This, that, and the other

[wroughtn_harv]

Looking for these pictures I found some photos of something similar to what I'm building with the cedar entryway. The latest job has metal posts and wood rails.

About seven or so years ago I built at the Ft Worth Zoo a fence that had cedar posts and pipe rails.

Life comes full circle.

 

[txdon]

Jim, Your rocks are totally different than Harvey's. Your rocks have different thickness sharp square edges, while Harveys are smooth mostly round.

Harvey I'll let you make the call if you think they will fit into the patterns.

 

[jinman]

Jim, Your rocks are totally different than Harvey's. Your rocks have different thickness sharp square edges, while Harveys are smooth mostly round.

Harvey I'll let you make the call if you think they will fit into the patterns.

Yep, Don, the rocks are very angular and have varying thickness. There are lots of hand-size and smaller flat rocks laying around on the ground, but they were not the kind that bothered my neighbor.

Harvey's rocks are more like cobblestones. He has a lot of variation in colors from reds to greys. It all depends on the needs for the murals.

These rocks are available if you need them. If you pile them somewhere beside your gate, you may not need a snake in your mural. You'll probably have the real deal sunning itself on your rock pile.

 

[weldingisfun]

Harvey, that keypad post is very original, but come to think of it, so is everything you build. Love your postings, brother. Good luck at Don's and keep up the good work.

 

[EddieWalker]

Harvey,

Thanks for posting the pics of the fence that you built at the Ft. Worth Zoo. Steph and I were there awhile ago and tried to figure out what fence it was. I've always wondered about that. I know exactly where that fence is, since there's a very large Longhorn in there!!!!

Jim,

It seems like such a shame to have all those rocks and nobody needing them. I have a stack of about six rocks that I've found at my place so far. I just don't have any rock here other then what I find in my iron ore veins. Thats's just small pebbles that are sort of melted together, but fall apart when dug up. Rock is very rare in these parts, it's either red clay or sugar sand. I have red clay, a guy up the road has 60 acres of nothing but sand.

Don,

Wish we could make it to your place for no other reason then to just see Harvey in action. He has a plan and I'm dying to see him make it happen. For me, the thing that I admire most in people is their ability to make an idea into reality. Most people talk about what they want to do, others like Harvey, just do it.

I don't know how you will be able to get any sleep at night knowing what's about to happen. The excitment is keeping me up at nights!!!!

Eddie

 

[silverdollar6]

Well you folks in Texas sure do grow some fine looking rocks, that first herd of rocks looked like they were still wild, but Harvs rocks looked like they were pretty tame. I think that I might start me a little rock business, sure would save on feed and fences.
Seriously though you guys have some great projects and do outstanding work, I really enjoy all the project posts, keep them coming.

 

[GaryBDavis]

Harv,

For some reason, lightening seems to be a big issue for most gate opener circuit boards. I ran the biggest solid copper ground wire I could get from the opener to the welded pipe structure. There, I welded on a piece of 1/2" round bar and then brazed the copper wire to it. With a brazed connection, you can bury it just under ground and corrosion won't be a factor. I also run a ground wire from the keypad to this same grounding point. There's no chance of driving a copper coated ground rod 8 feet deep in my rocky soil, so the pipe structure is the best next thing.

In my old MCI days, we had some pretty good engineers that specialized in grounding designs for the tower sites, but those techniques are too costly for these applications. Do you do anything different for grounding?

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Harv,

For some reason, lightening seems to be a big issue for most gate opener circuit boards. I ran the biggest solid copper ground wire I could get from the opener to the welded pipe structure. There, I welded on a piece of 1/2" round bar and then brazed the copper wire to it. With a brazed connection, you can bury it just under ground and corrosion won't be a factor. I also run a ground wire from the keypad to this same grounding point. There's no chance of driving a copper coated ground rod 8 feet deep in my rocky soil, so the pipe structure is the best next thing.

In my old MCI days, we had some pretty good engineers that specialized in grounding designs for the tower sites, but those techniques are too costly for these applications. Do you do anything different for grounding?

Gary the way I usually do an installation like Don's is the operator is bolted to a frame that is attached to the fence frame work. With Don's we'll have the cattle guard along with all the posts and framework for the slide as our grid.

One of the things we'll have going for us at Don's is we won't be having an overhead. The lightning will have to have it's heart set on a lowland piece of art to target us.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Harvey,

Thanks for posting the pics of the fence that you built at the Ft. Worth Zoo. Steph and I were there awhile ago and tried to figure out what fence it was. I've always wondered about that. I know exactly where that fence is, since there's a very large Longhorn in there!!!!


Eddie

Eddie if it's the same longhorn, he's as tame as a kitten. Well, almost. The owner was training the handler when I was building the fence. He was no bigger than a minute. Literally the caricature of the bull rider, small man, all shoulders, big buckle and she, the handler was a little nervous with the steer.

He told us that longhorns can run full speed through a south Texas thicket with their eight feet plus horn spred while we couldn't. He said the horns are almost like fingers are to us in that the steer is always aware of exactly where the tips of the horn are in relationsihip to their surroundings.

I believed him when I noticed two yahoos messing with the steer in it's stall. The steer just stood there ignoring them as they hooted and called at it. Then one of them grasped a vertical bar in the front grill of the stall. Steer twitched his head. There was a loud crashing sound as the tip of the horn slapped the upright where a millisecond before had been a hand. The hecklers left pretty well shook up. Steer acted like he'd slapped at a fly.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Well it looks like we're off for another adventure. It's time to implement the no-plan plan entryway for Texas Don and Karen.

We've got the images islolated and I've printed them off on clear plastic for using in the overhead projecture. The trailer is ready and I've got almost all of the stuff we're bringing down to Lee county loaded either on the truck or the trailer.

Last night as I rolled a couple of rings a smile came to my face. I felt like Bernice, wondering where Mikim is when you really need him. We haven't settled on a design yet, the reason for the no-plan plan label, so I rolled two pieces of one and a half inch channel flange out into circles. One of them is probably a three and a half foot diameter and the other's is probably closer to five foot across. But if we decide we need either a wheel or a circle in the design we'll have something to work with.

This morning I've got to go by Pearson Stone to pick up some rocks. Then I'll re-line the small forge. I'm taking the forge, the anvil, anvil stand, some hammers etc, in case we decide we need some metal worked hot for the design.

Already in the garage portion of the Patio Hauler is the gate operator and all of the other stuff like key pads, free exit coils, etc and so on. We're hoping to hook up with Bobby along the way. I sent him a p.m. alerting him to us probably pulling out of Josephine sometime around noon.