SinDoc

That sounds...not fun. I had a electrician tell me once how he went out to do a typical service call and when he opened up the panel, had a copper head staring him in the face. Said he slammed the cover shut so hard he nearly broke it! Its amazing what critters somehow find their way into things.

That is very true. I am sure out there in the wasteland outdoor panels would just have to deal with the dust

The panels are typically double the cost of their indoor counterparts, but code normally states you must have I think its 3 feet in every direction clear of the panel so it is easily accessible. Outdoor panels are a pain. They are heavy, more prone to rust and falling apart and are a good deal more expensive on average, but sometimes you can't avoid them.

Stopped by the tractor repair shop again yesterday. They had a couple chainsaw chains and gave me a few more mower blades to tinker with. Not sure what I will do with the mower blades, but I have high aspirations for the chain saw chains that is probably beyond my ability to make.

In the spirit of trying to be helpful, I wanted to do a little (well it might not end up little) write up on powering peoples shop, new and old. Let me preface this with this ONLY applies to within the USA and even then you should ALWAYS check your local code and follow it. If you have never run electric or are not confident in doing it yourself, hire a licensed electrician to do it for you or contact your local inspector. Most of the time either one will be more than willing to answer questions. Remember, it does not take a strong shock to stop your heart (.5mA can) and it only takes one wrong connection to burn down the structure. This write up assumes a typical house style service with single phase 250V. I can answer questions about different voltage and 3 phase if you have them. Ok, lets hop into it! How Much Power Do I Need? This is probably one of the most common questions I get asked. There really isn't a simple answer to this question as it has too many variables most of the time. The "correct" answer would be to contact an electrician and have them do a load calculation to determine what your draw will be and then size the service accordingly. This is somewhat determined by the size of the structure you are trying to power. My little 10x20 shed wouldn't even fit enough equipment inside it to justify a 200A service would be an example. The highest amperage a typical house panel can feed to another sub-panel is 125A (not 100% correct, but for simplicity sake). If you need more power than that, it gets a little more complicated and that is when I would highly recommend having an electrician do the work. If you have a larger shop, it might be easier to have a second service installed from the power company (if they are willing to do it. Most have certain requirements that need to be met before they will agree to do it!). This would provide you with an entirely separate service from your house and have its own metering. There are meters that can be purchased that can split your primary power into two services but that will 100% require an electrician to do as it involves dealing with the power companies feed into your home. NEVER touch ANYTHING at the meter and past it (towards the street/pole). It is a felony to tamper with any of that and CAN EASILY result in your death. You typically do not own the meter and anything upstream as it is the property of the power company and most modern meters are "smart" and will alert the power company and authorities if tampered with. What Panel Should I Install? I am going to try to avoid getting super technical with panels but will probably fail. Your typical electrical panels (excluding commercial grade) only come in a few amperages. Those amperages are 60A, 125A, 150A and 225A. You might be thinking "I have seen 100A before!" and you would be correct. What I listed are buss ratings whereas a 100A panel is (typically) a 125A buss panel with a 100A rated main breaker. If you check and read a panels description, it will tell you what the bussing is rated for. Panels only come in two styles, main breaker and main lug. Main lug panels will be the ratings I listed and not contain and means of shutting off the power to itself (the main breaker). Most are typically field convertible and can have a main breaker installed later. You will need to review your local code to determine your disconnect code and if you must use a main lug or main breaker panel. Panels also come a wide variety of spaces. The amperage typically determines how many spaces a panel will have. 60A is normally a sub-panel fed via another panel and normally only has 6-8 spaces, a 125A panel can have up to 24 space, a 150A can have up to 30 spaces and a 225A can have up to 60 spaces. There are exceptions, but those are the "normal" sizes. It is better to always oversize the panel. If you think you maybe fill 20 spaces, get a 30! It is a royal pain to change a panel out once it is wired up, but can be done. Plan for expansion! One of those worst things you can do to a panel is start to fill it with tandems (also known as piggyback breakers). What Wire Should I Use? This is very much determined by your local code. The codes are different enough from county to county, state to state that I couldn't give you a truly accurate answer. Also due to liability reasons, I can not suggest any sizing when it comes to wire. Just know that the primary purpose of a typical breaker is not to protect you, but the wire. It is always best to oversize the wire going to a sub-feed panel to permit expansion. If the wire is rating for 150A you can put a 150A and smaller breaker on it (as long as the wire itself will fit in the breaker). NEVER OVERSIZE A BREAKER! If you put 20A rated wire on a 30A breaker, you risk the wire melting and causing a fire! Wire comes in all kinds of styles/ratings, but for simplicity sake I will only talk about the ones you are likely to see. NM-B This is your typical house wire and is normally referred to as Romex. It comes in 2 and 3 wire (ground is not normally included in the conductor count). It has had various types of outer jackets over the years, but modern Romex has a PVC nylon jacket (NM stands for Non-Metallic and refers to the jacket). It is very uncommon to see this wire beyond 6 gauge, but they do make it larger. Comes in both copper and aluminum with copper being the industry standard. If you plan on using aluminum, all devices (outlets/switches) and connections MUST be rating for aluminum wire. MC Internally, MC is identical to Romex. The difference is the outer jacket. Rather than having a PVC nylon jacket, this cable has a metal sheathing/armor to protect it from damage. There are more restrictions on where you can use this cable, but you typically see it in applications where there is no choice but to run it outside a wall and exposed. It is cheaper to run vs single conductor wires pulled through conduit. You must see if your local code allows MC before using it. This also can come in copper or aluminum but can have a great deal more conductors and can get much, much larger in gauge ( I have seen 8 conductor 750MCM before. 750MCM is roughly the size of a 50 cent piece). SEC/URD SEC (service entrance cable) and URD (I sadly don't remember what this stands for) are your typical wires that feed your houses panel. SEC is normally a dull gray cable that has several other individually insulated conductors within an overall jacket. It is very heavy duty stuff and does not bend/flex easily. It comes in SER (service entrance riser), which is meant to be run overhead and SEU (service entrance underground) which is meant to be directly buried. SEU does not typically get very large in gauge however. URD is direct bury rated, but is typically sleeved with conduit for protection. URD has two different ratings, USE-1 and USE-2. USE-1 can NOT enter any form of structure. USE-2 is rated to go into a structure, but your local code may still not allow it. Both SER/U and URD are normally aluminum wire. They do come in copper, but it is very uncommon as the weight becomes very unmanageable due to being larger wire and have multiple conductors. THHN/XHHW This is the single strand wire that is used in just about every application you can think of. It is the industry standard wire. Both Romex and MC use it within their overall jackets. For the most part, THHN and XHHW are interchangeable but not always. XHHW is regarded as a slightly tougher cable whos jacket can withstand wet areas better. To use this cable, it MUST be placed in conduit and there are very, very few exceptions to that. This comes in both copper and aluminum but the norm is copper. What Conduit Should I Use? This section will be short. As always, review your local code before installing any conduit. There are actually quite a few different kinds of conduit, but I will stick with the main 3. PVC This is the typical conduit everyone is familiar with. It is a plastic conduit that is typically buried in the ground. It comes in 2 variations, schedule 40 and schedule 80. Schedule 40 is the regular kind that is used for a wide variety of applications. Schedule 80 is normally identified with a yellow stripe down its length. Schedule 80 has a thicker wall compared to 40, so has less capacity. If the conduit is ever subject to any form of impact, schedule 80 must be used. All parts/pieces are glued together. EMT This is the metal tubing you see running everywhere in buildings. It is a thin gauge metal and can be used all over inside a building. It is not normally used outside as it will rust away, but it can be used outside if needed. Uses set screw and/or compression fittings GRC Typically referred to as rigid conduit, this is the heavy duty stuff. It is galvanized so it can be used outside, it is impact resistant, can be buried and is HEAVY. a 10' stick of 4" weights around 130lbs and is not fun to use. It has threaded ends so that all its pieces are screwed together, but compression fittings due exist (and are really expensive). This is typically used as the pipe going up walls/pole in place of schedule 80 PVC as it is very unlikely to ever break. That is all I have for now. I will try to keep adding to this as well as clean it up as time goes on. If anyone ever has a question, feel free to ask me .

If money is really tight, depending on what your local code allows you could run aluminum for your feeder to the shop. Would be a lot cheaper per foot than copper. The URD I mentioned is aluminum and is the quote unquote standard underground feeder out here for residential applications. You would still run copper in the building to the outlets and such. Depending on the walls and your shops enviroment and of course your local code (that pesky code), you could potentially run MC (metal clad/armored cable) in the building itself. Its more expensive than typical romex but less expensive than running single strand wire through conduit.

O they made you do a 4" rigid riser on the pole? Thats rough. Out here they let us use PVC schedule 80.

I rambled there. Sorry about that. TLDR You have a large enough space, equipment and potential future equipment that not doing at least 125A would be a bad choice IMHO. You wouldnt save much doing lower (ask your electrician if he would run copper or aluminum) as the main cost apart from labor is the wire. I ran 3 2/0 (pronounced two ought) and a ground to my shop and its only 10x20. Thomas, have you looked into simply converting those fixtures? You could get a kit that would convert those to (4) 4 foot lamps and then just use LED tubes. That would be fairly inexpensive but at the same time fixtuees themselves have gotten so cheap. I snagged 4 6000 lumen strip lights from Rural King the other day for 20 bucks each.

Would the powder having 2/4% nickel content change much? I see Jantz supplies different versions of each.

Unless you really, and I mean REALLY cheap out on the panel, a common 12-20 circuit panel are normally rated for up to 125 amps. There are exceptions, but that is the norm. In regards to what you should run, that would depend on a variety of things. Running a whole new services from the power company would be expensive. They might not even agree to do it. That would be you are restricted to what your house panel can handle. Most modern homes are 200 amp (once again, there are exceptions). The biggest breaker would can fit in a typical house panel is 125 amp (without getting into specialty stuff). Depending on the panel brand, a 125A breaker "shouldn't" run you more than US$150. Personally, I would set a 42 space main lug panel (depending on distance from feed source and your local codes regarding disconnect distance) and run 125A to it from your house panel. Depending on your local codes, you use something along the lines of URD to run out to the new panel. The wire is direct burial rated, but I would still sleeve it in conduit. Please note that typical code does NOT allow URD to entire a building. You would have to come out of your house using via something like THHN to a junction box, splice on the URD, run to outside the shop and into another box and splice back to THHN before going into the shop and to the panel. All in all, it is an easy process, but if you have no experience with running electric, I would STRONGLY recommend you hire an electrician to do it. Remember, it only takes one wrong connection or nick to electrocute someone or burn down your home. For the phase converter, check out Ronk. They make various versions/models and are normally decent to work with. Remember, the converter HAS to be larger than what you are trying to power. A 15HP converter will NOT power a 15HP motor. This is due to the in-rush of motors during start up. If you only have the one piece of 480V equipment, look into converting it to single phase. Might honestly be cheaper. For lighting, how high are the ceilings? I could give you a couple different options, but would need to know the ceiling height. All in all, don't skimp out. The price difference from amperage tier to amperage tier is minor (before wire is considered). You can always oversize the wire and change the panels/breakers out later if you need more power but changing the wire is the hardest and most labor intensive part.

I knew I would forget a detail. I was planning on using 1095 powder (or 1084 as I haven't actually ordered any yet) and nails as I have roughly a 5 gallon bucket of assorted nails/spikes. It would be done via hammer as I have neither a press nor power hammer.

I was gifted several lengths of square tubing by the neighbor. They are various lengths but I want to say they are all roughly 1/2 inch wide. I know that would be a really small billet at the end of everything, but would that be sufficient to practice on? Or would it be too small? I am just looking to practice making canister Damascus, so it wouldn't be used in anything critical (like a knife). I could get MAYBE 3-5 nails in it due to the size. Just not sure if this would be too small to even be decent practice.

Not the best picture I have of it but this was from a week or two ago. Make me and the misses two fillets and the kids some strips. Initially tried to do bacon wrapped but it did not work out. Deli thick cut applewood bacon. Was delicious. Poor thing needs a good scrubbing bath. I also need to take another couple grill stones to it.

Wife might honestly bury me in said hole if I put another one in our yard. Yard still has not recovered from last years project! I "think" I have enough scrap 2x6's laying around to through together a JABOD. I will have to look over the scrap pile when I get home. Main thing is the motivation to do it. With all the rain, boy do my hands hurt.

Speaking of hammers, I have been throwing around the idea of trying to forge my own. Need to do more research and try to find some videos of it being done before I tackle that kind of project. I also need to start making another forge. I really want to make a skillet and other cooking items that I simply can't in my gas forge.

I am not that lucky. If I don't go in, I get put on kid duty . On another note, I actually paid attention to my hammers this weekend. Only two of them would have handles I could remove. The other 3 have integrated handles where they are one piece. I could probably cut the handles off and modify the head to get a hole for a replacement handle.

Ah, the extended warranty. That is where they get you!

Finally built a second bench opposite the anvil. Mounted my vise (just bench as I do not have a post vise just yet) so now I can just turn around to use it for twist and such rather than running to the back of my shed to do it. Got a mounting plate and ran a second circuit to it for the new grinder that should hopefully be done before long. Thomas, I thought you were mostly cybernetic at this point? Does your hip just need an oil change per chance?

When I was out forging over the weekend, the neighbor came out to start up his grill to put some steaks on it. Told him to give them to me and I would chuck them in the forge and put a real nice sear on them lol. I had thought about welding a frame around the front of my forge so I could sit a skillet over the opening and let the dragons breath cook a nice meal for me while I work. I decided not to because I have my giant Blue Rhino flat top griddle/grill sitting just a few feet away that I could easily fire up and cook on. I love that dang grill. Can cook a giant full breakfast on it (hash browns, bacon, eggs, sausage and even pancakes all at the same time and still have room to spare!

You could have gotten RGBY highbays and had a disco party! *queue techno music* Yeah it is always recommened to use de-ox. Everything corrodes overtime. Aluminum doesn't typically corrode any worse than copper as long as all the proper connectors and such are used. The traditional problem with AL was that it expands/shrinks more than copper, so if the lugs are not tightened properly it can wiggle out, and that would be bad. Copper is still much, much more common for a commerical service. Im surprised he tried selling you 8 240w highbays. Thats something I would normally see with 30' ceiling height. But you said dimmable, so you will always have ample light levels! For budget highbays, I probably would have showed you ASD Lightings UFOs. Theyre typically 80ish USD. At least last time I checked. IIRC, the recommend foot candles for a working shop is around 10 or so. I would have to go through my code book at find it again.

Yeah it varies from place to place if they allow aluminum or not. Copper prices have been going through the roof! 240W seems pretty intense. I supply Lithonia IBG highbays a lot, though i dont remember their wattage off the top of my head.

I have had several recommend castor oil. Also something I believe they said was called Ben Gay? Guess it is some kind of cream or something. I will have to look into it!

I rounded up a bunch of old lawn mower blades from a mower shop down the road and was testing pieces off each of them to try and see if a beginner like me could somewhat figure out what they were made of. After getting them all nice and clean, I chopped ~1 inch sections off each blade and heated them up to see if I could possibly harden them. Out of I would say roughly 12 different pieces, only 3 showed any promise. I am still very much learning the heat treat process so I heated them until they became non-magnetic then I put them back in for ~30 seconds. 3 definitely became a great deal harder. All but one of the others showed no noticeable change (to my novice eyes) after quenching in air, canola oil, fresh motor oil and water. One reacted quite badly to being quenched in water. Thankfully I am "relatively" smart and wore a leather apron, hefty gloves and a face shield. Needless to say, that piece is now several smaller pieces in the bottom of my 6" water quench pipe . Maybe I won't be messing with mower blades again

Venerable Frosties Demand

Yup when we were brain storming the design I had sent him links to Grizzly and beu...something for ideas. After he looked over those we started taking into consideration my work space and how I could mount it. We decided completely vertical would be the best fit for my limited space, and it would mount on the left of my bench and hang off the side.