The Oily Shop Project

[john k]

Looks like you need another shed just to shift things to!   How about getting one of those shipping containers for storage of the big stuff that is too good to throw out?  Looks like a month of sundays work you got there. 

[OilyRascal]

Last night was a very long night for me.  I was like a kid the night before Christmas thinking about getting started on this project.  So, I got up this morning and did just that.

MY TOOLS for the job:  I grabbed some steel wool, a bunch of plastic bins, a box-o-rags, the handy 6 packer cooler, crackers, and some gloves.

I figured the best way for me to get started on this was to dig in, start grouping things I find into those plastic bins, and hope that I'll find some flat work spaces and concrete along the way. 

I worked about 13 hours today in that shop - non stop.  I started in the corner I that I posted a picture of yesterday.  It took me a few hours to find and clear the top of the work bench.  I then look down at the floor level and find bucket after bucket after bucket of a mixture of piping, tools, nuts, bolts, gaskets, etc. etc.  So I decide to dump the buckets on the workbench top, and by the time I'm done dumping a few I'm right back to where the work bench can't be seen....and I do it over again.....and again. 

The one thing you didn't see on my tool list was my camera.  I'm very reluctant to take it into that environment.  I may over the next few days as things start taking a little shape.  I'm posting a few pictures taken on my cell of the progress made today and some findings.  I spent little time today concerning myself with what I was finding.  I really just wanted to start grouping things and not get rapped around the axle of looking at each and every tool today.  I wanted to make some progress that could be seen.  The saga will continue tomorrow at 5:30am.  Volunteers are welcome :)

[OilyRascal]

A couple of pipe wrenches I found.  The one on the horizontal is an 8" Ridgid.

[OilyRascal]

I found a couple of ratchets today.

[OilyRascal]

A few thousand sockets and wrenches

[OilyRascal]

punches, chisels, files, pry, drill bits, and screwdrivers - and some pipe wrenches

[OilyRascal]

No count on hammers, but I'm guessing I could near a ton in the weight of heads with no handle.

Pipe threading - we do lots of pipe threading.

[OilyRascal]

If you look way up you can find some goodies.  I remember these being purchased as a scrap lot from a local refinery.  The "culls" of the lot were put on the top shelf and left there.  HA - very few culls in that cull pile.

[OilyRascal]

My last picture of the day is of the jack that took the end of my left index finger when I was 11 years old.  I played with this jack as a young kid, called myself "helping" in the shop when they were working.  I was working/playing/helping with it one day under a load and managed to get my finger in the ooops  - wrong place.  It has a switch lever that can hurt you badly.  I still say this jack has style.  I'd love to bring it home and I could, but I think the man looking down on me would frown upon it leaving.....so it will stay.

[OilyRascal]

Looks like you need another shed just to shift things to!   How about getting one of those shipping containers for storage of the big stuff that is too good to throw out?  Looks like a month of sundays work you got there.

Lucky me - there is an empty moving van on blocks right outside the door :)

[rusty]

>>Lucky me - there is an empty moving van on blocks right outside the door :)

Yeahbut.....is it full of stuff?

LOL

Me thinks you have the project to end all projects.....

[OilyRascal]

>>Lucky me - there is an empty moving van on blocks right outside the door :)
is it full of stuff?

EMPTY - My first cousin pitched in some help today by moving it over there for me to have handy.  The shop YARD - how many school buses and moving vans, umm 5 wench trucks, 6 farm tractors that I can think of, couple of gravely tractors I saw today, a ditch witch, two backhoes, old D9 and a JD450, more trailers that I care to count much less pay license fees for, concrete mixers, pumping units everywhere, 40 years of dead company trucks......................I'm sure you get the idea.

LOL - you thought I was able to walk into the shop door without tripping :)   Hopefully tomorrow I can get the Waukesha engine out of the middle of the doorway. 

[OilyRascal]

Boy do I envy you, saddly I will prob. never again have the opportunity you are looking at. Maybe when I was a younger man growing up in CT but here in FL it would be a tough find.
BTW I would be surprised if those wrenches were home made

I found about a dozen or so other homemade looking tools today and piled together.  My uncle came down late, and I spoke with him about those two wrenches in particular - along with some "whatzit" on some others.  He said he'd made them himself in the shop with a cutting torch and flat file overhauling a Continental engine.  Holding them it was clear they were cut with a cutting torch :) - a better picture would probably show their crudeness - they weren't that nice.

If you would like a good laugh - I had thrown this homemade thing over in the pile that looked like well tubing cap, has plate steel welded over one end sealing it, with a couple of nipples welded into the sides with railroad unions attached to nipples.  wicked looking thing.   So I pick it up when my uncle is down and ask "what in the heck is this", his response; "well, you of all.."  -  I STOPPED  HIM - I had made the dad blurn thing when I was young myself with his help to hydrotest tubing.   Rack the pipe, cap it at the bottom, fill it with water hose up top, attach ^^^^^^ tool, then pressure washer rigging we came up with, use washer to pressure up pipe to 5k, let er blow or back to the hole.  If she blew she was surely a fence post on the property at some point.  Never wanted one to blow without a chain and binder on it.

[dimwittedmoose51]

I'm impressed...and wishing I was closer so I could "help"

DM&FS

[johnsironsanctuary]

WOW!! If you get this cleaned up and organized, you will probably be among the largest tool collectors on Tooltalk. I'd love to see pics of the winch trucks. Oil patch trucks are really cool!

John