Start of something big.....

[jayste]

Has anyone seen or heard from Harvey? Has he started his novel and forgot his thread? Harvey, if you're out there somewhere, check in. We sure were enjoying seeing you build that building! Maybe he got tired of the heat and went home to get in the cool and write on his book. Anyway, looking forward to the next phase of the project, Harv.

Jay

[wroughtn_harv]

I'll try to post some updates next weekend.

I haven't taken any pictures in awhile because, well, I've been busy and it has been a tad warm. By the end of the day all I want to do is climb into the shower and fall into bed. I'm not half the man I used to be, darn.

We're putting on the skin, they hired an eighteen year old to hold the loose end while I tie if you know what I mean. I think he's going to work out fine. The first couple of days he thought he'd fallen from the fire into the forge but I think he's figuring out there's more smoke than fire with me.

When the wind has been blowing too hard or it has just been too darn hot to stand in the sun on concrete I've been doing a lot of electrical. A week or so ago we pulled six number sixes twenty some feet through three/quarter EMT with one ninety and a couple of whoops. I ended up using a cable grip on the fish tape, like I said earlier, I'm not half the man I used to be.

[EddieWalker]

Harvey,

Good hearing from you. The heat is having same effect on me. At the end of the day on the job, it's tough to do anything else at home. Working that metal in the summer heat has got to be hard just touching it, not to mention working with it.

Eddie

[jayste]

Harvey, Like Eddie said it's good hearing from you. You've got that right about the heat! They're saying cooler and lower humidity here for the week so maybe we'll get a break. My wife and I are "over the hill" on our 40's so were starting to "work a little smarter instead of harder" ourselves. We finally, this year, hired a 15 year old to help with putting up our hay.
Anyway, looking forward to those pics when you get them.

Jay

[BayouMan]

Hey Harv,
Great to hear from you again. It seems the older we get, we seem to be more sensitive to the elements. Just working in my shop in the shade and a fan is tough these days. I worked outside on my bionic blade the other day from about 12:30 to 5:30 the other day. I almost had heat stroke and a good case of heat exhaustion. I don't view having to use helpers or special tools as an indication that we are not as strong and durable as we used to be, just that we have learned to work smarter.

Good luck on finishing your project.

Mike

[wroughtn_harv]

This week was a tad toasty in North Texas. There's a freezer in one of the barns. I've been putting six packs of water in it to freeze over night. Then we set them in the shade at the barn to defreeze. Gives us cold water and when we're down to a chunk of ice in the bottle we fill it with a sport drink and that isn't bad either.

I was given two helpers. One was good help and the other one I gave back within an hour.

It's funny about work. Either you have it in you, or you don't. He's only eighteen but he works good.

Here's some shots I took quitting time yesterday.

[wroughtn_harv]

This barn is to hold equipment and whatever. So one of the challenges was to have as many doors as possible.

What I came up with was six twelve by twelve foot openings with double sliding doors. Sliding doors cost a lot less than roll ups. They're a lot more trouble free and easier to work on when there is a problem. And they take up less space.

Twelve doors seventy five inches wide and a hundred and forty six inches tall.

I put barn door track on the bottoms of the doors. This keeps the doors aligned and not touching as they slide by each other. That's because there will be steel pins inserted in the concrete for the track. The ends of the bottom barn door track will be closed off with a bolt or pin. This limits the travel of the door side to side and also prevents pulling the door out from the bottom to get access.

[wroughtn_harv]

The principles are the same that we have with horse stall doors. We don't want anything in the way of the doorway. And we sure as heck don't want anything used to secure the door providing a hazard to anything else, horse stalls especially.

These horse stall doors are secured where they can't move by out of the way catches when the door is fully open or closed. There is nothing protruding or sticking up to frog a horse or provide a tripping hazard to the help or owner.

[wroughtn_harv]

At each end of the barn I had to make a pocket for the door sliding that direction so that I could have a full twelve foot opening for the end doors. The sliding doors will be locked from the inside with one walk in door at the north end of the building. I was given a bargain door salvaged somewhere and it will work just fine as a walk door.

[wroughtn_harv]

One of the bargains the client found was a manlift. It's trailer mounted and lifts twelve feet. It's one of those things where the fabricator was a much better designer than a weldor and that's okay. Welds can be fixed.

I wasn't about to set it up with the jack stands in place etc and so on every six feet or so on uneven ground so I could install the upper two lines of screws on the fourteen foot sidewalls. After I replaced the coupler and ignored the bent tongue I modified the box blade on the old Ford 340.

A couple of tries to hook up a trailer blind encouraged me to modify the box blade some more. It's now where you can back up to a trailer and see the coupler and ball well enough to not need help lining things up.