Took the first step towards building my shop

[Frank S]

Nice to work somewhere that you don't have to worry about frozen ground over the winter moving things around for you.

That's true however all of the columns and posts are in the ground between 5 to 8 feet with truck rims welded to the bottoms.
I've had to design structures around swamp muck saltwater infusion from Oceans as far as 30 miles inland, seasonal soil heaving due to high annual rain fall and long dry spells on gumbo clays, Shifting dunes, fluid rock, and bed rock,and annual frost heaving, but never actual permafrost.
I placed the large diameter rims under the columns to serve as footings and wanted them deep enough to not be effected by any movement of the sandy loam soil above in most cases I was able to excavate through the layer of red clay into a harder bluish white layer below.

[mwmkravchenko]

That's true however all of the columns and posts are in the ground between 5 to 8 feet with truck rims welded to the bottoms.
I've had to design structures around swamp muck saltwater infusion from Oceans as far as 30 miles inland, seasonal soil heaving due to high annual rain fall and long dry spells on gumbo clays, Shifting dunes, fluid rock, and bed rock,and annual frost heaving, but never actual permafrost.
I placed the large diameter rims under the columns to serve as footings and wanted them deep enough to not be effected by any movement of the sandy loam soil above in most cases I was able to excavate through the layer of red clay into a harder bluish white layer below.

Well at 5 feet down you are safe for the area where I live near Ottawa Ontario. Where I grew up that would have to be a 8 foot depth. Fun and games everywhere I see!

[Frank S]

Well at 5 feet down you are safe for the area where I live near Ottawa Ontario. Where I grew up that would have to be a 8 foot depth. Fun and games everywhere I see!

I excavated rather than simply bore and fill with concrete or do a perimeter beam of concrete and slab floor before starting the project for several reasons with the main one being funds. Sure I probably could have sought financing which would have meant putting the place itself up as security. there is no mortgage so that would have meat literally that a huge portion of my monthly retirement income would have gone to pay for the shop. I was not willing to do that just so I could have a shop plus I would have had to down size my expectations by a huge factor and on top of that a lending institution would have demanded things I was not willing ot provide as well.
I could have just done large footings and anchored the columns to the concrete footers by using a cubic yard or more at each column by tapping into our savings and paying for them as I went but why spend money when there is an alternative that works just as well. That money can go on earning some interest and still be there to either borrow against or use in case of an emergency.

[mwmkravchenko]

I excavated rather than simply bore and fill with concrete or do a perimeter beam of concrete and slab floor before starting the project for several reasons with the main one being funds. Sure I probably could have sought financing which would have meant putting the place itself up as security. there is no mortgage so that would have meat literally that a huge portion of my monthly retirement income would have gone to pay for the shop. I was not willing to do that just so I could have a shop plus I would have had to down size my expectations by a huge factor and on top of that a lending institution would have demanded things I was not willing ot provide as well.
I could have just done large footings and anchored the columns to the concrete footers by using a cubic yard or more at each column by tapping into our savings and paying for them as I went but why spend money when there is an alternative that works just as well. That money can go on earning some interest and still be there to either borrow against or use in case of an emergency.

I'm agreeing with you completely.

[Frank S]

It doesn't matter if you have no walls no doors and no floor as long as you have a roof overhead and a little bit of light so one can be brought in on a hook at midnight it is a shop
This is the power of just 2 100 watt UFO high bay LED fixtures

[Frank S]

Since I had used up the last good lengths of the 4" sq tubing that I had I needed to come up with something for the stair stringers I have a good supply for now of angle iron to make the risers and tread supports out of. I do have a couple sticks of 4x4x3/8" tubing but I have other plans for it and didn't want to cut it up. This was when I thought of the side rails of the upper deck I removed from a trailer to use the frame portion as the base of my brick crane.
I had saved the rails thinking I would come up with a great application for them someday
It looks like I found it

[Toolmaker51]

snipped;

This was when I thought of the side rails of the upper deck I removed from a trailer to use the frame portion as the base of my brick crane.
I had saved the rails thinking I would come up with a great application for them someday
It looks like I found it

Yessir, it ain't scrap until you can't hold onto it, for making into something else. Been doing so a long time; way before it went mainstream.

[Frank S]

Update on the truck. Bob had called me and told me that his truck had suddenly lost power and started knocking, so I told him to put it on a hook because obviously running it was going to cause more damage.
This morning I got a little better story about what had happened he as driving along and suddenly the truck started puffing white smoke then lost power running like it only had 5 cylinders then it made a few knocking sounds but not regular just once in a while he had to drive it about 3 miles to get to a safe place to park then called me. I said OK start it up because any damage done is already done anyway. as soon as it started up the cloud of white smoke filled the shop and that is hard to do in a shop that is basically just a roof with a couple of trailers and containers along the sides, but I didn't her any knocking;
SO I began pulling the top end apart once I had torn in deep enough to get to the injector nozzles I started pulling the caps and nozzles out when I got to #5 I found half the tip was missing, so more parts needed to be removed to pull the head. No damage to the head or top of the piston a couple tiny nicks in the crown nothing to write home about though. and in the combustion cavity I found 5 or 6 small pieces of the tip ranging in size from a mustard seed to a bell pepper seed. I couldn't resist the size comparison detail, No wall damage to the liner so now if the parts get here early enough tomorrow maybe I'll have it running tomorrow night.

[Crusty]

My daddy said "Son, you're gonna drive me to drinkin' if ya don't stop buzzin' that Tombstone Lincoln".

[Frank S]

My daddy said "Son, you're gonna drive me to drinkin' if ya don't stop buzzin' that Tombstone Lincoln".

Crusty I'm pretty sure this is the same Lincoln welder I found in a trash pile some 20 years ago Since I didn't have any need for it I gave it to my bud before leaving for Kuwait I don't remember if I ever hooked it up to see if it worked or not but after returning from Kuwait I eventually tore down his shop that had collapsed under the rubble was this machine he says he doesn't remember ever using it and had forgotten even having the thing, it was buried in a pile of stuff he had hauled from my old shop so that alone makes me suspect it is the same machine. After I hauled stuff out here I had just left it tossed in another pile until maybe last year or the year before when I discovered it again and decided just for giggles and grins to see if it still worked I opened it up and blew out years of accumulated dust dirt mud daubers nest and oiled the cooling fan.
As you can see it still works. I have had thoughts of adding a rectifier and choke along with a fine adjustment variac like what is in a round top AC/DC machine but then I think why bother I have a 300 amp Airco DC machine it is just still packed away