GunLab

Weekend update on the wood shop, 9-16-18

With another nice Arizona weekend where the temperature in the shade was 110 degrees I was back in the wood shop trying to get things finish so I can work on some rifle projects. I did most of the sheet rock in the wood shop extension.

Still some screws to install, but that is what next weekend is for.

Being a “HOARDER” part 1

A good friend of Gun Lab recently mention that I am or might be a hoarder. I think of myself as someone that is very good at re-purposing material and equipment. Working on a limited budget I am always trying to make do with little or no money. In my normal job I am at homes and businesses every day. The amount of tools, equipment and material that is thrown out is amazing. I have developed and attitude of asking what they are going to do with something that looks like it is rusting away of being scraped. To this end these are a couple of the items I have picked up over the years.

Earlier this year a friend wanted some help emptying his storage shed. While there I checked the dumpster and did another stop. So for less then a couple of hundred dollars I came home with this load.

There was a real nice Miller tig and arc welder with tank, accessories, and consumables.

A work bench, vise evap cooler, ladder, tool box and a number of shelving units.

All of this for about the cost of the ladder. The welder is now the go to welder in the fab shop and with the work being done in the wood shop the tool box will be made in to a built in unit.

More work in the fab shop

With the extra cabinets from the school I started adding more cabinets in the fab shop. Storage is at a premium everywhere in the shops so these will help a great deal.

More cabinets added.

Mix and match. It works for me

Parts storage and a charging station for the battery operated drills

Still not enough storage but a lot of stuff has now found a new home and it is off the work benches.

The Wood shop, Part 4

With the wood shop checked and fixed it was time to look at the hardware and well room. It was just as bad if not worse.

The bearing support wall and beam was just destroyed by the termites.

All the sheet rock was removed from the walls and ceiling.

Temporary walls were built to support the second floor guest house.

And the center wall was removed.

It is at this point that I have to give out a special thank you to a friend of Gun Lab, John U. It was with his help and knowledge that we were able to come up with the material and design for the new support for the second story guest house.

I had gotten a call late in the day with John saying he was stranded on I-10 and could I get a truck to help him move a trailer of stuff coming to my house. I borrowed a friends F-250 truck, which is a very nice truck, and headed out on a rescue journey.

In the truck and trailer was a steel I beam and all the jacks and rigging equipment to get the beam up and supported.

Now we were back in the game. First hole had to be dug and the beam moved in and prepped.

The beam was painted and then the wood 2×8’s attached.

Holes were drilled and supports welded into place. Again thanks to John for his help and expertise.

The columns were made up and ready for installation.

The beam was now rigged into place.

With the beam up it was now time to use the screw jacks to place the beam into place and set the columns in.

Six columns were used to put pressure on the I beam. The columns were attached and then concreted into the floor.

Now on the part 5.

Never argue with a saws all

Not everything always goes as planed. While taking the cabinets down at the school I needed to use a saws all to cut the particle board from the top and bottom of the cabinets. The way the cabinets were installed was to hang then on a rail then screw them to the wall and each other. Once they were hung they then glued and screwed the top and bottom boards on. The only way to remove the cabinets was to saw them apart at every cabinet. I managed to get through 3 of the class rooms with out a problem, but 1/2 way through the 4 class room there was a hard backing that did not exist in the other rooms. When I hit it the saws all jumped back in my hand and got me.

Eleven stitches later on my finger and cut the bone. The school nurse about had a heart attack when I asked for a band aid. Drove to the emergency room, about 1/2 hour or so, and got stitches. Then went back and took the rest of the cabinets down then went to work and did 12 hours.

The moral of the story.

Don’t use a saws all when you are real tired.

Demo at the school, Part 3 on the wood shop

With my normal job I do a great deal of work with construction companies and home owners who are doing remodels. In this post I was doing some work for a construction company that was getting ready to demo an elementary school. My first question is always is there anything I can use and how long do I have to take it down.

In the case of this school they were going to save nothing and I could have anything I want but it had to be out of there by Friday at 2pm. They told me this on Tuesday at noon. So the race was on to remove all the cabinets that I could and still work my normal job.

To accomplish this I would leave the house at 4AM to arrive at the school by 5AM to start the demo work and be done by 8AM to start my work day.

There were 4 rooms of cabinets. Here are a couple of pictures showing all the cabinets and the crap that was in them. This was the start of the project.

After I cleaned out the cabinets.

This is me working on removing the upper cabinets.

As the cabinets were taken down my wife and I would load they into the truck and she would take them home and I would unload them and start cleaning them off to get heady to hang them in the wood shop and the fab shop.

The top of the cabinets had 3/4 particle boards glued and screwed on. To remove the cabinets they had to cut apart on the top and bottom. This is what they look like when they were taken apart.

I started with a pry bar to remove the majority of the particle board then went in with a chisel to removed the remaining material.

With all the prep work completed the cabinets are ready to hang up.

Another Webley pistol

By now I am sure most of you know that I like Webley pistols. A friend of mine came by the house to show me a new Webley that he just added to his collection. This is a Webley Mark IV in 22lr.

You can see the serrated trigger.

The added height of the rear sight.

The markings indicating that it is a 22lr pistol.

A nice view of the Webley flying bullet.

The back of the cylinder showing the 22lr chambers

The back plate of the 22lr pistol

A comparison of a 38 and 22lr pistols

Left view

This is one of those pistols I would really like to have in my collection.

The wood shop and Library, Part 2

The wood shop flooring had serious termite issues and it had to be dealt with.

I tried just cutting around the inside of the shop and treat it that way. No luck on that, the termite issue was to extensive.

At this point in the game it was determined to remove the flooring, starting with the maple tongue and grove flooring.

And there was a pile of it.

Then the sub flooring came up next.

To do this task was a large task as all the sub flooring had been installed with special hardened nails.

To accomplish this all the equipment had to be moved a number of times.

With the flooring removed it was time to check the walls. More termites. All the sheet rock was removed from the wood shop and about 1/2 of the studs replaced.

It was at this point I decided to correct some of the electrical problems and original wood shop issues.

After the sheet rock was put up the walls were painted.

This took several weekends as the equipment had to be moved every time we started a new section of the wood shop.

Part 3 next

More on the new Library/ wood shop part 1

The story behind the Library and wood shop changes started with the termite issues and has grown into some serious changes. My initial idea was to do a series of videos showing the scope of the work but that would take weeks to edit and it would take away from all the other projects going on here at gun lab. Instead I will show a photo expo and the steps taken to accomplish all the work.

Initially my wood shop looked like this.

Not any more.

Now for the rest of the story.

This area is the covered walk way around the wood shop. The walls had damage as did the upstairs deck. the deck was replace with 2×10’s and 1″ decking.

The walk way was framed in and sealed. The windows were removed and framed in.

The original outside covering was removed and recovered with OSB and then sheet rock.

Once it was painted it was time to move the hardware store over. Again this was no small task.

We had everything from plumbing fittings to nails and screws in there. It would have made an ACE Hardware store jealous.

We are still working on organizing it but currently it is about 70% completed.

The continuing story coming, Part 2 soon.

VG1-5 update 8-19-18

It has been a while since I have posted an up-date on the VG1-5 project.

The fire control groups have all been assembled and tested. The top covers have been fitted to the rifles. Here are a few pictures of the rifles getting ready for the next operation.

A quick video

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