On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 03:19:57 GMT, Dave Young
wrote:

We still use fixed halon systems on some of our Coast Guard small boats
(for example 41' UTB's: http://www.uscg.mil/datasheet/41utb.htm) and
cutters (for example 110' WPB's:
http://www.uscg.mil/datasheet/110wpb.htm).....

Dave Young

As far as I know..there still hasnt been a Holy Grail replacement yet
that works as well as Halon, though they have been looking for a very
long time.

Gunner

"Gun Control, the theory that a 110lb grandmother should
fist fight a 250lb 19yr old criminal"

Dave Young wrote:

We still use fixed halon systems on some of our Coast Guard small boats
(for example 41' UTB's: http://www.uscg.mil/datasheet/41utb.htm) and
cutters (for example 110' WPB's:
http://www.uscg.mil/datasheet/110wpb.htm).....

Dave Young

Great! I'd spray myself or you down if we were on fire. with CO2 I'd
jump into the sea. Ever see what CO2 does to a rubber ball - shatters it.

Also aboard ship, as in those, rollovers might inject water into compartments
and freezing water from CO2 might do as much damage as the fire.

A cousin of mine was a Loran Radioman - His station was mid pacific. His island
was smaller than the 110 WPB you mention. Just coral heads with sand. We met him
one day when the 'fleet' was in and brought him food and swapped partial crew and
gave all a day off on our island - 1.5 miles long, 500 yards wide and 6 ft. (yes ~2M)
tall at the highest. We fed him after we looked him up - better than the local
food hall.

Best Regards,
Martin


--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

"Tbone" wrote in message
...
Well I've used it 3/4" and 8 outlets for 15yrs in my shop and no
problems. Sch 40 has a burst rating of 200psi. You do need a flex
fitting at the compressor connection. Stick with OSHA and their BS and
you can't deal with the real world.

TBone



Well I had friend, for over twenty years, that drank booze like a fish, and
drove like he was going to a fire, sober or drunk. That finally caught up
with him too. He is no danger to anyone anymore, six feet under. Thankfully
when his time came he took out only himself!
A gent I work with had PVC in a shop for years to, untill it blew up on him.
He was fairly lucky, only one small cut on his face from PVC shrapnel.
Greg

Isn't Halon what they used in the Bradley Fighting Vehicle when they
discovered the fire hazard from the hydrolic system taking a round in
combat?

Tbone

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:15:19 GMT, Gunner
wrote:

On 10 Jan 2004 10:44:20 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:

In article , steamer says...

--I think you mean "Halon". Horrible stuff.

Horrible, how?

Jim

Halon is hardly horrible stuff. Its a CFC (NOOOOOOOOO!!) that has had
significant use in fire systems. Its a heavier than air gas, that
displaces the oxygen in the room that its dumped into. IRRC it is
nontoxic, but as it indeed does displace the oxygen, its greatest risk
is suffocation.

It was very commonly used in computer centers, and other electrical
areas that need fire suppression instantly, with no associated thermal
shock as caused by CO2 and other gases. It worked very very well with
no/few problems. Supression systems were developed that gave lots of
pre warning before a dump, multiple levels of fire detection before
dumping, over rides etc etc etc. Very safe technology and very mature.
Many fire extinguishers were also made, often found in aircraft etc.

It was banned due to its being a CFC, and the price went from only a
few dollars a pound to well over $150 when I checked a couple years
ago.

http://www.reliablefire.com/halon/halon.html
http://www.epa.gov/ozone/title6/608/halons/
http://www.nfpa.org/Research/FireRes...ternatives.asp
http://www.harc.org/

Gunner

"Gun Control, the theory that a 110lb grandmother should
fist fight a 250lb 19yr old criminal"

What does the drinking friend have to do with pvc pipe?

If you don't isolate the pipe from vibration it will (from rubbing on
clamps) weaken with time. Unless you know his layout i'm not
concerned.


On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 00:19:42 -0600, "Greg O"
wrote:


"Tbone" wrote in message
.. .
Well I've used it 3/4" and 8 outlets for 15yrs in my shop and no
problems. Sch 40 has a burst rating of 200psi. You do need a flex
fitting at the compressor connection. Stick with OSHA and their BS and
you can't deal with the real world.

TBone



Well I had friend, for over twenty years, that drank booze like a fish, and
drove like he was going to a fire, sober or drunk. That finally caught up
with him too. He is no danger to anyone anymore, six feet under. Thankfully
when his time came he took out only himself!
A gent I work with had PVC in a shop for years to, untill it blew up on him.
He was fairly lucky, only one small cut on his face from PVC shrapnel.
Greg

"Tbone" wrote in message
...
What does the drinking friend have to do with pvc pipe?



Just making the point that you can do something foolish for years and
perhaps get away with it.
Greg

"Greg O" wrote in message
...

"Tbone" wrote in message
...
What does the drinking friend have to do with pvc pipe?



Just making the point that you can do something foolish for years and
perhaps get away with it.
Greg

Would you include flying in commercial aircraft in your equation?

Harold

Tbone wrote...

Well I've used it 3/4" and 8 outlets for 15yrs in my shop and no
problems.

Suppose someone said, "I've stored a five-gallon can of gasoline next to
my gas water heater for 15 years and never had a problem." Would you be
convinced it was a safe practice?

Sch 40 has a burst rating of 200psi.

Did you know that a liquid at 120psi compresses very little? The volume
at 120psi is very close to the volume at zero psi. That's why hydraulic
systems work the way they do. A gas, like air, at 120 psi is compressed
into a far smaller volume. When a breach occurs, whatever is inside the
pipe will quickly expand to its zero psi volume. A liquid won't move
much, but a gas will, propelling anything loose and light, like PVC
shards, along with it. That's why PVC isn't rated for compressed gasses.

You do need a flex fitting at the compressor connection.

PVC weakens with time on exposure to UV radiation, also. Some good
sources for UV radiation are sunlight and fluorescent lighting. To make
it "safe" for compressed air, it would also need to be isolated from
shock and impact, and shrouded in something to prevent the shards from
going where they could do any damage to people or other things. It's
simply cheaper to use metal pipe than to make PVC safe.


Stick with OSHA and their BS and you can't deal with the real world.

I can sympathize with your disdain for OSHA bureaucracy, but it doesn't
make sense to extend that disdain to the good science that some of their
recommendations are based on.

Jim

Martin,

I've also done an isolated LORAN tour (Kure Island, Hawaii from
1980-1981) as an engineman (we call them MK's - Machinery Technician's).
But Kure was a "Gilligan's Island". Thoroughly enjoyed it, but was
island happy by the time the year was up and was glad to leave. I was
able to do an overnighter on Midway Island after about 8 months on Kure.
Wish I could go back, but the LORAN Station has been shut down and
leveled (for the most part) and the island is now an animal sanctuary
watched over by the State of Hawaii. You have to get special permission
to go on the island from the state.

Extinguishers won't freeze stuff when used like they're supposed to. I
actually tried to cool a six pack of my favorite beverage one time with
a CO2. Nadda. However, if you take a container of the liquid and drop
a ball, insect (don't ask me how I know), hot coffee, etc., you get some
interesting results. Same thing with halon (back then we didn't know
about the ozone damage from it). You can spray someone down with CO2
and it won't hurt them, but will scare the hell out of you if you're not
expecting it (again, don't ask me how I know this). The noise and white
"smoke" will make an internal mess of your pants, if you know what I
mean. If you get a flake of CO2 on you you'll feel it; but it's not
really what I'd call painful. It evaporates pretty fast. If I'm ever
on fire (God forbid), please feel free to spray me down with CO2 or halon.

Dave Young



Martin H. Eastburn wrote:

Great! I'd spray myself or you down if we were on fire. with CO2 I'd
jump into the sea. Ever see what CO2 does to a rubber ball - shatters
it.

Also aboard ship, as in those, rollovers might inject water into
compartments
and freezing water from CO2 might do as much damage as the fire.

A cousin of mine was a Loran Radioman - His station was mid pacific.
His island
was smaller than the 110 WPB you mention. Just coral heads with
sand. We met him
one day when the 'fleet' was in and brought him food and swapped
partial crew and
gave all a day off on our island - 1.5 miles long, 500 yards wide and
6 ft. (yes ~2M)
tall at the highest. We fed him after we looked him up - better than
the local
food hall.

Best Regards,
Martin

In article , Bruce L. Bergman
says...

No particular health issues involved, other than the real
possibility of suffocation from oxygen deprivation if you stay in the
room and the Halon concentration is high enough. And the other hazard
to life & health is the chemicals released by the fire itself before
you got it put out, that's a real witch's brew of some decidedly nasty
stuff.

You put out the fire with the Halon, and then get everyone the heck
out of the room for a while, drag them out if you have to. And be
sure to close all the doors as you leave - you /want/ the gas
concentration in the fire room to stay high enough to inhibit the fire
from starting back up again. Halon works by chemically breaking the
fire triangle...

This makes sense, and I've told the folks who would use it, to
do so and leave the area immediately. But this is the same
advice I give for using any fire extinguisher in this house - don't
stay around, just get out.

After everything that was once burning cools down below the ignition
point, you must open up the room and air it out with fans before you
can safely occupy it again.

Oh, and a VERY important note: Go get that Halon extinguisher you,
um, "inherited"... serviced by a professional shop at least every 6
years, even if you've never used it - they have found that the O-ring
seals on the discharge nozzle crack from age and leak out the charge,
so you need to get them replaced before your precious (and expensive)
gas escapes. "Save the Ozone Layer" and all that bilge... ;-)

OK, but I suspect that if I take it in for service, they cannot
legally remove the halon and re-install it. So I've been simply
weighing the extinguisher annually. Here I assume the pressure
gage on the unit is worse than useless, as the vapor pressure at
room temperature will be constant as long as there is any liquid
in the tank.

When it no longer meets the spec, I will replace it with either co2
or dry powder.

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

"Harold & Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...

"Greg O" wrote in message
...

"Tbone" wrote in message
...
What does the drinking friend have to do with pvc pipe?



Just making the point that you can do something foolish for years and
perhaps get away with it.
Greg

Would you include flying in commercial aircraft in your equation?

Harold


Only if you want to include driving a automobile on public streets!
Greg

"Harold & Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...

"Greg O" wrote in message
...

"Tbone" wrote in message
...
What does the drinking friend have to do with pvc pipe?



Just making the point that you can do something foolish for years and
perhaps get away with it.
Greg

Would you include flying in commercial aircraft in your equation?

Harold



The comparison between flying in commercial aircraft and using PVC for
airlines is a bit foolish! Many people fly many miles a day because they
have too, there is no other choice to do the job in a timely maner. On the
other hand there are many options for air lines that are fairly inexpensive,
safe and accepted.

I would be willing to bet if there was a way to make a resonable comparison
between the safety of commercial flight and PVC air line, commercial flight
would be many times safer!
(number of feet of air line multiplied by man hours in the shop vs. flying
hours per person?) LOL!!
Greg

In article , Greg O says...

The comparison between flying in commercial aircraft and using PVC for
airlines is a bit foolish! Many people fly many miles a day because they
have too, there is no other choice to do the job in a timely maner. On the
other hand there are many options for air lines that are fairly inexpensive,
safe and accepted.

The interesting part is, you invariably see the numbers
quoted as "per passenger-mile." If one changes that into,
"per hour of exposure" then commercial air travel starts
to look a lot worse, approximately the same as, or slightly
worse than, private auto driving. But they (the airline
industry) never quote it that way.

I would be willing to bet if there was a way to make a resonable comparison
between the safety of commercial flight and PVC air line, commercial flight
would be many times safer!
(number of feet of air line multiplied by man hours in the shop vs. flying
hours per person?) LOL!!

I posted the question here recently, if anyone here had experienced
a catastrophic failure of pvc air lines, ever. Several responded
in the affirmative, and that's enough for me. Besides, all my
air lines are soldered copper anyway.

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 16:30:01 GMT, Jim Wilson
wrote:



PVC weakens with time on exposure to UV radiation, also. Some good
sources for UV radiation are sunlight and fluorescent lighting. To make
it "safe" for compressed air, it would also need to be isolated from
shock and impact, and shrouded in something to prevent the shards from
going where they could do any damage to people or other things. It's
simply cheaper to use metal pipe than to make PVC safe.


Sounds to me that PVC is perfectly safe for compressed air usage
provided it is encased in a larger iron pipe :-)}
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 05:55:09 GMT, Fitch R. Williams
wrote:



Absolutely. I'm building a shop next fall so this is really good
timing.



Good point. My shop looks like the house, and it will have its own
heating and air conditioning (geothermal heat pump), and it could be
converted to a pair of guest apartments or Mother-In-Law quarters if
one wanted to do that.

Fitch
Keep talking like this and you should consider including a bunkhouse
as you will be getting visits from the group.
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

In article , says...
I posted the question here recently, if anyone here had experienced
a catastrophic failure of pvc air lines, ever. Several responded
in the affirmative, and that's enough for me. Besides, all my
air lines are soldered copper anyway.

Jim

The only problem I've had with pvc air lines is when the temps were
around 0 or below. I tunked one with a long 2 X 4 entering the unheated
shop and it literally exploded a 6 inch chunk out of it. It came apart
in small shards about 1 or 2 inches long. The line was already regulated
down to 90 lbs, or it could have been worse. I had to pick a few shards
out of my face, two good sized ones and a small one. I'm lucky I wore
prescription glasses. This happened so fast there was no time to turn my
head or duck. I have no idea if this was a temperature thing or not. I
know whacking it with the board did'nt help matters. I tore it out and
soldered in half inch copper.

Jim Kovar
Vulcan, Mi

"Greg O" wrote in message
...

"Harold & Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...

"Greg O" wrote in message
...

"Tbone" wrote in message
...
What does the drinking friend have to do with pvc pipe?



Just making the point that you can do something foolish for years and
perhaps get away with it.
Greg

Would you include flying in commercial aircraft in your equation?

Harold


Only if you want to include driving a automobile on public streets!
Greg

Just curious! I don't defend the use of PVC for air lines. :-)

Harold

Dave -

We were on Kwajalein atoll and island. The Loran station was up-atoll.

The best story I heard regarding the hero stuff out of coastal rollers
and the war times was during the early 60's - the Coast Guard had sent the
typical flotilla checking on various Loran stations and other sites here
and there. The Sea Air Rescue based at the airport was Navy. The Island
was Navy until (ugh) the Army took over and that is another story for my annuals.

The drama : Soviet sub was in the Lagoon - 70 miles on a diagonal - boomerang shaped.
Normally they were out at sea - they were spying on us - doing the odd missile shot -
rather being shot at by the local shooters in Ca. Sometimes subs - they were rare shots.

If out at sea, the sub would be 'flowered' with baking flower - sticky mess and
the photo team and sub nasty. Such is life. Then they picked the lagoon.

The cutters were coming into service the Loran station - oil for the generators, food,
life and that stuff - when they spotted the sub. Wish I were there - I bet there was
sweat on more than one brow!

The Coasties decided to give chase and call home (Washington naturally) Washington was slow
to respond (or think) - the sub went into a shallow area in the northwest - really un-charted
area - might have been looking for an outlet.

The cutters laid a sub net and bit fingernails waiting on Washington.

After a bit, the sub commander - likely under threat himself solved the incident.

He fired two tubes at the net, it blasted like all heck (phew) and without orders,
the Coast Guard had to part way. They really had a foreign power within a Trust Territory
in trusted to them - but had no war powers in that sense.

The Russians went back to the deep ocean and the Coast Guard went on their way.

It was one of those phew no one got shot and things went back to normal.

Kinda reminds me of the movie - "The Russians are coming" only differently.


We were the mid pacific refueling and missile target range - so we saw Deep Ocean trackers
and typically cargo ships to us. It was a restricted port, but we had drop-ins.

Had a New Zealand carrier come to visit - picking up some planes after a typhoon....

Martin

Dave Young wrote:

Martin,

I've also done an isolated LORAN tour (Kure Island, Hawaii from
1980-1981) as an engineman (we call them MK's - Machinery Technician's).
But Kure was a "Gilligan's Island". Thoroughly enjoyed it, but was
island happy by the time the year was up and was glad to leave. I was
able to do an overnighter on Midway Island after about 8 months on Kure.
Wish I could go back, but the LORAN Station has been shut down and
leveled (for the most part) and the island is now an animal sanctuary
watched over by the State of Hawaii. You have to get special permission
to go on the island from the state.

Extinguishers won't freeze stuff when used like they're supposed to. I
actually tried to cool a six pack of my favorite beverage one time with
a CO2. Nadda. However, if you take a container of the liquid and drop
a ball, insect (don't ask me how I know), hot coffee, etc., you get some
interesting results. Same thing with halon (back then we didn't know
about the ozone damage from it). You can spray someone down with CO2
and it won't hurt them, but will scare the hell out of you if you're not
expecting it (again, don't ask me how I know this). The noise and white
"smoke" will make an internal mess of your pants, if you know what I
mean. If you get a flake of CO2 on you you'll feel it; but it's not
really what I'd call painful. It evaporates pretty fast. If I'm ever
on fire (God forbid), please feel free to spray me down with CO2 or halon.

Dave Young



Martin H. Eastburn wrote:

Great! I'd spray myself or you down if we were on fire. with CO2 I'd
jump into the sea. Ever see what CO2 does to a rubber ball - shatters
it.

Also aboard ship, as in those, rollovers might inject water into
compartments
and freezing water from CO2 might do as much damage as the fire.

A cousin of mine was a Loran Radioman - His station was mid pacific.
His island
was smaller than the 110 WPB you mention. Just coral heads with
sand. We met him
one day when the 'fleet' was in and brought him food and swapped
partial crew and
gave all a day off on our island - 1.5 miles long, 500 yards wide and
6 ft. (yes ~2M)
tall at the highest. We fed him after we looked him up - better than
the local
food hall.

Best Regards,
Martin





--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

On 11 Jan 2004 09:48:36 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:
In article , Bruce L. Bergman
says...

Oh, and a VERY important note: Go get that Halon extinguisher you,
um, "inherited"... serviced by a professional shop at least every 6
years, even if you've never used it - they have found that the O-ring
seals on the discharge nozzle crack from age and leak out the charge,
so you need to get them replaced before your precious (and expensive)
gas escapes. "Save the Ozone Layer" and all that bilge... ;-)

OK, but I suspect that if I take it in for service, they cannot
legally remove the halon and re-install it. So I've been simply
weighing the extinguisher annually. Here I assume the pressure
gage on the unit is worse than useless, as the vapor pressure at
room temperature will be constant as long as there is any liquid
in the tank.

Balderdash! I The one I have in the office was just hydrotested and
refilled 4/17/2003, and they didn't ask any questions at all... I
even bought a new Halon for the Corvair a few years back, it was about
$50 but they sold it to me. They are discouraging Halon use, and
taxing it, but it isn't illegal yet...

If you don't believe me, call a local shop and ask them
"hypothetically" if they can service it for you. The only thing that
would stop them is if the previous owner engraved their name on it.

And Halon 1211 units have nitrogen for delivery pressurization over
the liquid Halon contents that has a low vapor pressure, so the tare
weight and cylinder pressure are both important.

When it no longer meets the spec, I will replace it with either co2
or dry powder.

You never mentioned a brand or model number... The only thing I
could see stopping them servicing it is if it is one of the
Plastic-head "Disposable" units the size of an aerosol can and sold as
a "kitchen extinguisher" that was made to be one time use only. In
that case, if it's 1201 inside they can capture the Halon in their big
tank and recycle it, and give you a credit for the contents. Unless
you get the fire really early, and inside a confined space like an
oven, one pound or less of Halon won't go very far.

The important part is to find an extinguisher service facility in
your area that is set up to work with Halon, they will usually also
have their own hydrotest cell so they can do it all there.

A lot of small shops and mobile services don't have the gear, they
farm it out and mark up the prices to cover the shipping.

If you are in Los Angeles, call Pioneer Fire Protection in Van Nuys,
they do it all in-house and will take good care of your service needs.
818/785-8571 I take quite a few odd units found at garage sales for
them to refill, including CO2-cartridge style, Purple-K, Army WWII
Surplus 2.5# CO2 - but that doesn't get me an exemption from any of
the safety rules. I've had to scrap a few units for dumb stuff like
the serial number on the belly band was illegible.

-- Bruce --
--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.

jim rozen wrote:


The interesting part is, you invariably see the numbers
quoted as "per passenger-mile." If one changes that into,
"per hour of exposure" then commercial air travel starts
to look a lot worse, approximately the same as, or slightly
worse than, private auto driving. But they (the airline
industry) never quote it that way.


I think they would then just include the time from showing up at the
airport, till you get your luggage at the other end, and still come
out OK.

jk

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 05:55:09 GMT, Fitch R. Williams
wrote:

Make it bigger than you think you will need
and a FLAT surface under the door so you have nothing to roll over.

I was showing an inch drop - that is probably a mistake. I'll adjust
the drawing.
That inch (between the inside floor and the outside) stops rain
blowing under the garage door. Depends on how exposed it is, it would
be easy enough to make a shallow ramp.
Geoff

The need to have a smooth flat surface along the access path to your
shop where you will roll items in and out is a real one.

I tend to have much of my stuff (welding table, compressor,
saws....just alot of varied machines) on wheels....3" steel is what I
standardized after weighing the tradeoffs of weight capacity, wheel
height, ease of rolling over a floor and economics. The main access
door I use is a 10 foot wide by 8 foot high insulated garage door that
rolls up to open. This door with its rubber seal rolls down onto a
flat concrete floor that extends beyond the door by ~4 inches. I have
had driving rains pounding the door (+4 inches of rain with +40MPH
winds) with no leaks so the rubber seal does its job well. From there,
the asphalt driveway begins. The joint that I have had problems with
is the concrete/asphalt interface joint that is in front of the door.
While I was a nitpicker on getting the driveway LEVEL with the
concrete floor when I built it, there is a slight height difference
that changes to hot/cold expansion and the natural movement of the
floor and driveway.

Now this little height difference has caused me problems I would never
have expected. One memorable moment is when I was moving a 800lb.
shear that had 3" steel wheels attached to it via a wood frame. When
one of the wheels reached the concrete/asphalt interface, the stress
to bridge the interface was enough to rip one of the wheels off the
wood frame. This led to a most interesting moment of me holding one
corner of the shear up without being able to reach anything to block
it up. The situation came to a successful conclusion but it could
easily have resulted in the shear flipping over and someone getting
hurt. If you use a grantry crane/engine crane to lift and roll heavy
items into and out of your shop, you would have the same problem. Some
lessons I have learned from this little problem, 1) no more wood
dollies under heavier machines ;) and 2) be very careful when
attempting to cross this interface with a heavy load. I now bridge
this interface with several steel sheets that allow me to roll the
load in question effortlessly over the interface.

Fitch, a couple more suggestions for your new shop.

Probably the most important thing to do is to draw a site plan for the
interior of your shop. As an engineer, you understand the importance
of getting IT down on paper. Paper changes are much easier and cheaper
to do than the real thing. I have always viewed a shop as the most
important "tool" a HSMer has since it defines what other tools we have
and how the rest of the stuff we acquire is used. Build it right and
it is a joy to play..err I should say work in...build it wrong and it
is always a pain to deal with. The "right or wrong" is defined by your
needs and the needs of your tools.

I tend to like to put alot of wire in a building. I (over)wired my
building for power (single/3-phase with over sized wire), alarm, high
speed ethernet, video and telephone. Along with this, I installed
copper for air and a dust collecting system. Do this all BEFORE you
move anything in...it will never get done after the machines are in
place. Also think about how you would access these installations in
the future. The day you need to cut into a wall instead of removing a
panel to add an airline you will understand. A comment on PVC versus
copper...I will spend more now to hopefully prevent problems later.
The fact that PVC fails dramatically while copper will fail gracefully
is enough reason for me to pay the extra price for copper.

Outlets located above more than 48" from the floor. Lean one sheet of
plywood against the wall with them mounted lower and you will see why.

I would suggest insulated doors, it was well worth the investment for
me.

If you have a large access door, make sure you have it wide and HIGH
enough to roll your lifting device with load through it. I have a
gantry crane (1 ton) that is too high to roll through my 8 foot high
access door in my shop. I should have seen that problem before I built
but I was focused on making the shop blend into the residential area
the building is located in (in fairness, the crane followed me home
several years after the construction was done).

I should also emphasize having a flat and level driveway extending out
from your shop for a reasonable distance is very useful. Nothing makes
the day more exciting than to unload a machine and watch it take off
on its own down your driveway sloped towards the public street. (After
a winch failed, a friend of mine watched his Bridgeport mounted on a
dolly go down his driveway, travel hundreds of feet down the
residental street and finally crash into a neighbor's NEW SUV...the
SUV lost.) The large flat surface of the driveway also serves well for
an unrestricted setup area for setting up projects during assembly
(welding, wood construction). Overall, I have found that my driveway
has proved to be a very useful tool in its own right and well worth
the time and money I spent in getting it built right. As I mentioned
before, the only drawback I have found is that asphalt becomes too
soft in the summer to tolerate some of the point loads I am placing on
it so a concrete pad will likely be poured.

I envy you...building a new shop is the ultimate HSMer's dream.

TMT


wrote in message . ..
On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 05:55:09 GMT, Fitch R. Williams
wrote:

Make it bigger than you think you will need
and a FLAT surface under the door so you have nothing to roll over.

I was showing an inch drop - that is probably a mistake. I'll adjust
the drawing.
That inch (between the inside floor and the outside) stops rain
blowing under the garage door. Depends on how exposed it is, it would
be easy enough to make a shallow ramp.
Geoff

"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
om...
The need to have a smooth flat surface along the access path to your
shop where you will roll items in and out is a real one.

Concrete... I'm happy with the way our new place worked out. Previously
had a concrete driveway apron with exposed-aggregate finish that was pretty
but not helpful for rolling any kind of steel or other small wheel.

For the new place we got a "light broom" finish, that is a tradeoff because
it will eventually wear smooth enough to possibly be a hazard, but it sure
is easier on the wheels.

Same here, the shop slab is flat and extends 6" past the door, then
transitions in-line to the apron. There is no step or joint, just poured
against the edge of the slab, it has held up OK for 4 years.

The overhead door is a 9' wide x 8' high that is under a 24" overhang and is
on the lee side of the building anyway. No water entry to date.

8' out from the door, before the apron slab was poured I set two pieces of
4" sched 40 electrical conduit in footings and plumbed them carefully.
Plated welded to the bottom, the open end is about 12" above the slab.
After the slab was poured, they served as sockets for a lift frame built
with 3-1/2" sched 40 pipe and a wide-flange beam. The 3-1/2" pipe
eventually got welded to the 4".

There's a good photo he

http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/...iles/beam6.jpg

The scaffold in the photo had just been used to erect the frame, a rush job
so we could get that lathe out of the back of my truck.

I tend to like to put alot of wire in a building. I (over)wired my
building for power (single/3-phase with over sized wire), alarm, high
speed ethernet, video and telephone. Along with this, I installed
copper for air and a dust collecting system.

My evil twin brother apparently.

The fact that PVC fails dramatically while copper will fail gracefully
is enough reason for me to pay the extra price for copper.

Having done a bit of research ... after the fact ... for air I have a few
hundred feet of 3/4" sched 40 PVC underground, bedded in sand. Transitions
to hard copper or galvanized steel before turning up towards the surface.
Black pipe or copper above ground & in walls.

If you have a large access door, make sure you have it wide and HIGH
enough to roll your lifting device with load through it. I have a
gantry crane (1 ton) that is too high to roll through my 8 foot high
access door in my shop. I should have seen that problem before I built

I chose a 2nd story instead of a high ceiling. For indoors, I use a pallet
jack, a set of machine moving carriages or as last resort a cheap engine
hoist.

Bob

Martin,

I can't come even close to that story. Closest I can come was when we
were being refueled. A 180' buoy tender out of Honolulu would tow a
Navy fuel barge to the island and hook up on at an off-shore connection.
I was on the beach with a radio talking to the cutter. They were close
enough that I could hear them making pipes on their 1MC (loudspeaker).
I heard them pipe swim call and before the pipe was finished the crew
was diving in. When one holds swim call on a cutter, you always have a
look out with an M16 for a shark watch. Well, it just so happened that
where the off-shore connection was was also where sharks liked to linger
looking for Hawaiian monk seals. When I heard swim call, I called them
immediately and told them that the area they were in was known for the
shark activity. All you could see was asses and elbows trying to climb
that cargo net. I literally rolled on the beach laughing....one of the
funniest things I ever saw.

Same island, different subject. We had a LOT of spiny tailed lobsters
at the atoll. So many in fact, there were scientists from Honolulu
there studying trying to figure out why. They actually hired some of
the crew to go out daily to count the lobsters they had caught in the
lobster traps, kind of a census kind of thing. We would go out into the
lagoon snorkeling and catch all the lobster one could want. We had
hundreds of lobster tails in our freezer. We'd have a party on the
beach occasionally and cook lobster and crab and lots of beer (Side note
was that wood was a scarce commodity and we'd normally use pallets that
came in on logistic flights. One day we had a large mahogany log wash
in. Thing had to have been 15 foot long and 2 feet in diameter. It
stayed wet a long time. We thought we'd gone to heaven as there was
more wood than we could use for a long time. We found out that wet
mahogany gives a horrible taste to lobster. So much wood, but none to
burn.). Anyway, we had planned to have another cook out on the beach
and we were going to cook some hot dogs also. Turns out the cook didn't
want to part with his hot dogs and we could only eat the crab and
lobsters we had caught. The crew was ****ed. LOBSTER AGAIN!!!! We
wanted hot dogs. Sounds silly now, but at the time it didn't.

Last story. I went to Midway with a DC3 and a non-rate. We got there
early and went to the Acey-Ducey Club (E-5/E-6 club). We got there
about 1100 and started drinking. There wasn't any air conditioning so
we sat down in front of a pedestal type fan. We were drinking slowly
and were by no way drunk. At normal quitting time (1600?) the Navy
started showing up with their Navy girl friends (the island was being
shut down, and there wasn't any dependents there anymore). They sat
down (about 6 guys and 3 girls) and started drinking. One got up and
went to the fan and turned it toward them. The DC3 got up and turned it
back toward us. Another got up and turned it toward them. I got up and
turned it toward me. Navy got up and turned it toward them and the
non-rate got up to turn it back and the Navy guy punched him. Course
there was a brawl. They beat the crap out of us and the NAVY Shore
Patrol came and told us we had a choice of either going back to our
quarters or to the brig. When we got back to Kure the next morning, we
looked like hell. But we did get a few good punches in, but we were way
outnumbered..... These days it would be considered an alcohol related
incident. Two such incidents and you're normally kicked out.

I've never been to Kwajalein, but I was stationed on Guam on a 180' buoy
tender. Our AOR was being changed to include Kwajalein, but I left
before it happened and the cutter has since been decommissioned. No
idea if we took over responsibility.

Dave Young

Martin H. Eastburn wrote:

Dave -

We were on Kwajalein atoll and island. The Loran station was up-atoll.

The best story I heard regarding the hero stuff out of coastal rollers
and the war times was during the early 60's - the Coast Guard had sent
the
typical flotilla checking on various Loran stations and other sites here
and there. The Sea Air Rescue based at the airport was Navy. The Island
was Navy until (ugh) the Army took over and that is another story for
my annuals.

The drama : Soviet sub was in the Lagoon - 70 miles on a diagonal -
boomerang shaped.
Normally they were out at sea - they were spying on us - doing the odd
missile shot -
rather being shot at by the local shooters in Ca. Sometimes subs -
they were rare shots.

If out at sea, the sub would be 'flowered' with baking flower - sticky
mess and
the photo team and sub nasty. Such is life. Then they picked the
lagoon.

The cutters were coming into service the Loran station - oil for the
generators, food,
life and that stuff - when they spotted the sub. Wish I were there -
I bet there was
sweat on more than one brow!

The Coasties decided to give chase and call home (Washington
naturally) Washington was slow
to respond (or think) - the sub went into a shallow area in the
northwest - really un-charted
area - might have been looking for an outlet.

The cutters laid a sub net and bit fingernails waiting on Washington.

After a bit, the sub commander - likely under threat himself solved
the incident.

He fired two tubes at the net, it blasted like all heck (phew) and
without orders,
the Coast Guard had to part way. They really had a foreign power
within a Trust Territory
in trusted to them - but had no war powers in that sense.

The Russians went back to the deep ocean and the Coast Guard went on
their way.

It was one of those phew no one got shot and things went back to normal.

Kinda reminds me of the movie - "The Russians are coming" only
differently.


We were the mid pacific refueling and missile target range - so we saw
Deep Ocean trackers
and typically cargo ships to us. It was a restricted port, but we had
drop-ins.

Had a New Zealand carrier come to visit - picking up some planes after
a typhoon....

Martin

Dave Young wrote:

Martin,

I've also done an isolated LORAN tour (Kure Island, Hawaii from
1980-1981) as an engineman (we call them MK's - Machinery
Technician's). But Kure was a "Gilligan's Island". Thoroughly
enjoyed it, but was island happy by the time the year was up and was
glad to leave. I was able to do an overnighter on Midway Island
after about 8 months on Kure. Wish I could go back, but the LORAN
Station has been shut down and leveled (for the most part) and the
island is now an animal sanctuary watched over by the State of
Hawaii. You have to get special permission to go on the island from
the state.

Extinguishers won't freeze stuff when used like they're supposed to.
I actually tried to cool a six pack of my favorite beverage one time
with a CO2. Nadda. However, if you take a container of the liquid
and drop a ball, insect (don't ask me how I know), hot coffee, etc.,
you get some interesting results. Same thing with halon (back then
we didn't know about the ozone damage from it). You can spray
someone down with CO2 and it won't hurt them, but will scare the hell
out of you if you're not expecting it (again, don't ask me how I know
this). The noise and white "smoke" will make an internal mess of
your pants, if you know what I mean. If you get a flake of CO2 on
you you'll feel it; but it's not really what I'd call painful. It
evaporates pretty fast. If I'm ever on fire (God forbid), please
feel free to spray me down with CO2 or halon.

Dave Young



Martin H. Eastburn wrote:

Great! I'd spray myself or you down if we were on fire. with CO2 I'd
jump into the sea. Ever see what CO2 does to a rubber ball -
shatters it.

Also aboard ship, as in those, rollovers might inject water into
compartments
and freezing water from CO2 might do as much damage as the fire.

A cousin of mine was a Loran Radioman - His station was mid
pacific. His island
was smaller than the 110 WPB you mention. Just coral heads with
sand. We met him
one day when the 'fleet' was in and brought him food and swapped
partial crew and
gave all a day off on our island - 1.5 miles long, 500 yards wide
and 6 ft. (yes ~2M)
tall at the highest. We fed him after we looked him up - better
than the local
food hall.

Best Regards,
Martin

In article , Dave Young says...

One got up and
went to the fan and turned it toward them. The DC3 got up and turned it
back toward us. Another got up and turned it toward them. I got up and
turned it toward me. Navy got up and turned it toward them and the
non-rate got up to turn it back and the Navy guy punched him. Course
there was a brawl.

This reminds me of when I was working nights, with a great
co-worker. The place was about 100 degrees during the day,
and they had big floor-mounted circulator fans to try to
keep the guys from passing out from the heat. Things
would calm down and we would run the fans at night, to
bring in outside air and blow it over us while running
the machines.

I would sneak up behind Don and quietly switch off his
fan, and he wouldn't notice it for a bit. Then I would
look over and say, "sure is hot tonight, eh?"

He got his revenge though, he would pull a load of parts out of
our annealing furnace, and park the fork truck so the fans
were blowing the air through them, right over me. Now
*that's* hot!

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

jim rozen wrote:

In article , Dave Young says...


One got up and
went to the fan and turned it toward them. The DC3 got up and turned it
back toward us. Another got up and turned it toward them. I got up and
turned it toward me. Navy got up and turned it toward them and the
non-rate got up to turn it back and the Navy guy punched him. Course
there was a brawl.


This reminds me of when I was working nights, with a great
co-worker. The place was about 100 degrees during the day,
and they had big floor-mounted circulator fans to try to
keep the guys from passing out from the heat. Things
would calm down and we would run the fans at night, to
bring in outside air and blow it over us while running
the machines.

I would sneak up behind Don and quietly switch off his
fan, and he wouldn't notice it for a bit. Then I would
look over and say, "sure is hot tonight, eh?"

The electronics tech equivalent of reaching over
and quitely switching off your neighbor's soldering
iron.

He got his revenge though, he would pull a load of parts out of
our annealing furnace, and park the fork truck so the fans
were blowing the air through them, right over me. Now
*that's* hot!

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

Speaking of concrete and shops...For you fellows with in-floor radiant heat
with the PEX type tubing, do any of you have an auto lift or anything else
drilled and bolted into the floor? If so what preparations did you make
beforehand? I live in NC and am considering this type of heating, along with
a gas pack for quick heat-up, but I like to bolt some of my workshop tools
down. I know I could map the PEX zones, but there may be other ideas. I'm
off work 3 days a week, so I would use the radiant heat for extended shop
projects, and the gas pack for short stays. Any other ideas on this? Also,
another of the best things I have ever spent time and money on was a hoist
monorail across the ceiling of my present shop. In this shop, there is a
door on each side so that I can do a drive through with a trailer load of
goods, and unload onto dollys with a chain hoist. It also runs across my
in-floor bike lift to allow me to pull bike front ends, and across my
welding table to allow me to handle heavy weldments. Car engines are pulled
in the drive through area. Larger weldments are built in this zone to allow
flipping over with the hoist. The 32 foot long 6" I beam is supported on
each end by a 4" pipe post, with 1/2" B7 rods tapped into 1"tall 1-1/2"
diameter hot rolled adaptor sockets welded to the top of the beam every 2
feet, protruding up through the trusses. A 2X4 clamping plate is running
along the top of the bottom chord of the trusses, at the triangulation
point, using flat bar washers, lockwashers, and nuts through drilled holes
to clamp the beam to the trusses, making it "somewhat" mutually supporting.
It was tested by measuring to the floor, then picking up the front end of a
66 Impala in mid-air, then checking deflection in the middle. It's been in
service for 23 years, and has made me thousands of dollars in being able to
handle machines to resell by myself. Heavier items like mills and such are
unloaded by using a pair of adjustable stiff knees, one on each side of the
trailer to localize the support, then I just drive out from under it. There
are 3 trolleys with various hoists on them. My soon -to-be new shop will not
be without something similar.

RJ

"Toolbert" wrote in message
s.com...
"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
om...
The need to have a smooth flat surface along the access path to your
shop where you will roll items in and out is a real one.

Concrete... I'm happy with the way our new place worked out.
Previously
had a concrete driveway apron with exposed-aggregate finish that was
pretty
but not helpful for rolling any kind of steel or other small wheel.

For the new place we got a "light broom" finish, that is a tradeoff
because
it will eventually wear smooth enough to possibly be a hazard, but it sure
is easier on the wheels.

Same here, the shop slab is flat and extends 6" past the door, then
transitions in-line to the apron. There is no step or joint, just poured
against the edge of the slab, it has held up OK for 4 years.

The overhead door is a 9' wide x 8' high that is under a 24" overhang and
is
on the lee side of the building anyway. No water entry to date.

8' out from the door, before the apron slab was poured I set two pieces of
4" sched 40 electrical conduit in footings and plumbed them carefully.
Plated welded to the bottom, the open end is about 12" above the slab.
After the slab was poured, they served as sockets for a lift frame built
with 3-1/2" sched 40 pipe and a wide-flange beam. The 3-1/2" pipe
eventually got welded to the 4".

There's a good photo he

http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/...iles/beam6.jpg

The scaffold in the photo had just been used to erect the frame, a rush
job
so we could get that lathe out of the back of my truck.

I tend to like to put alot of wire in a building. I (over)wired my
building for power (single/3-phase with over sized wire), alarm, high
speed ethernet, video and telephone. Along with this, I installed
copper for air and a dust collecting system.

My evil twin brother apparently.

The fact that PVC fails dramatically while copper will fail gracefully
is enough reason for me to pay the extra price for copper.

Having done a bit of research ... after the fact ... for air I have a few
hundred feet of 3/4" sched 40 PVC underground, bedded in sand.
Transitions
to hard copper or galvanized steel before turning up towards the surface.
Black pipe or copper above ground & in walls.

If you have a large access door, make sure you have it wide and HIGH
enough to roll your lifting device with load through it. I have a
gantry crane (1 ton) that is too high to roll through my 8 foot high
access door in my shop. I should have seen that problem before I built

I chose a 2nd story instead of a high ceiling. For indoors, I use a
pallet
jack, a set of machine moving carriages or as last resort a cheap engine
hoist.

Bob

Backlash wrote:

Also, another of
the best things I have ever spent time and money on was a hoist
monorail across the ceiling of my present shop. In this shop, there
is a door on each side so that I can do a drive through with a
trailer load of goods, and unload onto dollys with a chain hoist.

Any photos? I'd like to see some. Thanks.

-- Mark

On 12 Jan 2004 01:53:16 -0600, geoff merryweather
wrote:

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 05:55:09 GMT, Fitch R. Williams
wrote:

Make it bigger than you think you will need
and a FLAT surface under the door so you have nothing to roll over.

I was showing an inch drop - that is probably a mistake. I'll adjust
the drawing.
That inch (between the inside floor and the outside) stops rain
blowing under the garage door. Depends on how exposed it is, it would
be easy enough to make a shallow ramp.
Geoff

Perfect solution so the garage floor can be flat with the driveway:
Slot trench drain with cast-in-place concrete body and cast iron
grates. Stops the water coming under the door, allows the area to be
dead flat, and should be plenty strong enough for any steel casters or
other point loads you can throw at it.

If we ever get around to installing french drains from the side
street (low point on property) to the front yard I'll put in a trench
drain in front of the garage door as we pass by. Right now, we have
no place to send the water. Heck, I might just make the trench an
open section of the drain system - 20' less drain pipe to clog...

-- Bruce --
--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.

"Backlash" wrote in message ...
Speaking of concrete and shops...For you fellows with in-floor radiant heat
with the PEX type tubing, do any of you have an auto lift or anything else
drilled and bolted into the floor? If so what preparations did you make
beforehand? I live in NC and am considering this type of heating, along with

I have radiant heat in my new shop and having a lift in mind already,
embedded a frame in the floor at pour time. This made it easy to
route around it for the tubing and gives me something very solid to
bolt to when I get to installing the lift. For now I am still
finishing the rest of the shop, so the lift can wait. I plugged the
holes with styrofoam. Removing it will be a matter of a little
gasoline and the stuff will melt right away.

JW

All the racer supply places still sell halon fire systems, and hand-held units,
today.
There is a new product out that is water-based and almost as equipment-friendly.
Much cheaper, but may not be suitable for hand-helds.


On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 06:58:52 GMT, Bruce L. Bergman
wrote:

|On 11 Jan 2004 09:48:36 -0800, jim rozen
|wrote:
|In article , Bruce L. Bergman
|says...
|
| Oh, and a VERY important note: Go get that Halon extinguisher you,
|um, "inherited"... serviced by a professional shop at least every 6
|years, even if you've never used it - they have found that the O-ring
|seals on the discharge nozzle crack from age and leak out the charge,
|so you need to get them replaced before your precious (and expensive)
|gas escapes. "Save the Ozone Layer" and all that bilge... ;-)
|
|OK, but I suspect that if I take it in for service, they cannot
|legally remove the halon and re-install it. So I've been simply
|weighing the extinguisher annually. Here I assume the pressure
|gage on the unit is worse than useless, as the vapor pressure at
|room temperature will be constant as long as there is any liquid
|in the tank.
|
| Balderdash! I The one I have in the office was just hydrotested and
|refilled 4/17/2003, and they didn't ask any questions at all... I
|even bought a new Halon for the Corvair a few years back, it was about
|$50 but they sold it to me. They are discouraging Halon use, and
|taxing it, but it isn't illegal yet...
|
| If you don't believe me, call a local shop and ask them
|"hypothetically" if they can service it for you. The only thing that
|would stop them is if the previous owner engraved their name on it.
|
| And Halon 1211 units have nitrogen for delivery pressurization over
|the liquid Halon contents that has a low vapor pressure, so the tare
|weight and cylinder pressure are both important.
|
|When it no longer meets the spec, I will replace it with either co2
|or dry powder.
|
| You never mentioned a brand or model number... The only thing I
|could see stopping them servicing it is if it is one of the
|Plastic-head "Disposable" units the size of an aerosol can and sold as
|a "kitchen extinguisher" that was made to be one time use only. In
|that case, if it's 1201 inside they can capture the Halon in their big
|tank and recycle it, and give you a credit for the contents. Unless
|you get the fire really early, and inside a confined space like an
|oven, one pound or less of Halon won't go very far.
|
| The important part is to find an extinguisher service facility in
|your area that is set up to work with Halon, they will usually also
|have their own hydrotest cell so they can do it all there.
|
| A lot of small shops and mobile services don't have the gear, they
|farm it out and mark up the prices to cover the shipping.
|
| If you are in Los Angeles, call Pioneer Fire Protection in Van Nuys,
|they do it all in-house and will take good care of your service needs.
|818/785-8571 I take quite a few odd units found at garage sales for
|them to refill, including CO2-cartridge style, Purple-K, Army WWII
|Surplus 2.5# CO2 - but that doesn't get me an exemption from any of
|the safety rules. I've had to scrap a few units for dumb stuff like
|the serial number on the belly band was illegible.
|
| -- Bruce --
|--
|Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
|Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
|5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
|Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.

Rex in Fort Worth

In article , Bruce L. Bergman
says...


And Halon 1211 units have nitrogen for delivery pressurization over
the liquid Halon contents that has a low vapor pressure, so the tare
weight and cylinder pressure are both important.

OK, that's something I did not understand, but do now. I
was unaware that there was a nitrogen propellant.

You never mentioned a brand or model number...

It's made by Amerex corp, and is a five pound halon
1211 unit. It's rated 10BC btw.

I will perform the 'hypothetical' service call shortly!
Thanks - Jim

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==================================================

Dave Young wrote:

big snip on epic stories :-)

Thanks for the story - so many of us were there...

Martin

--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder