Joel's garage build / organization

[Cobranut]

Honestly Joel, given that the anchors torqued to spec, I think I'd keep it installed as is, regularly retorque the anchors and check for new cracks, and done. Get new cracks or anchors won't hold torque, deal with it then.

I also live in earthquake country, and I make sure that any car I leave on my lift overnight, I lower it down until it barely clears the floor. That way if a quake happens, not so much mass moving up high to overstress the anchors, and if it falls off, it can't go far. I got a little lax on doing this, then we had a decent quake, at night, a couple weeks ago! Didn't have anything on the lift, but reminded me what to do.

I only recall two earthquakes here in my lifetime, and both were barely enough to feel.
About 20 years ago we had a rare tornado come through our area.
There were overturned cars on the Ford dealer's lot, and several buildings were damaged or destroyed.
There was a small cinder-block auto shop in town, that had a car on its lift, full up.
The tornado leveled the building, but left the car sitting on the lift like nothing happened, though I'm sure it was beat to heck from debris. 

[cholmes]

That's impressive about the lift in the tornado. I've lived here about 30 years, been through 3 quakes that shook enough that buildings shook and rattled pretty loud, and a half dozen that could be readily felt. It's enough of a risk that I carry quake insurance on my place at about $200 / year.

I'm probably over paranoid about lowering the lift at night, but it only takes a minute.

[wickedrx7]

Side note, this did remind me to check the torque on mine and I was surprised to find 3 out of 12 were somewhat loose. Not scary loose but definitely not torqued anymore.

It has probably been 4-5 months since I last checked.  All the other times I checked they were tight.... maybe temperature changes over the winter...

[digitalsolo]

I should recheck my torque.   I have a slab just over 4” thick and I think I have the same anchors.    I’ve only lifted stuff under 4K lbs but I’ve had zero issues and all the anchors were tight a few months back.     I haven’t died at all so far.

[Cobranut]

Years ago I had my Dad's (currently mine) 7,000+ pound Superduty 4x4 on the lift.  Had to use the truck adapters to get to the frame, due to the step bars on the sides.
It had had a leaky o-ring that leaked diesel, which had wetted the left frame rail, and I had neglected to make sure the ratchet was locked to keep the lift arm stationary.
I was standing under it when the pad slipped out from under the frame and dropped the left step bar onto the arm.
I DOVE out from under it, and jumped up to see what the hell happened. (Then went to change my pants.) 
Surprisingly, the step bar held the truck, with only a slight bend and dent on the bottom.  Ford's steps are meant to be used. LOL

Just one more thing I check now before getting under anything on the lift.

[digitalsolo]

Yeah, I trust mine but I still stay well clear during lift and lower and do a shake test before I step under it.

I use screw jacks to stabilize things if I’m going to be yanking hard on stuff as well.

[wickedrx7]

If you search “lift failures”, almost all are related to large trucks or vans, improper lift point placement or large weight in the back that wasn’t taken into account when setting lift points.

On a more positive note, having a lift is truly game changing IMO.

[Cobranut]

There are definitely risks with a lift, but I believe the risks of working under a car on jack stands is even higher, especially when you consider back injuries from bending and crawling.
Not all injuries are related to dropping the vehicle.

[frijolee]

Still thinking about the lift, but given it took torque properly, I’m probably going to try some math based on pullout specs for the anchors and see how much factor of safety is built in.

In the meantime, another point of debate for the crew.  I have this nice unoccupied corner of my shop that now forms a triangular shape since the lift is on a diagonal.  I want to put the sand blast cabinet and parts washer there. 

I already put in some work to make it happen.  The parts washer was gross, so I cleaned the heck out of it.  Scrapped off nearly an inch of sludge from the inside since I had it 95% emptied for transport already.




I also slightly cut down the legs on the washer and put the blast cabinet on riser blocks so that the two wouldn’t fight over the space and both doors open nicely.








I like the orientation of these pieces for usability.  It’s nice that I have a close run to the compressor in the corner (not plumbed yet, but it’s coming).

Fits bitchin.  Good right?

Maybe, maybe not.

I’ve been putting some thought into electro static discharge (ESD).  Having a device that’s known for producing static in relatively close proximity to solvent seems a little dangerous.

I did a check and was able to verify that yes, my solvent is flammable, but not highly so.  A bit of paper towel soaked in it will burn vigorously, but it took a second to get going (didn’t pop to life as it were).  Seems to behave more like diesel than gasoline if that makes sense.




It also didn’t relight when I blew it out despite some embers sitting there smoldering.




Further, I wasn’t able to light it all without the paper towel to act as a wick.  Direct flame over a cap full does nothing.  Nor could I light the solvent itself on a flat surface.






The ESD I’m thinking about is just a small static shock.  I can’t really see it lighting up solvent next door, if I couldn’t get it to go with a direct flame, but I’m still being careful.

I could just ditch the free solvent for a non-flammable version.  Still 15 gallons of solvent could easily be $300+ and I only paid $200 for the washer w/ solvent included ($1200 new so feeling good either way).  I’d really rather not move them as I like them where they are, but hell…  if you do somehow manage to light off 15 gallons of any flammable liquid you’re gonna have a bad day.

Any benefits to figuring out how to ground the bodies on both devices?

Anyways, commentary helps in making calls so I thought I’d put it out there.  I’m looking forward to the blast cabinet given how easily raw materials get rusty around here.  Almost done with setup and itching to get back to the Cruiser.

[digitalsolo]

Is there any reason NOT to ground the two chassis?   Can't you just run them to a ground lead on an outlet?

[wickedrx7]

I’m with Blake... couldn’t you just run a ground strap the the conduit?

[Cobranut]

ICK!!!  I first saw that pic and jumped to a smelly conclusion. 

A small wire under a screw, attached to your conduit should take care of static buildup.
I put my blast cabinet on a piece of plywood, and added casters.  I need to make up a ground cable with a clip lead so I can ground it when I use it, as the thing shocks me repeatedly. LOL

I wouldn't worry too much about ignition of the solvent.
Keep the lid closed on the washer when using the blast cabinet, and it'll be fine.

I use kerosene in my washer, and keep the lid closed and the pump unplugged when not in use.
It has a thermal fuse on the lid, so if it ignites when open it drops the lid and smothers the fire.

[frijolee]

Hi y’all,

Figured I should catch up on this one... A lot of the time since I last posted has been about figuring out the rhythms of life and maintenance in Hawaii. There’s a lot of less glamorous stuff in the past 16 months but it’s been fun to flip back through a stack of photos so there are some stories to tell.

In terms of making the shop useable one of the first steps was trying to keep the dust out.

This was an extreme case but we had a bigger than normal wind storm, no rain, and the neighbor had just finished plowing their fields. It was gnarly.




Plenty of dust was getting past the roll up door and under the eaves.




My younger daughter has no fear of heights so we got up on the roof and jammed a bunch of foam in holes.






Foam is some kind of closed cell that was donated by the packing materials from a mini wine fridge that I added in the kitchen place of a old trash compactor. Thank you Home Depot and Happy Birthday to Mrs. Frijolee.




Living on the “green side” (aka wet) part of the island we’ve been learning more than our fair share about rust and mold.

The pressure washer I bought to handle muddy jeeps gets a workout on walls and roofs periodically.










The roof of the shipping container outside the shop needed some serious love. Chipped everything loose that would come. Hosed down the remainder n white vinegar to convert as much rust as I could, wire wheeled, then got some paint on it.
















I want to make a sloping cover out of metal roof panels for this to keep the rain off in the first place but haven’t gotten there yet.

We do love it out here. This picture was taken less than a mile from our house.  It’s so gorgeous, it’s kinda ridiculous sometimes.




Anyways, I do have a bunch of stories and I’ve been making some fun stuff here and there so I’ll try to be more intentional about getting pics up at more regular frequencies.
-Joel

[digitalsolo]

That view is epic!

[frijolee]

That view is epic!

Visitors welcome!   

BTW If I tried to seal this up all the way I'd run a dehumidifier.  I'm definitely thinking about that as the shop probably trend between 70-80% humidity most of the time.  A sunny day can drop to 60%, a misty evening creeps north of 90%...   For now, we're breezy enough that there seems to be an excess of shop "breathing" going on, at the moment.  My compromise was that I blocked off both windward eaves and both sides of the ridge (started with one and still had too much dust so did the second side).  Since I'm dealing with trade winds the direction is pretty consistent so this seems to get some air circulation while the dust is greatly reduced.

Rollup Brush Seal

The other key piece in keeping the dust out trying to seal the windward rollup door.  Got turned onto the idea by a thread at garage journal.

I bought piece parts here.  https://jacorinc.com/heavy-duty-brush-seals/ 
They do offer kit versions as well.  https://jacorinc.com/brush-seal-kits/ 

My larger rollup is an 8x 16 so I got 4x of their 3” heavy duty brushes in 8’ lengths to match.  The sides use a 45 degree mount for easier motion while the top is straight since it needs to bend both ways.  In talking to Jacor, a longer brush tends to be recommended since they require less deflection during use and so tend to last longer.  Heavy duty just means an increased brush fiber count.

Measuring sides and top is straightforward.




Downside is that I really wanted a 2.5” for the top and these mostly come in inch increments.  I figured I could solve that so I went ahead and ordered the 3” all around.  It turned out to be a bit harder to trim than I imagined.

The issue with trimming these brushes is that the fibers are pretty stiff (far stiffer than cutting hair for instance) yet are slippery enough that the want to slide away from scissors and the like.

I ended up clamping the brush between 2x4s and tried to go after it with hair clippers.




It kinda worked but the hair clippers weren’t strong enough, so it was damn slow going.




What else we got around here? 

Hedge trimmers?  Nah, that just mangles things and doesn’t cut tidy enough.




Tried a couple kinds of scissors and shears.  I thought the Cutco scissors might do it (they cut pennies after all), but eventually tin snips were the best I could do.  Still took something like 3 hours and I ended up with some sore forearms from the effort.




Anyways, once that was sorted, install is just sheetmetal screws and it turned out good.  A year later they’re not quite a pretty (mostly dirty, form factor is holding up) but they still work great and dust intrusion is notable reduced.







I haven’t done the opposite side 8x8’ rollup door yet but I’m thinking about it.  I’m still trying to balance how much air flow the space needs to dry out when it can.

While I was at it, I also did the two garage doors—all facing windward--with the PVC flapper seal stuff at top and sides.  https://www.homedepot.com/p/ProSeal-36-ft-Garage-Door-Top-and-Side-Seal-58036/202543133
 Not finding pictures but this kind of seal is readily available so I don’t figure anyone really needs to see that.

-Joel