The Construction Thread

[Bert Notorius]

Sounds and looks like fun.....Any good CAD software for remodeling on the market?

A lot of guys are using Soft Plan. It has BOM capabilities as well as the drafting side.

 

[daylightwarrior]

Another trick.

When testing waterlines after a complete plumbing job. Dont test it by turning on the water.
Hook an air compressor up to the system and apply 40 psi to the whole system and let it sit over night.

If the pressure has not fallen. All water lines are good to go and it's safe to turn on the water.

Are you saying I didn't have to flood the 2 story building when I forgot to solder that one joint??

 

[Xander]

What kind of adaptor or fitting? I can't picture it.

It's a bit of a funky set up. Mine is set up with a plug to the compressor, on galvanized 1/2 pipe, to a ball valve, Short galvernized nipple, to my PSI gauge, A short piece of Cobber, with a copper to Pex fitting, and then attach the pex end to the water system, with whatever fitting you need there.

The Pex end, makes it easy to adapted this funky setup to any form of water line.

I'll go see if I got one of these setups laying around in my garage or if they're all over at the shop.

 

[Xander]

Are you saying I didn't have to flood the 2 story building when I forgot to solder that one joint??

Damn straight skippy

 

[rosco rathbone]

It's a bit of a funky set up. Mine is set up with a plug to the compressor, on galvanized 1/2 pipe, to a ball valve, Short galvernized nipple, to my PSI gauge, A short piece of Cobber, with a copper to Pex fitting, and then attach the pex end to the water system, with whatever fitting you need there.

The Pex end, makes it easy to adapted this funky setup to any form of water line.

I'll go see if I got one of these setups laying around in my garage or if they're all over at the shop.

What kind of compressor do you have?

 

[rosco rathbone]

Everyone, post "The Stupidest Thing I Ever Saw" and "The Stupidest Thing I Ever Did".

I have many candidates for both.

 

[daylightwarrior]

What kind of adaptor or fitting? I can't picture it.

It's a bit of a funky set up. Mine is set up with a plug to the compressor, on galvanized 1/2 pipe, to a ball valve, Short galvernized nipple, to my PSI gauge, A short piece of Cobber, with a copper to Pex fitting, and then attach the pex end to the water system, with whatever fitting you need there.

The Pex end, makes it easy to adapted this funky setup to any form of water line.

I'll go see if I got one of these setups laying around in my garage or if they're all over at the shop.

You could use a pasco test gauge valve with the 1/2" ips treads. Screw it on air it up. they have them going all the way to 60lbs. which is what we have to air test at.

 

[Xander]

What kind of compressor do you have?

Just an ordinary Dewalt. Same one I use when I am running nail guns.

You know the twin tank design.

 

[daylightwarrior]

Everyone, post "The Stupidest Thing I Ever Saw" and "The Stupidest Thing I Ever Did".

I have many candidates for both.

We work in the trades. But crack abounds. The possibilities of posting stupid things are endless.

Personally the worse thing that I see over and over again is people pining back the guards on their skill saws. I should start a blood bank. It's a $19,000 fine here and a red tag on the job. Yet this is rampant in this area.

 

[Xander]

Everyone, post "The Stupidest Thing I Ever Saw" and "The Stupidest Thing I Ever Did".

I have many candidates for both.

Dumbest thing I ever did......Damn that's gotta be nailing my hand to a wall, because I wasn't paying attention. With a framing nailer.
I had to pull the nail out with a pair of appliers.

Dumbest thing I have ever seen....Oh God there are so many. Well there was this rookie hotshot kid (Or so he thought he was a badass) running the sky track at a new construction. Took off a whole side of newly framed second story wall, because. Apparently, he did NOT know how to run the damn thing.

 

[Saint Peter]

Everyone, post "The Stupidest Thing I Ever Saw" and "The Stupidest Thing I Ever Did".

I have many candidates for both.

I was fabricating for a company that made the gantries that held the electronics using in radiation therapy. It was built around a three inch plate of steel that was then machined down to insure perfect line up. The weight added to the machine's stability and required very hot welds to hold all of it together. We all used big hammers, many of them had nick names like "Big Bertha" or something similar, to persuade the parts to go into the correct alignment before welding.

The owner of the company (we were a sub) flew out to California to pick up an award for excellence in all the stuff we sent out. Our stuff was tracked for quality in every step, and the finished product reflected this...most of the time.

When Mr. Big went to get his award, he was presented with one of the crews "Big Bertha" hammers. In a hurry one of the fabricators welded his hammer inside of a closed area of the gantry, and nobody in the whole process notices the clunking when the part was being machined or painted.

Back in Colorado, the hammer mysteriously had no owner. All I know for certain is my "Big Bertha" was still locked in my toolbox.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Here's one:

First day on a new gang, installing reinforcement plates along the underside of the top chord of a suspension bridge. You only get one chance to make a first impression, right?

The roadway is about 50 feet down to one side of the scaffold and the pedestrian walkway with the gangboxes and shanty about 20 feet down on the other side. I'm up inside the chord, reaming holes, so I don't hear when "coffee" is called. Reaming produces heaps of needle-sharp, razor-edged splinters, about an inch long.

Finally in a lull I hear the apprentice yelling up at me. I come out on hands and knees and I can't see the walkway because of this netting we have over the scaffold rails. Thinks I to myself "before I go down, I'll just blast off this pick with the air line, so that I'm not knee deep in razor-blades when I come back up. Thinking that everyone was in the shanty, without looking, I did so. Mistake. It was a nice day and I completely covered the entire gang, sitting right underneath me, coffee cups and sandwhiches out, hard hats off, in reamer splinters. On the first day.

No one spoke to me except for my psychotic partner, for 2 months.

 

[Saint Peter]

Here's one:

First day on a new gang, installing reinforcement plates along the underside of the top chord of a suspension bridge. You only get one chance to make a first impression, right?

The roadway is about 50 feet down to one side of the scaffold and the pedestrian walkway with the gangboxes and shanty about 20 feet down on the other side. I'm up inside the chord, reaming holes, so I don't hear when "coffee" is called. Reaming produces heaps of needle-sharp, razor-edged splinters, about an inch long.

Finally in a lull I hear the apprentice yelling up at me. I come out on hands and knees and I can't see the walkway because of this netting we have over the scaffold rails. Thinks I to myself "before I go down, I'll just blast off this pick with the air line, so that I'm not knee deep in razor-blades when I come back up. Thinking that everyone was in the shanty, without looking, I did so. Mistake. It was a nice day and I completely covered the entire gang, sitting right underneath me, coffee cups and sandwhiches out, hard hats off, in reamer splinters. On the first day.

No one spoke to me except for my psychotic partner, for 2 months.

Great story, Rosco.

 

[rosco rathbone]

I was fabricating for a company that made the gantries that held the electronics using in radiation therapy. It was built around a three inch plate of steel that was then machined down to insure perfect line up. The weight added to the machine's stability and required very hot welds to hold all of it together. We all used big hammers, many of them had nick names like "Big Bertha" or something similar, to persuade the parts to go into the correct alignment before welding.

The owner of the company (we were a sub) flew out to California to pick up an award for excellence in all the stuff we sent out. Our stuff was tracked for quality in every step, and the finished product reflected this...most of the time.

When Mr. Big went to get his award, he was presented with one of the crews "Big Bertha" hammers. In a hurry one of the fabricators welded his hammer inside of a closed area of the gantry, and nobody in the whole process notices the clunking when the part was being machined or painted.

Back in Colorado, the hammer mysteriously had no owner. All I know for certain is my "Big Bertha" was still locked in my toolbox.

They tell us Never Put Your Initials On Your Wrenches and When You Drop Something, Do Not Look Over The Edge.

 

[Saint Peter]

They tell us Never Put Your Initials On Your Wrenches and When You Drop Something, Do Not Look Over The Edge.

My tools are marked with a weld stamp (a flat six pointed star) for that reason.

 

[rosco rathbone]

My tools are marked with a weld stamp (a flat six pointed star) for that reason.

Mine are marked with a peculiar arrangement of dots, made with a center-punch, known only to me.

I was always told, "never weld on your wrenches, you'll ruin the temper". I had a steamfitter tackweld a washer to the middle of my 7/8ths connecting bar so that it wouldn't keep slipping out of the scabbard. One tiny button tack, just a brief zap. About a year later, an piece of angle iron, about 200 lbs probably, fell a couple of feet and hit the bar right on the weld and it snapped in half without even bending. I'd been standing on this thing, sitting on it, jumping up and down on it, putting all my weight on it. I'm glad the angle broke it and not my dumb ass halfway up a column.

 

[Xander]

It seems that a lot of the people in this thread are working for bigger companies and work on a lot of commercial buildings.

Though we do have a good amount of commercial accounts. I mostly work on residential buildings.

We're a small company so we dont take on the bigger jobs.

One of our biggest commercial account is the local hospital. And they have provided us with some of the nastiest jobs ever.

 

[daylightwarrior]

Dumbest thing I ever did......Damn that's gotta be nailing my hand to a wall, because I wasn't paying attention. With a framing nailer.
I had to pull the nail out with a pair of appliers.

Okay dumbest thing I did, again from not paying attention, was drilling a hole in my leg. Quoting from the toyota commercial "Oh what a feeling" Which isn't bad enough but I had to bandage it up, drive to the hospital, find out there was a nursing strike and finally help the doctor stitch up my leg. (almost 200) You haven't lived until to try to stitch up some gash on yourself. They wouldn't let me leave since I was going to drive so I had to sneak out. (I did pay the bill).

 

[Xander]

Okay dumbest thing I did, again from not paying attention, was drilling a hole in my leg. Quoting from the toyota commercial "Oh what a feeling" Which isn't bad enough but I had to bandage it up, drive to the hospital, find out there was a nursing strike and finally help the doctor stitch up my leg. (almost 200) You haven't lived until to try to stitch up some gash on yourself. They wouldn't let me leave since I was going to drive so I had to sneak out. (I did pay the bill).

People are funny about injuries like that.

Best remedy for cuts and bruises on a construction site, has been duct tape and super glue.
You can patch pretty much anything up with that combo.

 

[daylightwarrior]

People are funny about injuries like that.

Best remedy for cuts and bruises on a construction site, has been duct tape and super glue.
You can path pretty much anything up with that combo.

I was inspected by OSHA once re: first aid kits. I told him duct tape and toilet paper is all I ever use. My SU doesn't like me using super glue since some moron put some on a chair and the owners wife sat on it. I had to razor blade her skirt and her butt off of it. (and it was such a nice butt too)! They fired the rest of the crew.

 

[Xander]

I was inspected by OSHA once re: first aid kits. I told him duct tape and toilet paper is all I ever use. My SU doesn't like me using super glue since some moron put some on a chair and the owners wife sat on it. I had to razor blade her skirt and her butt off of it. (and it was such a nice butt too)! They fired the rest of the crew.

At least it wasn't purple primer.

I've had this discussion with Sweetvee a while back, about the usage of duct tape and super glue VS. The actual first aid kit.

She swears we're nuts for putting glue, toilet paper and duct tape over our respective cuts and bruises.
But in my experience, that's really what works best. And it allows you to continue working.

 

[rosco rathbone]

At least it wasn't purple primer.

I've had this discussion with Sweetvee a while back, about the usage of duct tape and super glue VS. The actual first aid kit.

She swears we're nuts for putting glue, toilet paper and duct tape over our respective cuts and bruises.
But in my experience, that's really what works best. And it allows you to continue working.

I use that shit all the time. I carry a bottle of alcohol in my bag, pour that on, duct tape.

I also completely ducttape my feet many times, especially with new boots. Completely prevents all blisters.

 

[Xander]

I use that shit all the time. I carry a bottle of alcohol in my bag, pour that on, duct tape.

I also completely ducttape my feet many times, especially with new boots. Completely prevents all blisters.

I'm gonna have to try the duct tape my feet thing. I always get a number of blisters when breaking in a new pair. And it sucks.

Thanks man.

 

[daylightwarrior]

At least it wasn't purple primer.

I've had this discussion with Sweetvee a while back, about the usage of duct tape and super glue VS. The actual first aid kit.

She swears we're nuts for putting glue, toilet paper and duct tape over our respective cuts and bruises.
But in my experience, that's really what works best. And it allows you to continue working.

Purple primer doesn't stick like super glue. It was a metal chair.

I bleeding, I'm washing, I'm duct taping. I figure I haven't died yet so it has to work. I did get some grief about duct tape on my leg. Pulling all the hair off my leg was kind of uncomfortable.

I use that shit all the time. I carry a bottle of alcohol in my bag, pour that on, duct tape.

I also completely ducttape my feet many times, especially with new boots. Completely prevents all blisters.

I teach trail building to college students all the time. We tell them over and over to wear those boots all the time for a couple of weeks before they get out here. But do they listen? Noooooo! I use duct tape for as a friction stop pretty well.

 

[Trace_Element]

20 years ago, working in cleaning out an abandoned elevator shaft in a building we were renovating...my partner goes upstairs, after leaving me chest deep in the access door. pulling out some old conduit...he goes upstairs to check something, notices the brickwork around the access door there is loose....yanks the access door out and kicks the shit out of brick. First one down took off my hardhat...second one, middle of the chest...3rd 4th and 5th, random shots to the side of the head, shoulder and jaw as I tried to get out of the way. He hid the rest of the day...something about me threatening to throw his ass down the shaft from the 18th floor...he still shys away from me if I go home...figuring I have had time to plot some wicked revenge...never have got him back yet...