Bridge Crane build

[woodchucker]

Got one of the end-trucks painted. I won't claim to be more than a hobby machinist at best, but a painter I ain't. Period.

Paint is still pretty soft, it'll need a week or so to really harden. Didn't really mean to duplicate Dewalts color scheme, just wanted a hi-vis yellow for the moving parts. The static parts are white, as is the ceiling. The bridge beam will be this same yellow.
View attachment 455100

nice welds.. they look good. I realize a grinder helps, but I'm looking at the beads at the bottom of the 45 and it looks good.

 

[rabler]

nice welds.. they look good. I realize a grinder helps, but I'm looking at the beads at the bottom of the 45 and it looks good.

Thanks!

I was satisfied with the way they turned out. But another reason that I wanted a top-running bridge is I'm not a certified welder. This way if something does fail with one of these welds, the side support rail is still there to catch things.

 

[dkemppai]

I'm building a top running design also, same reason. Gravity always works, you never get to turn it off! Might as well use it to your advantage!

 

[rabler]

Gravity always works, you never get to turn it off

I can't help recalling a friend from my working days, she was a civil engineer, and was shall we say, well endowed. She did a lot of field work so lunch on the go. Her "crumb catchers" would occasionally show traces of lunch. To which she would say "damn, gravity works".

 

[aliva]

That's school bus yellow no copyright infringement

 

[rabler]

That's school bus yellow no copyright infringement

I went to Sherwin Williams and asked for "Safety Yellow" in a metal enamel. I may be more picky about shades for painting the house interior, but here it was just something yellow and glaring and obvious. Nothing else in my shop of any size is yellow so it'll stand out, just like I want.

 

[rabler]

Incremental progress. Slow going fighting the fatigue from being on a liquid transitioning to low residue diet, and poor sleep due to the steroids. The redeeming factor on shop progress is a severe heat wave means there is no way I'm doing more than essential horse-care for outdoor chores.

I cut one end of the bridge beam. Believe me I triple checked the length before cutting, these beams are not cheap. Need to spin it around today to cut the other end, then start putting the end plates and gussets on.


Also working on the little blocks to hold the bumper/tracking bearings on the side of the trucks. Need a total of 16 of these. They're 2" long, so I did them in a gang of 4 pieces using a 9" piece of material, which fit nicely in the 6" vice. 1215 steel, never worked with it before, this was a lark to try it out, not that these need to be special, but this stuff really finished nicely.

 

[rabler]

You'd think I would have had enough of medical issues after last week that I'd be more careful.
New angle grinder, with a new wire cup. Lots of little things, but things went south. Wire wheel sucked in my shirt, yanked the wheel instantly into my gut, stopped and tried to spin again. I sat there struggling to hold the damn thing away from me while the motor burned up.


I'll be adding a shop apron to my PPE for future angle grinder work.
Be careful out there

 

[Dabbler]

I hope you are all right!

 

[extropic]

Yes sir, wire wheels can be vicious. I all happens so quickly. It looks like you got an educational experience.

Good it wasn't worse. Consider a leather apron.

When I was about 8 YOA I was using my Dad's drill motor w/ maybe 3" wire wheel to clean up a part. I was holding the part in one hand and the drill in the other (w/ trigger locked ON). The wheel grabbed my T shirt, about nipple high, instantly wadded it up and was trying to climb my neck. The wire wheel had so much T shirt wrapped around that it was no danger. However, it was all that little kid could do to keep the drill's pistol grip from getting loose and beating me to death. I was sitting on the floor and had to fall over and roll away to pull the power plug from the socket. Everybody/thing lived, except maybe the T shirt. I'm glad it wasn't an angle grinder. I don't think that little kid would have won the fight.