The first step for my shop

[Frank S]

Imagine the 6-part harmony you could set up with 6 different size drills chattering through one long bar of aluminum with that gang-drill press!

Of course, nobody in their right mind wants to hear even one drill bit chattering, let alone 6.  Like a thousand fingernails dragged across a hundred chalk boards 

back in early 71 I briefly worked for Pettibone Texas where I ran one of these drills but with only 3 heads however all 3 heads had a 8  bit gang drill attachment mounted on them. 1 head drilled 3/8" as pilot holes the 2nd head drilled 3/4" the 3rd head had champer bits I would load a flange in the fixture under the first head once that was drilled remove it place it under the #2 head load another under #1 then once both of those were drilled move #1 to #2 add a blank in #1 then under #3 champer both sides very repetitive over and over and over I had the timing to the point that I could drop a finished flange in the tub 3 times a minute I worked there nearly 6 months before the head office found out that I was only 16 and had to reluctantly lay me off but that was not before I had ran half a dozen different machines  bigger and more complex than that one was in the place. I walked right across the street and went to work welding the tongues on mobile home frames the same day I was laid off making .50c more per hour I stayed there until I turned 17 and talked my dad into singing to allow me to join the Army     

[DanG]

Ah yes, long ago and far far away - 35-hours a week at $1.35/hour... then came the day I turned 16 and presented my full work permit... oops, hey, you're umnn  fired...  15? You know how much trouble blah blah blah.

[Frank S]

Ah yes, long ago and far far away - 35-hours a week at $1.35/hour... then came the day I turned 16 and presented my full work permit... oops, hey, you're umnn  fired...  15? You know how much trouble blah blah blah.

Exactly. Us farm kids never knew that we weren't supposed to be working at young ages. since as soon as we were able to dress ourselves we were assigned certain chores those chores increased in quantity and difficulty as well as the responsibilities to get them done without being 'stupervised' There may have been 4x4 blocks tied to the pedals of an old pickup truck with bailing wire so a 6 or 7 year old kid could steer and um drive it around in the fields while the bigger boys bucked hay or an 8 year old might be dragging a 10 bottom mold board plow down half mile long rows sitting on a TD 24 dozer. in the summer time by the time I was 11 most goings on in the farm had been taken over by larger equipment with more attachments freeing up our time I went to work at a blacksmith shop 8 hours a day 5 1/2 days a week for $1.00 an hour and still had my chores around the farm to get done. After about 5 years there it was time to move on I thought. So I loaded up my lathe that I had bought my welding machine and torch and tools then took thm to the farm jumped in my old 49 Plymouth and headed for Oklahoma worked in a fab shop a while up there had a disagreement with an idot who didn't know his job left and moved back to Tx went to work for a plumber stayed long enough to learn more about plumbing construction in 3 months than most journeymen are exposed to in several years. the boss got drunk and wound up in jail so I left and went to work at Pettibone. never had a job that paid less than the one I had previously left behind until I went into the Army then I was making less starting out in a month than I had been earning previously in a week, but that didn't take long to change by the time I got out 6 years later I had completed 3 of a 4 year degree in engineering had a wife 2 kids and an aging pickup truck I had bought new when I had reenlisted hadn't been home a week before I landed a job making more in a week that I had in a month in the Army even with all of the tacked on allowances then got 5 raises at that place in 6 months but was now working sometimes over 100 hours per week and driving an hour and a half each day so left for a hob that paid less but didn't have to work but 50 hours per week that lasted a year until I struck out on my own and only worked as contract labor from then on until in 91 I decided to set up a shop and make people come to me. Sometimes it was steak & potatoes other times it was chicken broth and crackers but we managed. I look back on the times when I could call my bank and tell the vice president to put 50k in my account and I'd be in next week to sign the papers and the times when I would have to scrounge to buy a pack of gum for one of my kids. Now that I am retired when I look back I cannot find a single thing that I would have done differently if I had the opportunity yo do it over again, except for maybe try to find wife #2 before I found wife #1.       

[Bruce S]

Ah yes, long ago and far far away - 35-hours a week at $1.35/hour... then came the day I turned 16 and presented my full work permit... oops, hey, you're umnn  fired...  15? You know how much trouble blah blah blah.

Ahh , yes getting paid $1/hr to move irrigation pipes from one section of the acreage to another on the pickle farms.

Learned a lot back then! including that gophers love dark wet places and why you leave one end section open to flush the pipes  .

[Harold in CR]

Loved your history story, Frank. Had my Son driving tractor at 7 years old.

 Gonna be one helluva shop when you get it finished.

[Frank S]

Loved your history story, Frank. Had my Son driving tractor at 7 years old.

 Gonna be one helluva shop when you get it finished.

Thank you Harold, Funny thing is I was almost 7 years old by the time I started 1st grade then got bumped up a couple of grades through out the years, by the time I got in high school I had become mostly bored with the slowness of the curriculum. I would make it to mid term be exempted from all exams, meaning I would have a few days off but for one reason or another didn't bother to return for the 2nd semester the following year I decided to try again did the same thing did it the 3rd time only by now I was a freshman/junior. left the 3rd and last time needed only 2 credits to graduate but technically would have had to attend  3 more years. Went into the Army that following Dec had my GED which converted to a HS diploma, and by the time the kids from my first grade class graduated I had nearly 2 year college completed while in the Army. College class room and the lecterns were equally boring to me. Even the accelerated and abbreviated studies that colleges offer for military personnel, so once I had accumulated enough hours to challenge the final exams I started doing that. I bagged up a basket full of hours by only completing the final exams  Not something I'd recommend for most folks because you cheat yourself out of learning the processes to formulate the conclusion.   

[Bruce S]

SOooo you basically blew the bell curve for everyone else  .

Over achiever!! 

Then again , I found the theory classes a great place to catch-up on must needed sleep.
If I tried 1/2 the stuff we did (bailing hay, moving irrigation lines, drinking out of the water hose) I'd be in traction for a week.

I really loved the old Ford F1N's the split braking and clutching was very cool to learn and very handy when it came time to drive stuff as a 63H20.
Cheers!
Bruce S

[Frank S]

Years ago I acquired a school bus, which I was going to use as storage or a green house or chicken coup but never did anything with it other than put some junk in it. I decided that it could be put to a better use so I pulled the body off of the chassis and put it on top of the container in my shop. No it will become a combination office and work area for those small tedious projects as well as storage for things that really don't need to be occupying valuable shop floor space

[SparWeb]

Years ago I worked beside a shop that built custom staircases, usually for wealthy people's houses.  Every once in a while a customer wouldn't pay (not all as rich as they thought they were) and the staircase would be dumped in the alley behind their shop.  It was always fun to look through the big stack, sometimes up to a dozen unused staircases of all sizes and shapes (including some spirals).  One of those would be perfect for your bus door entrance, Frank.

[Frank S]

Years ago I worked beside a shop that built custom staircases, usually for wealthy people's houses.  Every once in a while a customer wouldn't pay (not all as rich as they thought they were) and the staircase would be dumped in the alley behind their shop.  It was always fun to look through the big stack, sometimes up to a dozen unused staircases of all sizes and shapes (including some spirals).  One of those would be perfect for your bus door entrance, Frank.

It would save me having to build one.
 What I will probably make will be a mid landing 180 turn back

[Frank S]

Started dragging out materials to chain down on the bus chassis to be the base for a rolling scaffold
 but first I took down most of the scaffold on the south side. We didn't get back from town until noon so not much day left at that point.

[tanner0441]

Hi

I was building a stable block and collected a load of 2 by 3 by 15ft beams on the top of my Peugeot 504 estate, I constructed a frame for the rear and front to keep the weight off the roof. Add a load of 4 by 8 plywood sheets in the back and I have never driven anything so unstable in my life. Coming up a steep hill with a bend half way up also meant the steering was unpleasantly light. A journey which should have taken less than 10 minutes took something over half hour.

I collected the rest of the plywood I needed but paid delivery on the rest of the beams.

Brian.

[Frank S]

Hi

I was building a stable block and collected a load of 2 by 3 by 15ft beams on the top of my Peugeot 504 estate, I constructed a frame for the rear and front to keep the weight off the roof. Add a load of 4 by 8 plywood sheets in the back and I have never driven anything so unstable in my life. Coming up a steep hill with a bend half way up also meant the steering was unpleasantly light. A journey which should have taken less than 10 minutes took something over half hour.

I collected the rest of the plywood I needed but paid delivery on the rest of the beams.
 the pucker factor increases significantly when trying to haul something on a vehicle not designed for such duty.

Brian.

[Mary B]

Been there, load of 2"x10"x12' treated(15 of them) on my utility trailer towed behind a Chevy Aveo sub compact car, the trailer bed was only 8' so 4' of the load hanging off the back creating negative tongue weight(yes I know, not safe, my trip was all back roads with no traffic). I added an extra chain around the hitch and tongue so if the hitch failed it wouldn't snap to the end of the safety chains. Also reduced chance of failure since it couldn't lift more than 1/4 inch. If I got over 45mph things got VERY quirrely witht he death wobble, at one point the back end of the car was up off the ground until I slowed enough to stop it LOL Not a trip I repeated...

[DanG]

Wah. Reread my previous post and see I'd merely echoed Frank S's description... I was* thinking maybe some peek-a-boo through the roof, so...

"A school bus 'sky dome' for the shops second third floor office!"

Yeah, I know.

Would like to see some anchor action on the in-shop container, sure looks like Tornado Country.

[Frank S]

Dan G the shop container is sitting on 24 18x18x4 concrete blocks. Before I drug it in and placed it I had scraped the sandy loam top soil off and filled back with a red clay fill that I excavated from another area the clay was spread and packed as well as could be then I used my plate packer where the concrete blocks were placed I didn't get all of them as level as should have been so after sitting on them for almost a year with about 30,000 lbs of machines inside the container it had setteled to about 3 inches low on 1 end it may have been that low from the beginning. And before putting the school bus on top I wanted to try and get the thing level. 3 days jacking with a 12 ton hydraulic toe jack and a 50 ton bottle jack lots of oak blocks and steel plates later and more concrete blocks under the thing it is now laser leveled in place. I told my wife I may later pump a form of expanding grout under it to fill some of the void between it and the ground. It would have been nice to have been able to pour concrete where it is sitting but budget didn't allow for it. The columns for the building have 24 inch diameter truck wheels welded on the bottom of them and are in the ground between 5 and 8 feet depending on how deep I had to dig to reach a blue & yellow clay/ shale like substance.
 It is what it is I am going to have to spread another 100 cubic yards of the red clay like stuff in and around the building, it really isn't clay but more like base as there is quite a bit of caliche in it as well but still red in color. When dry it is hard as rock when welt it is still pretty dang hard.   

[Frank S]

 it didn't know if it wanted to drizzle, just be cloudy or just have the wind blow today, but in-between the spats I did finally manage to erect the rest of the scaffolding on the bus chassis and attach all of the braces then get everything level jacked to consistency and chained down to the frame so nothing could shift

 I will use some of my pipe stands as down rigger stabilizers

[Frank S]

 Here is the platform on the mobile scaffold




And the rest of the purlin for the roof

[DanG]

I'd like to play a game that is so much fun
And it's not so very hard to do...
The name of the game is OSHA Says
And I would like for you to play it too...

YOW!

I've had my share of $500 fine Inspector polaroids snapped being on similar scaffold w/o safety lines // guard rails...

Tell us you've been to jump school and pack your own parachute!

[Frank S]

Dan G, Yes I went through jump school but that was 45 years ago. I've also walked out to the tip[ of the boom on a tower crane that was 300 feet tall with a 200 ft boom  to free a fouled trolley line.
 The last OSHA inspector I saw on a job site had a yard of concrete dumped on him from 200 feet in the air never proven if it was accidental or intentional.
 

[tanner0441]

Hi

Funny how things trigger memories, in my distant past I did 2 years working in plant maintenance. not 300 ft but fifty ft up the jib of a Coles crane, tire lever in hand on a freezing cold very windy morning to get the cable back in the sheath, the driver bounced the bucket off a spoil heap. Before the days of health and safety, you just got on with it. It's amazing how much grip you can get on freezing cold steel braces with your legs.

Brian.

[Frank S]

All kidding aside the reason I constructed the mobile scaffold then built a 4 ft wide 32 ft long platform was because I don't trust the standard scaffold boards everyone uses. Brick layers will only use a single 2x12 laid between to scaffold frames then span 12 or 12 ft to the next set of frames Hvac guys will spread several boards out but do the same thing.
 Every frame of my scaffolding is diagonally tied to the next and all connecting pins are bolted to the bottom and the upper section of frame the scaffold jack screws are captured in H beams and every frame is chained and bound to the frame of the bus chassis I have screw jack stands to place under the H beams. Whether or not I will decide to wear my 5 point rig with drop lanyard will depend on whether or not I decide to walk the trusses Drop lanyards are about useless at 17 ft height because the drop you 10 ft to 15 ft depending on the lanyard. SO I will probably use my 4 ft tie off strap.

 Now I had been asked for several weeks now by some friends of mine as to how I was planning on flying the purlins and other stuff to the top.
 So I decided since the Skytrack forklift I used to hang most of the trusses is 240 miles away and not available all of the time, I made me a gin pole for my back hoe and mounted it to the fork carriage on the loader.
 




 I hung a 500 lb weight from the end of the pole while the end was on the ground before spooling the cable then raised the pole by tilting the loader then raised the arms as high is they would go. to see how much deflection there would be in the pole at its worst case. %00 lbs at the end of a 24 ft pole was a lot of load on the tilt but I will be using the pole at a more upright position and lifting less than 100 lbs each pick and mostly not needing to move around at all

[Harold in CR]

Look--------------up in the sky---------------it's a bird-------------------it's a plane---------------it's sploop--------------a yard of concrete.    A tragic  thing to take place, but, ya gotta admit, sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

 Fresh out of linemans school, when I was working for the Power company, we were assigned to do a Palnut, lock nut, tighten/replace missing nuts on a section of 300' highline towers. Our climbing belts were very clumsy as you had to sit on the cross arms to reach UNDER them to tighten or replace the nuts. First I did, I nearly lost by balance from the safety strap, so, the next 2 I left it hanging on the main structure. 

 Very nearly got fired for that stunt.

 You DO have a vivid imagination, Frank.  Good stuff you post. !!!!

[Frank S]

Harrold you will never convince a safety inspector of this but there are times when you are safer working without part of your gear than having all of your kit hanging off your body to contend with. Having to hook 1 strap then move the other and leap frog to get where you are going has gotten more than 1 person in trouble causing them to fall and then have to be rescued because their kit had gotten fouled. Often times having a short enough safety strap that will prevent you from falling in the first place is much better than a drop strap that arrests your fall as it pays out because once you fall you cannot self recover This doesn't mean you wouldn't want to have it there as a second safety but I've been on jobs where they wanted you to have 2 of them in addition to your work strap if your not careful you wind up braiding your lines and get them so fouled you spend more time trying to free your fouled lines you don't get anything done. 

[Frank S]

I decided that soon I will be working from the scaffold and knowing how fidgety the frau gets when I am off the ground I drug out my harness and belt only I didn't find the one that was a combination of harness with the belt made in I liked it because additionally I could attach tool pouches to it. and just have to out on the 1 item with the straps through the legs and 3 buckles around the waist and chest it had  3 safety line rings to at the waist and one in back between the shoulders for the drop line
 I don't' need the fall safety line drop line as I call it, as the scaffold is not really high enough for that to do any good.
 SO I guess I will weave the belt through the harness and have to wear a tool belt as well   

[Bruce S]

Dan G, Yes I went through jump school but that was 45 years ago. dumped on him from 200 feet in the air never proven if it was accidental or intentional.

Using the way way back machine
I packed so many lapes and T10s I can still do them in my sleep. Come to think of it , I think I did a few in my sleep  .
The big test was having to use the very chute you packed.

The coolest was watching ALL the lapes(es) open and still seeing a sherridan  bounce.

Ahh those were to days!
4DM to the $ and good beer :-)

Bruce S

[Frank S]

Bruce S what I really need right now is a pair of climbing gaffs I have an overhead twisted pair w gr #4 line that was used to run my well the poles are 30 ft tall but 200 feet apart the line where I need to cross frequently is under 20 ft closer to 17 I would guess and I can't get my gin pole under it with out laying it way out which means I can't have anything on my forks because it would just slide off. So I was thinking about just dropping the line for now then later is I decided I wanted it I could put it back up. Yesterday I rigged up a 3 sling setup that I was going to place my feet in 2 of the stirrups and raise the lines 1 at a time but after only a couple feet high I decided there were 3 problems with that age related attitude, altitude, and the length of my slings I could visualize myself several feet off the ground and my feet coming out from under me turning me turtle.
 I could try shooting the tie off loop with my 338 but that only works in the movies and besides do you know how far a missed shot will travel shooting up at a steep angle? Trust me it is a heck of a lot further than I want to find out even knowing there is no one to my north for a dozen miles or more there is live stock a heck of a lot closer and the main highway is only 2 miles away   

[Harold in CR]

Frank, Got a pipe about 3" diameter?  Take a piece of wood and drive it in the end of the pipe.
Cut a "V" groove in the wood so it will grip the cable to prevent sliding, and make the pipe whatever length
you need for height.

 Take a 2x8 about 2 feet long and use it for a pad to set the pipe on. Drive a pin in the ground through a hole in the 2x8 directly under the cable. Strap it to your backhoe bucket and stick the "V" under the cable and raise it up and set the pipe over the pin. The weight of the slack of the cable will prevent slipping. Just place it plumb both ways. I

I did this a couple of times with 3/2 aluminum twist. Your copper will be much heavier.

[Frank S]

I know what you are saying Harrold but I currently have enough obstacles to have to try an maneuver stuff as long as 40 feet around. Plus with the way our winds are so cyclic a relatively calm 10 MPH wind one minute can be a 30 MPH gust without warning then remain a 20 MPH sustained for hours. Any lift pole tall enough for me to drive under with the gin pole would need to be well guyed and that would just create more encroachment into my maneuvering space.
 I'll either have to drop the line or remove the gin pole and relocate all of the materials to another area where I won't have to drive back and forth under the line.
  The thing is if I drop it then I won't put it back . I'll put it in a 1 1/2" poly line and burry it The line is over 450 ft long now on 2 poles and burring it would shorten it to just under 400. At one time it was used as a 30 amp service to the well and for an RV connection Neither are required at this time but I do want to at least have a 20 amp service at the well for future use by shortening the line 50 to 60 feet will more than make up for the loss of in the air heat dissipation given that the service will only be 20 amps on the #4 line and I won't ever have to concern myself with n overhead obstruction in future,
 MY safest bet would be to flag down one of the electric service bucket trucks and palm a "C" note in the guys hand to drop it for me at both poles

[Bruce S]

Frank S ;
Short of a bucket truck coming by. No possible come-along or truck mounted winch? I can empathize about the age related attitude. Height no problem, going turtle ,,, not so good. Shooting the rope even less "FUN" .

[DanG]

I'm having trouble visualizing why...  a pole or poles aren't pulled and gently lowered down (for service) with the F.R. Anks Industries Mk-5 Skytrack pole plucker... Oh, wait, yeah yeah, guess its just me

[Frank S]

I'm having trouble visualizing why...  a pole or poles aren't pulled and gently lowered down (for service) with the F.R. Anks Industries Mk-5 Skytrack pole plucker... Oh, wait, yeah yeah, guess its just me

 Good one. Trust me I have thought about just chain sawing it off at the ground If I could get the back hoe up next to it to chain it off so it couldn't fall on something it shouldn't fall on like the house or the green house or the guy wire to the mains service pole
 What I should have done when the electric company moved the service would have been to have them pull it before they installed their pole but I was thinking about leaving the line and using it as it was, Now I am more inclined to think I'd rather run the line in a poly pipe under ground eventually

[Frank S]

To have better control, more lifting power and a much slower speed for the roofing hoist on the gin pole rig I made a pair of snatch blocks to give me a 3 to 1 lift ratio.


the hook on the cable is 1 1/2ton the hook on the block is a 5 ton
just about a perfect strength to ratio

 I picked up 10 of the 6" 30 ft long purlins and transported them near to where I wanted to raise them

then I flew 3 of them to the roof

I made a couple of spacer blocks to use in lieu having to measure each time also the blocks assist in holding the purlin upright so I can clamp them and weld them in place

the first 3 of many now installed

Also to make life easier I mounted the pendant on a 50 ft long 7 wire cord and made it removable for ease of storage when I remove the hoist