Garage in northern Norway

[wazzza]

How many cranes do you need on a platform like that? 200' of boom is a lot of reach.

There are two cranes on each of the rigs, except "Delta" were there is only one. In total we have 7 deck-cranes like this. This new one is the first of its kind and is all electrical with electrical motors directly on the winches, electrical brakes and no hydraulic mess or a noisy Caterpillar diesel running in the back. It will be a whole new world for the craneoperators.

We need two cranes because that gives us more flexibilty when it comes to supplies and weather. Wich crane they use depends on weather and such... With only one crane we are in deep trouble if we get a major mechanical breakdown on it. It is very limited how heavy parts we can send with helicopter and the bridges connecting the rigs also have weight-limitations...

 

[drivesitfar]

Wazzza: I really like your work pictures you post. that crane is amazing at it's size and being electric too. how deep is the water where your platform is located? any workers ever fall in the water and did they survive the fall and cold water?

the dock in my picture is at a private home on one of the biggest lakes in our state and that little crane is for jet skis and small boats. the boat slip and dock will support a fairly large boat (yacht) for the owner of the house or guests.

this lake has access to the Pacific Ocean so if i had a nice sized boat, a suitcase full of money and the skills i could be at your work platform or home in a couple months.

 

[wazzza]

Thank you. It is not very deep here, just roughly 110 meters. Up through the years a few workers got overboard. Some have survived, but some have died. In respect to their families I dont want to get more into that case.

Sometimes we have to do work outside the guardrails and there are a lot of safetymeasures when doing such work. Wind and waveheight below a certain value, good visibilty, One deckcrane operative and ready to launch the MOB-boat (Man Over Board), a supplyvessel is standby next to the rig and offcourse personal safetygear such as harness and lifevest..

 

[drivesitfar]

Wazzza: sorry to hear about a few of your co workers losing their lives working on that amazing platform. it probably doesn't help your mental fitness when you have to get out over the water.

do you have any fear of heights? i'm not sure i'd trust my life to a piece of rope, but i'm sure I've done some things others wouldn't have done and survived.

always enjoy your pictures so stay safe and post more when you can.

cheers

 

[Scottishross]

Good work mate

Sorry go hear about ur co workers

 

[E12-535iTurbo]

Nice work and pictures there!

A few years back I've done some crash tests on the seats and seat restrains of the safety boats for oil rigs. We tested at worst case but real measured conditions. The outcome was pretty bad. Some seats broke off their mounting points what would result in serious injury for the passenger. So if you ever get into the position that you have to use those life boats hanging at the side of the platform, please take my advise and get a seat at about 1/3th from the front of the vessel but not in the last row of a section of seats and please cover you head. I never got a follow-up of the project but at the time our feeling was that the company we did the project for wasn't really anxious to invest in a better construction. Although I really do hope they did work on the problem.

Without mentioning names, the project was for a Norwegian multinational oil and gas company, I'm guessing it's the company you work for.

 

[wazzza]

Nice work and pictures there!

A few years back I've done some crash tests on the seats and seat restrains of the safety boats for oil rigs. We tested at worst case but real measured conditions. The outcome was pretty bad. Some seats broke off their mounting points what would result in serious injury for the passenger. So if you ever get into the position that you have to use those life boats hanging at the side of the platform, please take my advise and get a seat at about 1/3th from the front of the vessel but not in the last row of a section of seats and please cover you head. I never got a follow-up of the project but at the time our feeling was that the company we did the project for wasn't really anxious to invest in a better construction. Although I really do hope they did work on the problem.

Without mentioning names, the project was for a Norwegian multinational oil and gas company, I'm guessing it's the company you work for.

Hi, the last couple of seatrows are illegal to use. We were told that it was because of the massive G-forces the body get when hitting the water. Still, if things go bad I am willing to risk a bad neck if it will save my life.. Some boattypes (not the type we have here) was also reinforced with internal crossbracing. I guess it was a result of some stress-tests...


As far as the garage goes, I have not done anything TO it other than som maintainence on the dodge. I had go all new brakes up front, new engineoil and filter. It feels great to finnally use the garage, not just build it..

 

[Bib Overalls]

It feels great to finally use the garage, not just build it..

It is called deferred gratification. First you scrimp and save and build it. Then you enjoy having and using it because it has a bit of your soul in it. There is nothing wrong with just buying something or having it built but in the end the satisfaction of having it is not the same. The sad thing is that in our highly specialized, interdependent modern society the value of self reliance has been eroded to the point where very few have the desire or ability to live a "hands on" life. Sad. Those of us who do gather here at the Garage Journal. Welcome brother.

 

[wazzza]

You are truly right Bib Overalls. It is a great satisfaction to be able to fix, and maintain my own house and belongings.

I found some pictures on my phone from the last 3 weeks off. Yes, we still have plenty of snow..

machining the center bore on some used wheels from a Hummer H2 to fit the dodge hubs.. I got them cheap with 35" tires and I will use them as spares as they are the same size as my summertires.

 

[drivesitfar]

Wazzza: do you have a snow plow attachment for the front of your Dodge to move all that snow? is having a 3 foot tall snow wall alongside your driveway a normal thing during the winter?

i read the part about that safety issue one of our members mentioned and sounds like some action was made by your company to make the boats a bit safer. hopefully you won't have to use it to give it a true test.

nice to see you working inside your garage and i bet that break job was a lot easier this time than the last time out in the gravel of your driveway.

any more upgrades or changes to the garage or is 100% of your efforts going into the house this year? did you remember to mark the wires behind the sheetrock so you don't stick a screw or nail in one?

cheers

 

[wazzza]

Hi, sorry for the late response, I have been "offline" for a while.

I dont have a snow plow for the truck. I only have a regular 16hp snowblower. Actually it was a 10HP Yanmar but the engine blew up by the previous owner so I got it for almost nothing and I fitted a 16hp motor to it.. I have a quite large driveway so depending on how much snow, it takes between 1-2,5 hours to clear everything. Since I dont have a regular day-job were I have to get up every morning and go to work I have the possebility to take that time to clear all the snow. Otherwise I would have to pay a contractor like my neighbours do to clear the snow with a loader. The "wall" of snow is completely normal.

It has been great to work INSIDE the garage. My friend has sold his amazon which have been stored in the garage this winter so now I have all the space back. I am still not fully organised yet, but things are coming along. I have a plan to make a carport for the trailer on the right side (towards the woods) this summer. Other than that the garage is pretty much complete.... ...for now... Off course I still have more insulating and lightning to do, but thats winterwork. This summer wil be used mostly to do landscaping at my property and fix some drainageissues at the house. I notices some minor moisture on the concretewalls in the basement when I tore down the interior. I have not marked were the conduits goes inside the walls, but I have pictures of them,and I just have to try not to use to long screws and hope for the best.

Anyhow, I want to share some pictures of my grandfathers "workshop". I was visiting my grandparents place today and did some maintainense on the buildings along with the family. Both my grandparents are dead and my grandfather died 6 months ago, so my mother and her sister inherited the property. It has been a long time since I have been inside his old "workshop" and I have just rescently started to get an interest for old and vintage tools and equipment. A lot of stuff in these buildings are probably from my great grandfather and maybe even my great great grandfather.

I dont want to bore you with lots of history but Norway and particular northern Norway was not a very rich country. There was never a lot of money at this farm back then all the work that was done was basically a necessity to survive. My grandfather never really talked about his younger years, but I can only imagine the struggle and the hard manual labour they had. This was a small farm with a few sheeps, a horse, and a few milkcows. You can see the cowbells hanging on a shelf in one of the pictures. Almost everything in these next pictures is like my grandfather left it.

The red building was my great grandparents house. A tiny two-rooms house with one bedroom. My grandfather used it as his woodworkshop before he got to weak and moved to an elderlycenter.

The boathouse is full of old fishingequipment and probably lots of history that I unfortunatly dont know the story behind.

These next photos are from a building that was used for foodstorage. He had a small room there with very little headroom were he stored some tools and hardware. Me and my grandfather are (were) the same height and I can barely stand upright in that room.

And finally "big blue" with summertires.

 

[1969]

Cool woodworking bench...... and everything else actually.

 

[Seppala]

Wazzza,
Keep your photos and stories coming about northern Norway. Many of us here in the U.S. have heard stories from our immigrant grandparents about the "old county" and your images bring alive those stories we've heard over the years.

 

[code4pay]

Love the photos of your grandads tools and work shop

 

[rmalkow2]

Great story and pictures of your grandfathers shop and tools. The collection gives you that cool connection to your family and heritage. I have some of my own grandfathers tools and many of my fathers tools and they are prized possessions to me. Hopefully my kids will feel the same way someday. And, the fun of it is even with all our computers and new tools some of those old ones still work the best to this day! Make a project someday using your grandfathers shop and tools and you'll never regret it. Thank you for sharing.

 

[YupIllFixItLater]

Garasjen ser greit ut Øystein, håper den blir bare bedre og bedre.

I look forward to getting my own garage, the Karmøy weather can be a little bit too wet for outside repairs sometimes, I'm guessing you're familiar with Vestlandets vær.

Your garage is the first I've see in Norway that I'd like to own myself. Most garages here in the south are built like ****, a big shock when you're used to most garages being insulated and heated, with running hot and cold water.

Most I've seen here are not big enough for any work, barely finished and floors seem to optional.

Jeg venter på neste oppdeit.

 

[wazzza]

Garasjen ser greit ut Øystein, håper den blir bare bedre og bedre.

I look forward to getting my own garage, the Karmøy weather can be a little bit too wet for outside repairs sometimes, I'm guessing you're familiar with Vestlandets vær.

Your garage is the first I've see in Norway that I'd like to own myself. Most garages here in the south are built like ****, a big shock when you're used to most garages being insulated and heated, with running hot and cold water.

Most I've seen here are not big enough for any work, barely finished and floors seem to optional.

Jeg venter på neste oppdeit.

Takk skal du ha. Thank you very much. A colleage of mine just finished building his dream funkstyle house in Karmøy.

A little sideproject this weekend. My water supply main shutoffvalve started leaking this winter. I noticed The snow was melting on the lawn right next to the valve and the soil was very wet. Because the ground is frozen during winter I had to wait to now before I could dig it up. The valve and waterline should be buried roughly 2 meters down to keep it from freezing in winter and the valve stem is extended to the surface.

I was afraid that I could hit the line with the excevator so I had borrowed a special clamp from my contractor neighbour. It turned out that the fitting on the inlet side of the valve was not clamping correctly and was leaking.

Offcourse, the line was not buried as deep as I was told and I hit it with the bucket. All ofthe sudden the water sprayed everywere. Luckilly I had the clamp in hand and got to shut off the water after a few seconds.. The excevator is the same that i rented last year when I dug out the footings for the garage.

I had planned to do some more digging this weekend but the ground is still frozen many places so I was unable to dig anymore..

 

[rixtrix1]

Another one of those "fun" homeowner jobs. Good thing it didn't freeze this past winter and leave you without water. Is this a common way to connect a home water shutoff, with threaded plastic fittings? Here we have to use flared copper tubing, but in Phoenix AZ the ground doesn't freeze and my water shutoff is in the meter box about a foot underground. Really enjoy your posts, thanks for sharing!

 

[wazzza]

Another one of those "fun" homeowner jobs. Good thing it didn't freeze this past winter and leave you without water. Is this a common way to connect a home water shutoff, with threaded plastic fittings? Here we have to use flared copper tubing, but in Phoenix AZ the ground doesn't freeze and my water shutoff is in the meter box about a foot underground. Really enjoy your posts, thanks for sharing!

Thank you. The plastic fittings I used are called PEM-fitings and are normal now days.. My house had a private water-well when it was built, but was connected to a small waterplant roughly 10 years ago so the valve is not that old. They had used another type of plastic fittings when they installed the valve. My contractor neighbour said that he had experienced those old fittings to fail earlier and gave me a set of those blue PEM-fittings.

I am surprised my water has not freezed up yet because the line was only buried 1,2-1,5 meters deep. As an extra precation we put a layer of insulation on top of the line before covering it with dirt.

AZ, is that Arizona? How cold does it get in winter?

 

[Boosted1]

Congrats on getting to use your garage.
Thanks for sharing the rig photos too. Interesting stuff.

 

[rixtrix1]

Yes, it is Arizona. Where we live, in the southeast part of the Phoenix metropolitan area, we see temps of low 20's F in winter to as high as 120F in summer. Daytime temps almost always are above freezing, though. Temp variations in winter can be as much as 50-60 degrees. Sometimes in the mountains up north temps below 0F are not uncommon in winter. We are at 1170'; mountains get up to 12,000'.

 

[drivesitfar]

Wazzza: sorry i haven't been keeping up with your thread, but just saw is scrolling by doing a search for a different one.

as far as boring us with your history or stories of Norway i don't think that is possible. as already mentioned some of us have heard about Norway through the generations without actually being there. i'm 100% Norwegian and couldn't find a wife that was without her being related or in Norway which i'd never been so i married a California girl that is about 1/2 Irish and you can guess how fast her attitude changes. that said keep telling stories and we will all listen.

I noticed a very cool old woodworking bench in gramp's shop/shed that had too wood clamps on it that you should grab if another family member didn't already. also since you live sort of on the water too having an extra cool old boat or two wouldn't be a bad idea either. now as far as some of the other stuff i would grab it and put it in a box to save for later if you are not sure because i wish i would have grabbed more stuff from my great and grand parent's garages which i didn't know much about then.

glad to hear you found and fixed the water line and some jobs like that are a real pain, but have to be done.

they make a sealer for the inside of concrete walls in basements to keep moisture out and if you can apply it on the outside of the foundation it works even better.

take care and as always stay safe

also if you want to throw in a few Norwegian phrases with the English translations i'm sure some of us would love to use them at our next family reunions.

 

[drivesitfar]

Wazzza: in case you missed my last post just checking in. you ok and are you enjoying your summer?

cheers

 

[wazzza]

Long time since my last post. Hope everyone has had a great summer! It has been summer and vacation so I have not done a lot at home.. The garage has been working great for all sorts of repairs and projects.. I finally bought myself a mini excevator.. Its a 2007 JCB 8025 2,5 ton. It needs a bit work due to leaking hydraulic cylinders and such, but it is fully fuctioning.

Using the excevator I have removed a lot of treestumps and filled back up with dirt.. The lawn is a lot smoother now then it was before..

My girlfriend and I took a trip to the north cape, a 10 hour drive from me. It is the most northern part of Norway at 71 degress north. A great trip through beautiful scenery. I am used to nature and mountains from were I live, but it was well worth the trip. If anyone have the oppurtunity I higly recommend the trip. In the town of honningsvåg I spotted a huge yatch. Apperently it belongs to the german owner of "Wurth"- tools and equipment for industry.

No real order in these pictures, so feel free to ask..

Pictures from Honningsvåg and north cape.

North pole next!

 

[James-W]

I really enjoy the pictures you post, it almost makes me want to pack a suitcase and go visit Norway. The scenery is phenomenal.

 

[wazzza]

Some more gardenwork before I went to work again.. I tried to blend the new lawn with the old one..

 

[wazzza]

A little sideproject at work. Istead of just watching TV in our hours off duty, a colleague an I have made S40 equipment mounts for our excevators. These can be bought, but it was fun to make them.. Do you use the same mounts in US?

We made a few jigs to make the work go easier and make all parts the same size etc.. I have never used a plasmacutter or TIG-welder before, so it was good practice..

 

[BUGTHUG]

looks like nice work. What does it do?

 

[wazzza]

looks like nice work. What does it do?

Hehe, thanks.. I have a commonly used buckedmount called "S40" on my excevator. This system comes in different sizes depending on how big the machine is.. The S40 has 40 mm axles diameters.. My system is hydraulic operated so I dont have to leave the cab to change buckets or other attachements on the excevator. The mounts we made are ment to be welded on to buckets or other equipment such as ripper, grapple etc.. I am making a boom extension so I can lift things higher with the excevator.. The boom extension will be welded to one of those frames...

You can see the mount on this picture...

 

[drivesitfar]

Wazzza: was Santa Clause at the North Pole of did he move? awesome pictures as per usual and thanks for taking the time to take and post them for me (us).

nice excavator and is the hydraulic leak something you can live with or are you able to fix it yourself. nice machine and even better that you have the knowledge to use it and make parts for it.

how much summer do you have left before it starts to get dark and cold again?

take care

 

[BUGTHUG]

that part didn't look that big when it was on the welding table, but the bucket looks big. Should clean a lot of catshit with that scoop Should do the job, and I'm sure attaching it is easier that way.

 

[wazzza]

Santa appearantly lives in Rovaniemi, Finland

The machine is fully functioning but it leaks oil externally in the undercarriage somewere and the boom cylinder has internal leakage. The bucket function leaks internally in the valvecentral, so the machine will need som work this winter. The bucket in the photo is not mine, its just a photo to show the mounts.. Heres is a photo of the hydraulic tiltbucket I just got.. Its great for landscapeing. On smaller machines such as mine it is normal to have a fixed bucket, so you will need to remove the main bolts to change bucket.. With the S40 system it is super easy!

It is still bright in the day but dark in the evening, so it is still summer and time to do outsidework.

 

[hazexban]

Great thread!

Thanks for the wonderful pictures. You are inspiring me to better with my house! Keep up the good work and be safe!

 

[rmalkow2]

Great job making those mounts and as you said, more rewarding than just watching TV.

 

[hazexban]

Found this cool video on this site showing how that mount system works.

My wife's family has a dairy farm and some other tractors have this same mounting system, works really nice!

http://steelwrist.com/products/quick-hitch/front-pin-lock-technology/

 

[drivesitfar]

Wazzza: Two NORTH POLES? that's incredible, but the way the surveyors are around here seems doable.

i hope you figure out the issues with your new excavator this winter and looks like it works now until you have time to work on it.

almost every time you post pictures it's sun shining. does it ever rain in Northern Norway or just snow?

take care

 

[wazzza]

Finally back home and ready to start troubleshooting the excevator. I started with the dozer-blade. It would not stay lifted and it would not keep the machine lifted.. swapped the hoses between the slew and dozerfunction onthe valvecentral and everything worked well! the blade stayed in position.. I then removed the shockvalves and discovered that the sealing O-rings was broken. I changed them and everything works perfect.. One issue done, plenty to go...

While I was at sea I made a new boom ram protector...

 

[Bib Overalls]

So, you have access to a machine shop and fabricating tools on the rig. Now, that is better than surfing the web when you are on your personal time.

 

[wazzza]

Yes, we have a fully equipped machineshop. I dont have full access to it since I dont have much training with the machines, but I am good friends with the machineists, so they help me out now and then..

Still learning TIG-weld.

 

[BUGTHUG]

That's a long weld. I would say you have learned how to tig weld. That piece almost looks like it was factory made that way.