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Post by L Driggers (fallen) on Feb 26, 2016 4:22:34 GMT
Really like how you have the 4 bay roll up doors, plenty venting during the summer. Als will be able to get smoke out fast.
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Post by brotherbanzai on Feb 26, 2016 13:10:31 GMT
Hey Sean, the Ga renfaire would be the perfect time to come by and it's practically right around the corner from us. Don't know yet if Kristin and I are going, but the timing will be good. Here are the target stands I made - The bottom front piece is bolted on to allow the uprights to be adjusted to fit whatever size cardboard piece I have lying around or to be replaced if they get shot up. The backstop to the "range" is the natural hill, so that's already in place. I was going to put up a pole barn or carport as well as a 20' shipping container back there and possibly a RR tie wall on one side to complete the range, but none of that is really needed to start using the area. I'm super busy from now through the end of March getting stuff together and trying to get the deck built in time for the wedding (which is supposed to take place on the deck in about 2 1/2 weeks). Hey you should come by to help me pour the footings :D It will be super easy, see I already dug all the holes and covered them to protect them from all that rain we got... See, look, all we have to do now is ohhhh... Nevermind. Hey L Driggers, it actually only has 3 doors. I wanted the rear left corner wall to use for a table and some shelving, so there is no door there. But yeah, that's the reason I put in three, airflow and cross breeze from front to back. I think it was definitely worth the extra money to put in the rear door. I also plan on putting a small overhang (maybe 8 x 12) just outside the back door and possibly at some point a full length overhang on the front. At my old place, the sun would beat down on me through the open door and the cramped space got very hot, so I wanted shade and ventilation for this place. I can open it all up when it's hot, or close it all down when it's cold (once I get some more lights in there). Should be pretty sweet. Also, I did some more research on the Uncle Al's press. Looks pretty good. Thanks for bringing that one up. I like that it is controlled by a foot pedal. I still have to call them and see if it has a filter and a drain plug. I think I can build one of the regular style ones for $1500 or less, but I don't think I can make that style with the ram underneath but still pressing from above, really like that design. I also have to weigh out the time it will take me to source parts and put it together against just paying for an already built unit. Though I generally prefer to make stuff myself, being new to the area, I find I'm having a lot of difficulty locating the various things I need, whereas I knew how to find most anything where I used to live.
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Post by L Driggers (fallen) on Feb 26, 2016 17:26:58 GMT
If you want to built your own The Surplus Center will have everything you need. You can order everything on line through them.
From the pictures thought it had 4 doors, but 3 is just as good. I had light lights put in my shop when it was used to work on cars. Lets plenty of light in during the day. But I only have one bay door and one entry door. Gets hot in there during the summer forging have to run some big fans. If I ever do it again I will put bay doors on each end at least.
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Post by brotherbanzai on Mar 3, 2016 13:08:41 GMT
Hey L Driggers, I was thinking mainly of finding the steel needed. I don't yet know of anyplace around here to get that sort of stuff, we had an Alro Steel in my old town for anything large or small. Don't really want to pay for shipping large hunks of metal framing. Leaning a bit more toward buying one already built at this point. Plenty of light in your shop is a good thing. Couldn't you just put in some bracing, cut a new opening, and add in another door? I think the roll up doors themselves are only a couple hundred dollars. Hey, anyone want to see the deck build in progress? No, well here it is anyway... After bailing out the holes, I found that there was only about 1/4 -1/2 inch of mud in the bottom. Guess that's the good thing about Georgia clay. The picture above was about average, some were completely full to the brim and a couple were actually empty. So I shoveled out what little mud there was and proceeded to pour the concrete. This was a fairly miserable couple of days. The wheelbarrow became quickly difficult to push uphill in the mud loaded with an 80 pound bag of concrete. As a side note to anyone planning on hand mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow - two 80lb bags is too much to mix at once, trust me on this. The code requires 20 inch diameter holes, which is what I dug out. But it also allows for a smaller diameter section up top. My neighbor happened to have a 14" diameter form tube laying out in his woods so I got that from him and cut it down into 5" long sections. I poured the concrete in the bare hole first, and then topped them off with the short form collars and poured in some more. This way I have the bases completely off the ground instead of at the same level. Each footing has a 6" x 1/2" hot dipped galvanized L bolt embedded in it. (Ran out of forms before I ran out of holes, which is why there are two square ones. Those are at the highest points which are the two hole that didn't have water in them.) A couple days later, the wood for the deck arrived. Everything except the special "rated for ground contact" 2x10x10s and 2x10x8s. Which was kind of a bummer since almost everything goes on top of those. Rather than just wait around, I went ahead and cut and placed the 6x6 posts which will hold the 2x10 beams up. That's all for now.
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Post by brotherbanzai on Mar 20, 2016 14:47:32 GMT
Got a couple new cheap shop tools in - Drill press and sand blast cabinet. The cabinet is the cheapest thing I could find that was the right size. I already have a good gun, foot pedal, and gloves, so the cabinet itself really just needs to be a box with a door and a view window. No real reason to get a fancy one, for me anyway. I read a lot of reviews about the various drill presses available in all sorts of price ranges, from around $100 to over $1000. This one seemed like the most "bang for buck". Fairly inexpensive but with little runout and good motor size and speed selection. I don't use a drill press a whole lot and don't need it to do anything fancy, but still wanted something that wouldn't be a pain to use (like the little harbor freight bench drill I used to have). Gave that one away to a friend when I moved as I had planned on getting a better one when I got here. Some assembly required - Wasn't hard to put together, though the head was fairly heavy to lift up and set in place. And all done - No time to put together the sand blast cabinet yet. It will have to wait until I actually need to use it.
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Post by Voltan on Mar 21, 2016 17:17:02 GMT
Congrats BrotherB, looks like one hell of a nice place you've got. Love the shop!
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Post by brotherbanzai on Mar 23, 2016 15:54:11 GMT
Thanks Voltan. The shop will slowly be growing as time allows.
Here's my favorite part -
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Mar 23, 2016 18:42:48 GMT
DAMN IT, I'M JEALOUS!!
Seriously cool, Jeff.
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on Mar 25, 2016 2:27:45 GMT
Hey Jeffrey. Thanks for pointing out this thread. I had no idea you had posted it. Very cool watching it all come together. I'm a bit jealous of your forest too, and your 'you-beaut' shed and deck work. My place is all dairy pasture so it's dead flat and grassy as hell, with very few trees, compared to my ambition. I've planted hundreds of trees for a mini forest, an orchard, lined the boundary fences etc. But it will be years before they're at proper tree size. I do like your commute video. We're so lucky! You just missed the "held up in traffic" part of the commute: where you get distracted feeding the chickens, cuddling the goat, weeding the gardens, harvesting unexpected veggies at the patch, kissing the wife, walking the dogs, tinkering with your motorbike, fixing broken fences, etc. which see you arrive at the office at 11am, or sometimes not til after lunch. Luckily I've got a cool boss - ME!! :-)
How did the wedding plans fare??? Photos if it's gone down already! Congratulations to you and K.
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Post by brotherbanzai on Mar 28, 2016 12:12:13 GMT
Thanks chenessfan :D Hey Brendan, yeah, I don't think too many people are interested in this kind of thing, but I'm enjoying it a lot and wanted to share it for anyone aiming for similar goals. Only downside to the forest is the associated ticks, hasn't been a problem yet but I'm wary. Your forest will be along before you know it, I still want to plant some fruit and nut trees and maybe a couple specimen trees as well. Also have to clear some stuff out and remove a lot of undergrowth. We are very lucky indeed. You're traffic sounds fun! Most of my distraction involves realizing I don't have some needed tool or supply because I either gave it away before I left or let it run out so I wouldn't have to move it. Then I have to hunt around on-line for a couple hours to find out where I can get it nearby or order it. Example: I wanted a new quench tank and a big metal table for the shop. At my old place, there was an Alro Metal supply in town where I could get any sort of structural steel, aluminum, whatever, to build pretty much anything. The closest place here as about 1 1/2 hours away and no idea what they actually have in stock. Then I happened to drive by a place 15 minutes from the new house and saw a bunch of metal assemble line tracks and other random stuff stacked outside and decided to stop by and see if they had anything I could use. Some kind of recycling place. Told the guy I was looking for a steel tube, round or square, 8 inches across and about 4 feet tall, and he led me to this: Exactly what I wanted! 8 inch x 8 inch and a couple inches over 4 feet tall, even already had a base welded on! One little hole about 1/3 of the way up to weld closed. I was about to order an 8" round tube online for $100 plus another $100 for shipping and would still have to weld on a bottom. This one was $15! $15! Freaking $15! Sweet! I had seen heavy duty steel tables on craigslist from time to time over the years but haven't been able to find one recently and purchasing a new one and having it shipped would have been over $1000. Finally found a big piece of 1/2" steel plate that used to be on the back of guy's trailer available for $125, so I picked that up and then got some steel frame stuff when I got the new quench tank to make the table base. So this will be my new heavy duty table, some assembly required: The three blue rack things were $10 each. They look sort of thin in the picture, but are pretty heavy duty being 1/4" thick in the center section, a little thicker in the corners, and thinning to about 3/16 at the edges. The wedding went great! We had a cookout on the big new deck the night before, then the small wedding the next day, then some shooting out on the range for the few interested guests, then off to dinner. Kristin and I both found it kind of surreal to be standing there doing the vows. Here we are with the officiant at the end of the ceremony: Here we are with the little wedding cake: And here is dinner afterwards:
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Post by brotherbanzai on Apr 1, 2016 11:54:13 GMT
Anyone still reading this? No? Ima keep postin anyway :P Here's the table frame getting started - And here is the frame all done - The little pile in the center is all that was left over. Now I can set the frame upright, and then comes the hard part; getting this 300 some odd pound piece of plate flipped over and set on top of it. Once that was accomplished, I decided to cut off all the gnarly edges. Three of the plate's edges were apparently torch cut with a dangerously serrated looking edge, so I wanted to cut that bit off so the table's sides would be more or less smooth. Here are the removed edges, took a few hours to cut all that off. And here is the finished table, yay!
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Post by chrisperoni on Apr 1, 2016 12:18:52 GMT
I'm still reading and awaiting more posts
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Apr 1, 2016 16:53:44 GMT
Hell yeah I'm reading this!
Congrats on that quenching container! You use salts to heat, right?
Oh and yeah, congrats on the wife ;)
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Post by brotherbanzai on Apr 4, 2016 14:04:03 GMT
Hi chriseroni, here ya go ;) The new table is a fantastic addition. Makes life so much easier having a large flat space, unaffected by heat or hammering, to work on. I was going to drill some holes to permanently mount at least one vice but have decided to attach the large vice with welding clamps instead, so that I can move everything around and re-configure as needed. Being able to do heat treatments inside is also a great benefit. It rained a bit while I was working this weekend and it didn't matter at all; previously I could only do heat treatments when the weather was going to be favorable all day. Had a near disaster during a recent heat treatment at the old location when a sudden downpour threatened the works. Thanks chenessfan :D She's pretty great.. the wife not the quench container, although it's pretty great too. First use of the new quench tank over the weekend, two single edged blades. I need to build a platform to stand on when moving the blades from the HT kiln to the quench, using a pair of stepladders is less than ideal. I use an electric heat treat kiln, no salts. Too much hazard and possible mess for me.
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Post by Croccifixio on Apr 5, 2016 9:09:32 GMT
I've watched all your videos Jeffrey and every time you quench, my heart stops for a second thinking you might fall down moving from ladder to ladder :P
Great set up! This means you're gonna make more stuff, which is a plus for everyone.
Also, did you know that popular youtube bladesmith Green Beetle gave you a shoutout?
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Sean (Shadowhowler)
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No matter where you go, there you are.
Posts: 8,828
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Post by Sean (Shadowhowler) on Apr 5, 2016 9:16:49 GMT
Can I come shooting and cutting yet???
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Post by brotherbanzai on Apr 5, 2016 14:17:54 GMT
Hey Croccifixio, yeah, it's not the safest setup :P Though I do prefer it to having to hold the hot blade above me. I got an email from Green Beetle a while ago, seemed like a nice fellow, though I was not familiar with him before that. He wanted to see about some sort of cross promotion of channels or something. However, I'm just not into being a youtuber that much, or monetizing or promoting or any of that stuff. Don't care or even know how many subscribers or views I have, I just put stuff up because I think there are people out there, like yourself I guess, who will find the videos interesting or informative.
Hey Sean, yep :) Most of my swords are still packed up, but it won't take but a minute to get them out. The range is usable, though getting weedy, need to purchase a lawn mower here pretty soon, or get some goats or something. Planing on putting a carport or something out on the range to be able to shoot out of the sun, but haven't had a chance to get to that yet.
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Post by bloodwraith on Apr 6, 2016 10:51:39 GMT
Reading still and looking forward to seeing what new magic you cook up in your workshop. I was looking at your web page last night and lamenting over my lack of money because your pieces are some of the best looking I've seen in my years of weaponry collecting.
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Post by brotherbanzai on Apr 14, 2016 13:16:47 GMT
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Post by brotherbanzai on May 16, 2016 12:40:26 GMT
More additions to the work space :) When they put up the shop building, they left me the pieces of wall they cut out to make the doors. I used them here to make an 8 1/2' X 12' overhang off the rear door. Then I put down some gravel and started working on the new slurry room. That's the 8' X 10' wood foundation for that little shed. Once I finish the slurry room I'll go back and do the last bit of work on the overhang.
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