The first step for my shop

[Frank S]

Are you going to pour piers for the heavy equipment?

Most of my machine shop equipment such as lathes and mills are mounted within either the connex container or the household goods moving van the exceptions initially will be the 6 head drill press a 12x 10 3 hp band saw the 30" box column 7 1/2 hp Clearman index drill most everything else will be fabrication or assembly tables and welding equipment
 During the late 1900s and early 20th century until well after the 1st world war the norm for heavy machine shops was to have their larger machines and almost all smaller ones on wood floors they used to either stand and tightly constrain 3 to 5 ft long wood timbers on end and steam pile drive them into the ground then mill the surface flat to mount their extremely large machines on because it was thought that the percussion from things like hammer forges would cause liquefaction of concrete.
 I may mount my 2 6000 lb drill presses on a wooden seal just to spread the load surface area out over a larger area but other than that I probably will not put down piles of any kind unless I note an issue Before adding this enzyme I could brush away the loose top of the clay and lift a loaded semi trailer with 2 bottle jacks and they did not leave indentations in the clay 

[MattM]

I would think good concrete wouldn't liquify unless it was constructed from the incorrect rock particles.  The typical concrete in the US is made from particles that exhibit irregular shapes, which is excellent quality.  Not many countries have this available to them, hence places like China have far too often had catastrophic building failures using the incorrect rock particles.  I learned that from a retired Army Corps of Engineers uncle that spent months - and at least once for years - at a time going overseas to work on megaprojects.  He is very enlightening on why things are done in a lot of projects.  He predicted the Three Gorges Dam would shift over time, especially in their heavier rain years,  and sure enough it has over this last summer.

[Frank S]

I would think good concrete wouldn't liquify unless it was constructed from the incorrect rock particles.  The typical concrete in the US is made from particles that exhibit irregular shapes, which is excellent quality.  Not many countries have this available to them, hence places like China have far too often had catastrophic building failures using the incorrect rock particles.  I learned that from a retired Army Corps of Engineers uncle that spent months - and at least once for years - at a time going overseas to work on megaprojects.  He is very enlightening on why things are done in a lot of projects.  He predicted the Three Gorges Dam would shift over time, especially in their heavier rain years,  and sure enough it has over this last summer.

many countries today no longer rely on using the smaller partials found in natural glacial gravel preferring to screen those out then crushing the larger gravel stones into the size they desire Crushing methods have improved greatly since the early to mid 20th century as well as their knowledge of adding differing inhibitors, enhancers, retarders or accelerants and binders into the cement itself gone are the days of calculating for 3000PSI concrete for projects. even simple "sakcrete" just add water and mix bags tout 4000 to 5000 PSI. However everything still boils down to the sub strata where the pour is placed plus how it is prepared relatively smooth hard sub strata will not have sufficient surface irregularities to provide high enough binding qualities for proper adhesion.
 Another thing concrete in thicker pours  can take many years to completely cure the Engineers who designed the Hoover dam  understood this and provided a mans to using that to their advantage many of the engineers in today's world lack the experience or knowledge of this, or were asleep during the lectures of the 3000 year old methods of how the Romans, Greeks or Ottomans constructed their aqueducts some of which are still intact today.
 A lot can still be learned from studying the works of the ancients.
 

[Mary B]

Are you going to pour piers for the heavy equipment?

Most of my machine shop equipment such as lathes and mills are mounted within either the connex container or the household goods moving van the exceptions initially will be the 6 head drill press a 12x 10 3 hp band saw the 30" box column 7 1/2 hp Clearman index drill most everything else will be fabrication or assembly tables and welding equipment
 During the late 1900s and early 20th century until well after the 1st world war the norm for heavy machine shops was to have their larger machines and almost all smaller ones on wood floors they used to either stand and tightly constrain 3 to 5 ft long wood timbers on end and steam pile drive them into the ground then mill the surface flat to mount their extremely large machines on because it was thought that the percussion from things like hammer forges would cause liquefaction of concrete.
 I may mount my 2 6000 lb drill presses on a wooden seal just to spread the load surface area out over a larger area but other than that I probably will not put down piles of any kind unless I note an issue Before adding this enzyme I could brush away the loose top of the clay and lift a loaded semi trailer with 2 bottle jacks and they did not leave indentations in the clay

Interesting, I would have figured steel piles over wood that can change with moisture content...

[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.

[Frank S]

Let there be lights and plenty of them

Recently I figured out the perfect solution to getting rid of a bunch of old truck tires by burying them in the form of a retaining wall on the South end of my shop

 Before I got too far along with building up the elevation though, I thought it would be a good idea to bury my electric cable to my well. So I excavated a deep trench the 250 feet from the machine shop van to the well and laid in a 1 1/4" orange drop line donated by the fiber optic installer who gave me several steel hose reels

[electrondady1]

congratulations on getting the lights on Frank . that's a mile stone.

[DamonHD]

Hey, it's almost time for a new thread "The second step for my new shop"!

Completely magnificant work.  You achieve on a rather larger scale than my suburban London postage stamp!  B^>

Rgds

Damon

[MattM]

After all this work you may want to take the Class A out for a little road trip.

[SparWeb]

No, this is closing in on "The last step for my shop"