Glenn's Underground Cabin Update

[glenn kangiser]

There is no place to hide.....

Alaska or China are only split seconds away on the net.  Getting rid of the electronics may cure that but.....

If driving ...take an old car while you still can.  They are working on getting the new ones to rat you out too. [ouch]

[ben2go]

Yep.That's why I own older vehicles.They can't tell on me.I also do my own work on them, that way the stealerships can't down load the info from my cars computer, and rat me out to the gooberment.

[glenn kangiser]

Sounds like a good plan, Ben.  I think I too, will keep downgrading my vehicles...like my beat up old jeep, but everyone who rides in it thinks its pretty cool.  It is older than most of the International students so they think it is an antique..... wonder what that makes me....

Wouldn't you know it... just when I thought I was going to get home for the weekend I got asked to work Saturday too.....Better than no work, but once again their shop is slowing down I hear.  Some of the other contractors say their work is picking up a bit though.

[glenn kangiser]

Well... my delivery guy yesterday said there are more things in the works at the shop so maybe things are looking up a bit.

Got home last night about 7 or so after being caught along the road by a couple of friends.  This morning and tomorrow appear to be rather blustery days so pix today are not great.   Tut tut...looks like rain......



Sassy has been working in the garden some lately and I need to get after planting more plants.  Got to send off for my check first though then tomorrow it is back to Metropolis to solve more problems.



Moved this end of the whole upper roof assembly over 4 inches on the new Los Gatos Safeway due to a fabrication error at the shop.  Problem was that the 2x12 steel joists were already put on and the pins may pop out of the steel with a lot of violent movement or major back charges would be incurred if everyone had to take their work apart for the repairs to be made.  Fortunately I was able to figure out a way to do it all at once and move it without damaging anything.  It's about 24 feet up to the bottom of the posts.



The darker gray areas are where I had to move over all of the web stiffeners, burn and ream new holes and touch up the primer.  So... that is my real job...

The potatoes I planted a few weeks back are growing like crazy.  I amended the soil with composted manure, EM and composted wood chips.  This year I will make an extra effort to keep the gophers out of them....



The roof, poppies and roses are in bloom... not as pretty on a blustery day though...






and... finally it looks like I may get to eat Rhubarb pie this year.  The cows have made the Rhubarb plants happy with their fine fertilizer.

[glenn kangiser]

Got out and watered a few things today and checked the hugelkultur bed - the last one... potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes are growing pretty well now but the things that are sprouting from seed and were looking well a few days ago are now clipped off by quail. 

I understand that with them being so small many hunters just eat the breast, eh?.... Well, I'm about ready. 

I think I will concentrate on the hydroponics and drip to the existing stuff first this year then slowly expand as things warm up.

The trees are getting decent fruit though the Apricot blooms seem to have mostly froze during the snow.

Here is a shot of the 4 in 1 Pluot.  It is doing well as are many of the other trees that bloomed a bit later.



Off to the bay again tomorrow.... Sassy gets to hold down the Command Center... ;;.

[glenn kangiser]

Working out of town, and I'm in an upper class neighborhood...... Imagine that.... me with class.... [ouch]

So rather than a Fast Food lunch I had their version of fast food...actually is pretty fast too.... a Burger with cheddar and caramelized onions, and a strawberry and cream crepe, which is a crepe filled with fresh strawberries and sprinkled with powdered sugar with a side of whipped cream cheese.... pretty good for being about 200 feet from the job.

Had to send a pix from my cell phone to my Photobucket account  - see if it was working...



Had to pick up some equipment and tools for big brace repairs so will be off early in the morning again....  [ouch]

[John Raabe]

Bon Appetite Workers of the World!

[glenn kangiser]

It's a nice break from McDonalds.... I won't eat their hamburgers anymore.  

Yesterday I was just about to order a Hamburger when I saw the Crab Benedict Crepe listed as a special...... and The Parisian Lemon Crepe for desert......

I deviated from the original plan.



Today I will do a few more fixes then likely return for the 4 big ones due to a concrete pour.  Things don't get better with time on these jobs as delays just bury problems deeper.  They should have called me on this one a couple weeks ago I think but now I have to keep pushing to get answers from the engineer in time - things like the new fix requiring a thick shim plate making the anchor bolts too short - so he will allow us to drop a plate washer that is normally required ... troubleshooting is always so much fun.....

[ben2go]

Looks good.I don't blame you on avoiding MacDoodles food.It sends me to the office every time I eat it.LOL

[glenn kangiser]

Funny you should mention that, Ben...

I often work with Mexicans on the jobs I am on, so I speak a bit of Spanish to them.  They always get a kick out of it when I tell them  "Yo voy a la officina azul...."  


Many of them now call it that too, or "Yo voy a la officina..."


Guess  I'm, a bad influence no matter what language, eh?...

Wonder what Little Johnny has to say about it?

[glenn kangiser]

Note... the blue office... a blue plastic outhouse where the important jobsite work takes place.

[ben2go]

Note... the blue office... a blue plastic outhouse where the important jobsite work takes place.

Where ever the urge to think hits.LOL

[glenn kangiser]

I like to think of myself as.... The Thinker.......



But others may not see the resemblance.......

Not going be home for a bit so all I can show you is what I am doing..... making a Store such as this, there are thousands of parts.  An architect may design it, and engineer says, OK, here is what it takes to hold it up.... A steel company may bid on it then if their bid is right they get the job and send it to a detailer who draws up each piece - lengths, parts, connection methods, etc. then it goes back to the engineer to review.  If he says OK, then it is sent to the shop to fabricate.

Bids are taken on erecting the parts.  I used to do the complete job but as bid prices dropped I decided it was no fun to work for less than cost, so now I am just on call to repair major problems and do smaller jobs as needed.  There is still enough of that along with what I can pick up locally to keep me happy.  I still get my price but don't have to do the large amounts of repetitive labor that about any steel company can do.

Aside from many small fixes there is a major one here.  We worked back and forth with the engineer until an acceptable solution was found.  The problem was that while things were being made some wanted to change a dimension by an inch and a half, and the anchor bolts were too low to raise the column.

The engineer came up with adding a shim plate 1 1/2 inches thick and I felt this was the best option so the company dropped a harder alternative and sent me the repair plates.  They pretty well rely on my judgement to do whatever needs to be done.  The inspector brought up the anchor bolt shortness problem so I stopped the repair until I had the paper in my hand saying exactly what they wanted done.  It will not come out of my pocket that way if it is wrong.  CYA, eh?

Since the building was already most of the way assembled it required grabbing the column with the crane and a forklift and pulling it up raising the roof  also, high enough to work under for the repairs.




The new inch and a half thick plates were slipped in place under the old existing plate and I cut out the old existing plate to miss the nuts on the new thicker plate.  The engineer also dropped the plate washer to allow for the thicker plate remedying part of the short bolt problem.



I think I may have exceeded the fiberstress rating of the wood... I needed a safety stop to keep from smashing my little pinkies under the building weight on the column.

I then used my crane to set the building back down on the new plate and welded it all around and the 1 inch holes will be plug welded after the inspector checks to see that the holes are big enough.



Soooo ... that was my fun day at my regular job...

[Ernest T. Bass]

Cool stuff--thanks for sharing, Glenn! I can't help but study/marvel at the steel network above whenever it's exposed in a larger building.. Interesting how the whole process works.

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks Andrew.... I have been thinking on how people will become a part of the giant fixed machine's function.  Even now we are all catering to it's needs....fixing its legs... fastening up its various parts.  

Once it is open, a network of truck drivers will begin to bring its goods, an group of machine slaves will begin showing up to work at specified times stocking its shelves...soon it will be ready for others to man its registers tallying up the profits for the corporate machine that owns it..... yes - we are all slaves to the system -- little robots performing our duties day in and day out until we cease to function, eh?  

I'm so weird.....

Guess I better stay out of the blue office........ [ouch]

[ben2go]

  Great thinkers we are. 


That was some skilled thinking to come up with that work around. 

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks, Ben.  The engineer actually came up with the fix and he wanted to be patted on the back for it when he came to the jobsite yesterday.  Only thing about that is that everyone else thought it would be nearly impossible to do.  I agreed with him because I thought it was the best idea.  The inspector looked at me and said.... Good Luck...... The company/shop didn't question me as I am their eyes in the field and they just trust me to do the best thing so they dropped other solutions.  The other solution was to extend all of the bolts - 1 1/2" high strength material with full penetration welds - 24 of them and all had to be perfect but doing that standing on my head in a hole under a steel column was not my idea of fun.  I estimate it would have taken 4 times longer and there were still lots of issues like pull testing and fitting the welds through the holes - no threads at the weld - etc.

I did put the engineers fix on hold until he told me what he wanted done with the nuts.  If I did it as originally drawn then the inspector would have rejected it and rightly so as it was not possible to get full threads in the nut... then the engineer said he wanted two threads above the nut.  The inspector told me that was BS and he and I both knew it.  I agreed with him as extra threads do nothing.  I had his two threads on the one he saw on his surprise inspection though and nearly all of the rest except the last column was a fight to get a half a thread extra on several of them.

The foreman was way surprised and thought it would take longer than it did to do the first one.  I kind of was a bit surprised myself, that I got it done so fast, although it is quite common for me to underestimate my skills.   I am often much better than I think I am... but then again, that's not really surprising.....  

Have I patted myself on the back enough yet?

Finished the fourth one tonight.... only broke one 3 inch cast iron pipe when the leg shifted under great pressure as I was lifting it.  I told the plumber and he said since I told him about it he wasn't going to back charge me for it.  Otherwise he would have been really ticked off.  Lifting the whole roof section there is likely over 10000 lbs just on the one leg.  Taking out a bunch of the bolts in the beams in the right places so they can scissor open, relieves a lot of the resistance from the rest of the building.  The other crew was really surprised I could even do it.  Got a few more pics for later ... need to upload them yet.  A lesson if I get it loaded.

[PEG688]

Nice job Glenn!!

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks PEG.  I like to get out there and do this kind of stuff...a challenge and it pays decent.

Here is a video with a lot of background noise from the job.  In it I show how to burn a hole through 1 inch plate without ruining your cutting tip... warning - jobsite noise is pretty bad on this one.  Feel free to ask questions if you can't hear or don't want to hear the noise... gotta go - inspector is on the way.

Thanks to old dead friends for teaching me to do this forty years ago.

[ben2go]

Awesome cutting.I don't think I have ever cut anything thicker than half inch.How thick is that bottom plate?Those are some pretty massive holes.Would a plasma cutter burn through something that thick?

[Ernest T. Bass]

Cool Glenn, you're my hero!

I actually have quite a few heroes on this board...

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks, Andrew and Ben.  Indiana John is my hero....

I was trying to think what could be of use here on the forum since I was stuck away from home and that is one thing I came up with.  Sorry about the sound quality... to much noise on the jobsite.

Going over useful points kind of in order...

1.  Keep the tip clean, especially the center oxygen hole.  That is what determines the straightness of the cut.  Any speck of slag, dirt etc. will deflect the oxygen making it cut in places you don't want cut or making a wide slobbery cut with way more slag than you want and it may flare over into an area you don't want damaged.  Tip cleaners are cheap so use them before each cut or any time the kerf is much wider than the center hole of the torch.  There are tables telling proper tip sizes and gas settings but a small tip will cut way more than rated at if kept clean.  The tip I was using was one of the smaller ones and I could probably cut through 3 or 4 inch thick plate with little problem.  It was an 0-3-101 .

2.  Get your area of swing clear - go through the motions to be sure your hose or something else will not bind you.  If freehand cutting try to keep your second hand free to go through the full range of motion as needed also.  You can use a plate or bar of steel for a straight edge if cutting straight lines.  That is what I did on these channels the shop missed coping the ends on.  




It looks close to a machine cut if the tip is clean and you are smooth about it.

3.  When piercing as in this video, get the center molten then lift the torch up to a quarter inch or so.  With a clean tip the cut will still be good.  As the molten metal begins to bubble up toward the tip, lift it a bit higher to keep the molten metal from contacting the tip, but at the same time begin moving and the metal will shoot back away from the tip but the oxygen will rapidly move down through the plate and pierce it.  Keeping one finger under the oxygen lever will allow closer regulation of the pressure on touchy cuts

Once there is a hole then cutting becomes much easier.  Start the piercing in a bit from the edge - toward the center in the waste area, so that when you are making the cut you want to use it will be clean and straight.  If you get slag on the tip and it is a critical cut, stop, turn the torch off and clean it then resume cutting.

4.  Cutting thin material, aiming the tip slightly off of parallel but into the metal such as tin or 1/8 inch stock, will allow a very long clean cut to be made - such as cutting a NON-FLAMMABLE barrel or one that has been properly purged.

5.  The holes I cut were about 1 inch and an eighth - or just over the engineers spec and all were a pretty snug fit on the one inch rebar handle of my chipping hammer.  The inspector required straight sides.  All 16 holes passed inspection.

The plate I was cutting was 1 inch thick x 20 x 22.  The shim plate I welded to down in the hole was 1 1/2" x 22 x 24 giving me an inch to weld to all around.  I had to make a 5/16 weld but since it was in a hole the inspector wanted 2 passes so it turned out more like 3/8.  There was around 32 hours in repairing the 4 legs plus or minus.  The big holes had to slip over the nuts on the bottom plate and the inspector didn't want them too much oversize either.  They were about 2 1/2 inches marked off using the bottom of a spray paint can as a template.

Bars or pipes can be used to move heavy objects across the floor - bigger roll easier - small is fine on clean concrete.  Objects weighing thousands of lbs can be moved this way.  On heavier or longer ones I use more rollers to keep it from tipping down on the end.  Rollers are passed from back to front - recycled as they roll out.  Keep them aligned straight unless you want to change direction.



Here is a plate I had to move over due to two plates interfering in the concrete wall. I drew up and suggested a fix..the engineer authorized me to proceed per my fix RFI.   I cut straight into the weld angling forward a bit and aiming toward the unwelded center 3/8 inch area.  Triggering the torch as mentioned above it is possible to go through the weld but not cut through the base plate.  I had a little bit of gouge but welded it to repair it.  The inspector was not concerned about the weld left on the plate center.  He was a good inspector with real common sense.  Rather rare these days.

[glenn kangiser]

Ben, Sorry I forgot to answer about the plasma cutter.... It is possible for a plasma cutter to do plates this thick but the power requirements get to be gigantic.

I have had several and still have 2 of them I think though I don't use them.  Thinking about setting one up again.  Its all a 10,000 watt generator will do to keep up with the big one doing about 3/4 inch as I recall.  That is why I haven't used one since we have been at the cabin, though now I have a good enough generator and may be able to use the smaller one on the solar power for shorter periods of time.

Plasma torches are very finicky - very clean tips needed - no spatter in them or similar problems with wide spread cut and loss of depth - like the Oxyacetylene torch has.  Also ...any moisture in the air can cause an internal short circuit ruining the tip the first time you use it.... there goes another wad of bills for new parts. - electrodes - tips etc.   Don't ask me how I know....

http://www.millerwelds.com/resources/faq/plasma/plasmapowerreq.html

[ben2go]

Ben, Sorry I forgot to answer about the plasma cutter.... It is possible for a plasma cutter to do plates this thick but the power requirements get to be gigantic.

I have had several and still have 2 of them I think though I don't use them.  Thinking about setting one up again.  Its all a 10,000 watt generator will do to keep up with the big one doing about 3/4 inch as I recall.  That is why I haven't used one since we have been at the cabin, though now I have a good enough generator and may be able to use the smaller one on the solar power for shorter periods of time.

Plasma torches are very finicky - very clean tips needed - no spatter in them or similar problems with wide spread cut and loss of depth - like the Oxyacetylene torch has.  Also ...any moisture in the air can cause an internal short circuit ruining the tip the first time you use it.... there goes another wad of bills for new parts. - electrodes - tips etc.   Don't ask me how I know....

http://www.millerwelds.com/resources/faq/plasma/plasmapowerreq.html

WOW!I've used plasma cutters before but didn't realize their power requirements.

I just caught your video of the job site walk through. I noticed you called old blue the blue office.I thought only us in the south east called a jiffy john an office.It's were all the great solutions to problems are thought out.  


Ok,I'll stop with the potty mouth. 

[glenn kangiser]

Aw, come on, Ben.  All the Mexican guys think I'm crazy because I call it la officina azul so they call it that now too. 

Yup - it takes lots of power and dry air to force that jet of 10000 degree fire through that opening to burn away whatever is in front of it and the thicker you want to burn the more power it takes. 

Plasma torches are great for lots of things and save on oxy-acetylene if you have plenty of power.  They do a great job on cutting sheet metal openings with very little damage to paint and they are so hot and fast you can almost touch thin metal immediately when you cut with them. 

I did all of the openings on a mini-storage with one years ago.  If there is even small trim it will cover the plasma cut paint.

So - I finished the big repairs on my job and now have a whole set of new problems there to deal with - a line of beams the detailer didn't figure right - hips and valleys don't meet.  I will have to try to figure out a way to save the existing beams and still come up with a satisfactory fix before I get to go home......