It's been a while since I posted an update regarding the new shop. 2010 sure has flown past; it's hard to believe that it's almost Labor day.
Progress continues on the shop. I recently completed the last of the 480V wiring, and am now pretty much complete with the electrical work.
Thanks for fellow North Carolina Woodworker member Phil Soper, I scored some free sheetrock for the generator room, and installed it along with some sound deadening board on the two interior shop walls. These walls have spray foam insulation in them, and between all of the layers little sound enters the shop when the generator is running.
Last week I moved my air compressor over from the mechanical shop, and installed it in the generator room. During construction I buried a 1" air line between the two buildings so that I can back feed one from the other. By moving the compressor, it is now in a more climate controlled environment and also in a room where the noise is contained. I added an automatic condensate drain system to it when I moved it:
This is the view of the generator room from the main shop, showing the compressor in place.
I also fabricated a mount for the large dust collection system, and mounted and wired the 25hp motor to it. The first time that I fired up the blower... well, let's just say that EVERYBODY was backing away the faster that it spun up! That darn thing takes about 20 seconds to spin up, and it sounds like a jet engine. We blocked off 2/3 of the inlet, and still recorded over 100mph of wind speed coming out of the discharge! In the photo below, I am using all of my strength to try to block off the discharge opening while the blower is running. This is as close as I could get! (and before anybody says anything... yes, I will be fabricating a guard to go over the belts...)
Subsequent to getting the blower operational, we finished painting the doors and trim work, as well as the new walls inside the generator room.
The current project is fabricating the dust collection system. A couple of years ago I was able to score some large used dust collection tubing simply by being willing to remove it and haul it away. Here are some of the pieces laid out on the shop floor awaiting modification:
Since I did not obtain any 90 degree elbows for the largest sections (20" diameter), fellow North Carolina Woodworker member Doug Wilberg came over last Friday afternoon, and between the two of us we figured out how to use a couple of lasers to lay out the cuts. I started by marking my cut angles (22.5 degrees) on the floor, using one of the control joints as a reference point, and then Doug and I aligned the lasers with the lines. This in turn allowed us to have simultaneous reference lines on both sides of the tubing. In the photo below, you can see the red laser lines on the floor and on the tubing, and in the background you can see one of the lasers set up on the miter saw:
After laying out the cuts, we used a die grinder with a cutoff wheel, along with an air hacksaw to cut through the tubing. We then aligned it and tacked it together, forming the first bend. Here is a photo of Doug doing the tack welds on the first elbow:
Once the bottom elbow was complete, I repeated the process to make the upper elbow (this one is 18" diameter). Here is a photo of the elbow laid out on my welding table, with the middle section aligned and tacked to the flange section. On the floor in the middle background is the other piece of the elbow that I'm working on, and on the floor to the left is the lower section of the main riser that Doug tacked up:
Here is the completed upper elbow assembly:
Next, the upper and lower elbow assemblies were laid out end to end, and I cut and spliced them in the middle, to form the entire main riser.
In addition to having the 'joy' of welding up galvanized sheet metal forming the elbows (the fumes are not only poisonous, even a whiff of them will cause a slamming headache), the project also involved fabricating and welding a flange onto the main blower inlet, so that the newly fabricated riser would bolt up. Since the blower inlet is cast iron, the welding involved pre-heating, welding about 2" at a time using nickel welding rod, and the using a needle scaler to peen the weld for about 3 minutes in order to prevent it from cracking. It took the better part of a day just to make and weld up this flange:
In the end though, it was worth it! Here are a couple of photos of the completed riser installed on the blower. When you compare the blower and tubing to the doorway on the left, you get a good reference of the scale of this project. The shop has two different dust collection systems. My "small" system is 3 hp Oneida Super Dust Gorilla that has my personal woodworking equipment hooked up to it, along with the WBS and resaw. The 7" tubing coming off the middle of the riser on the big system is intended to be connected to the Oneida trunk lines via a couple of slide valves, which will allow me the option of bypassing the Oneida and using the big system for everything.
All in all, things are steadily moving forward. My goal is to have all of the main lines installed for the big system by the end of this weekend.
More to come!
Scott
Progress continues on the shop. I recently completed the last of the 480V wiring, and am now pretty much complete with the electrical work.
Thanks for fellow North Carolina Woodworker member Phil Soper, I scored some free sheetrock for the generator room, and installed it along with some sound deadening board on the two interior shop walls. These walls have spray foam insulation in them, and between all of the layers little sound enters the shop when the generator is running.
Last week I moved my air compressor over from the mechanical shop, and installed it in the generator room. During construction I buried a 1" air line between the two buildings so that I can back feed one from the other. By moving the compressor, it is now in a more climate controlled environment and also in a room where the noise is contained. I added an automatic condensate drain system to it when I moved it:
This is the view of the generator room from the main shop, showing the compressor in place.
I also fabricated a mount for the large dust collection system, and mounted and wired the 25hp motor to it. The first time that I fired up the blower... well, let's just say that EVERYBODY was backing away the faster that it spun up! That darn thing takes about 20 seconds to spin up, and it sounds like a jet engine. We blocked off 2/3 of the inlet, and still recorded over 100mph of wind speed coming out of the discharge! In the photo below, I am using all of my strength to try to block off the discharge opening while the blower is running. This is as close as I could get! (and before anybody says anything... yes, I will be fabricating a guard to go over the belts...)
Subsequent to getting the blower operational, we finished painting the doors and trim work, as well as the new walls inside the generator room.
The current project is fabricating the dust collection system. A couple of years ago I was able to score some large used dust collection tubing simply by being willing to remove it and haul it away. Here are some of the pieces laid out on the shop floor awaiting modification:
Since I did not obtain any 90 degree elbows for the largest sections (20" diameter), fellow North Carolina Woodworker member Doug Wilberg came over last Friday afternoon, and between the two of us we figured out how to use a couple of lasers to lay out the cuts. I started by marking my cut angles (22.5 degrees) on the floor, using one of the control joints as a reference point, and then Doug and I aligned the lasers with the lines. This in turn allowed us to have simultaneous reference lines on both sides of the tubing. In the photo below, you can see the red laser lines on the floor and on the tubing, and in the background you can see one of the lasers set up on the miter saw:
After laying out the cuts, we used a die grinder with a cutoff wheel, along with an air hacksaw to cut through the tubing. We then aligned it and tacked it together, forming the first bend. Here is a photo of Doug doing the tack welds on the first elbow:
Once the bottom elbow was complete, I repeated the process to make the upper elbow (this one is 18" diameter). Here is a photo of the elbow laid out on my welding table, with the middle section aligned and tacked to the flange section. On the floor in the middle background is the other piece of the elbow that I'm working on, and on the floor to the left is the lower section of the main riser that Doug tacked up:
Here is the completed upper elbow assembly:
Next, the upper and lower elbow assemblies were laid out end to end, and I cut and spliced them in the middle, to form the entire main riser.
In addition to having the 'joy' of welding up galvanized sheet metal forming the elbows (the fumes are not only poisonous, even a whiff of them will cause a slamming headache), the project also involved fabricating and welding a flange onto the main blower inlet, so that the newly fabricated riser would bolt up. Since the blower inlet is cast iron, the welding involved pre-heating, welding about 2" at a time using nickel welding rod, and the using a needle scaler to peen the weld for about 3 minutes in order to prevent it from cracking. It took the better part of a day just to make and weld up this flange:
In the end though, it was worth it! Here are a couple of photos of the completed riser installed on the blower. When you compare the blower and tubing to the doorway on the left, you get a good reference of the scale of this project. The shop has two different dust collection systems. My "small" system is 3 hp Oneida Super Dust Gorilla that has my personal woodworking equipment hooked up to it, along with the WBS and resaw. The 7" tubing coming off the middle of the riser on the big system is intended to be connected to the Oneida trunk lines via a couple of slide valves, which will allow me the option of bypassing the Oneida and using the big system for everything.
All in all, things are steadily moving forward. My goal is to have all of the main lines installed for the big system by the end of this weekend.
More to come!
Scott