The Model Garage

[john k]

Recently I saw a photo of a small, one man shop.   2-3 garage doors, 1920s building that had been added onto.   Neat, painted, with a good looking small wrecker sitting outside.  Mulling this over I got to thinking about the stories in Popular Science magazine, Gus Wilson's Model Garage.   How Gus, the owner, with Stan his helper could tear into about anything, and get it going again.  In a bare looking shop, a single post hoist, a tool box sitting on the work bench, and the usual shop tools, like welder, torch, drill press, and valve grinding set.  Mixed in with the half inch drive, and quarter inch drive set, were a number of user modified tools.   Home brew tools, and even basics like a shop made test light.  No giant tool chest costing 10K, no waiting for the tool truck every week.   Gus was a bachelor, and didn't even own the shop building, didn't own a house, he lived in a boarding house, and his one hobby was fishing, drove an old coupe he had rebuilt.  I got in on the end of this era, and it sure has evolved since then.  Metrics, test equipment, diesel stuff, puller sets, to where that new giant box is plumb full.   But even with a scanner, I don't seen to work any faster than Gus.   Or have as much fun.   Pushing  a button on a scanner, I find just doesn't cut it for me.  So I come in here, get to look at other guys collections, and think about how tall the letters should be, when I paint a sign on my new shop, THE MODEL GARAGE. 

[gibsontool]

Makes a guy think, good post , Thanks john.

[Papaw]

Get to building that shop!

[john k]

The shop is built, soon as the weather is stable, will pour a slab in front.  24X30ft.

[oldtools]

NICE!!!

[HeelSpur]

Damn nice building, don't forget rubber mats. Concrete floors eat my back & knee's up.

[leach]

Very nice don't forget the fridge to put a bottle or 2 in

[smokey21962]

you did it right with the over hangs , nice shop . too many guys try to cut corners on the overhangs and dont keep the weather off the building .

[john k]

If you notice the silvery interior, its fully insulated.  Next winter I will have a wood stove to heat the place, but this year I did heat it a few times with my Kero-Sun heaters, 2 heaters going at 10F, got it to 55F inside, in a few hours.  Still putting up lights, and outlets.   Was given some of those interlocking rubber mats for around the workbench.   Floor is six inches, over undisturbed soil, its virtually in the backyard here at the farm, about 70 ft. from the house.  Moved in shelving first, but is filling up fast.   A big step up from the old 1940s tin building I've been using.   It wasn't cheap but hope to spend time in it after retiring in 2 years.  Oh, and hanging tools on the wall.    Didn't get it together in time, but had wanted to put in a "green" fridge.  Place I blacksmith at, has a hole in the floor.   8 foot deep, lined with a six inch cast iron pipe, plugged with concrete at the bottom.  The top has a  a steel lid, flush in the floor.   Down this hole is a rack made of quarter inch steel rod that will hold 8 tall boys, 55 degrees year around.  If I ever put in another building, am going to put  one in the floor for sure. 

[Aunt Phil]

You need to talk to somebody in the elevator business.  There are plenty of drill rigs that used to drill hydraulic casings in existing shafts looking for holes to drill thanks to the government Xspertz deciding cylinders can't be bored into the ground.

System works a hell of a lot better with a 16" casing that has groundwater flowing through it.

[rusty]

> 16" casing that has groundwater flowing through it.

Ha!...worked for a company that was hired to suck the dirt out of the old casing hole so they could put in a new shiny casing.

We told them it was a dumb idea, they said we want to do it anyway....

Was in downdown boston...at sea level.....I could see the harbor from the building...

Under boston is sand...and trash...and rubble...

We filled a 6000 gallon truck with ground water in 90 seconds....

The hole was still the same size....

[Aunt Phil]

Let me guess Rusty, at least 9 Professional Enginurds under age 40 were involved, and none of them ever heard of the World Trade Center in NY, or how the foundation walls there were cut in with a giant chain saw and slurry.

And people wonder why I looked forward to retiring and not having to talk to damn fools with Diplomas.

[Nolatoolguy]

Man I hear stories of time passed and wish I could of lived back then. As much as I love my cordless tools I would give them up to go back.

 
Heck 10k for a toolbox is cheap compared to some. Ive saw toolboxes in the neighborhood of 30k. What I find funny is how people with these fancy diagnostic tools need to replace or update software on them often as new cars come out. 
 
Ime lucky as almost everything at work is SAE. That limits the amount of tools I need. A lot of my sockets I use at work are my grandpas. There not shiny, but I aint making payments to the truck. I have only been on one a handful of times. Most of the times was to warranty something I already had. However I admit my airtools seem to cost a pretty penny.
 
Just look at machine shops, I mean they how many do you see that still do the stuff manually? Now its mainly CNC mills an lathes. I see both CNC as good and bad. I mean when it can do a job with less operator error an quiker without having to pay someone to stand there after set up its good in a bussniess sense. Problem lies a small bussniess has to be able to afford he thing in the first place. When there are some cnc mills costing well over 100k new its not like the little shops can reasonably afford the thing. Then theres the whole issue of the jobs that CNC machines replace. 
 
The only CNC we have at were ime at is a plasma cutting table. It was about 32k all said an done. The success story on it lies were we can load a 4x8’ sheet up to 1” thick press a few buttons and cut about any shape. As long as the guy in the office does his job of correctly diagraming the software we download it all goes smooth. For example we use to buy 8” wide by 6’ long strips then have to drill 4” wholes spaced 2” apart. Some jobs require only 2, and one job required over 600. We then started paying another comanpy with a plasma table to cut them. We then bought a plasma table, and can do it on our own. we also cut gussets an a few other parts. Every now an then wele do stuff not related to the business. Bosses wife is a vet and we cut out a a few life size dogs for outside her office. I would say the hardest part for us is loading the steel sheet, an that's not to bad.
 
 

[Aunt Phil]

Nola, I can assure you, old guys tell stories to make young men like yourself desirous of times gone.  Old guys also lie their asses off when there is a young man listening and buying, believe me, we can tell when you're buying.

When I came along to the point you're at today, slugging wrenches were the tool to use on many jobs to get the sumbeach moving.  Until you've developed a loving relationship with a 20# sledge beating the crap out of a slugging wrench, you don't know what a day at work is.  BTW, that 20 doesn't stop, it just gets passed to the man who has sort of got his wind back while you take a break.  When I retired, those wrenches had been retired 20 years, we had hydraulic wrenches that generally got placed by a boom or overhead line, hit the switch and watch it unwind.

Ask around and see if you can get a chance to spend a quality day working on a SubArc running around 800 amps.  You'll get to thinking real fast how that ballet dancing I recommended a while back was a good idea.  Even more fun in your field, sign on to a heavy casting repair job where you get to remove half a ton with ArcAir and then put it all back with 1/2 diameter rods 24" long on the end of a 12 foot stinger cause you can't get closer to the weldment which is being kept at 600° by torches burning liquid propane.   NO, you can't relax in the cattle tub full of water, that's for diving in if or should I say when you catch fire.

30 k for a box of tools is just a beginning, I get some laughs out of guys moaning about the tool truck blues.  It gets real easy to spend 30k certifying tools just to get them onto jobs thanks to OSHA, and that 30 is money down the drain. 

What you need to understand is the government loves this thing called Inflation.  You put a dollar under your mattress tonight it will buy you 50¢ worth 5 years out.  Prices are not going up, the value of the dollar is dropping like a hammer headed for your foot.  More dollars mean more tax coming into the government though.

[rusty]

>a quality day working on a SubArc running around 800 amps

Take a coil spring, like in the front of an old car, but 3 feet lonf and 12 inches wide.

Stick it in a heavy wall pipe, and squash it with a 3 ton press.

SubArc weld a circular plate on each end of the pipe.

*Pray* that the machine was set to the correct table hight and overlap

Release the press with the spring trapped in the can.

You just made a nuclear reactor componant

When you hear the *pop* because the plate was held on with slag instead of a weld....

Run like hell!