My work shop build in progress

[EddieWalker]

Surprised at how much snow you got!!!!

I agree with Richard, this is an amazing thread. I'm really enjoying your comments on what you are doing and why you are doing it. Everything is well thought through.

 

[ovrszd]

Surprised at how much snow you got!!!!

Me too. So he also has to consider snow load in the construction of the roof!!! Never would have thought that with a Texas address. I have to keep reminding myself, Texas is a big State!!!

 

[Frank Surber]

THanks guys I used to design lots of pre engineered buildings where when the materials hit the construction site every thing had sequence numbering and there were keg after keg of A307 or A325 bolts nuts and washers to be used in the install. A team of workers would erect many tons of steel in a single day but let someone install a single beam wrong end around and it not be noticed for a couple days on a multiple story building half the building might have to be ripped apart to correct one single mistake one reason why when there happened to be an instance where a beam could be installed wrong we always made the bolt plates on the ends with differing numbers of holes or male female connector coupling so this could not happen.
But on a building where I am doing all of the work by myself I am just welding everything in place 1 stick at a time more or less engineering it as I go along or what I call post engineered while pre planning on possible future attachments or amenities.

 

[ovrszd]

I admire your ability to think thru that!!! Your skills are way beyond me. I'm really enjoying this build!!!! Anxious to see the finished result!!!

10 years ago I bought an all steel VP building, 39x50x12. Hired the concrete poured with peers at the vertical post sites. Drilled the concrete to bolt them down. First post I stood was in the middle of the East side. Fairly large I beam design that got larger at the top. Drilled and bolted it down. Ten minutes later I realized that post belonged on the other side due to purlin location..... Fortunately they were designed with the same bottom plate. Whew!!!! That was close!!!! :ashamed:

 

[Frank Surber]

We woke up to frozen water at the hose bib on the pump house but the water to the house was still flowing although slowly. I didn't think it had gotten all that cold last night just in the low to mid 20s but it must have been there for most of the night. However that still didn't explain the tap being frozen I have an automatic thermostat controlled system to keep the inside a toasty 46° I opened the door and the light was on meaning the system was functioning then I noticed that I had somehow moved the heater the last time I was in the pump house and the tip over switch was not making contact so the only heat in there was coming from the 150 watt heat lamp. which should have been enough anyway I repositioned the heater so it would come on and about an hour later everything was thawed the temps had risen to around 30 as well.

Then we went to a town about 40 miles away by the time we got back around 2 PM it was in the low 40s.
Even though the pump house is mostly insulated I think I am going to wrap in in plastic for good measure. then latter on in the spring I plan on cladding it with some of the insulation sheets that I have to make sure it is sealed and if I can strike a deal with the lady who owns the 2 large brick buildings nearby that are falling down I might brick it. There are probably 20,000 3x3.5 by 12 red bricks that have already fallen in on those buildings. If she is willing to part with them I might even think about pouring a footer around the foundation to the house and brick it eventually.
But anyway what I actually managed to get done today was to turn the master column over and finished welding up the areas that I just couldn't get to in the overhead position
Now it is just all but ready to drop in the hole

 

[pmsmechanic]

One thing that bothers me about what you are doing is the MIG welder I see in the pictures. Admittedly I am not educated in MIG welding so I could be wrong on this but I've been told that it's not good practice to weld with a MIG outside. The reason being that any breeze blows away the shielding gas around the weld point and allows the weld to be contaminated. You are calling this the master column. I would think that you would want it to be structurally as strong as you can make it. Your thoughts?

 

[aczlan]

One thing that bothers me about what you are doing is the MIG welder I see in the pictures. Admittedly I am not educated in MIG welding so I could be wrong on this but I've been told that it's not good practice to weld with a MIG outside. The reason being that any breeze blows away the shielding gas around the weld point and allows the weld to be contaminated. You are calling this the master column. I would think that you would want it to be structurally as strong as you can make it. Your thoughts?

With no wind, or flux core wire you can weld outdoors for with MIG welder.

Aaron Z

 

[ovrszd]

With no wind, or flux core wire you can weld outdoors for with MIG welder.

Aaron Z

Yep. Last week I worked outside with my MIG most of an afternoon using gas.

 

[ovrszd]

Frank, your brick aspirations sound interesting. If you get around to going that please start a thread!!!!

Your beam is a beast!!!! Tremendous amount of strength in the triangulation!!!

 

[Frank Surber]

OK never being one who can use 5 words to explain something when I can use 100 to completely confuse everyone here goes.
What you say is true to an extent when associated with common solid wire mig welding where the only shielding you have is the gas. Even then you will often find inside fabrication shops the guys will have a fan blowing on them from behind their backs while they are welding fans are nothing more than concentrated winds the guys use their bodies and positioning of their mig guns to block the air currents from the fans plus run a higher flow volume or pressure of the shielding gas to compensate for the blowing air.
Solid mig wire such as E70S6 with CO2 or a mix gas of argon CO2, the most common is mixed as 75/25 but there are others with 3 different gasses such as Argon, nitrogen, CO2, and Oxygen which can be custom mixed and delivered to formulate a specific shielding gas depending on application and specifications to achieve varying tensile, flexibility, and extreme cold or High pressure weld applications.
Then there are the gasless flux cored wires which in recent years have become quite popular in many applications even in some cases being specified for structural applications plus has been successfully utilized in pipeline construction in some cases. I don't care for it all that much but have used many hundred lbs of the stuff.
This brings me to duel shielded welding wire. or FCAW sometimes termed as FCAW-g or simply FCA for short. There are many grades of this just as there are 100s of different stick electrodes specific per application.
What I regularly use is 1 of 3 or 4 brands in the E71T1 class which is closely related to 7018 stick electrodes but has a little better tensile elongation maximum reduction of area and charpe under most conditions and a lot better in a controlled environment.
this is an all position welding filler However I seldom run it downhill when ever I can avoid it, for vertical up or overhead is just like anything else you have to watch the puddle and the freezing of it otherwise you will have a huge glob going down your shirt or pants.
I don't mind welding in 5 to 10 mph breezes outside this is no different than welding in a shop. 10 to 15 MPH wind is about like having a fan somewhere behind you but any wind higher than that you need to grab something to be used as a wind wall to block the wind. So after this all too long of an explanation essentially what I am saying is the welds on the column are probably stronger than anything I could have done using my Lincoln AC welder even if I had used the 7018 rods formulated specially for AC welding which I did use in some areas where it was impossible to position my mig gun.