Garage in northern Norway

[rixtrix1]

Really neat video on the platform. It's hard to imagine the size of everything that gets assembled in one piece, transported many miles across the ocean and set into place. Nice find on the garage heater, getting the home ready to go, congrats on the baby, new car and getting the garage insulated. All these will surely enhance your life!!

 

[wazzza]

Sorry but gotta ask how much fuel did it use in 6minutes?

It consumes 10 liters/hour, that should be little over 2,6 gallons/hour, not cheap to un, but it wont be running for hours unless I am doing something special like deicing a car or something..

 

[wazzza]

Really neat video on the platform. It's hard to imagine the size of everything that gets assembled in one piece, transported many miles across the ocean and set into place. Nice find on the garage heater, getting the home ready to go, congrats on the baby, new car and getting the garage insulated. All these will surely enhance your life!!

The platforms are huge! When the 5.th platform is installed the walking distance from one end to the other will be over 1,1km/0,7 miles. It ***** if you forgot you paperwork on the desk at one end

Thanks you, our little girl sure has changed our lives.. ...to the better. I cant remember what we did before we got her The volvo is working great. It was previousy used as a taxi, so the mileage is quite high, but volvo has the same service regime for taxis as for emergency vehicles (police), so it is good maintained.

 

[drivesitfar]

WAZZZA: it's been a while since i posted anything on your thread and thought i'd let you know your garage and home are looking great. also if you'd like to post a few pictures of your 1 year old feel free to cause we all like to see kids whether playing or working in the garage with their dads.

I can't even fathom how that platform was moved cause I stress when I have to move something that is 400 pounds and when it gets heavier without a forklift or lift here it even is more challenging.

good to hear that you might have job security if you like working that job that takes you away from home for months at a time and guessing the pay is pretty good with all the cool stuff you own so stay healthy.

how's the boat and is it out of the water for the winters or left in the water?

cheers

 

[wazzza]

Hi Drivesitfar

Way to long since I last wrote anything here. Life has been busy the last year so I have not had much time anything really. Our daughter turned 1 year old a few days ago and doing well.

I am currently home on parental leave and will be home until december. My girlfriend stayed home on her parental leave from birth until August when she started studying again, so I hav stayed home since. I cant say enough how wonderful it is to be able to stay home on paid leave for such a long period of time and be able to spend the time with our little girl.

The Johan Sverdrup started production just 2 days ago, 2 months ahead of scheduled startup. The project in short, with english subtitles:

I have actually done something to the garage the last couple of days. The entrance/access to the man-door was never finished when I did the garage.. It has just been a mess with big rocks, clay and a rotten pallet to walk into the garage, but now I have made a retainingwall and spread gravel all the way. Looks much better now.. I really love the little mini excavator with zero-tail as I can swing around without the counterweight hitting the wall.

I aquired a steamer/hot water pressure washer for free. The heater stopped working so they replaced it as it was getting old.. Yes, it would fit the bed of the pickup but I had the trailer with me anyways and much easier to manhandle it onto trailer. I took it home and flushed it with antifreece as it will freece during winter

 

[wazzza]

One major project this spring/summer/fall is almost finished, just tiny details remaining. I have made a new log splitter. Our old splitter was just to small and with only a single blade it took forever to split wood. I wont spam you with pictures, so heres a few selected..

The splitter will be powered from the auxilliary outlet of the excavator. To reduce pressure drop and eliminate heat buildup I have made a free-return-point on the machine that goes straight to the tank and bypassing the excavators hydraulic valves. The supply is connected straight to the valve central and the swap is just one hose so the machine can easily be switched between splitter og digging-service.

The cylinder is a 5" cylinder. The beam is a IPE 240. It is too small, but it was free so I had to make many reinforcements. I got an old trailer from a neighbour for free. I took the axle of it to use it on the splitter. The original 8" tires were gone, but it had the same bolt pattern as 5-bolt toyotas so I got som old wheeks for free. This will never be towed down the road anyways.

I love my new plasmacutter!

https://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p307/wazzza88/Mobile Uploads/20190919_204814_zpsznh8o93l.jpg

Removable towbar to reduce size when stored.

Last minute modification. Extended the blade and made more reinforcements,

Video of first test, only teporarly hooked up to the ex. Slow speed due to flow restrictors on the outlet.

Video of first test with all the hydraulics hooked up. I have orderer a variable flow-controller to tie in to the wedge lift-cylinder as it is very sensitive.

 

[wazzza]

A little side-project is my somewhat weldingcart.. Its just a frame to hold the plasmacutter and organice all the cables to the two machines.. Bolted to factory holes in the Esab welder.. Nothing fancy, but it made everything that much easier. Notice the hook on the lower corner of the welder, it prevents the cables from getting caught under the wheels when moving around.

 

[Jyzze]

That is BIG log machine!

 

[drivesitfar]

WAZZZA: glad to hear your little girl is getting a lot of her own parent's influence while growing up and hope you can continue to do that. my wife quit a great job to raise our kids until they were about 14 when medical insurance costs for my job went through the roof and she needed to get a decent job with some benefits for us.

your little (I say that in jest/fun) log splitter is something else. WELL DONE SIR!!

since you don't post every day and you have some great pictures of your shop, tools, projects and country please don't think of your pictures as SPAM cause we'd all love to see more so post more when you can.

keep up the great work too!!

 

[wazzza]

I have made a sortingtable for the log splitter. The sheet is 4mm thick.

 

[wazzza]

Loaded up and ready to head to our cabin to split some wood!
Took the tires of the splitter so it would fit the truck bed.

Here is a video of the splitter in action.. We had to split this log prior to cutting it to the right lenght due to its size. The excavator is just running at idle.

 

[realvc]

Great video of your log splitter in action. :You must burn a lot of wood to need a set up like that.
Thanks for posting.

Vince

 

[rmalkow2]

You’ve completed some very nice projects while also taking care of the most important thing, your daughter. Well done. Love that mega log splitter.

 

[drivesitfar]

Wazzza: you might have built the nicest (and biggest) log splitter i've ever seen. considering I don't see many trees at your cabin or around your house i'm guessing you have plans to have logging trucks drop off wood? or maybe a trip to the mountains with that set up?

I love the trailer hitch you mounted on the blade of your little (very handy by the way) excavator too.

I bet that our big Dodge sank a bit when you loaded the log splitter on it? thanks for the video showing how well it turns a tree round into firewood very quickly. I still remember when I was younger chopping wood with an axe and using big steel wedges and sledge hammers to cut firewood like that.

cheers and keep up the good work!!!

 

[wazzza]

Great video of your log splitter in action. :You must burn a lot of wood to need a set up like that.
Thanks for posting.

Vince

Thanks. This firewood is for 3 homes, pus the cabin so we need quite a bit.

You’ve completed some very nice projects while also taking care of the most important thing, your daughter. Well done. Love that mega log splitter.

Thanks. I have gathered a lot on inspiration for the splitter studying american made splitters, but keeping the wedge more like the Finnish make them. It is more suited for our kind of trees.

Wazzza: you might have built the nicest (and biggest) log splitter i've ever seen. considering I don't see many trees at your cabin or around your house i'm guessing you have plans to have logging trucks drop off wood? or maybe a trip to the mountains with that set up?

I love the trailer hitch you mounted on the blade of your little (very handy by the way) excavator too.

I bet that our big Dodge sank a bit when you loaded the log splitter on it? thanks for the video showing how well it turns a tree round into firewood very quickly. I still remember when I was younger chopping wood with an axe and using big steel wedges and sledge hammers to cut firewood like that.

cheers and keep up the good work!!!

Thanks,

We have plenty of forrest on the cabin-property. The growth is greater than what we cut each year. This was my grandparents farm and the properties those days stretched from the ocean "as far out on low tide as a grown horse can walk without getting wet on the belly (not sure if thats the right word)" and up to he nearest "mountain".

We drag the timber to the forestroad using the tractor, we have a winch for it now. Then we load it onto the trailer and drive it to the farm/cabin.

A typical yearly load. The property extends to the small top behind the tractor in the distance.

The forest is old and very big, so we needed a large splitter so we coud split the largest pieces in one go. Here is a typical sized log compared to my grandfathers old chainsaw.

The splitter wheighs about 3-400 kg, so the leafs compressed a bit, but not to bad.. Still spun the tires in 3.rd gear on dry asphalt

 

[drivesitfar]

WAZZZA: great pics and even better stories. yep it would be nice to own property around here from the mountains to the water where the horse's belly touched (never heard that term before, but it works). you'd have to have the money of the at least one of the richest guys in the world (if not more) to own that much property here I'm guessing.

i'm guessing winter is right around the corner for you so best of luck finishing up all your projects so you can enjoy your time off before you go back to work.

cheers!!

 

[wazzza]

Way to long since my last post here.

Winter is far from over. The official snowdepth for Tromsø is today (4.april) 155 cm (61 in)..

I have finished the hatch to the garageattic. It is split in two. The small part can be opened from below using the rope and pulleys. That way I can get up with smaller stuff. If larger things are to be lifted up, the entire hatch can be lifted up using the winch.

My garageheater has caused some trouble. After some adjustment ang giving it more fuel it seems to be very stable.. I tested it for 45 minutes and increased the temperature from 3C to 45C. Offcourse I was dressed for 3C

I also hosted a small party/gathering for the neighbourhood one evening. A great oppurtunity to clean the garage..

 

[Jagmandave]

Good to hear from you again!

Do you find those lights on the wall to be annoying? As in do you get glare in your eyes from them?

I have a small but very bright LED spot light that I work with and if I look at it I'm blinded for a few seconds - it's very annoying!

 

[rixtrix1]

Nice to see you back again, Wazza! Seems like you have a lot more snow this year!

Sent from my SM-J320V using Tapatalk

 

[wazzza]

Good to hear from you again!

Do you find those lights on the wall to be annoying? As in do you get glare in your eyes from them?

I have a small but very bright LED spot light that I work with and if I look at it I'm blinded for a few seconds - it's very annoying!

Hi, no they do not glare at all. They are mounted 3 meters off the ground, so they are never in eye-sight. They draw quite a lot of power. Each panel is 2x58Watts. I would love to have LED-panels in the ceiling. The lights I have now were free and came from a grocerystore that were renovated.

Nice to see you back again, Wazza! Seems like you have a lot more snow this year!

Sent from my SM-J320V using Tapatalk

Hi, thanks. We have had plenty of snow this year. The last 3 weeks I have searched finn.no (Norwegian craigslist) daily in search of snow removal toys like tractors, snowblowers etc..

 

[red]

Wazza, welcome back.
Glad to see you're posting again.

We were lucky this winter, not much snow here in downstate NY.
My brother who lives just south of the Adirondacks got quite a bit more than me, but nothing even close you what you've gotten. Lucky for you that you have the equipment to take care of all that snow.

Stay safe.

 

[rixtrix1]

Just watched the youtube video of the 12-way wedge for your logsplitter. Really shreds those logs easily!

 

[drivesitfar]

It's been a while since you've posted anything so i hope everything is ok. yes?

STAY WARM!!

by the way is that massive splitter still working as you hoped it would?