brave you might conjure one up in the sulfur smoke of an open hearth forge but be warned they give a new name to malevolence. I wont attempt to repeat the lyrical chant to call one up as the wrong one might appear and take back any gifts left by previous steel genies. It is by far better not to question why, how, when, and absolutely not where, just accept the gifts if ever there are any

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Toolmaker51 (Oct 20, 2020)

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## Frank S

Now that the box van is down and leveled in place on concrete blocks I can back fil the low spot in the Southeast corner of the shop

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## Frank S

Looks like the perfect place to store a few thousand dollars worth of extruded aluminum

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## Frank S

Wednesday I started to move some dirt to fill in the low spot in the corner of the shop but before I could do that I had to remove the fork carriage and install the loader bucket. Sometimes this is a mere 30 to 45 minute job or even less but other times things just never seem to fall in place as they ordinarily would. Most of this is my fault for getting in a rush to do the change over or where I had decided to do it. This was one of those times I had moved the bucket with the forks and did not have it sitting level after removing the fork carriage then trying to align the loader arms with the pin locations it took the better part of an hour to get the change over accomplished then even more time to locate 2 of the snap rings in the sand and grass burs that had gone ballistic when I removed them.
Anyway I moved a dozen of so loads of dirt to fill in a low spot to make it easier for me to enter the shop from an area I normally didn't go through then I mined a large pile of the select fill. Things were going fine running up and down the haul road a little too fast at times I guess because the backhoe was bouncing sometimes
The used tire I had installed on the rear a few months ago was a lower pressure rating than the original and the rubber was old and probably well beyond an age for tubeless mounting. I entered the area where I had the fill mounded up at a wrong angle ran over a hard out cropping not sharp just a large bump that was when the dreaded hissing sound started grabbing a load of select fill I headed back up the hill to the shop and just barely made it to be able to dump before the tire went completely flat.
OK I have a second tire I'll just install it I thought but I will tube it in an attempt to stave off rupturing the inner bladder of the next tire.
So that night I ordered a new tube which was not going to arrive until next Tuesday. OK fine I will work on other projects then this time take the tire and rim to my tire man and let him wrestle the change.
Well the tube arrived yesterday afternoon late So once again I decided not to wait until I could load everything up and take it to town. half the work of changing the tire would be removing the rim from the machine and re installing it anyway.
But since I already had it off the backhoe laying on the ground and a new tube in hand and it being Saturday the tire guy wouldn't be at work until Monday I broke it down and started installing the equally old replacement tire.

Inspector Whitey wondering where her new favorite sleeping spot had gone

way too much 4 legged help

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## metric_taper

At least you're not dealing with fluid filled tires. That would make this much more fun. So the latest here (operating below freezing) is they use beet juice, as brine with a slow leak would eat the rim. I have such a failure waiting for me to find a new rim.

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## Frank S

> At least you're not dealing with fluid filled tires. That would make this much more fun. So the latest here (operating below freezing) is they use beet juice, as brine with a slow leak would eat the rim. I have such a failure waiting for me to find a new rim.



Really not a lot of reason to fluid filled tires on a backhoe tractive force is usually not the primary requirement. however I would almost be tempted to have my steer tires rubber foam filled on it because even though they are 14 ply and inflated to 60 lbs I've seen them mashed almost flat when lifting things I can only imagine the pressure inside them at that point. 
I have the front tires on my 8n tractor rubber foam filled because after I put the new tires on I had to repair both of them a dozen times in a week due to thorns Now I would like to rubber fill the rear tires but at $400.00 each to fill them that currently is way low on the budgetary scale.
Filling them with rubber foam would be like filling them with 12lb per gallon fluid it would add a lot of useable tractive weight and never have a flat again I have a flat on the 1 new rear tire I put on is right now

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## Frank S

Tire back on the backhoe this morning so moved some more fill then since we are supposed to be getting some wet stuff in the form of nearly frozen I decided to head out to the woods and drag in a few dead ones that are really dry and old so if needed I can break them up into starter wood 
then I finally got around to finishing up the air system on a trailer I have been working on.
Some of my 4 footed inspectors making sure I was doing it correctly

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## Frank S

Care to take a guess what is going on this pad?

Updates coming soon

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## Crusty

A memorial for the Hindenberg crash?

That was the first thing that came to mind, might not be spot on.  :Cool:

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## Frank S

> A memorial for the Hindenberg crash?
> 
> That was the first thing that came to mind, might not be spot on.



Not spot on, what will be positioned there went into service 20 years before the Hindenburg fire and was still in service through the 1963 presidential election its number is 14 that is all the hint I'm giving

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## Crusty

Ah-ha! Gotta be a lathe.

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## Frank S

> Ah-ha! Gotta be a lathe.



well it does have electric motors on it but no its not a lathe.
and for years it had a lot of coal on it

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## Frank S

Ok this is part of what the pad was for


just a little heavy that tire has 60PSI in it 

backing in place using the power of the hydraulics and the winch on the trailer to position the container where I needed it 



this will be parked between the containers after I roof over them and close in the ends

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Toolmaker51 (Nov 5, 2020)

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## metric_taper

> this will be parked between the containers after I roof over them and close in the ends



Where have you been hiding that, or is this a new acquisition.
Looks like those are batteries between the wheels of this very old truck.
Just what the heck is that?
Frame and drive line are primed. Looks like wood wheels need this treatment next. No air, so I'm guessing ~1915.

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Toolmaker51 (Nov 5, 2020)

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## Crusty

From the previous clues Frank's given us I'm thinking it must be an electric truck from the early part of last century. I'd call it a lead+acid sled.

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## metric_taper

Crusty, Frank hinted at Coal being on it. It could have come from some coal mining operation, that was underground large enough to drive this size truck in. 
So this truck will be back in vogue in 2035 when California requires all vehicles to be battery driven.

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## Frank S

In 2008 one January morning while working in Kuwait I received a phone call from a guy I had only known through our mutual association with antique trucks. since 1998. One of our common interest was preserving history or old trucks at the time of the discovery of this truck he and I were deeply though separately involved in researching and retrieving lost or deleted discussions which had been posted on various truck forums but dumped from the servers due to lack of band width. Though at the time neither knew the other was doing this. One day I happened to ping his computer while he was online in a search when he noticed me a back chat window immediately popped up asking what I was doing I recognized who it was from a mutual forum he and I were both members of and told him what I was doing then he said you are trying to access my system. We started chatting and learned that we were both doing the same thing then decided to build a server for the society we were members of and present it as a means of saving as much lost of forgotten data as possible. 
long story even longer the morning he called me he said he had found an old truck that he was interested in, what were my thoughts. I told him if I wasn't 7000 miles away I would buy it so he bought it.
Here is the link to the url of his account of the truck and part of its history.
I highly recommend reading the full story and comments
C T Electric (Commercial Truck Company - Electric Truck ).
Eddy and I didn't meet face to face until many years later in fact it was well after I had made a trip to California to purchase a lathe and haul a small trailer back for him as well which I converted to a trades day display trailer for him to take to truck and car shows so he could sell his paint.
Anyway the truck is now at my place I will be constructing a permanent protected storage for it so he and I can set about the task of fully restoring it to its prime.
I have long considered it as much mine as it is his even though he owns it.

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## metric_taper

Very rare Truck. Makes my 1924 Model T 1 ton a common vehicle, even with the 2 speed Ruckstell rear axle.

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## metric_taper

> I highly recommend reading the full story and comments
> C T Electric (Commercial Truck Company - Electric Truck ).
> Eddy and I didn't meet face to face until many years later in fact it was well after I had made a trip to California to purchase a lathe and haul a small trailer back for him as well which I converted to a trades day display trailer for him to take to truck and car shows so he could sell his paint.
> Anyway the truck is now at my place I will be constructing a permanent protected storage for it so he and I can set about the task of fully restoring it to its prime.
> I have long considered it as much mine as it is his even though he owns it.



Did CT design their own DC motors? If so they had talent to do that. I didn't see in the story anything about the motors. There must be a reduction gear train, I assume that was unique to these trucks as well.

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## Crusty

Likely they didn't have a reduction drive because DC motors exert maximum torque at zero rpm. That's why they're used to propel locomotives.

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## Frank S

I'll have to take some close up pictures of the motors and drives.
But yes there is a reduction drive I'm not exactly sure what the ratio is.
there were 2 different voltage motors used on these trucks some had 85/90volt DC motors some had 60volt motors and different sizes for the smaller 1/2 through 3 ton trucks. C.T. designed most of the componentry for the truck not all parts were made by C.T. Such as the Batteries are Edison nickel Iron in this one but some of them had lead acid Some of the trucks had Westinghouse motors and a few had General electric both manufactures made them for C.T. the ceramic insulators and screw in sockets were off the shelf items of the time.
You need to remember until last week I had forgotten all about this truck other than I knew Eddy was bringing it to me for he and I to restore eventually right now it is in a preservation state. When we start on it he will have to source some old growth white Oak trees and I will come up with a band saw and probably a circular saw mill 
He is of the mind that he can just have a miller cut him the lumber to the sizes he wants and that will be that but if the truck is to match original then the saw lines should match as well to include the proper tooth pitch of the era. A lot depends on how close to a factory match he will allow me to re fabricate the truck 
There are some missing and broken forgings that I am positive I will have to make unless he already has an assortment of them in the container packed in and around the Factory 4 wheel drive 59 ford that was disassembled to the last bolt some of those parts have been refurbished and many have not
possibly not this truck but some of the trucks in the fleet pulled a trailer which also had batteries and motors in each wheel.
this truck has the receptacle for the trailer control but none of the drawbar parts there are only the 2 holes where it may have been mounted.

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## metric_taper

> When we start on it he will have to source some old growth white Oak trees and I will come up with a band saw and probably a circular saw mill 
> He is of the mind that he can just have a miller cut him the lumber to the sizes he wants and that will be that but if the truck is to match original then the saw lines should match as well to include the proper tooth pitch of the era. A lot depends on how close to a factory match he will allow me to re fabricate the truck



That's the sort of restorations I like, the machine needs to look exactly the way it left the factory. Mint condition. That can be hard to do.

I watched a video the other day of some back alley shop in India rebuilding 12 volt auto batteries. Lots of recycling of the original components. I assume that will be a major task.
I recall that the 6 volt battery used on the electric start Ford Model T, were rebuilt. Their price was crazy from seeing it listed in a price sheet, ~$85, that would probably be $3K in today's cost.

Good luck with the restoration. Seems your too busy to start thinking retirement.

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## Frank S

No just the opposite since I retired in 2013 I wondered how I ever had time for a job

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## Crusty

You found time by putting off other little things that needed doing, like throwing together a work shed.  :Cool: 

I tell you what I've learned about it - I was born to be retired and wish I had done it years ago because it suits me just right. Every day is Saturday now.

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KustomsbyKent (Nov 9, 2020)

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## metric_taper

> No just the opposite since I retired in 2013 I wondered how I ever had time for a job



Your posts always seem to be a guy working on a commercial shop for hire (trailer, diesel repair). That's why I assumed you were retired from working for others with a paycheck, but still a hire-able "prostitute".  :Big Grin: 

I'm a year younger then you, and in big need of another shop building as 2600 sq. ft. is too cluttered to have all the machinery accessable. And I have two trucks to get under cover, a 1.5ton 56 Chevy model 4100, and a 3/4ton 57 Chevy model 3600. Both have horrible body cancer from the salt infected by previous owners. On that subject, is there some off the shelf chemicals that will neutralize the salt that has berried into the steel, that keeps doing what it does of iron to iron oxide? I've seen products from Eastwood, but do they work, or just a sealant, and would like to not pay them for something if common.

How did the antique airbrake tanks turn out? I'm amazed you made your own heavy duty sheet rolling machine, for this.

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## Frank S

Well I finally got both trailers I had been working on out of the shop so I can get back to laying down some more fill between 6 to 10 inches needs to be laid down in some areas to bring the floor up to 6 to 8 inches below finished floor level 
so the way I have been adding fill is to add a few yards at a time then drive back and forth hundreds of times then add more. I plan to build it up above where I want it then build a 2 or 3 blade scraper to drag all over the floor to make it level then I will probably till it to a depth of 6 to 8 inches while mixing in an enzyme and lime stabilizer with water, level it again then convert my scraper to 2000 lb. double roller mount my plate packer on it and slowly roll that over it until the clay sand fill is packed to 125% compaction then try not to use the shop for anything for a month while the enzyme reacts in the soil. what this will do will be make the surface hard and nearly dust free similar to creating 6 to 8inch layer of caliche then later once I can afford to lay in the rebar and pour concrete I'll put down a layer of sand pour the concrete and have a lasting floor

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## Frank S

> Your posts always seem to be a guy working on a commercial shop for hire (trailer, diesel repair). That's why I assumed you were retired from working for others with a paycheck, but still a hire-able "prostitute". 
> 
> I'm a year younger then you, and in big need of another shop building as 2600 sq. ft. is too cluttered to have all the machinery accessable. And I have two trucks to get under cover, a 1.5ton 56 Chevy model 4100, and a 3/4ton 57 Chevy model 3600. Both have horrible body cancer from the salt infected by previous owners. On that subject, is there some off the shelf chemicals that will neutralize the salt that has berried into the steel, that keeps doing what it does of iron to iron oxide? I've seen products from Eastwood, but do they work, or just a sealant, and would like to not pay them for something if common.
> 
> How did the antique airbrake tanks turn out? I'm amazed you made your own heavy duty sheet rolling machine, for this.



metric_taper very few years out of my over 55 years+ of working have I ever been a wage slave I have almost always either been on my own doing it my way or the highway type of an attitude or I had thrown in with companies for a % of the companies sometimes taking a set yearly salary or merely living off of an expense account hedging on a settlement of the profits this sometimes worked in my favor and other times costing me my entire life's savings. But that is the chance you take.
My last venture of the 10 years prior to my deciding to pull the plug should have had me sett for life when things turned south I decided rather than make a bunch of attorneys rich I'd be better off to chock it up to yet another lesson learned walk away with what I had left and forget about what should have been

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## Frank S

> How did the antique airbrake tanks turn out? I'm amazed you made your own heavy duty sheet rolling machine, for this.



They turned out great the guy was happy with them mostly because they were all the correct sizes to fit the mountings and all of the fittings aligned up where they were supposed to be

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## Frank S

Almost there.
I might have to add another 5 yards of fill to finish out the floor 
then I will need to make a leveling drag spray the surface with water cut the high spots allow the low spots to fill then roll the surface

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## Frank S

When you want to put up a wall that eventually will need to become a window so the brick crane can operate around and through it what better way yo build a wall then use a side tarp off of a Conestoga trailer kit. 
 
Almost an instant wall, well it did take an hour to hoist the 200lb tarp in position and screw in in place

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## Frank S

Had a trailer load of stuff arrive last night.
Some will be for the shop some needs to be repaired some will be moving on to another place 
and some just because I wanted it









the dog has the right idea

so now I get a post hole digger



everyone needs a 15 KW PTO driven generator Right?


This used to be a 4 post Globe 5000lb cable driven car lift

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Jon (Nov 30, 2020)

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## Frank S

Over 2 years of adding the red sandy clay fill to the shop floor and it being packed down over and over had turned it almost into sand stone.
But now it is time to break it up for the next step in the process of making it into a durable floor that hopefully will not sluff off dust everytime something hard is dragged across it To do this the fill must first be broken up.

the rake Eddy was dragging behind his little tractor would scratch and scratch and eventually do a pretty good job but not nearly deep enough.
My leveling drag blade was too un wieldy in the confined area given its size plus it would just drag over the super hard spots.
I tried my tandem disk and this broke up some of the area quite well but I needed to bare down with so much force I was destroying it and still couldn't make it penetrate the really hard spots very well. 
Even using the teeth on the back hoe bucket took all day to do less than 1/3 of the floor but at least with a lot of banging and only taking short gouging cuts each time it is finally being loosened into large rock like clods that should break up more easily

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Toolmaker51 (Dec 15, 2020)

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## Frank S

The floor is broken into large clods but while we wait for the enzyme to arrive the decision was made to try and complete the walls 
Today we closed in a section of the East wall that I was going to make into a door instead but decided to use the right opening instead of the left

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## Frank S

This is now how the East side of the shop looks

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## Frank S

The shop has never been this empty even before it was built

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## Frank S

It has been a busy week around the shop in getting the floor prepared.
After breaking it up with the backhoe like we did, we decided rather than me buying a 1950's era seaman pulvermixer, (To do so I would have had to hedge against some future truck and trailer repairs then most likely have to spend some time making sure it ran IE batteries possibly tires, hydraulic hoses and what ever else may or may not be wrong with the tractor like I really need another tractor that needs repaired right now anyway.)
That's not saying that I may not think about getting it in the future or going in with Bob to get it so we could use it as a very large rototiller as well as a means to clearing out and grinding up a forest of small saplings of china berry and dwarf scrub oak so several acres could be seeded in native grasses for possible future grazing. Or possibly even renting it out or selling it to recoup funds once it would no longer be needed. Heck it would make a great garden tiller as long as it were a big garden.


 

Eddy figured and I agreed that time and effort would be better spent by hiring a guy with a tractor tiller to come in and turn the floor into flour would be cheaper than if we rented one and did the job ourselves. Turns out it was probably the best decision. Knowing now what just renting a roller to pack things back down after he tilled it up for us and we spread the stabilizing mixture using my pickup with 600 gallons of water on board and the spray bar we made to distribute the mix . If we would have had to rent a tractor tiller the roller and hauled them it would have cost way more in money time and transportation. Plus we got to stand and watch the horribly long boring job of trying to turn the nearly concrete like clay sand fill I had put packed in the shop into the consistency of flour.
after the guy had been grinding away for over half the day
6 hours of tilling

after spraying 

After many hours of driving a vibratory roller and many miles of driving a pickup back and forth
the floor is not perfectly flat or smooth but way better than some old slab floors I have had to work on

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baja (Dec 31, 2020),

Crusty (Dec 30, 2020),

nova_robotics (Dec 30, 2020),

Scotty1 (Dec 30, 2020)

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## Crusty

I've seen concrete floors too that weren't near that good. Maybe when it packs down hard again you can roll things on it with metal wheels.

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## DIYSwede

-I'm just curious, Frank - what "enzyme"/ chemical are you using to stabilize the floor?
A name, link to a supplier/ MSDS would be much appreciated.

ATB

Johan

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## mwmkravchenko

I'm pretty sure with Frank's water treatment and the vibrator compactor this is as solid as it is gonna get. Pretty good for driving heavy equipment over!

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## Frank S

> -I'm just curious, Frank - what "enzyme"/ chemical are you using to stabilize the floor?
> A name, link to a supplier/ MSDS would be much appreciated.
> 
> ATB
> 
> Johan



I'm not at all sure if I would class it as a chemical per-SAY The enzyme appears to be a derivative of an organic concentrate or an extract my best guess would be soured or fermented fruit probably grapes combined with a surfactant.
the recommended amount for my floor was 1 1/2 gallon to 300 gallons of water to do the entire floor.
I had the opinion that the soil should have had at least a 20% moisture content to aid in the natural wicking action but was told no you wont have to wet the soil first as long as there was at least a 20% clay in the soil it should be fine.
What I couldn't get them to understand was my fill had a higher clay content and 0% topsoil in the mix as it had only clay and what is known as silt or a red clay sand dust with a small amount of caliche and the moisture content was lower than kiln dried bricks It has had 2 years of traffic over it while being added to and packed down. 
the poor guy who tilled it up for us spent from 9AM until 4 PM trying to grind it up the best he could. it wasn't until the last hour of his tilling until it stopped sounding like he was trying to drive as rock crusher over it. For the first 4 hours as he tried to till it the huge clods I had left when I broke up the floor with the bucket of the back hoe would get caught in his tiller and stall his tractor once in a while.
After he finished grinding he leveled it out pretty good then we sprayed 300 gallons of the mix then he tilled that in a few inches releveled it then drove his tractor back and forth until every inch had been ran over then I ran a 5000lb steel drum vibratory roller over it until after 9PM at least a good 4 hours.
The next morning we added a second application rolled it again for another 4 hours. So what ever it is will be what it is. We should know in a week but the process may be delayed due to expected cooler temperatures 

https://www.substrata.us/perma-zyme

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baja (Dec 31, 2020),

DIYSwede (Dec 31, 2020)

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## Frank S

> I'm pretty sure with Frank's water treatment and the vibrator compactor this is as solid as it is gonna get. Pretty good for driving heavy equipment over!



The product is supposed to wick through out and be drawn to the drier subsurface. As it does it will travel several inches into the fill.
Clay acts as medium to cause the wicking and the structure to create a stable strong bond it requires a minimum of 20% clay to sand and top soil . I took a few tests samples of just the powdery fines and crushed clods the results reviled an average of 35 to 45% cay to silt with almost no sand and zero top soil type dirt 
Once it cures it is supposed to repel moisture absorben and provide a good resistance to sluffing off dust from the surface

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## Toolmaker51

Terrific surfacing Frank! 

If I had that foundation, there'd be little hesitation finding sufficient material topping it in wood blocks. At the same time, my space needs about 76,000 4x's to accomplish that. Likely yours is comparable.......

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## DIYSwede

Thanks, Frank (and a Happy New Year)!

MSDS sez 70% proprietary and 30% water. (also sez "material not to be disposed of in the environment"*...
"Active enzyme" seems to be sugar beet waste that has been thoroughly fermented, then an undisclosed surfactant added.

For any other nosy personalities, here's some info on constituents and effects in the following lab report (from 2005):

https://www.lrrb.org/media/reports/200525.pdf

*For instant gratification readers:* "Conclusions and Recomendations" (sic!) is at p 85 in the pdf.
_Lotsa pics and graphs for textually challenged persons_ :Smile: 

Relevant points: Effects *largely* dependent on soil type, Resilient modulus improves over time.
Significant shear modulus improvements to the soil takes *over 4 months*...

*

----------


## 77metalguy

O M G great shop! I would love to have something better than 1 1/2 car garage but have to do with what I have.

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## Frank S

> Terrific surfacing Frank! 
> 
> If I had that foundation, there'd be little hesitation finding sufficient material topping it in wood blocks. At the same time, my space needs about 76,000 4x's to accomplish that. Likely yours is comparable.......



Agreed I've seen many an old shop floor that was well over 100 years old made out of wood planking applied directly on the ground or end cut blocks driven into the ground between wood stringers making a checkerboard or butcher block pattern with lots of heavy machinery on them.

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## Toolmaker51

I don't recall planked floors with heavy machinery, but many done in end-grain. When possible, I search remnant lumber, 12" or larger radial saws easier to find. Intent would be frames around machine bases and leveling pads, and block remaining areas in. Some would be grouted, others would find some convenient but loose filler. Interest of clearing the space for traditional install, uuuh no. 
Making tall machines a little more height-challenged friendly, that's a different story.

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## Frank S

I closed in the East side of the shop yesterday with a section of new billboard tarp.
First off I needed to serve off the cut end of the tarp to strengthen and provide a means of hanging I, I started a few days ago by painting a 6 inch wide swath with a special vinyl tarp adhesive.
folded that over and pressed the surfaces together then once the glue had set I stretched a 3/16" braided nylon cord from end to end at the center point of the now 3" wide strip brushed this with the glue again and folded that over and pressed that together left it over night. this would become the top of the door. I repeated this process for the 2 sides once those had each cured over night I added a series of #3 sized stainless steel grommets to both sides .
I predrilled some strips of 3/16 by 3/4" flat bar on 12" spacings then hung the tarp on the flange of the header beam by clamping it between the flange and the flat bar then drilled each hole through the flange and bolted it in place using 1/4 20 bolts and nuts. Then secured the sides to the wall by the grommets with rubber tarp straps. Then used 4" nylon load straps inside and outside attached one end to the wall and welded strap winches to an angle iron on the purlins on the other side 
it only takes a few minutes to release everything to open the tarp to allow passing through the door and later I will add a pipe in the pocket in the bottom of the tarp and a couple of pulleys to roll it up. 
These lightweight billboard tarps are supposed to be rated for some fairly high wind loads, so I guess time will tell at any rate it makes for a simple cheap way of closing off a wide open hole in the wall for now at least.

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KustomsbyKent (Jan 25, 2021)

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## Toolmaker51

Great idea. 
Wish locale of mine had less pirates. Vinyl would not deter them. Need to get a few hundred feet of fence stretched around it first.

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## Frank S

> Great idea. 
> Wish locale of mine had less pirates. Vinyl would not deter them. Need to get a few hundred feet of fence stretched around it first.



Yep if my shop was located about anywhere else I wouldn't be able to get away with doors that can be cut with a box knife. "Well I could", at least after the first attempt of unauthorized entry. 
I used to have a shop located right in the middle of a gang controlled neighborhood of Ft. Worth a lot of businesses had layer upon layer of various security systems to protect their establishments. the only thing I used for security was a gate at the entrance with a chain looped over it to keep the wind from blowing it open and the FEAR of FRANK. Shortly after opening my fab and machine shop there my shop dog was poisoned I found out who had done it and openly very publicly subjugated him to every thing I had learned many years before in Military psyops training plus a few things I had picked up on my own. It wasn't very long before we could drive off leave the gate and all of the doors wide open, if anything if we hadn't returned by late afternoon he would come over check to make sure no one un authorized to be on the property was present then lock up the building and call me to let me know what he had done.

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Toolmaker51 (Jan 25, 2021)

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## Crusty

My shooting range had a sign that stated "Anyone found here at night will be found here in the morning". I never heard of any problems there.

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## jdurand

I don't remember which battle it was, some long ago battle in a tropical area, but a survivor told my wife about it when she was a kid.

He was in a tent near enemy territory at night and heard a rip sound. A copper knife was jammed in the chicken wire he had lined the walls of the tent with.

He being old gave the knife to my wife, we still have it.

So, having a surprise second line of defense can save your life.

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suther51 (Jan 25, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 25, 2021)

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## Frank S

When forced to own, work at, or run a business where the conditions are less than friendly or downright hostile in nature, it is by far better to establish a rumored reputation of being someone who should be feared far more than the police. Developing frenemies doesn't hurt either

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jdurand (Jan 26, 2021),

Rikk (Jan 26, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 26, 2021)

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## jdurand

there's a lot to be said for appearing as a crazy old man

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## Frank S

> there's a lot to be said for appearing as a crazy old man



Its always worked for me even before I was an old man. When people absolutely believe that you are completely bats**t crazy without any remorse for your actions then by nature they are going to be very cautious around you. Of course most cops I have known were more than willing to help fuel that assumption when they would tell someone about me. Free coffee and doughnuts in my break room for any officer who happened to pop in helped

----------


## Crusty

> I don't remember which battle it was, some long ago battle in a tropical area, but a survivor told my wife about it when she was a kid.
> 
> He was in a tent near enemy territory at night and heard a rip sound. A copper knife was jammed in the chicken wire he had lined the walls of the tent with.
> 
> He being old gave the knife to my wife, we still have it.
> 
> So, having a surprise second line of defense can save your life.



Before my dad went to WWII, he was given an old Colt 45 revolver by an old man in the community, and it had two notches carved into the grip when he got it. My dad carried it through the Central Pacific and it came back with six notches.

Having a surprise in these sorts of situations is always a good thing.

----------


## Frank S

Let there be lights
In the main part of the shop there are now 14 of them 

lately I have been adding more fill to the South side of the shop to bring the elevation up to near floor level in doing so I found the perfect way to dispose of a lot of old truck tires that had accumulated over the years in the form of a retaining wall

I decided that since i was going to raise the elevation behind the shop it would be a real good time to run the electric line to my well under ground before i built up the area too much. So I excavated a 12" wide trench the 250feet from the machine shop van to the well then buried a 1/1/4" orange drop line tubing to run the cable in 
the tubing was donated by the fiber optic contractor who gave me the steel hose reels

----------

baja (Mar 10, 2021),

mwmkravchenko (Feb 28, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Mar 7, 2021)

----------


## Crusty

I've been wonderin' if you were still alive, in this pandemic you never know who's gonna be gone next. Looks like you've been doin' some big stuff and that can eat up all of a fella's time too. 

That shop is comin' along and already looks like a pretty good place to work and it's still gettin' better, so I bet you're already glad that you decided to take on this project Gettin' rid of overhead lines sure opens an area up if you're moving big stuff around, and I prefer to bury lines too though I seldom have the funds for conduit so I usually use direct burial cable.

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mwmkravchenko (Feb 28, 2021)

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## jdurand

At our new place they only ran the tubing for the fiber out of the building and left a coil of it there. Of course now when the fiber was to go in the telcom guys said...that has to be run out past the property line before we'll touch it. Of course we've already had all the top fill brought in and tamped. Love contractors planning ahead.

So, friends got out and had to dig a trench without disturbing the trees we now have planted and budding out.

I'd show a picture but I had an error* last night and wiped a folder on our web server. It's now restoring ever so slowly from backups. Eventually everything will be back there, hopefully by tomorrow.

* note to self, if you tell it to remove a folder that is locked, it removes the last folder you were in instead. :O

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## Frank S

My not having to buy nearly 250ft of bury conduit in 10 or 20 ft lengths then glue them together was huge.
the orange poly drop line is just a tad thicker than sch 80 cpvc and has a silicone inner liner so that makes pulling cable through it much easier.
The thing that I liked most other than being free was standard sch 80 CPVC conduit fittings will work on it, But for the connections I needed to make in the tranch I used regular plumbing 1 1/4" compression couplings because glueing the drop line to the CPVC couplings would be dodgy at best

----------

baja (Mar 10, 2021),

Crusty (Mar 7, 2021),

mwmkravchenko (Mar 7, 2021)

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## Frank S

Today I was thinking about some large drill jigs that I want to make in order that all of the various drilled parts will always be the same on the up coming project that i am involved in.
In thinking about the jigs I kept coming back to the problem of trying to drill large heavy parts on a floor standing drill press that only has a 20" square table 
So I decided to un tarp and haul my 6 drill back into the shop since it has a 7 foot long table it will be the perfect solution for these heavy jigs and parts It has a cord and 3 hp 20 amp plug on it already and is wired for the same voltage my rotary phase converter puts out so hopefully all I need to do after leveling it up is to add a bit of conduit a disconnect and receptacle problem solved I hope LOL

----------

baja (Jul 2, 2021),

mwmkravchenko (Apr 10, 2021),

Scotty1 (Jul 1, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

Gang drills - box jigs - fixtures. Tooled correctly, still a tough combination to out-run in limited production. Before CNC, those 'limits' were FAR higher. 
Set ups make all the difference. Advantage is short distance between spindles compared with auto tool change. Another factor is 'Design for Manufacturing', minimization of blind holes, various tap sizes, orientation of features, left and right hand parts, creation of burrs. . . I'd recommend utilizing the flood coolant, too.
Yes there is effort, physical movement but not strenuous.

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mwmkravchenko (Apr 10, 2021)

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## Frank S

> Gang drills - box jigs - fixtures. Tooled correctly, still a tough combination to out-run in limited production. Before CNC, those 'limits' were FAR higher. 
> Set ups make all the difference. Advantage is short distance between spindles compared with auto tool change. Another factor is 'Design for Manufacturing', minimization of blind holes, various tap sizes, orientation of features, left and right hand parts, creation of burrs. . . I'd recommend utilizing the flood coolant, too.
> Yes there is effort, physical movement but not strenuous.



Agreed on all counts.
actually it is hard for a CNC to compete with well thought out jigs and fixtures on some things. Even CNC must be loaded and unloaded with parts If said parts are merely through holes all of the same diameter then a radial drill drilling a stack of parts clamped in a jig with drill bushings using flood coolant will out preform a CNC almost every time, that and there is zero chance of the holes not all matching or aligning up, unlike a CNC which may be subjected to power fluctuations due to several large induction machines switching on or off unless the CNC has its own on board UPS.
I had a CNC punch press that had 30 mounted punches and 4 orbital stations go into search mode after a power outage even though it was on a UPS it screwed up right in the middle of a complex punching task ruining a couple dozen parts being processed on an expensive sheet of specialty metal

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## Frank S

I hauled my Clereman Layout drill out of the trailer and positioned it beside my Leland Gilford 6 drill 

A couple weeks back
then Last Sat. I drug out my Cincinnati horizontal mill from the container 

So today I cut a hole in the side of the container and removed an old 1916 Lablond16inch lathe and the American Vertical Mill base that was behind it
Next I removed the small stack of lumber as well 

I don't' think even I knew how many boards I had in there


These are the boards that my friend brought me last week.

And these are the ones Jane and I picked up while curb shopping at the True Value

So I decided to remove the stuff from on top of the container and build a mezzanine floor instead of having stuff lay on the roof of the container



I laid a 4x4 oak dunnage in every other corrugation then air nailed 2x4s on top of them then covered with OSB Hey it is not the best flooring but nothing ever beats free lumber

Incase you are wondering why I cut the door opening it was not just to remove the machines
I will add a header and case the sides then build a door out of the piece I cut out and add a rubber seal , then I plan on building 2 bulkhead partitions spaced a few feet apart with a door in each of them and about 40 sq feet of intake and pass through filter area . in the very end of the container I will construct a Plenum box with about 60 sq feet of exhaust filter area duct in a 7200 CFM exhaust blower add explosion proof lighting and have a small 8x20 x 9 ft high spray booth the area between the bulkheads will be the paint mixing area.
the blower will be sufficient to have a 20 second air change at a cross flow ventilation.
If I can come up with the type of grating I want then I will make the booth a semi down draft.
The exhaust filters will insure comparable air purity to that of an industrial spray booth

----------

baja (Jul 2, 2021),

mwmkravchenko (Jul 1, 2021),

Scotty1 (Jul 1, 2021)

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## Toolmaker51

Free and low cost are tough to beat; except for one. 
Everyone obsesses about square feet, while forgetting cubic feet. 
Flooring top of a container is GREAT use of cubic feet; sturdy framing, no structure to avoid, and looo-ng! 
All hail the mezzanine.  :Bow: 

We discussed placement of the Cleereman. It's there for obvious reasons, sharing operations. Plus 6 drill table supports long work in the Cleereman, which has considerably more spindle power and feed.

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Frank S (Jun 30, 2021)

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## Frank S

> Free and low cost are tough to beat; except for one. 
> Everyone obsesses about square feet, while forgetting cubic feet. 
> Flooring top of a container is GREAT use of cubic feet; sturdy framing, no structure to avoid, and looo-ng! 
> All hail the mezzanine. 
> 
> We discussed placement of the Cleereman. It's there for obvious reasons, sharing operations. Plus 6 drill table supports long work in the Cleereman, which has considerably more spindle power and feed.



Yep and since I already have the 8 by 12 ft work station set up on the truck flat bed for my plate roll and forming break the 8x 16 mezzanine between the school bus and the work station will be great for adding a shelving unit against the shop wall while still leaving lots of space for other things to be stored up there Like maybe my 1951 Cushman Truckster the 500 amp Heli arc will probably not be going back up there. Later on I may add an 8 to 10 ft wide Mezzanine cantilevered along the side of the container the full length of the shop but I will have to fabricate a deep bar joist to carry most of the weight tying it to the the 3 center trusses As long as I keep the dead and live loads within reason I wont have a need for posts but a center post strong enough to mount a 270° swing 30 ft 2 ton jib crane is not out of the possibilities either It would mean the post would have to be about 18" in diameter anchored 8 feet in the ground tied to the mezzanine and the center double truss some additional horizontal diagonal bracing would also be required to tie in the 2 other double trusses but anything is doable

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## Frank S

[QUOTE=Toolmaker51;1
We discussed placement of the Cleereman. It's there for obvious reasons, sharing operations. Plus 6 drill table supports long work in the Cleereman, which has considerably more spindle power and feed.[/QUOTE]
And since the table on the 6 drill is a knee rise its elevation can be made to match that of the Cleereman

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Toolmaker51 (Jul 1, 2021)

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## Frank S

Put a few more machines in their final temporary placement. I say final TEMPORARY placement for a reason. 
Although most of the machines are operable as they are the exception being any that are partially disassembled of course, All of them need some attention cleaning adjusting and painting.
Where I have them spotted all can be put under power there is enough space between each of them to "A" allow them to be put to use or "B" cleaned Dissembled if need be adjusted and painted all while being out of the way of everything else.
First load for the Mezzanine 4 small band saws these will not be spaced around but since they are small and can be moved by hand they will be grouped together
 
the 1916 Leblond may become a very modified up graded version of itself. Mainly due to my wanting a large bore lathe and since this old lathe has a huge wide carriage with heavy way bed and has already been modified destroying any intrinsic historical "Hysterical" value there is no real reason not to modify it 
I started prepping the American Vertical IE Bridgeport pattern type mill several years ago but now have the space to complete it 

The Engelberg 3x120 belt sander really could use an up dated belt guard 

Not sure what is going to become of the Niagara 10ft 16 ga shear 

Something else to populate the Mezzanine with will be this 700 lb desk/ electronics work station.
I am thinking this will be used mostly for repair of electronics and electrical hand tools. I can fully dedicate it to something like this and being on the mezzanine it will be out of the way far enough away from any one working in the shop that the special tools required for such items will not constantly be carried to other locations in the shop.

Jane's unfortunately band saw has seen some better days. The guy who used it for the19 years we were in Kuwait decided a few years before we returned to remove it from the building and leave it outside, now at the very least a motor replacement and most of the bearings then cleaned up and painted 
The sun is shining inn washing out 90% of the picture so will have to take more tomorrow

----------

baja (Jul 2, 2021),

KustomsbyKent (Jul 5, 2021),

Scotty1 (Jul 1, 2021),

suther51 (Jul 2, 2021)

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## Frank S

Well today Started out with me trying to stand the 600lb work desk upright. The only way I had to do this was to hang a come-a-long from one of the trusses the rest was easy


Next it was time to clear out all of the debris from the school bus soon to be shop office

After clearing that out and sweeping out the small stuff and dirt I pressure washed the entire inside I figured this would be the first last and only good time to rid all of the years of dirt grim and dust 

Well a Desk and credenza does not an office make but it is a start at least the place is clean LOL

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Toolmaker51 (Jul 9, 2021)

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## Frank S

Getting one step closer to having the end of the container cleared so I can begin constructing a spray boot
Today was mostly spent rearranging materials in my dry van because I have several engines and Air compressors I need to store in there, but before I got started on that, I pulled my 1953 Cushman Truckster out of its hiding place and put it up on the mezzanine

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KustomsbyKent (Jul 5, 2021)

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## Frank S

Still in the conservation of space and arrangement syndrome.
After my adventure in dragging the Cushman Truckster out of the container and dragging the office desk credenza and the electronic repair desk out of the 53 ft van, What better time than now to arrange things so I can get to them and also have room to put away a few things as well


 
And one more of these Mack engines to put in then I think I have 4 more smaller engines

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## Toolmaker51

NOW I understand what made one particular day of navigation so trying; I expected on-ramps and exits at eye level! 




> ........<snipped>........... but before I got started on that, I pulled my 1953 Cushman Truckster out of its hiding place and put it up on the mezzanine




Meanwhile 5 July, east of Springfield MO, I helped a friend load some iron.....I had to beg off a stop elsewhere because it took quite some time. With pic as evidence for delay, recipient thought this [reasonable, no doubt on a phone screen]

was LoL, an anvil. As further proof of delay, this monstrosity [young guy is 6'3"]

a 12" belt sander. Largest I've seen, 2x more than ever used. The table alone, a serious two man lift. It's driven by 5hp 3 ph to lower wheel direct, which also powers the dust vacuum, the port visible backside of base. I'd guess belt length 11 feet.
And no, as I took the pic, am NOT either of those guys.

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## Frank S

Looks more like a Rockwell 8" by 6 ft jointer to me than an anvil

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## Toolmaker51

> Looks more like a Rockwell 8" by 6 ft jointer to me than an anvil



It's a re-branded Crescent, 12" x 7'. We slung it under the 'horns' on a lightweight gantry and 3/4 ton lever-hoist. Convinced it's not less than 1800 pounds. Gantry didn't have wheels [shouldn't roll loaded anyway] and barely enough headroom, he backed trailer while I pinch-barred dragging corners.

The sander was tough, high center of gravity against quite a small footprint. Securing to trailer kind of a nightmare, spider web of ratchet straps. Too embarrassing a pic to post! But 500+ mile trip without incident, over some questionable roadways. Checked tension at gas stops, took awhile for any slack to show. Literally a 24 hour day, mine only 17-18.

Must get the E-track mounted on that trailer, I see no problem to a plethora of attachment points.

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## Frank S

> It's a re-branded Crescent, 12" x 7'. We slung it under the 'horns' on a lightweight gantry and 3/4 ton lever-hoist. Convinced it's not less than 1800 pounds. Gantry didn't have wheels [shouldn't roll loaded anyway] and barely enough headroom, he backed trailer while I pinch-barred dragging corners.
> 
> The sander was tough, high center of gravity against quite a small footprint. Securing to trailer kind of a nightmare, spider web of ratchet straps. Too embarrassing a pic to post! But 500+ mile trip without incident, over some questionable roadways. Checked tension at gas stops, took awhile for any slack to show. Literally a 24 hour day, mine only 17-18.
> 
> Must get the E-track mounted on that trailer, I see no problem to a plethora of attachment points.



That belt sander has my Englegerg bet by a long ways in size 
Clean the bed and the fence and all moving adjustments then hone the blades and that jointer will be a treasure

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mwmkravchenko (Jul 10, 2021)

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## Frank S

My shop appears to be getting smaller and smaller on a daily basis. My combative nature tells me to go vertical at every place possible.
Not only does having things up up and away mean the stuff is not occupying floor space it also removes it from becoming a tripping hazard as well. The other side of that token is I can find it should I nee it just by looking up or in a bin or cabinet 


Carrying that theme to a desk type work station which will be utilized for repairing electronics, angle grinders drill motors or any other small electrical device where working on them is better at a desk or table while seated

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mwmkravchenko (Oct 21, 2021)

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## Frank S

Sunday we decided to close in the remainder of the South wall and the portion of the West wall that had a 20 ft container located there.

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mwmkravchenko (Oct 21, 2021)

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## Frank S

The shop is soon to have a door on the West side. Well 32 feet of the 48foot opening at least'
First thing this morning I had to install 60 feet of 3x4 angle for the rollers to roll on 

Next I hung the pipe framework of the door today

----------

baja (Jan 15, 2022),

bruce.desertrat (Jan 14, 2022),

carloski (Jan 14, 2022),

nova_robotics (Jan 14, 2022),

Ralphxyz (Jan 15, 2022),

sossol (Jan 15, 2022)

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## mwmkravchenko

> The shop is soon to have a door on the West side. Well 32 feet of the 48foot opening at least'
> First thing this morning I had to install 60 feet of 3x4 angle for the rollers to roll on 
> Attachment 41533
> Next I hung the pipe framework of the door today 
> Attachment 41534



I like your mobile scaffold Frank.

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Frank S (Jan 14, 2022)

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## Frank S

> I like your mobile scaffold Frank.



It is really handy. 2001 F150 5.7 4x4 spent its entire life on the North East coast, so there is a lot of cancer under the body no way to put it through a state safety insp. even as lax as the remote county inspections are here, but it is worth more to me as a knock around farm vehicle than it would be to part it out or scrap it

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mwmkravchenko (Jan 14, 2022)

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## carloski

Who gives a crap about the paint you use?

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## Toolmaker51

The scaffolding looks fun; must have trustworthy driver? The school bus frame; now that was a mobile scaffold, but a wee bit inaccessible now.

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## Toolmaker51

> Who gives a crap about the paint you use?



Well, I for one...having watched that paint in person outperform ANY industrial coating I've seen...

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## mwmkravchenko

> The scaffolding looks fun; must have trustworthy driver? The school bus frame; now that was a mobile scaffold, but a wee bit inaccessible now.



No one asks for a raise after that ride!

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## Toolmaker51

> No one asks for a raise after that ride!



LOL, sure not. Recall pics of that thing? Neither a rai$e or being raised to that work height, then motored around. 
Think some wise guy quipped about it, if aircraft warning lights were required.........

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mwmkravchenko (Jan 15, 2022)

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## Frank S

Its a lot handier than the bus scaffold just has to be moved more often, The bus scaffold served its purpose then was taken down. I've used this mobile scaffold many times I let a neighbor rent it once to hunt hogs with, we put the plywood platform on the lower level, They shot 10 hogs that night.

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## mwmkravchenko

> Its a lot handier than the bus scaffold just has to be moved more often, The bus scaffold served its purpose then was taken down. I've used this mobile scaffold many times I let a neighbor rent it once to hunt hogs with, we put the plywood platform on the lower level, They shot 10 hogs that night.



That's a lot of dressing of hogs.

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## Frank S

> That's a lot of dressing of hogs.



At one time there was an estimate of over 3 million feral hogs including the young pigs in Texas. sponsored yearly hog hunts are becoming a Texas nationally recognized event it gives the city fellers something to shoot at besides the rancher's cattle & horses during deer season. 2 of my nearby neighbors trap them there is a buyer who will purchase any of them weighing over 100 lbs so they give the young piglets away. I have 2 that I got when they were about 15 to 20 lbs just barely weaning size they are about 35 and 50 lbs now the vet said neither are hybrid mix so when they are of size they will become fill for my freezer, if you have priced Biden's bacon and other pork products you can understand why

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Toolmaker51 (Jan 16, 2022)

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## mwmkravchenko

> At one time there was an estimate of over 3 million feral hogs including the young pigs in Texas. sponsored yearly hog hunts are becoming a Texas nationally recognized event it gives the city fellers something to shoot at besides the rancher's cattle & horses during deer season. 2 of my nearby neighbors trap them there is a buyer who will purchase any of them weighing over 100 lbs so they give the young piglets away. I have 2 that I got when they were about 15 to 20 lbs just barely weaning size they are about 35 and 50 lbs now the vet said neither are hybrid mix so when they are of size they will become fill for my freezer, if you have priced Biden's bacon and other pork products you can understand why



Sounds familiar. Were I grew up in Manitoba some guy lost control of African wart hogs. Manitoba winters are plain nasty and it was thought that they would die off. Hah! Adaptable little buggers. No limit on them now.

I used to raise two pigs a year, chickens and ducks. It cost more then to raise them then buy them. But I knew what they ate. And they tasted much better. The little barn will be a machine shop soon enough.

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## Frank S

> Sounds familiar. Were I grew up in Manitoba some guy lost control of African wart hogs. Manitoba winters are plain nasty and it was thought that they would die off. Hah! Adaptable little buggers. No limit on them now.
> 
> I used to raise two pigs a year, chickens and ducks. It cost more then to raise them then buy them. But I knew what they ate. And they tasted much better. The little barn will be a machine shop soon enough.



And the meat will not be injected with more water content than the weight of the meat. When did that all start anyway? Before I left for the Middle East I could find fully cured Hams wrapped in cloth and hung above the butcher counter not refrigerated, if you wanted you could even slice off part of it and eat it without cooking it first. Now even if it says fully cured it will also say up to 60% water added by weight,even after you cook one for several hours, once the meal is over you have to put it in the fridge.

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mwmkravchenko (Jan 16, 2022)

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## mwmkravchenko

> And the meat will not be injected with more water content than the weight of the meat. When did that all start anyway? Before I left for the Middle East I could find fully cured Hams wrapped in cloth and hung above the butcher counter not refrigerated, if you wanted you could even slice off part of it and eat it without cooking it first. Now even if it says fully cured it will also say up to 60% water added by weight,even after you cook one for several hours, once the meal is over you have to put it in the fridge.



Yeah I cured and smoked a ham once. It was gone the same day. Never had anything like it since. 

In the middle east ham would be a little hard to come by I am guessing.

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## Frank S

> Yeah I cured and smoked a ham once. It was gone the same day. Never had anything like it since. 
> 
> In the middle east ham would be a little hard to come by I am guessing.



Or so, you would think, but there was a saying a long time ago when I was in the military. RHIP. Being an engineer and a Texan on top of that there were many things available to me that other American Expats could not obtain. America may have saved Kuwait from Iraq but by in large it was Texas companies that put out a lot of the fires. I could put in an order through the Sultan Center supermarket chain or make a 100 mile drive to one of the US or British Army or navy bases, or simply drive out in the desert to visit some Beduin friends of mine who raised hogs just before getting to the Saudi Border, they also made some pretty good hooch too if you found yourself in need of some strong spirits.

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mwmkravchenko (Jan 16, 2022)

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## mwmkravchenko

> Or so, you would think, but there was a saying a long time ago when I was in the military. RHIP. Being an engineer and a Texan on top of that there were many things available to me that other American Expats could not obtain. America may have saved Kuwait from Iraq but by in large it was Texas companies that put out a lot of the fires. I could put in an order through the Sultan Center supermarket chain or make a 100 mile drive to one of the US or British Army or navy bases, or simply drive out in the desert to visit some Beduin friends of mine who raised hogs just before getting to the Saudi Border, they also made some pretty good hooch too if you found yourself in need of some strong spirits.



Live and learn. Nice to know.

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## Frank S

Inside the machine shop van of my shop always seems to be a sore spot for me the way I had some of the cabinets and storage units were always over cluttered, No matter how I tried to arrange tooling for either of my lathes when I needed this or that I might have to spend a lot of time searching for the item. Plus it seems almost daily I have been adding more tooling to the menagerie, which ultimately winds up creating more clutter or filling already over filled drawers 
Yesterday it was windy with the windchill in the low teens so I sought refuge inside my machine van. I had the temperature inside of it up to around 60°f while trying to trun some parts I started searching for a special ground piece of HSS and couldn't find it anywhere. Finally I said enough of this I'm going to re arrange a few things so I can have some suitable drawer space 
First I had to clear an area at the end of my workbench then I moved a storage unit that is filled with stuf that really needs to be relocated to the parts and bolt van but that will have to come later. 
This cabinet was actually limiting my space in front of my bench mill and has always been in my way

So I moved it to the end of my workbench which now is at the same height and extends the work bench 

I dug this bench type toolbox out of the front of the van where it was completely inaccessible emptied it out cut off the bottom 4 inches 

Moved the tall wall cabinet about 3 feet West as well 
then put the bench box here

I don't know where the grinders are going to wind up, but they are kind of handy right where they are. I still have a long ways to go to be able to create a location for each like item of tooling but it is a start. 1 drawer has my HSS (I still haven't found the one I was looking for), and reamers another has pipe taps and those recently bought extra fine taps and dies "I am going to have to make a special divider system for them later" Another has metric taps and dies

----------

mwmkravchenko (Jan 17, 2022),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 17, 2022)

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## Toolmaker51

Easiest quick dividers aren't permanent....but they're usually free and plentiful. That corrugated plastic shipping foam keeps things in line nicely while itemizing and sorting. It will pleat when 'stitched' by hot glue gun to cardboard, for deeper contours.

Commercial storage drawers like Vidmar and Lista create a lot of square footage stacked up, but lack flexibility and high percentage of density in those same drawers. We pay for square feet, and often fail to utilize cubic feet well (which are basically free)!

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## Frank S

The last couple of days I have been stealing time from myself to work on getting my 2nd RPC built and hooking up the 9KVA transformer for the 460v At the same time getting all panels closer to being able to install all of the covers The single phase main panel has 1 more temporary 220 line to remove then that panel can be closed permanently, the breakers with red tape are not to be switched on until other things are completed, the transformer is ready to have that cover installed after I get the phases of the 2nd RPC to a balanced output. I can close the door on the main 3ph disconnect now and the encloser below it as everything that is going to be needed in those is complete. I need to connect the magnetic contactor to a breaker and add a 24v transformer in the 3ph 240v panel "bottom right" then that one can have the cover put on I don't have any conduit run out of the 3ph 460v panel "top right" as of yet so no need for the transformer to be switched on until something is connected for it to power. 
I am thinking about not installing the capacitors in the connection box for the larger RPC but rather install them in a much larger separate panel to be mounted below the shelf due to my calculated number of capacitors needed to get proper output. By installing them in a larger panel is will also have enough room to add more capacitors should I require another idler motor later on. 
All single-phase 120v lines are black #2 lines for 240v single phase are RED all #3 lines for 3ph 240v are blue and the 460v line are BOY #1brown $2 orange &#3 yellow. any neutral lines through out are white and the bonded grounds are green

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## metric_taper

Nice panel work.

So do you have an auto start system for when you need the RPC running? Something that senses you turning the switch on at the machine, or remote start switch. 

I had initially used that to power my vertical mill, but the noise of the 3600RPM idler motor, and that it was on the far end of the shop drove me to use VFDs.

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## Frank S

> Nice panel work.
> 
> So do you have an auto start system for when you need the RPC running? Something that senses you turning the switch on at the machine, or remote start switch. 
> 
> I had initially used that to power my vertical mill, but the noise of the 3600RPM idler motor, and that it was on the far end of the shop drove me to use VFDs.



The RPC is activated by a magnetic starter with overload protectors and a 120v coil initiated by a simple wall mounted switch below my light switches

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## Frank S

I now have doors all the way round the shop so I can close it up to the worst of the wind.
the latest door is 17 ft by 17 ft to complete the 48 ft wide opening

----------

mwmkravchenko (Jan 5, 2023),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 4, 2023)

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## Toolmaker51

Link opened with Day 1, a bare frame with a scant roof, 29 Nov 2018. [I]Everyone who knows me are probably familiar with my work shop or lack there of conditions.[/]

Who can say this *isn't* extraordinary accomplishment; occurring along with large quantity of tools, some connected to the construction, some not, and outside work taken on!

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Frank S (Jan 4, 2023),

mwmkravchenko (Jan 5, 2023)

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## metric_taper

I enjoyed his build. Frank is so lucky to live in a FREE country, that does not have building authorities inhibiting his quality constructions as his methods are not in the International Building Code manual.

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## Frank S

> I enjoyed his build. Frank is so lucky to live in a FREE country, that does not have building authorities inhibiting his quality constructions as his methods are not in the International Building Code manual.



One thing with the west doors being so huge and constructed of relatively lightweight materials as compared to most door of this size they are meant to have flex in high winds. Just like a sail sheet on a boat stretches in the wind but will remain effective. The other day my neighbor brought something over for me to machine for him he drove his truck inside and since the wind was blowing pretty good I closed the doors and secured them. Not long afterwards while he and I were standing in the shop talking there were a few huge wind gusts. Billy asked is my truck safe inside here with that door flexing like it does.
Sure I said part of the reason of the Latice design in the pipe work is to allow the door to bow in the wind but not fail We later learned that there had been a few 50+ MPH gusts directly out of the west Had the door not been secured it may have been some of a problem but a ridged door of that size would have been a problem if left unsecured as well. I have opened and closed the door in 30 MPH winds without problems

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metric_taper (Jan 5, 2023),

mwmkravchenko (Jan 5, 2023),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 5, 2023)

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## mwmkravchenko

Looking great Frank. You bring in full rigs I am guessing with that height. I know you have the length to do that. Although a tractor and trailer might not fit. I can't remember the other shop dimension.

You can get away with a lot different construction versus up here. You have to account for show load here to. Makes roofs a little more beefy. And frost. You have to sink supports deeper, about 5 feet for southern Ontario. Oh and heat! It gets cold here in the winter, although up till now we have had relatively warm weather above 32 up until today. High in the mid 40's. 

You have a great shop. Basically a pole barn. A well made pole barn at that.

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## Frank S

> Looking great Frank. You bring in full rigs I am guessing with that height. I know you have the length to do that. Although a tractor and trailer might not fit. I can't remember the other shop dimension.
> 
> You can get away with a lot different construction versus up here. You have to account for show load here to. Makes roofs a little more beefy. And frost. You have to sink supports deeper, about 5 feet for southern Ontario. Oh and heat! It gets cold here in the winter, although up till now we have had relatively warm weather above 32 up until today. High in the mid 40's. 
> 
> You have a great shop. Basically a pole barn. A well made pole barn at that.



Yep it is a pole barn alright, the steel poles are buried in the ground to about 6 to 8 feet average all of them have at least 1 truck rim welded to their bottoms

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