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I Forge Iron

LawnJockey

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    Tralfamadore

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    Livermore CA

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  1. Thomas, I am very familiar with your area, I have a little off the grid cabin outside of Magdalena. It is my quail hunting place. I had the same problem on my F250 Super Duty. The temp gauge was definitely bad the problem was that it was part of the entire insturment cluster which was extremely expensive to rebuild. What we did was purchase a stand alone gauge for a little over $20.00 and mounted it below the dash, easy to read and out of the way.
  2. It was 117 when I went to refuel the propane for the forge. It is 110 now. But it is a dry heat... I was working all day outside but under cover on the fly press. The roofers worked until 2:00 and went through all three cases of Gatorade I purchased and a bunch of their own beverages too. I stayed perfectly hydrated thanks to a cooler full of Becks. It really wasn't that bad I got my almost daily 31 mile bike ride done by 9:00 and it was 90 then.
  3. They started using a skilsaw with a diamond blade and an 8" angle grinder with the same but it was really slow. They are used to working with 26 gauge not 20 gauge. Either way it is way loud. I just got a call they are starting at 5:00 am but I got them to promise no power equipment until 6:30. That plasma cutter sounds slick however they are rough cutting at the valleys and then doing the final cut by sliding a 2x4 under the panel to elevate it and then sawing it. I am not sure I would want to use a plasma cutter making a cut like that with all the tar paper and other flamable material right there. Charles, you used to live in the area so I bet you know right where we are. We are up on the side of Camelback just below the castle.
  4. Great minds think alike. The upper portion of the T slot is a little over 3/4" the lower portion (The top to the T) is 1 1/2". I am going to weld two pieces of 3/4 square bar together in a cross. One piece will be 1 1/2" long and the other maybe 3". Then I will drill and tap them where they cross. Simple almost instant T nuts. My main concern it that I may knock the tooling plate out of alignment when loading heavier pieces and thus there could be some troublesome variation, like with railing parts. If the T nuts alone don't make it stout enough I can always clamp on additional 3/4 material to the bottom of the plate, remove the plate and weld them on on the ends.
  5. Yep, they start showing up about 6:30 and don't waste any time getting going. It is 20 gauge steel and I cringe when they cut it that early with the hand held two stoke concrete saw they are cutting it with. They knock off about 3:30. I would not fault them at all if they knock off at noon in this heat. This is a side job for them as they do it all week for a company and they make a little extra to make ends meet working on the weekends on side jobs. Great guys. They have about 8 on the roof at any time. On Memorial Day we BBQed burgers for the crew and the head guy promised to bring his wife's tomales tomorrow. The roof is about 2/3 done and the remaining panels are stacked up in the driveway. When you walk by them you can feel the heat radiating off them. I don't envy them at all.
  6. Steve, no need for personal attacks, be nice. Please note there is an Arizona Ice Tea in there. The guys don't get any cerveza until they are off the roof and then it is well earned. Last weekend I purchased 3 cases of gatorade and a couple cases of bottled water for them and they brought a couple cases of sodas. With the exception of a few sodas it was all consumed. I don't care what anyone says there is nothing like an ice cold one on a hot day.
  7. 106 yesterday, 114 today and 118 tomorrow. I have roofers working Saturday and Sunday. I would like to tell them to stay home but the guys need the cash so I will let them decide what to do. As always, we will do our best to keep them hydrated.
  8. We have two layers of xxxx that we have to go through. The city is the easy part, they would be happy with garage or art studio. The tricky part is complying with the CCRs. Back in the '50s when the area was divided up the developer put the restrictions in place that limit out buildings to garages only. They also established a committee to grant waivers and approvals but that committee has been defunct for decades. Unfortunately the CCRs also granted standing to enforce the CCRs to every other owner subject to the CCRs. Thus there is no way to get a prior approval in regards to the CCRs and if you violate them any other owner can haul you to court. The structure will be in complete compliance, my use of it may raise some issues. That said the place looks like a corporation yard right now and there is, with in reasonable hours, constant cutting, grinding, hammering and coal smoke and so far no one has complained. Fortunately it is a bit of a live and let live area. The guy across the street is a porn kingpin and he blasts 1970s elevator music out of his pool area speakers 24/7. No one complains, as long as it isn't technopolka I won't either. Down the street is another porn kingpin who just buit a 25,000 sqft house complete with its own golf course. Everyday the street is blocked by lanscaping trucks and when he has parties (often) caterers block the road for a few days. Then the guests who all look like Gay NFL players park everywhere. We are really glad he has a high wall so we don't have to see what is going on. At least when he parties he has good live music and we don't mind having it go late into the night. It is nice living in a tolerant area because the last thing we want to do is start a neighborhood war. In regards to the scope of the work I do both metal and wood work as well as work on my own equipment. The general plan is for the long open area to be kept clear as an assembly area that things can be moved into as projects demand. Both the side walls will have full length benches. The short side wall will have grinders, sanders, lathe, etc. The compressor will be located along the short side wall. The forge and anvil will be in the covered outside work area. The power hammer will be just inside, I am trying to keep the noise down. I am going to modify my equipment bases so they can be moved around with a pallet jack where that is possible. Electric welding and plasma cutting equipment will be on one cart that can be moved around as needed. The dust collection system will have to be installed after the project is completed since the structure is technically a garage. As it is, the wiring alone will probably attract some unwanted attention. This is quite a bit smaller than my last shop and I felt cramped there when working on bigger projects. My goal is to keep it as flexible as possible so it can be transformed for the work at hand without just pushing a jumble of stuff from side to side.
  9. At 850 pounds I don't want to lift it any more than I have to. How are you guys fastening the tool plate? I have been thinking about two different approaches. The first is to get some large flathead machine screws, counter sink them and sleeve them so as to fit the t slot snugly. Then for the nuts make something up like a unistrut nut. The other thought is to use large allen screws. I would drill the plate with two holes large enough to clear the screw heads. Then I would plug weld a steel strip the width ot the t slot across the plate underside. Then drill clearance holes for the allen screws. Again, make some nuts up like unistrut nuts. There are several variations of the two approaches.
  10. Yes, a 3" center hole is in the plan.
  11. The table top is currently 29 1/2" but will be 30" when the pads under the legs are installed. The base of the press is 4" thick. So that will be 34". The tooling plate will be 1/2" thick.
  12. I have been talking about the new shop for a while and the design has finally gotten to the point that we are getting ready to submit it for city approval. The area here has restrictions on out buildings limiting them to garages. We also wanted to build a guest house but it wasn't allowed. However, a garage can contain servants' quarters. So what we are building is a three car garage with servants quarters. The area marked work area will be covered and a four foot wall around it. The shop area will also have a laundry tub and the living quarters will have a stacked laundry set up. There is a 20' set back to the south which will also end up as incovered waork area. So lets see if my scans upload. shop plan 2.pdf shop plan 1.pdf
  13. I got it in the temporary shop using the tractor. As expected I had to remove the roll bar to get the tractor to fit. Excuse the mess, we were just stuffing things from one side to the other trying to get it in. I will work on bolting it down tomorrow and then setting up a plate for tooling over the weekend.
  14. I purchased a Pheer 2 x 72 grinder a while back and we have been quite happy with it. My son has been using it constantly making knives and it is holding up just fine. The price was quite reasonable, after pricing the wheels, motor and speed control it really didn't make sense for me to make my own even though we are fully equiped to do so. I think he still sells them on ebay, that is how I got mine.
  15. I have table envy. I got a 3'x4' piece of 1/2 plate for my top. The legs are 6"x6"x3/8" square tube. Additional bracing is 2"x2"x1/4" angle. I assembled it upside down so tomorrow I will flip it over with the loader and weld the few spots that are better accessed from above. Then it is time to drill some holes. Then it is fun time getting it in my temporary shop and even funner (I will always be grateful to W for increasing my vocabulary) will be getting the press on top of the table. I haven't measured it yet but I believe if I take the roll bar off the tractor I can get everything in place using the forklift tines on the loader bucket. If that doesn't work I will have to get creative.
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