billblough
Member
In the electrical industry there is a company called Cadweld and they make premade molds and kits to weld ground wire to ground rods or well casings or many different shapes. CADWELD® Welded Electrical Connections
Railroad track weight ?
- Thread starter MrJimi
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case685
Silver Member
While we are on the subject, has anybody used or heard of railroad track being used as a logsplitter beam. I have a 6' piece that was that came from a rail yard parking lot. My BIL acquired it when his excavating co. was hired to remove the lot. Its 5" wide at the base and 5" tall and about 200lbs.
I wish I had pictures of my old barn. A few weks back high winds dropped a tree on the side of it and I tore it down. Anyway I had a piece of track 30' running side to side sitting on the topplate of the walls right above 6x6 post. I used this trollietype thing with rollers used to lift 55 gallion drums and roll hanging from the rail. Only I used bulk feed bags. These bags will hold 1800lbs of cattlefeed or a ton of corn. They have big looped strapps on top and the bottom has a hole in which you tie closed. I would use a come-along to lift the bag off my truck I'd pull out then "roll" the the bag over to the side where I had a box and I would just untie the bottom of the bag and let the feed fall into my feed box. There is no telling what all I've lifted with this beam. When things dry up its on my list to build a new barn and yes this one will have the beam also. I have no idea what size beam it is. I can tell you it took 4 of us to just lift 1 side up and set it on the wall. I built the roof after putting up the rail. I got it from work. We had some track replaced and we own our track. We still have several sticks laying around and yall have given me some new ideas thanks.
bigdad
Platinum Member
billblough said:
We use Cadweld products to do all of our electrical connections to the actual rail. Works great unless it's raining. We used to (slowly) drill a 3/8 hole in the rail with an old chain drive drill that resembles an icecream mixer. The wires were then connected with a compression type sleeve. The RR's spend a great deal of money on testing, and maintaining their rail. Quite a science.
BD
case685 said:
I currently use a chunk of rail for the actual "splitter head" (I cut a point in the top rail). I don't see any reason why you could not use your beam for this. I would envision that you would have the rail turned upside down and you could even cut off about 6 inches of it and use it as the splitter head as well.
case685
Silver Member
Paul, thanks for the reply. Yes, I was thinking I would use it flat side up. I have a couple of the brackets they used to anchor the rail to the ties. The slope on these matches the slope on the base of the rail so they would be great for making a carriage for the splitter head. Thats a great idea too using the rail for a splitter head. I'm already incorporating it into my plans. Gerry