good bye old friend

[onetreeforge]

Its almost time for my old shop to be demolished for a few reasons and its upsetting people, I have been using it since 1998 and almost full time since 2007, new shop will be 100M on the other side of the hill overlooking the Pacific ocean and be bigger with a higher roof.

I have no idea on the layout but my anvil stand and vice stand will be cemented into the floor and power hammer needs a 4 ft footing, will have fluorescent lights more power points, better bench, coal forge will have flue going through the wall and not the roof as this caused a lot of problems with water leaks in the current shop. I wont have windows as I smashed most of them my mistake.

 

I think the coal forge could go in one of the corners and power hammer could go along one of the long walls and I would like to have my big leg vice not so hard up to the wall, I have to have it underway in a couple of weeks.            

[JHCC]

Will you be changing your moniker to "twotreeforge"?

[onetreeforge]

Probably to no tree forge because the big Kauri tree falls on my shop every storm and I have to pull it straight with the tractor and my shop wont be there to stop it next time getting to the point where I cant pull it back up.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I would forge out some heavy stakes and attach 3 guy wires to stabilize the old threatened friend. I did that for a large beautiful Red Bud tree on our mountain. Within a year or so the guy's came off and she is still doing fine.

[onetreeforge]

Tree has some kind of sickness where the sap can’t flow and will die, when my shop is gone it will probably fall over 

[JHCC]

 Nice wood, though.

[ThomasPowers]

If you have a metal roof; can you put in a couple of fiberglass panels to get free light?   That's what I have out here in the desert, I spaced them away from the forge so it's slightly dimmer; but still plenty of light to work by.

I'm going with LEDs instead of fluorescents as they will pay for themselves quickly and provide a better light.

[onetreeforge]

I had a clear bit of corogated stuff in the roof once and got rid of it, made it 1000 degrees and leaked, LEDs are the most horrible light source ever, they brake down and don’t last, plastic junk. There is a fluorescent street light on my other shed and it has been outside since 1958 and had new tubes 15 years ago

Edited July 28, 2021 by Mod30
Remove excessive quote.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

That's interesting about your experience with LED lights in the shop. Mine has been the exact opposite. I have been replacing the florescent tube lights as they stop working, tubes burned out and in cold weather the starters won't light the tubes. My first lighting was 8 foot florescent tubes that came out of our fire station when it was converted to the Police Dept. Those tubes were a nightmare and I switched to the more common 4 foot lamps. I started replacing those with 4 foot LED from HF about two years ago and none of them have failed yet, when I could only expect around a year from the florescent lamps.

[SinDoc]

That is really interesting that you prefer older style lighting over LED's. Being that you said the other light is from the 50's, I would think it would be an HID lamp (High Intensity Discharge) or maybe a Quartz (I don't know if those were a thing then) and neither of which have a very nice CRI rating like the typical 80-90 like LED's. You can get really, really cheap LED lights (I bought a 4' strip not long ago for like $8 USD) but you tend to get what you pay for and I don't expect it to last but maybe a few years at most.

My main light source in my "shop" is the clear roof that just lets in natural light, but other than that I have (2) 4' low bays that are 9000 lumens and 90 CRI. They provide a ton of nice clean light when I use them, but they were something like $120 USD each.

[ThomasPowers]

Well my strips of fiberglass have not leaked, yet; but it's only been 16 years in the intense UV of the NM sun though. As I only have 2 of them they don't increase the heat in the shop that I can tell. Of course they are mounted in areas I'm not usually standing under either. And I try to ventilate the shop excessively!

Another plus for LED's is you don't have the mercury in the shop when they get hit with a piece of steel!  I'll be mounting the LEDs off the roof purlins so they will be about 13' up, the outlet will be on the truss and all wiring goes through metal conduit; but accidents do happen when you are concentrating on the hot end and swinging the cold end around.

I wish you were closer, I'm getting rid of 5 8' long (4 4' tubes) fluorescent fixtures and would be happy to give them to you.  Been saving them for my shop; but now that power might be a possibility I decided to go with LEDs.  We're using them everywhere at the University and I've been impressed with them. (Got 6 of them in my office as I write!)

[Bud in PA]

Just finished my shed. It is 8 x 12 as 100 sq. ft. is the maximum allowable size without permits or extra taxes. I bought a four ft. LED light from HF for $20 . I will have to shut it off when looking a the color.

[George N. M.]

The main reasons I went with LED lights in my shop is lots of lumens and they are not affected by cold weather.  The latter is a significant issue during much of the year at 7500' in Wyoming.  Probably not so much in NZ.  Also, the fixtures were reasonably priced at the Walmart which is 4 minutes away.  The nearest Home Depot or Lowes are in Cheyenne, about 45 minutes away and the nearest Harbor Freight is in Ft. Collins, CO, about an hour away.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[ThomasPowers]

As I get older more light is a good thing; I'm also more experienced in judging heat by how long the piece is in the fire of *my* forges.

Shoot I even picked up a lighted magnifier on an arm so I could pull metal splinters easier! (Yard sale of a manicurist...)

[SinDoc]

The "normal" level of light for an office space @ desk level is typically around 40 foot candles if memory serves and that number is a little higher for government office buildings. For detailed work, I have done projects where they requested upwards of 60 foot candles @ 4 foot, which is just nutty.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

37 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

pull metal splinters

I'm lucky my wife makes a good improvised nurse for splinters and band aids.

[ThomasPowers]

My wife uses my lighted magnifier too.

For bandaging I try to do my own unless the wound is worth the scolding!  (As I have not developed hydrophobia and both the scrapyard dog and I are in reasonable health I guess neither one of us were rabid!)

[onetreeforge]

If you have electronic ballasts in the fluorescent lights they are fine in the cold. 

I hate LED with a passion 

[ThomasPowers]

I've forged by sunlight, moonlight, firelight, the light of the forge (coal, charcoal and propane), candle light, kerosene lanterns, propane lanterns, halogen work lights, plain old electric bulbs, fluorescent lights and I plan to try LEDs; found several of them ineffectual/dangerous to work by, others a pain to maintain; never hated any of them.

[Frosty]

It sounds like the gang is trying to sell you on LED lighting but mostly we're just going on about how superior it is to fluorescent or incandescent in our experience.

When LEDs first came on the market up here they were really expensive and the reliability was poor. The first LED bulb I bought cost $20usd. and is still on the front porch. The incandescent filaments kept breaking if the porch light wasn't on. Even at $20 it paid for itself in a few months not having to replace the others.

 As prices fell and selection improved I've been replacing all the lights in the house with LEDs as the old ones burn out. I have a few in the shop as fluorescents don't work worth spit in winter and winter fixtures and tubes cost enough to keep  me in incandescents for decades and LEDs for a generation at least. Just the difference in power usage has a close break even point at 19%/lumen over incandescent.

You've said you hate LED light a couple times now but haven't said why. Details please?

Frosty The Lucky.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

One thing with fluorescent lights is that they start dimming after a few months, so you are using the same amount of power, but not getting the same amount of light.  The bulbs will last years, but the light output is not the same as when new. Same with the metal halide high bay lights. At Jelly Belly we would go through and replace every bulb  in the plant , and the difference in brightness was amazing.  The bakery I worked at replaced the 400W high bay bulbs with 150W UFO L.E.D. fixtures. and they noticed a difference in the electric bill as soon as they went in. The L.E.D. was noticeably brighter, and a much whiter light. I believe now they offer them in different color outputs to match different types of lighting. That is the usual complaint I hear, they are too white of a light after being used to to incandescent yellow, or the blue tint of fluorescent.

[onetreeforge]

I forgot to mention I collect vintage fluorescent lights lol, I have enough tubes to last my life time.

 

i think the digger is coming tomorrow to dig a spot for the new shop

[George N. M.]

One tree,  I'm connecting a couple of your recent threads.  Fluorescent tubes can have some nasty chemicals in them, mercury IIRC.  Is is possible that you health problems might have some connection with your interest in fluorescent lights?  In particular, if tubes have broken it may be the source of your exposure to some nasty things.  If tubes have broken in your shop it may have contaminated the area and you are being repeatedly exposed.  

This is only speculation by me but it may be something worth checking out and may be as probable a source of chemical exposure as are welding rods.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[SinDoc]

Big, the norm for LED fixtures is becoming color selectable. There are a lot of troffers, high bays, strips, lamps etc. that you can get that are 3000/4100/5000 color tunable. You simply select which color you want when you are installing it and you are done, but you can change it later as well.

One of the neatest fixtures I have seen lately is one that can go from 3000k-5000k and is dimmable through that entire range. The coolest thing was how smoothly it transitioned from the colors. It didn't just go from one hard color to another, it would gently "slide" through them and was a very fluid transition. To top it all off, they were cheap and only ran about $60USD for a typical 2x4 flat panel.

 

George, you are 100% correct. While not many people think about it these days, Fluorescent lamps are technically classified as hazardous waste and there are certain procedures you "should" follow in disposing of them. The company I work for used to facilitate the recycling/disposal of them, but with the onset of LED's, the demand diminished to the point that we stopped.

 

Onetree, differently keep us update on the progress! As everyone says, we love pictures!

[onetreeforge]

12 hours ago, George N. M. said:

One tree,  I'm connecting a couple of your recent threads.  Fluorescent tubes can have some nasty chemicals in them, mercury IIRC.  Is is possible that you health problems might have some connection with your interest in fluorescent lights?  In particular, if tubes have broken it may be the source of your exposure to some nasty things.  If tubes have broken in your shop it may have contaminated the area and you are being repeatedly exposed.  

This is only speculation by me but it may be something worth checking out and may be as probable a source of chemical exposure as are welding rods.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

I have never broken a fluorescent tube on the property, when I get the old fittings I remove the capacitors and chuck them away,

 

most of my work is with copper and i do I do a huge amount of arc welding is where I am think it comes from.

at my old work once I had a Mercury accident where I created a vapour cloud but that was 15 years ago