What did you do to your shop today?

So this afternoon provided me with a happy combination of need, bits, and opportunity. As many of you are aware, my collection of Vice Grips tends to grow periodically, according to either need or some kind of mechanical hanky-panky while I am away from the shop.

Back an unknown number of pages ago. another contributor to this board suggested a use for a surplus towel bar that he had had left over from a bathroom reno. Summarily he took the bar and screwed it to a nearby vertical surface and it became a hanger for all his pairs of vicegrips to hang from. Neat thinks I, something to keep mind.

Now access to the walls in my shop is marginal at best; most of them are covered by shelves or blocked by large objests like benches or compressors or presses or racks. For that reason, my shop press has become the surrogate shop mama for all my pairs of vicegrips. The press can be hard to see simply because it has become festooned by them. Recently I did a picto-mentary about a modification to the press that would eliminate all the wrestling attached to having to move the press deck by hand. Which gave me something of an idea. "Could I hang a towel bar off the floating press deck and have that be my go to place to hang most of my pairs of vice grips?" Only complication was the question of whether I had a towel bar that was narrow enough to mount on the lower flange of the floating deck. Turns out I did.

For the actual method of attaching it, as things further turned out, I had leftover tabs from the posts that I made to repair the garden enclosure. By some weird coincidence the bolt c-c for them matched the hole pattern in the mounts for the towel bar. Only minor mod was to oversize the holes to 1/.4 inch in the towel bar and 17/64's in the tabs to give some wiggle room when the time came to marry A, to B. The tabs were 1/8 plate and the press deck is 1/4 wall heavy channel so the MIG solved the problem by being set to 3/16ths and going for a heavy burn.











After that it was a few minutes of 4.5 mini-grinder work to dress the welds and some leftover black paint to make it all look like factory. For the fasteners, I dug around in my basement bolt cases, actually looking for some flat head stove bolts but instead scored by finding some coarse thread Flat head 1/4 inch machine screws. Had the nuts and locks already in the shop so together it all went.







Now, instead of the press deck being totally obscured by an abundance of pairs of Vice-grips, they, along with some screw clamps, all hang off the lower flange of the deck on the towel bar that is mounted to a pair of flat plate tabs that I just happened to have on hand as leftovers from another project. The press deck lifting winch that I added to the press during the winter is free to lift and drop the deck; there is no interference and the deck can actually sink to the lowest available position and the Vee-gees will remain where they are, on the bar.






All this made me so happy that I then proceeded to start assembling all the dead metal that had been accumulating and piling it at the main door. Tomorrow is a run to the recyclers to get rid of it all; the washer still needs to be dissected down to its nuts and bolts; think my mini-grinder and a razor wheel will be the tool of choice for that job. Time and past to get rid of it too. Salvage the transmission and the rest of it can become a chassis for an EV Prius.


Oh, the pictures? An afterthought that I was able to add in thanks to "edit". Amazing how fast stuff can migrate from other places when it senses fresh new space to inhabit.






Nick

Sweet_Johnny said:

While I don't consider Rush or any member to be prophetic I am a minor fan- I played drums in my younger days so I thought pretty highly of the Professor for a bit.

That's some interesting info about the layout of the bar- I never knew they segregated them like that. It makes sense in one way but is counterintuitive in others. And you certainly have a story that not too many people can tell, even if it's not a fond one for ya.

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Oh, it was quite humorous at the time. The chronic mystery of the buck-knifed speaker cables was a regular episode that occurred in that place. Thing was, we all wore buck knives, Hee, Hee, Hee, hee.................. Never ever had cause to drop and lock in anger, EVER. I don't carry one now; retired my last one over a decade ago. No point to it when the other fellow is carrying a Detonics or a semi-carbine AR-15. Too much of a hassle and our carry and possession laws are biblicly archaic. No room for it here but there is another story about an Italian gentleman with whom we became acquainted who had an interesting philosophy about knives. Ehhhhhhhhhhhh.




Nick

Finally got doors on work bench and shelves in tool room

Sweet_Johnny said:

While I don't consider Rush or any member to be prophetic I am a minor fan- I played drums in my younger days so I thought pretty highly of the Professor for a bit.

That's some interesting info about the layout of the bar- I never knew they segregated them like that. It makes sense in one way but is counterintuitive in others. And you certainly have a story that not too many people can tell, even if it's not a fond one for ya.

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Certainly the bar layout is not a typically Canadian thing. At least not where I'm from or within my years of going to bars. Though given that CopperNick was visiting such places in the 70's, I'm guessing he's a good 15-20 years older than I am 🙂

CopperNick said:

Someone has seriously misled you by suggesting that there is such a thing as a "great Canadian philosopher-poet". While Philosopher-Poets do/did exist; have not heard of one worth any major discussion recently. And there are definitely Born in Canada Canadians although our numbers are getting fewer and fewer as our immigrant count rises and rises. But to combine both concepts in one phrase is pure oxymoronity.

Oh yeah, and if you are attempting to classify Geddy Lee of Rush as a "philosopher-poet", well first I suppose we can call him a "pee-pee" for short and, as far as the lyric abstract that you cited, I honestly cannot testify as to whether Lee came up with it on his own or borrowed it; a lot of that happens in the music industry, and the practice goes back to the pie-annie playes and organ grinders of the renaissance era.. Last Canadian I might accept as a philosopher-poet; Marshall McLuan. After that, crickets.😴 As for Rush in general. the only reason they ever got any air time up here is that the federal government passed a law makingt it mandatory for radio media to provide canadian singers and musicians with air time for their output. Translation: drivel begets drivel.

Nick

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don't know why you thought I was talking about GL when it is well-known that Neil wrote 95%+ of all the lyrics, by GL's own admission. try reading just the phrases without listening to the music, or not thinking about the music if you know it

CopperNick said:

Oh, it was quite humorous at the time. The chronic mystery of the buck-knifed speaker cables was a regular episode that occurred in that place. Thing was, we all wore buck knives, Hee, Hee, Hee, hee.................. Never ever had cause to drop and lock in anger, EVER. I don't carry one now; retired my last one over a decade ago. No point to it when the other fellow is carrying a Detonics or a semi-carbine AR-15. Too much of a hassle and our carry and possession laws are biblicly archaic. No room for it here but there is another story about an Italian gentleman with whom we became acquainted who had an interesting philosophy about knives. Ehhhhhhhhhhhh.

Nick

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probably not as near-archaic as the UK. you can't even carry a multi-tool there with a knife blade in it (which almost all of them have) unless you can prove it is part of your tool set for your job. found that out this summer when travelling thru Europe. also, locking blades of ANY sort no matter the size are verboten, not allowed. even though it is well-known that a lock-back blade is much safer. you are automatically guilty (of multi-tool or lock-back) and must prove your innocence in court.

Hurricane77 said:

Certainly the bar layout is not a typically Canadian thing. At least not where I'm from or within my years of going to bars. Though given that CopperNick was visiting such places in the 70's, I'm guessing he's a good 15-20 years older than I am 🙂

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Lemmesee here. The legal age to both vote and drink was dropped to 18 in the fall of the year that I entered my last year of senior High, that would have been 70-71, if my memory is still functioning at basic levels. You are right that current bars and gin joints aren't and haven't been designed that way since before the turn of the millenium. Around here most of the oldest "hotels" that, when originally constructed, had that design for the service of alcohol to patrons, have been torn down or renovated to become affordable housing, or torn down, or torn down. Urban renewal got most of them, and fires and vandalism accounted for the rest. As for the design, it most likely goes all the way back to before the second world war. Remember, the anti drinking laws that plagued the US were never so severe here as they were down there. What we had to deal with were the so-called "Blue Laws". They were all about morality and social propriety and were essentially demanded and forced into being through legislation. The driving forces for them were the religious extremists of the pre war era who saw booze as the root of all evil and perversion; think Salvation Army temperance meetings here. The big 4 in the field of Canadian Religion were a dour group who saw no joy in anything unless it had the word "church" attached to it. For them, one of the biggest "crimes" was informal social interaction between the sexes without the participants being married. Think of that song by the Georgia Satellites, "Don't hand me No Lies and Keep your Hands to Yourself". To their way of thinking, if they couldn't absolutely outlaw men and women from seeing and speaking with each other, they were going to make certain that it could be done under the strictest of supervision and most moral circumstances possible. Imagine asking your girlfriend to go on a date with you, and taking her to Church!!

Fortunately, one of the good things that us baby boomers done did was to sundown a lot of that thinking and the laws that it begat. Thing here to consider is that that sort of thinking does still exist and can be found easily if you just up and look around.


Nick

I swept my floor and vacuumed it, lol. Saving big projects for winter time, as the weather will only be nice for a few more weeks I'm sure, so outdoor items are priority.

Fair point, I will give you Neil as the acknowledged lyricist; still doesn't mean that the lyrics and compositions were totally original. "Sampling" was done, even back then. Why I went with "GL", was that his was the name most frequently mentioned by the D-Jays when they did their promotion schticks. Whether on an individual basis or as a group, I still have no patience or tolerance for them and, as I commented, the Off knob on the sound machine is very close to hand.


Nick

Guess kinda good/kinda bad with the air compressor. I did my touble shooting, got it to run & have everything work as it ment to. Looked over the extension cord which is suppose to be the right size/rating. Cord was bad, compressor is good. So I don't need a new one & eat at the car budget which is the good. Now I don't have an excuse to get a new one which would of been an upgrade which is the bad. Regardless, back in operational condition.

Like some "wise guy" once opined, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The opportunity for you here is to head to your favorite tool and parts shop and buy some heavy extensions cords. Maybe hit Harbor Freight or similar, then while you are there, wander the aisles and see what jumps out and tries to follow you home. Nebber know..................................

That extension cord drill was the bane of my yesterday as well. Only in my case it turned out that the cord had gotten wet and tripped the ground fault interrupter circuit. I spent around a 1/2 hour chasing the electrons to discover where they had vanished. Finally spotted that cute little ever so small button sitting proud of the face plate and pushed it back into position, and voila, back to having power.

Nick