The Construction Thread

[rosco rathbone]

Great. Now drop a few more on a light hood and you are golden.

I have a wobbly head. The Carter-era hood helps steady it.

 

[chillywilly2]

OK
Back from the ride

My story now

Working on a smelter shutdown.
The carpenters needed a lift of plywood hoisted to the roof.
The 27T boom truck lifted it up, full boom extension. They wanted it just a couple more feet over on the roof. When the boomtruck operator boomed down, she started to tip, he kept going and let the boom rest against the side of the building. It was just far enough. When he cabled down and lowered the plywood, the truck went back onto the outriggers. No problem right.

Well, the safety guy was watching all this. He came up to the operator and says "just what the hell do you call a move like that"

The operator calmly says to him "that, is what we call a controlled tip"

He didn't work on that project anymore

 

[rosco rathbone]

OK
Back from the ride

My story now

Working on a smelter shutdown.
The carpenters needed a lift of plywood hoisted to the roof.
The 27T boom truck lifted it up, full boom extension. They wanted it just a couple more feet over on the roof. When the boomtruck operator boomed down, she started to tip, he kept going and let the boom rest against the side of the building. It was just far enough. When he cabled down and lowered the plywood, the truck went back onto the outriggers. No problem right.

Well, the safety guy was watching all this. He came up to the operator and says "just what the hell do you call a move like that"

The operator calmly says to him "that, is what we call a controlled tip"

He didn't work on that project anymore

Hehehe. He knew he was history, just going out with class.

 

[chillywilly2]

And then you get this..when the engineer says
"no problem, the ground is packed enough to handle that"

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u150/Dara2007/crane003small.jpg

 

[rosco rathbone]

And then you get this..when the engineer says
"no problem, the ground is packed enough to handle that"

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u150/Dara2007/crane003small.jpg

Oh man, how fucking embarrassing. Is that on one of your jobs?

A couple years ago, midwinter in the Bronx I show up on the first day of a job. 2 connectors from the hall, 2 company guys and a foreman. "Quick little job fellas, 3 days tops. All we have to do is get that cherry picker from down there up onto the hill and start setting." By the end of the day, we had moved the crane about 100 feet.The mud was literally waist deep underneath it and I was the only one willing to go swimming. "Keep passin him the planks boys". "Think I'll just lie here and let this thing run over me and put me out of my misery".

 

[rosco rathbone]

The 2000$ Rivet

That's what it cost to extract, in labor. More or less. Those are 100-year old rivets, holding three or four plies of iron together on a bridge that has been twisting, turning, shearing and flexing for a century.

The normal procedure is to snap the heads off with one of these things. It's basically an overgrown rivet gun, or air chisel, or "all position jackhammer", called a "helldog" or rivet buster:

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii152/rosco_rathbone/helldog.jpg


It takes two men to handle it. One holds the punch or chisel on the rivet head, the other leans all his weight on the handle and pulls the trigger. It helps if your partner hasn't been up all night doing lines and shots at the bar around the corner from the job, caught an hour coma time in his truck and then showed up with a cooler full of Bud smokestacks.

First rivet of the day. The head flies off into traffic at major-league fastball speed. Then you line the punch up with the truncated stump and knock it out. Hopefully. Sometimes, it's just totally sheared in there and you have to drill it. (Mechanical extraction only, no burning or lancing).

So, we got out the Hogan magnetic drill, drilled the rivet, and as soon as we had the bit completely buried a train came by, the whole bridge flexed, the plies sheared, and the 3-inch tool steel bit was broken off inside the rivet.

"Maybe we can punch it out now". So we punched, and shattered the bit and drove it all the way into the much softer steel of the rivet.

bopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbop (x100)

"Well I guess we oughta keep punchin'"

"You keep punchin, I'm havin a beer."


bopbopbopbopbopbopbop. Fuck this. I had a brainstorm. I clamped super-heavy bridge clamps above and below the point, ran a comealong between them and then put the helldog in like an arrow in a bow. If I set it up just right I could sit there at my ease with one finger on the trigger and just crank the comealong from time to time. 20 more minutes of punching.

"how ya'll makin out up there. still on that rivet?"

"ayup".

"Ya'll better use the twist bit and the powervane".

So, we had to set up the "old man" which is a jig, from about 1920, bolted to the iron which holds the powervane, or monster air-corner-reamer/drill. Another hour of punching out the necessary rivets to fit the bolts to hold the old man, some of those rivets didn't want to go either. Drag that enormous thing up on the scaffold, get it all set up. Start drilling, it's going great. WHoohoo! We gonna get this rivet by lunch! After a while, we realise we aren't making any more progress.....Ah shit man. Look at the twist bit. It's completely destroyed because we are trying to drill through the broken Hogan bit which is about 20 times harder than the rivet.

"Are you guys done dicking around with that fucking rivet yet?"

"Just a couple a minutes there boss"

What to do what to do. Aha. Someone (me) must crawl up inside the box girder, over traffic, drag the helldog after him, barely able to move it's so tight, knock the head off the backside of the rivet, all tangled up in air line, partner making drunk comments "that helldog is kickin yer ass boy", etc.

Then we got a "dentist drill" which is a low-clearance, low-profile thingy that fits on the end of an airline and lets you turn a Hogan bit with an inch or two of headroom. It works very slowly. The space was so tight
there was no way to get any weight behind the drill, which takes a lot of pressure to make it bite. So we had to get a portapower, a hydraulic jack with a pancake ram, and jack off of one side of the inside of the box girder, shoving the drill into the back of the rivet, in the dark, over traffic, trying not to drill all cockeyed and make a huge hole in the side of the bridge. At that point there was no floor to the space, it was a hole over traffic, so I was in there holding both the drill and the ram, trying not to let them drop or get out of line. FUcko was sitting out on the pick drinking beer, pumping the jack and giving directions.

It took us till quitting time to punch it out.

These are some other rivets from that job. You can see the "sleeve" effect from punching.


http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii152/rosco_rathbone/tworivets.jpg

 

[stirbird]

These are some other rivets from that job. You can see the "sleeve" effect from punching.


http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii152/rosco_rathbone/tworivets.jpg

I love this thread. Phallic symbols everywhere!

 

[rosco rathbone]

I love this thread. Phallic symbols everywhere!

They do look like tools, don't they.

 

[stirbird]

They do look like tools, don't they.

Magic mushrooms, for sure. They also look like little guys wearing hard hats, but I often think cocks look that way.

Sheesh, where'd you find that AV, Rosco? How perfectly partriarchal. :/

 

[rosco rathbone]

Magic mushrooms, for sure. They also look like little guys wearing hard hats, but I often think cocks look that way.

Sheesh, where'd you find that AV, Rosco? How perfectly partriarchal. :/

I took the picture.

 

[stirbird]

I took the picture.

Oh, just great. :/

It's actually a very good shot, looks like stock photography.

 

[thør]

That's ........punching.

I hate working inside vessels, boilers, box beams and the like......

 

[Xander]

I think it would be interesting to hear if there is any of us, so called blue collar workers that has any experience in flipping houses.

There are many of us that are working on commercial projects all the time through, I assume a bigger company?

This is somewhat a foreign concept to me, since I work for a small company who does residentials mostly. And flipping houses is something that I would like to get into.

Now I realize that housing prices varies greatly throughout the country. And what can be bought here for 100k is probably a hell of a lot bigger than what 100k would buy in say NY. Then again pretty much everything in my state is for sale right now.

I'd like to stop working on these things and actually own a couple of my own. Ideally two 4 unit rental houses, and flipping a fixer upper once in a while.

 

[daylightwarrior]

I think it would be interesting to hear if there is any of us, so called blue collar workers that has any experience in flipping houses.

There are many of us that are working on commercial projects all the time through, I assume a bigger company?

This is somewhat a foreign concept to me, since I work for a small company who does residentials mostly. And flipping houses is something that I would like to get into.

Now I realize that housing prices varies greatly throughout the country. And what can be bought here for 100k is probably a hell of a lot bigger than what 100k would buy in say NY. Then again pretty much everything in my state is for sale right now.

I'd like to stop working on these things and actually own a couple of my own. Ideally two 4 unit rental houses, and flipping a fixer upper once in a while.

Yes, I flip houses. Not often mainly because because the prices are ridiculous here. $700,000+ So I spend a lot of time working on them. The duplex, fourplex is always a good option.

 

[rosco rathbone]

I think it would be interesting to hear if there is any of us, so called blue collar workers that has any experience in flipping houses.

There are many of us that are working on commercial projects all the time through, I assume a bigger company?

This is somewhat a foreign concept to me, since I work for a small company who does residentials mostly. And flipping houses is something that I would like to get into.

Now I realize that housing prices varies greatly throughout the country. And what can be bought here for 100k is probably a hell of a lot bigger than what 100k would buy in say NY. Then again pretty much everything in my state is for sale right now.

I'd like to stop working on these things and actually own a couple of my own. Ideally two 4 unit rental houses, and flipping a fixer upper once in a while.

I tried to get hester in here to talk about masonry. She knows that, and she knows houseflipping.

 

[Saint Peter]

I flip the wizzie all the time.

 

[Xander]

Yes, I flip houses. Not often mainly because because the prices are ridiculous here. $700,000+ So I spend a lot of time working on them. The duplex, fourplex is always a good option.

If I got my memory correct here. Where you are. The house value is nuts. And I am fairly certain that it's one of the most expensive areas in the states.

I'm looking at a 3 apartment building right now, that is owned by a friend of mine. And he just wants out of it. Need some TLC for sure. But the building itself with the current tenants, pretty much pays for itself with maybe a couple of hundred dollar profit right now. But it could be made into so much more for about 25k

Anyways, I am thinking a lot about this, because things are cheap right now. And if I buy, i want to be able to sit on it for at least a year before selling.

Example. The most expensive residential for sale right now, in my town, is a 2.5 million mansion, in the middle of town on a one acre lot. 6000 sq feet.

 

[Xander]

I tried to get hester in here to talk about masonry. She knows that, and she knows houseflipping.

hester should come back in here and run her mouth about her knowledge *nods*

 

[daylightwarrior]

If I got my memory correct here. Where you are. The house value is nuts. And I am fairly certain that it's one of the most expensive areas in the states.

I'm looking at a 3 apartment building right now, that is owned by a friend of mine. And he just wants out of it. Need some TLC for sure. But the building itself with the current tenants, pretty much pays for itself with maybe a couple of hundred dollar profit right now. But it could be made into so much more for about 25k

Anyways, I am thinking a lot about this, because things are cheap right now. And if I buy, i want to be able to sit on it for at least a year before selling.

Example. The most expensive residential for sale right now, in my town, is a 2.5 million mansion, in the middle of town on a one acre lot. 6000 sq feet.

Yes, thank you for rubbing it in! The drop in the housing prices went for outrageous to merely ridiculous. My agent thought it was funny. There are so many homes on the market that people are losing their butts on it's not funny.
Who in their right mind would buy a $250,000 house for $800.000? (Why Engineers of course)! (that was a poke at thør) . anyway this really gets me.
I let a duplex get away from me a couple of years ago that has tripled it's price.

I just don't have enough of the ready to buy something, pay mortgage and remodel it all at the once right now. If I did it wouldn't sell anyway.

 

[Hester]

hester should come back in here and run her mouth about her knowledge *nods*

meh. i don't know much but i'm happy to run my mouth.

 

[Saint Peter]

meh. i don't know much but i'm happy to run my mouth.

Tell us about your masonry.

 

[daylightwarrior]

hester should come back in here and run her mouth about her knowledge *nods*

Why? Is she built like a brick shit house?

 

[Hester]

Tell us about your masonry.

well, we meet in a lodge, believe in a supreme being, and are very ritualistic.

 

[Saint Peter]

well, we meet in a lodge, believe in a supreme being, and are very ritualistic.

Nice fez!

 

[thør]

Who in their right mind would buy a $250,000 house for $800.000? (Why Engineers of course)! (that was a poke at thør) . anyway this really gets me.

This is not funny......