Above 1200 Sq/FT The Salvage Garage

[Strouty]

Seller of the big duplicator refunded the entire purchase price, not sure if they want me to dispose of it or what, got to confirm, but I don't want to be a storage yard. If it stays, it is going to be parts and I will pull it apart and toss the case. I have sourced a new case, but they don't seem to be in stock right now, hopefully I will find out about that later this week.

I also ordered the heating element for the big parts washer, ended up being $120 shipped and my VFDs are going to be here this afternoon. Maybe I can have that functional sometime this year!

 

[Strouty]

I decided to pressure wash some things, at least this time all the tires had air and when I hooked things up, it actually worked. I still need to get a shorter wand and a hose reel. I think pressure washer hose tangling is the worst!

Have a few things to shuffle, then headed back to the Hill.




Ran out of the fancy paint, I knew that I should have gotten two cans of it. At least they look better, but now I have to wait for the paint to dry.

 

[Prospecter]

I decided to pressure wash some things, at least this time all the tires had air and when I hooked things up, it actually worked. I still need to get a shorter wand and a hose reel. I think pressure washer hose tangling is the worst!

Have a few things to shuffle, then headed back to the Hill.




Ran out of the fancy paint, I knew that I should have gotten two cans of it. At least they look better, but now I have to wait for the paint to dry.

Yard looks very tidy! Not many can claim a forklift paint drying rack.

 

[Strouty]

Not totally dry, but the second can will take care of my new found defects.

 

[bimmer1980]

Looks good! Pending the type of paint, be sure to let it dry the appropriate time between coats. The typical rattle can paints often need a good 48 hours between coats or it will wrinkle or lift.... been there, done that and it is frustrating.

If it is one of the single stage automotive style paints that they mixed and put in a spray can, it may not require the lengthy wait time...

Regardless, good progress!

 

[Strouty]

I won't be able to redcoat until Friday at the earliest, it is the good single stage, but I probably should have waited for the primer to dry longer. At this point it is more about getting them painted with something before installing them. Per usual, I have way too much going on and things are bound to take way longer than I would like. I am going to keep at it, I need to go home, it has been a long day.

 

[jack stand]

Looking at those two tilt cylinders hanging from the forks are a good help with the size (scale reference) of those suckers!!
Looking good

 

[Strouty]

The hydraulic repair shop said they were some of the largest forklift tilt cylinders they had ever dealt with.

Slow start, got my to do list for today that I can only do about half of....

 

[jollygreengiant]

Looks good! Pending the type of paint, be sure to let it dry the appropriate time between coats. The typical rattle can paints often need a good 48 hours between coats or it will wrinkle or lift.... been there, done that and it is frustrating.

If it is one of the single stage automotive style paints that they mixed and put in a spray can, it may not require the lengthy wait time...

Regardless, good progress!

IIRC the last time I used a rattle can it stated you had to spray your second coat within 1 hour, or after 48 hours.

 

[rharman]

IIRC the last time I used a rattle can it stated you had to spray your second coat within 1 hour, or after 48 hours.

They don't lie. I won't tell you how I discovered that....

 

[Strouty]

Apparently I over did things to the extreme. My back took me out of commission Tuesday and Wednesday, I had all I could do to sit or stand, got a few things done office wise, maxed some phone calls and did some research on projects. Thursday was better, but not by much. Today is better, by quite a bit. I have a couple meetings today, got to finish a few things in the office, just trying to take things easy. Dumped the scrap from the other day, looks like we are about $150 a ton for #1 prepared steel. Not great, but it has been worse. The scrap yard is now open for the mornings on Saturdays, that will be a nice change.

 

[Strouty]

First meeting done, going to do some errands, then eat lunch before the second meeting.

 

[Strouty]

Got everything wrapped up, had a chance to mess with my multi bay ripping machine and it appears that I have a bottleneck for data somewhere. I put it on my most powerful computer and it changed the speed in a negligible way, the drives seem to top out at 1.5X read speed or about 6MB a second. With the individual drives I can get 6X read speed. I am going to play around with different configurations to see if the hardware is the problem. Not really an issue, because I wasn’t planning on this unit for speed, it was more of a set it and walk away type thing. I have some unknowns in the adapters, I know they are USB 2.0 compliant, but I don’t know if that is true, they could be operating at 1.0 speeds. I have a couple different variants, so I am going to mess with those, the other thing is the USB 3.0 Hub I am using, apparently the max data flow is a bit over 500 MB/second total, but even with 7 drives running I should get way more than 6MB each. It takes about 3 hours to rip all seven versus about an hour to an hour and a half with drives using individual USB ports. If it doesn’t drop speed more when I add more drives, then I really don’t care. If I do an 18 bay unit, I will be running 9 drives for each cable to the computer. It is an interesting experiment for sure. The times that I am staying are for 4K UHD disks, so blu ray and DVD should be progressively faster, less data to transfer.

 

[Vise_Squad]

Metal objects being painted dry a lot faster and probably better if you play a torch over the surface until the moisture in the pores of the metal is evaporated off. The paint goes where the moisture was.

 

[Strouty]

Slow progress today, just trying to get some things ready for tomorrow, I think we have everything needed to get the 3500 back to running condition, I am sure there will be something else, but the main components are ready for installation. Not sure if we will be able to get the fenders back on, my plan was to swap the matron burb’s fenders onto the 3500, but I haven’t pulled those off yet, tomorrow is supposed to be raining. I think the best plan is to make the 3500 running, then I can get the maroon burb inside and start stripping it down, once I have that done, the 3500 can come in and I can put the sheet metal back together. This will also allow some extra time to rework the plow harness, things were not working correctly. If my back persists with the fighting, this is going to be a “rest of the month” project.

 

[Strouty]

To clarify, this won't be the only thing I work on, I have about fifty projects going right now and that is just one that is going to take two people, unless my back starts to feel better. Hopefully everything will work out and I will be driving it sooner.

 

[Strouty]

So all my Aliexpress items arrived yesterday (some earlier), I took the time to swap things out and my speed issues are gone, I am now seeing 3.8X across the board with some fluctuations of course. We are now averaging 16MB per second across all the drives, currently have 9 running. Of course one of them is a speed demon and is ripping at 25MB per seconds (6X), it is the drive I despise, has old USB plugs (yes two and you have to use both or it throws errors). I am going to look into a different case for it, one that has a single USB-C plug, that should keep the power going. Overall I am impressed with the quality of the stuff shipped from Aliexpress, I will be placing another order for sure. Now that my speeds are up, the ripping machine must move forward!!!!

Update, on the larger sections of the ripping I am now seeing 6X across the board, even better!

 

[Strouty]

We have even better speeds, the larger the file, the faster they go, I am seeing up to 7X and 30MB per second. The new Aliexpress adapters are the ticket, so the old ones were my bottleneck for sure. I am also using the external hard drive to rip to and it is the slower of the two, so it may be able to go faster if I were to go direct to my internal drive or to the faster external drive. I will have to play with that as well. So far the only issue I have is that the dang power supply is too loud, I am sourcing a fanless version that will be silent and I have some fan controllers for the other fans, that way they only come on when needed. I am just excited that I figured all this out and was able to improve it without much headache. Next step would be to talk with the suppliers and see if they can make a controller that does what I want without all the extra adapters.

 

[Strouty]

I pulled apart the damaged 18 bay unit, I am going to try and fix it, there is one semi local that I may try to buy, then I can pick it up, so it can’t get destroyed in shipping. I would just spend the $325 on a new case, but there is no timeframe for when more will be available, they told me maybe the end of June, maybe later. I also bought one that is designed to be more portable, it has a nice built in handle, but the front is red, not a big fan, will need to paint or do something about it. I am still hopeful that I can sell some of these and pay for all my investments and screw ups. My proof of concept is a great start. There is a local company that does essentially the same thing, but the units they sell start at $8k for a five bay unit IIRC, nice guy, but holy ****. Of course his market is lawyers and schools that get data on discs daily and it needs to be imported. Pretty sure he has some fancy graphical interface, but essentially I have recreated his hardware for about $300.

 

[Strouty]

Here is what I am starting with:


One has a lot more bend to it than the other one.

 

[Strouty]

Boy do I feel stupid, my new raid drives are both 8 bay, so I bought new (used) drives to install to upgrade my capacity. Yup, they won't work with the enclosures, apparently Western Digital has locked down the controllers, my Toshiba drives are recognized, but can't be configured as RAID. A bit more than annoying, plus a lot bit expensive to find this out. The funny part is that the Dell drives that are made by Seagate work fine.

I really didn't think there would be an issue, guess I was wrong, really wrong. I think I can use them as a big JBOD (just a bunch of disks) configured through the OS, but I am giving up for the evening. May the Fourth be with you!!!

 

[Strouty]

I had to unload some stuff before I left, the H-130 has just enough lift to get over the top platform with a pallet, usually I would just put it close to the edge, but I have it a shot and it worked, was way easier to get things up in the office. Plus I didn’t have to mess with the little orange electric forklift.

 

[Strouty]

It is too early once again. I hope to get some things done though.

 

[Strouty]

Had to order more pieces and parts for the 3500, think I will have everything by next weekend. Have to decide how far I am taking things, it is becoming a rust-toration, need to do some work to the fenders, patch the front frame, and replace the front bumper, never going to be easier to do it than now. I also have to do a few interior things, swap the radio, speakers, fix the keyless entry. Hook up the trailer harness, and redo some of the plow harness. Of course then I get to put the nose back on, probably do new headlights and marker lights too. Still think I am on target with my timeline. Just over my budget, keep having to order more parts!

 

[Strouty]

Updates have been slow, just trying to match progress...

I have been doing quite a bit in the office, also been trying to get some things a bit more organized and ready to use at both the Salvage Garage and the Hill. I am over at the SG now, bought a bunch of pieces and parts for the pressure washers and I was halfway there, so I decided to make a quick trip. I will try and gather up some of the pieces and parts I need for the 3500 as well. On a good note, the breakdown (and check) fro the auction stuff showed up, I did much better than expected, in my head I was set for somewhere between $500 and $800, check was for a tad over $1,300. I can put that to good use for sure. I am still waiting on the heating element for the CUDA parts washer, supposed to be here tonight, maybe later this week I can start messing with that thing, I am sure there will be parts I have to order, LOL.

 

[Prospecter]

It's hard to do Dreaded Desk Work when it's nice out. Good for you to stick with it.

 

[Strouty]

At least the next couple days aren't going to be as nice, that will make me feel a bit better about it. I just figure I am still recovering and my back needs a bit of a rest anyways. Of course as usual, when I saw the chiropractor my neck didn't "need" to be adjusted, but he tried anyways. Now I have some issues with that area, basically my neck is now getting yanked so hard that the upper ribs are being pulled out of place a bit. If I can keep it moving and using the massage gun on it, I can generally stop it from completely locking up, still annoying that it happens.

I am going to grab some dinner, then try and wrap up a bit more office stuff before bed, have a meeting with Dad tomorrow at 1, he always says he wants to "know where we stand", I never know what he really wants to know. I figure he wants to know how much money he can divert to boats...

 

[Richard Cranium]

Ok, I think I am caught up, got several pages behind. Good to see you all again.

 

[Strouty]

Meeting with Dad wasn't too terrible, he started off with a chip on his shoulder, then became confused by all the details of what we were dealing with, then went off on a tangent, then took a 20 minute phone call holding me hostage, then at the end he stuck me in the gut with **** about the Hill. I honestly am not sure if there was any recollection of the last three discussions we had about the Hill, maybe bits and pieces from all three, but nothing concise and his direction was different then all three of the previous conversations. I am just not going to worry about it and essentially keep going on as is, if I run my life around him, I might as well just use a rope and finish the job...

 

[Prospecter]

Good for you! Keep on keepin' on!

 

[bimmer1980]

Sounds like a classic old person drivel from your dad. I agree with just proceeding on "your" course. Let the BS flow in one ear and out the other.

My m-in-l does a similar thing... constant line of BS - continous line of drivel..... Nod, smile and keep rolling. Luckily, she doesn't have a hold over me, other than me storing a few things over at her place. But I do enough things for her to "pay my rent"... lol.

How the 3500 project? Do you plan to get a little run time on it before doing all the fender work?

 

[Strouty]

I have driven it enough that I am comfortable moving forward. I got all of the mechanical portion for the 3500, had to buy a few body panels, but it should be mobile after this weekend. Still won’t be drivable as there won’t be a front end on it, but getting it out of the shop will let me get something else in.

 

[Strouty]

Well, the heating element that I paid $120 for (and thought I got a good deal) is actually about $35 almost anywhere.

I had searched for one that would fit as a direct replacement and couldn't find anything that matched the installed 3 phase unit. I went by the CUDA part number and figured it was a direct replacement. LOL, should have known. The one that is in there directly screws into a 2" pipe bung and is about 36" long (3 phase 480 volt), the one that is 240 volt single phase is about 20" and screw into a 1" or 1 1/4" pipe bung. Not a big deal, but would rather have spent $35 and picked it up at the local supply house. Oh well, at least I know if I have an issue in the future, I will just get it from Home Depot.

 

[Prospecter]

Aarrrrgh! I try to my research and hate it when that happens. I know you do your research, too. Just chalk it up to slightly less DIY "profit" and move on to the next thing. At least it is another thing off THE LIST!

 

[Strouty]

Yup, I ordered the bung I need from McMaster, now all I have to do is get the old element out, that’s all.

I have my 1” breaker bar, extended anvil impact, and a torch. I couldn’t budge it after a bit of heat with the 1/2” breaker bar and a pipe. It is only a 2 1/2” socket.

 

[Strouty]

Having lunch and it is nice out so I thought sitting outside would be good, holy ****, they are trying to cook me. They have these propane “warmers” and it feels like it is about 100 degrees out here. I am about to ask to go inside. I can see the heat (schlerin).

 

[Strouty]

Stopped at the Lego store, got some goodies for the collection. I am headed to the Salvage Garage to try and get that heating element out. From there, no idea, I am exhausted, might have gotten two hours sleep last night. Today is unfortunately a two Ghost day, probably had four of those days in the last year. Definitely stopping for ice cream and I am pretty sure that the outdoor lunch netted me a sunburn.

 

[Strouty]

For the Lego fans or video game fans:



This was what I tried using:


Then used this:


Eureka, now we are ready when the new bung shows up.

 

[Strouty]

Just a little bit of size difference

 

[scooterbum46]

Just a little bit of size difference

How do you determine rotation on the old one?