Beam Scale

[Scott NC]

  I don't know about beam scales but I found one I am thinking about buying, but the bottom of it is buried under a bunch of scrap and junk and couldn't look at it.  I could see metal casters but not much else.  My question is, it has two beams, both marked 150 on the end.  Does this mean it weighs up to 150 lbs.?  The wood column is falling apart.  Can these be rebuilt easily or are they a can of worms?  Callibrated springs and all that, un calibrated from years of junk sitting on it?   It's $50. 

[Steve Sells]

150 +150 = 300 #

[Scott NC]

  I guess that one will be hard to recover from.  Thank's Steve.  My brain siezes up from time to time.

[Steve Sells]

we all get that at times, dont worry about it until its happening all the time

[Scott NC]

  True.

 

  I left her a card and just got an email, she want's to move it and $20 it's mine.  I hope I can slide it into the explorer.  I don't care if it's junk for that price.

[George N. M.]

Sdott, I don't think that these scales have any springs.  They are all leverage linkages between the platform and the beam.  I suspect that you will have to get in there and lubricate all the various pivot points.  I also suspect that it will clean up nicely and be accurate.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I'm with George N M you got a good deal for a 300 pound double beam scale. I was at an auction and bidding on one. It went for more than my wallet could stand at the time $750 U.S. I dropped out at $400. Of course it was working, may have been rebuilt.

 

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sails. ~ Semper Paratus

[Frosty]

Do you have it home yet Scott? It should be reasonably easy to put in working condition. You'll probably have to polish the balance pivot points but that's not so tough. Lots of cool robot components if it's beyond repair.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  Thanks for the replies.  Your right George, no springs, but a lot of adjustment screws and geegaws to figure out.  I jumped on it and it was off by 20lbs, but then the tower is falling apart. 

  Randy, If I can get that kind of return on my $20, it will be worth the time, it seem's complete.  Or keep for weighing things like, oh, say, anvils. 

  Jerry, I just picked it up this morning.  The lady even helped me load it, not as heavey as I thought.  Plan B is always sculpture parts....

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I bet the tower could be fabricated out of steel and a lot of tinkering, even new wood should be easy to make. Ya done good on that one.

 

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sails. ~ Semper Paratus

[Frosty]

6 hours ago, Scott NC said:

I jumped on it and it was off by 20lbs,

Good GRIEF Scott, you're NOT supposed to jump on scales  it really throws them out of adjustment! 

Thanks for the straight line Buddy, a chuckle is always welcome. 

That should be a fun project, maybe keep you off the streets for a while.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Jason L]

I know where there are three sets of these scales. I was working at a feed store until December of this past year and we used two sets of them daily for many years. They still use one set but have moved the other two sets to storage. I weighed all my anvils on them. Ours went up to 250 each beam and about 400# of weights. We mostly weighed peas for shelling, seeds by the pound and fertilizer by the pound. I'll never forget the time spent cursing the numbers on the beams for being so hard to see in the low light we had in the store.

[Scott NC]

  Jason, your mention of feed store and weighing peas got me to thinking, I wish I had one of these years ago to weigh the potatos we grew and took to the farmers market to sell over 25+ years of growing.  That's a lot of spuds.  I never kept records and could have guesstimated but never did.  They were all hand planted and dug.  8 100' rows.  No wonder I'm all stoved in.

  IronDragon, a steel tower would be easy and I never thought of it.  I could make it out of wood, but it's so unforgiving.... 

  Btw, I was gloating about how cheap I got the scale.    15 minutes later, while making room for it in the shed, I tipped the countershaft assembly to my Grandfathers lathe off the shelf and broke the cast engagement lever off.  It wasn't so cheap after all.

On 6/8/2023 at 5:55 PM, Frosty said:

That should be a fun project, maybe keep you off the streets for a while.

  For a little while, anyway.....

[Frosty]

[Jason L]

That is a lot! I'm not sure what the yield on something like that would be but we would shell around 25-40 bushels of peas in a day with the old sheller that could hold up to 3 bushels at a time if we gave it a push start. Of course we weighed them after shelling, not before and a lot of those came in small bags or buckets. The new sheller can barely handle a bushel and a half. Our scales were all metal, top to bottom except for one that has wooden accents. All of the structural parts are metal though.

[Frosty]

I was wrong in my last PM Scott, I misread your last post here. I'd just gotten back from a dilated eye exam and not focusing very well, it's the only way I can account for reading 8 rows and thinking 2. No wonder you're feeling so out of shape! You need to plant 4 rows of potatoes and start getting back in shape. You don't want to jump right into it though, start small and taper into growing a proper potato patch.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  I don't think potatos are a good idea here.  I would need a tiller with some sort of chainsaw attatchment to get through the roots in the ground.  Maybe a bulldozer with a ripper on it.  I noticed cactuses growing in the ditch.  I might try some potatos in a barrel next year, just on a lark.  Raised beds do ok.  I hope yor eye recovers.  

  I'd like to see an old pea shelling machine in action. I like the old mechanical stuff. Maybe there's a video out there, I might look.  I once worked in a plant that did soybeans at 60-80 tph but we didn't have to shell them...

[Frosty]

Potatoes will grow anywhere, they're primarily an air plant so soil nutrients aren't so important. They don't hurt of course but they're not critical, spuds grow just fine in sawdust or sand. Rototiller? Think appropriate equipment for 8, 100' rows and you can prep the beds in a day. An excavator and grizzly will separate the soil from roots and rocks quick quick. Talk to a horse owner or cattle ranch for some composted manure, raw will work but you'll need some palates to make a rapid composter. If you rent a chipper you can turn the brush and roots into compost with it. Roots will take longer to cook so they don't sprout anew so they can get their own composter. Everything but meat goes in the composter, meat can be composted but it can be iffy if you don't give it lots of time and can prevent critters from foraging in it.

If the roots are big, mature trees you might need a thumb, if it's very rocky teeth are good, you're not making a finish landscape so you can smooth it later. Teeth are good for mixing materials. A long arm is nice but it's a garden you don't need to go deep but being able to reach out is nice. IIRC your soil doesn't drain well so save the rocks, dig the rows a few feet deeper and lay a good layer of "drain rock" on the bottom. 

Collect all the manure, grass clippings, (landscapers?) etc. for the compost ahead of time and let it cook so you only need to rent the excavator for a day. Of course if you've lined up more work for it consolidate it for a one time long day or two. I know I don't need to tell you that stuff but it's easy to forget. It's better to have more work than you can do during the rental period than have it sitting there idle till they pick it up. 

I just took a look and I don't recognize model #s and the specs are making me dizzy, a 3' wide bucket with an 8-10' depth is a nice small side of medium excavator though if the price is right don't hesitate to get one with a 4'+ wide bucket and 13' depth boom, that's about the range I LOVE for clearing land. Push trees over, then rip the roots out of the ground, slam them up and down to shake the soil out of the roots and stack them, tree roots and all for the chainsaw man to limb and buck. Stack the firewood with the excavator of course, it's not that tricky to make neat stacks, a couple minutes per cord until you practice speed up.

Yeah, excavators are my favorite dirt work machine, they'll do almost anything. 

Oooh, what kind of cactus? Prickly pear are yummy and can be cultivated.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  I'll tell you what I know about excavators.  Not much.  I hired a guy to dig a storm shelter on the farm, as I only had a mobile home with no basement.  If a bad storm came through I would jump in the pit well and hope for the best, but I met a wonderful woman with a young son that moved in with me so that wouldn't do anymore.  Anyway, he let me at the controls for a little while and it was great fun.  Powerful machinery usually is.  We wound up buying a house in town so the cellar never got finished and I just turned it into a big burn hole.  I almost burned up my Ford tractor in it once.  I also got to ride on a bulldozer when I was young when my dad borrowed one to dig a rather big fish pond.  The pond eventually leaked onto the neighbors hog lot.  It was built too close to the property line and required a dike.  This caused a long standing fued even though he repaired it quickly.  It was a long time ago, but IIRC he got tons of bentonite clay to plug it from trainload that wrecked nearby. I got permission to salvage junk at that wrecksite for years.

  I don't think I will be building that big of a potato patch, but I have to clear some trees for another purpose and will keep that all in mind.  I cut a lot of trees down back on the farm but here they are twice as tall and no matter which way they fall, they are bound to cause a problem. 

  As far as roots go, there is not a spot where you can drive a shovel in more than half a blade.  They were thick on the driveway and sticking out like speed bumps.  I dug around them and sawed them off with a sawzall.

  We found a place to buy "natural" compost by the truck load and I'm making my own.  Meat you say?  I met a guy that is doing compost "tea" and he throws fish in it.  You should smell it.  WOW!   It  burn your nose hairs out.  An electrician that did our house is also a hunter and throws the offal in the pile, lol.  He offered but, I'll pass.....  I'm starting cautiously with the tea thing with shrimp shells...