GunLab

Something new and fun at Gun Lab

On Saturday I get a text from a friend wanting to know if the deck gun he just say was coming to my place.

Then a few moments later I get a knock at the door and there is John U. I have something to show you and can you fix this.

Here are a few pictures of that beautiful toy.

Being a new lawn ornament the garden gnome wanted it to get rid the rabbits in the garden.

Just a beautiful sun set in Arizona.

A special thanks to John for sharing his new toy with us and to Wally for sharing a few of his pictures.

More updates with the termite battle

A couple of weekends have passed and more work has been accomplished in getting the wood shop back together.

To start with I ended up with termites now in the machine shop and wood storage room.

This tube was in the clean room.

And the second door to the machine shop.

These are in the wood storage room.

What this means is that more holes had to be drilled.

To do this of course everything had to be moved once more.

First the tool boxes and semi portable equipment.

Then all the bigger wood working equipment.

But my all time favorite was the surface plate.

Then after termite treatment everything had to go back.

The wood shop extension has now been sheet rocked and taped and mud on all the joints.

The pocket door for the well and pressure pump room has been installed.

Then the storm came in today and brought the 8th largest rain fall in a single day.

By the time the rain stopped after I went to bed it was the 7th largest rain fall for Phoenix, we had 3″ on our rain gauge.

A thanks to a friend of Gun Lab

A while back I did a post on the Webley pistol in 32. It is an interesting pistol but I had no ammo for it. The U.S. equivalent is .32 short Colt. Try and find that the local gun shop. Chuck O. a frien of gun lab dropped by with 3 boxes of it.

It will be out at the range with me on my next visit. Thanks Chuck

Being a “hoarder” part 2

In the post I talked about the trip to the storage shed. This pile of stuff came about because I just asked. I was doing a job for a home owner and in the back yard was this pile.

The home owner said she wanted it gone. So at my house sets to kilns and two motorized potter wheels.

A large potters wheel

small potters wheel

A small kiln

A large kiln

I also did another job at a house that was being sold. The owner called to ask a few questions and I asked about the bench.

It is now in the wood shop for the cost of just picking it up.

I enclosed the back to keep unwanted guests out of the drawers.

I did clean and lubricate all the drawer bearings as well.

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.

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