This Saturday the Fire Department called a work detail to rebuild the very rickety staircase that leads up to the department meeting room and offices above the garage. The stairs were bad, but now they are good.
Old stairs ripped out, landing held on by wall attachments and ground braces so we could replace the foundations of the 4x4 posts as well. Those turned out to be nothing more than a piece of flat wood they were set upon, then buried into the ground so the foundation could rot at the same speed as the posts.
We cut the rotted wood off and replaced posts as necessary. I did the concrete foundations myself, along with the fire chief and deputy fire chief. The woodworking was directed by three members of the department who are carpenters. These foundations are now concrete pads five inches below, and extending three-four inches above, the 4x4 base.
Finished stairs. All screw construction with no nails, four stringers, each reinforced and braced so they can't flex. Steps each a single piece of wood with no internal joints.
Today, on Sunday, I encountered the ugly. I was merely planning to change the front tire of my motorcycle. While carefully removing a disc from the front wheel, however, one of the bolts snapped off inside the bolt hole in spite of the fact that I was doing everything by hand and with plenty of Mopar rust penetrant. Now it'll have to be drilled and tapped out and a new bolt ordered before the bike can be put back into service. "Every easy job is one snapped bolt from becoming a three week ordeal."
10 comments:
Snapped bolt...don'tcha hate when that happens.
Oh yeah. Especially when it is one of "those" bolts that are dang near impossible to get to in the first place. This was on an airplane engine accessory case. I was asked to step outside so the lead mechanic and crew chief could use "language not fit for a lady's ears." I obliged, since the garbage needed to go out anyway. (I got to take off the rest of the accessories, since my hands were smaller and I was more limber than the gents.)
LittleRed1
I saw a cartoon tonight of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates looking over his ledger and telling a guy, “You almost made it, except for the language you used while working on your truck.”
For me, it would have been the language I used on the golf course.
My father was an airplane engine builder. My first bike was a basket case Honda, with the tranny in pieces. Many of the case bolts had been over torqued and broken off, had to be drilled and removed with an ezy out. His advice was to center punch accurately, drill small to locate center, then drill as large as possible and still leave the threads. This allows the use of the biggest possible ezyout, and relieves thread tension.
These days when something seems tight, I use a cordless impact drive - they work very well for stuck fasteners. In his day, they would put a lot of torque on the bolt with a wrench, then whack the end with a small hammer to shock it loose.
If the broken bolt in stuck in aluminum, this is a good trick. https://www.snaderflyby.com/dissolving-steel-out-of-aluminum-with-alum-powder/
And a word of caution- the fumes using torch heat after some penetrating oils can be very toxic- as in suck the breath out of your lungs toxic. Same with brake cleaner.
Good advice. I've got an extractor kit from my grandfather's days. I usually enjoy working with his old tools, but for some reason this particular job never gives me the same pleasure.
How deep below ground level do the foundation pads for the posts go? Here in northern Illinois where there's this thing called "frost" we have to go 40" to ensure that the bottom of the posts go below the frost line and don't get heaved up in the annual freeze/thaw cycle.
The frost line in most of NC is only six inches, with none at all down east by the coast. We were much deeper than that, although not forty inches!
Raven- that trick is *amazing*. Years and years ago, I had to pay like $100 (when it was worth something) to get a broken bolt machined out of an aluminum head via EDM (Electrical discharge machining). I would have done this trick in a heartbeat!
Oh, and Grim, nice work. Now it just needs paint!
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