Above 1200 Sq/FT The Salvage Garage

[Strouty]

Believe it or not, we have issues on hot days with bees way up the towers. They follow the hot steel and will end up 500 feet or more, I hate bees more than towers.

My eye is almost halfway open now, hopefully tomorrow it will be even better. I did climb, but just to unhook the crane while everybody was doing something productive, anytime I strain my face, it feels like I am ripping things apart, so I am trying not to do any really heavy lifting.

We got the bottom 130 feet of the tower up today, will have it finished tomorrow, then it is all detail work from there.

 

[OccupantRJ]

A coworker on construction, who also kept the Grifton NC tower painted and relamped told me once when I asked him about being up there, “anything bigger than your feet is wasted”.

 

[OccupantRJ]

Just be careful on that sucker, an acquaintance of mine was one of the guys that died on the 1982 Texas tower collapse. R.I.P. Johnny Bratten, aka Cowboy.

 

[Strouty]

Always careful when it comes to towers, some people get mad at me for being too safety conscious.

 

[Jackpod]

The tower pics are awesome, back in the early 70's I did a little tower work but never more than 100 ft. couldn't handle any higher then and struggle with my roof now

Hats off to you for 1500+

Hope the surgery heals quickly

 

[shortykorte]

Hope all heals well. My bout was similar to Gerard’s. A favor please. Please warn us before posting pics of the Tampa triplets


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[Strouty]

Hope all heals well. My bout was similar to Gerard’s. A favor please. Please warn us before posting pics of the Tampa triplets

I wouldn't do that to anyone.

Things are healing well, but the eyelid appears to be a permanent pucker, not too happy about it and will be discussing things with the surgeon on Monday when I go to get the stitches out. I can live with the scar and the loss of part of my eyebrow, but when my eyelid is permanently deformed, that is where I draw the line. I can see part of it in my peripheral vision and it will drive me bonkers.

 

[Strouty]

My body is beaten, due to the surgery, I wasn’t supposed to take any Advil for a bit, until I stopped taking it for a week, I had no idea how much it helped. I started taking it again this morning.

 

[xtremek]

You sir, are a machine. Way to keep moving.

 

[86turbodsl]

Yeah that eyelid thing would bother me too. Gotta get that fixed. Nice progress on the tower. Can you get cranes that go higher than 130ft? Seems like a lot of boom to be portable.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Liebherr has one that will lift 47 stories...

 

[Strouty]

This crane has 197’ of hydraulic boom, then it has more jib. Around here the largest over the road crane is about 300’. Usually we set a stub, then use a gin pole and skid winch to put the rest up, but we do not have a good enough crew for that anymore.

Tower is all up, just need to do final tension of the wires, we ran out of ambition, I am still here packing up tools and equipment, most of it is mine and no one knows where it goes, so I get to put it away. The tower looks taller, but they are all 180’ tall.

 

[PelicanPines]

Advil can cause clots after surgery... after mine... I had to stop it forever... limited to Tylenol and aspirin now. Oh and opioids... but I don't take them.

How do you measure the wire tension... and what is the tension?

 

[southalabama]

If you get cut on again consult a cosmetic plastic surgeon. Some surgeons are not as concerned with the finish just the end result, ie removal.

I had some asphalt burn marks around my eye removed. First time I woke up with my eye swollen and ointment in my eye I freaked a little. They didn't tell me that would happen. I thought I was blind but the plastic surgeon moved the scar up into the eye lid and natural creases. He hid it well.

 

[jack stand]

Are these your towers that you lease space on?
Looks like a spiderweb of guy wires there unless it just the pic throwing things off. Glad your head is healing up.

 

[Strouty]

Two of the towers are ours, the third is the enemy’s (self supporting tower) and it will have to be taken down next year, we canceled their land lease and have essentially taken all the customers. Been a fun fight, David and Goliath type of deal, they have 40k sites all over the world and have about 70 billion in capital, little old me took them out.

As for the tension, we read it with a dynamometer, a really rugged fish scale, and the lower wires (3/4” wires) will be about 7500 pounds tension and the upper wires (7/8” wires) will be about 12,000 pounds.

 

[1/2 Cup]

That is one awesome tower Strouty, thank you or sharing.

 

[Strouty]

Thanks 1/2 Cup, I am just glad to finally have it vertical.

Need to get a few things done at the shop tomorrow, the the GF needs some help at her mother's old house (under contract), so I think that will take up the day for me. Monday is essentially back to the grind.

 

[Strouty]

I am futzing around with the mill, can’t seem to figure it out. I can make it go through the motions, but I don’t understand what it is asking me for inputs, specifically the x and y arc center. I just don’t understand what that references. The DRO reads different than what the program reads, so I don’t know if I am zeroing things out wrong or what. I may have to talk to the guys that make the program tomorrow, this is driving me nuts.

 

[jack stand]

Two of the towers are ours, the third is the enemy’s (self supporting tower) and it will have to be taken down next year, we canceled their land lease and have essentially taken all the customers. Been a fun fight, David and Goliath type of deal, they have 40k sites all over the world and have about 70 billion in capital, little old me took them out.

As for the tension, we read it with a dynamometer, a really rugged fish scale, and the lower wires (3/4” wires) will be about 7500 pounds tension and the upper wires (7/8” wires) will be about 12,000 pounds.

Good for you! That's the way to do it, heck with just being a tower builder, go for the perpetual income.
Do those tension #'s take all the slack out of the line? Cool stuff Strouty.

 

[xtremek]

So what's seems to be the issue? You're using a 1/2" end mill, centered from left to right, 1/2" in from the middle, 1/2" down starting at 0 and 4 9/16" dia circle? So what are you getting?

 

[Strouty]

The tension doesn’t take all the slack out, there will still be a visible belly. Those tensions change significantly depending on the ambient temperature.

As for the programming, I don’t know what or where that reference point of 0, 0.5 is, that is my issue.

 

[xtremek]

From what I remember, I was able to set it where I wanted to. It all depended on where I wanted to start from. I put the quill where I wanted 0,0,0 to be, then hit the set button. I'm probably not much help, sorry.

 

[PelicanPines]

The tension doesn’t take all the slack out, there will still be a visible belly. Those tensions change significantly depending on the ambient temperature.

As for the programming, I don’t know what or where that reference point of 0, 0.5 is, that is my issue.

Pretty much the same thing with fat guys wearing bicycle shorts... no matter the tension... there is the belly... right there.

 

[Strouty]

I have a belly like that.

I figured things out, ended up putting a sharpie in the drill chuck and drawing on cardboard, it became apparent once I took some measurements. The real saga was trying to hold the piece that I needed to modify. I tried to use the vise, but it was too high and would rattle and slowly change positions. Then I tried clamping it to the table, but I didn’t use enough clamps and it popped loose. I finally got it held down and all the previous vibrations loosened up the collet and the endmilll fell out, yes, it just fell out, no dramatic flying across the room. In the end, I had it reset probably a dozen times so nothing was exactly the same, in other words, it was an awful mess. I actually had to use a die grinder to clean it up, biggest issue was when I moved the circle, it was just enough that it left ears at the top edge so I couldn’t just slide the winch into it. I made it work and all in all it was a good experience, but I could have made a totally new bracket in the same amount of time it took me to hack modify this one. I think I spent about 8 hours on it and I didn’t get to clean up the mess I made.

Bracket is made for 4” winch and the other winch is 4 5/8”, at least the bolt pattern was the same.

 

[PelicanPines]

Somehow I imagined you sighed when your endmill fell out... before mumbling WTF... then a simple... ok, that's not what I expected.

Honestly your end result looks cool... and you never count the cleanup in the job length... when you're having fun.

 

[Strouty]

Yeah, when it fell out, I was confused for a second, it was in slow motion. I need to understand Workholding better, it is clearly more than half the work.

 

[xtremek]

Sounds like you got a lot of good practice. My take is that your work piece can't be over secure. And I agree with PP, just don't tell him I said that.

 

[PelicanPines]

A good example of the nature of why machinists equipment is so heavy... bolt it down... T it to the quill... Level it too... it will be your friend... at least that's what my grandfather in law said...

 

[Strouty]

I hate to admit this, but when I machined out that circle, I am pretty sure the mill was spinning in reverse. I caught that today, the CNC has a bit different setup from the last machine I used. It has a switch that says low and high, not forward and reverse, I wasn’t paying attention to that I guess. After all that, I still had to slot the holes so that the bolts would fit. It will work fine, but I think I will probably make a new one at some point.

 

[jack stand]

I made it work and all in all it was a good experience, but I could have made a totally new bracket in the same amount of time it took me to hack modify this one. I think I spent about 8 hours on it and I didn’t get to clean up the mess I made.

I have wanted some metal machining tools, both a lathe & mill, or even better a CNC table for my plasma cutter for a long time. But the way I am with working any computer (CNC), I stay in very good practice with my grinders to make it look like I have a mill Your post makes me feel better in some way, thanks.

 

[Strouty]

I figure this is like paying my dues, next time it will be a bit quicker and much less of a mess. I can see that I need to come up with some better work holding ideas. The winch is mounted and ready to go for tomorrow and that is all that really matters.

 

[macgyver37]

I tried to beat it into my students' head that if you can't hold it you can't cut it.

As you said, most of the work is usually in the workholding and the setup.

What is the control on the mill?

 

[jack stand]

I figure this is like paying my dues, next time it will be a bit quicker and much less of a mess. I can see that I need to come up with some better work holding ideas. The winch is mounted and ready to go for tomorrow and that is all that really matters.

The thing is, you will get faster while I'm cuttin & grinding as fast as I can right now.

 

[Strouty]

I tried to beat it into my students' head that if you can't hold it you can't cut it.

As you said, most of the work is usually in the workholding and the setup.

What is the control on the mill?

It is an EZ Trak DX, conversational programming, but I guess once I figure things out, I can import G-Code with a floppy disk. She is running a nice 486 with DOS.

 

[Strouty]

The thing is, you will get faster while I'm cuttin & grinding as fast as I can right now.

 

[PelicanPines]

It is an EZ Trak DX, conversational programming, but I guess once I figure things out, I can import G-Code with a floppy disk. She is running a nice 486 with DOS.

That is too funny... way the frack back in time... I wrote the software interface that allowed AutoCad software running a computer like that... to auto upload the program to the CAM/CnC milling machine.

I wrote it at B&D in Rochester NY. Their location where they manufactured the molds used for all of the injection molding.

Best 3 days living in a hotel. Met Andre the Giant... and made a small fortune.

Prior to that software I wrote... they had to burn floppies and hand walk them to each machine...

For what it's worth... the program was about 22 THOUSAND lines long.

EDIT... I just remembered the name of the program SF0022 for Shop Floor... the 22 had nothing to do with the number of lines in the program it was a coincidence …

 

[BoilermakerFan]

It is an EZ Trak DX, conversational programming, but I guess once I figure things out, I can import G-Code with a floppy disk. She is running a nice 486 with DOS.

OMG! This just cracked me up! Floppies, DOS, a 486... C'mon Marty, get back to the future!

Sell off some of those Tamiya goodies and upgrade the controls.

 

[Strouty]

The 486 is actually fine, if, well, when the motherboard dies, I can replace it with a new one with a solid state drive, the latest version of the software for about $1100. The company that took over supporting this from Bridgeport is still supporting essentially every part. There is really no need to upgrade at this point, but someday I want to buy a 3 axis CNC setup, then I will keep this mill as my manual use machine with the bonus of being able to do fancy things.

 

[86turbodsl]

You'll get better with time. I do this stuff all the time and still mess up things now and again. Go slow and double check your work often. Good job on the hitch/winch mount!