Spring 2024 meetup in Calgary - date Saturday, April 20/2024. discussion Please RSVP Here to confirm and get your invitation and the location details. RSVP NOW so organizers can plan to get sufficient food etc. One week to go! More info and agenda
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Spring meet up in Ontario, April 6/2024. NEW LOCATION See Post #31 Discussion AND THE
NEW LOCATION
What ever is easy to carry, drive away in, has high return or is quickly flipped are target items. Machinery is not an easy flip has low return and not very easy to run away with. Chain saw, bolt cutters, batt drills, angle grinder, etc are hot items to thieves as well as quick escape assist methods. I had my shop prowled this spring, and 30 other garages and back yards randomly on a 3 block radius (guy went out after snow fall) didn't take anything, but a couple weeks later my roommate spent several hours waiting for a pickup truck and bunch of guys to vacate the alley in the middle of the night, and now all my gates and doors are screwed shut and i got a k9 system.
What ever is easy to carry, drive away in, has high return or is quickly flipped are target items. Machinery is not an easy flip has low return and not very easy to run away with. Chain saw, bolt cutters, batt drills, angle grinder, etc are hot items to thieves as well as quick escape assist methods. I had my shop prowled this spring, and 30 other garages and back yards randomly on a 3 block radius (guy went out after snow fall) didn't take anything, but a couple weeks later my roommate spent several hours waiting for a pickup truck and bunch of guys to vacate the alley in the middle of the night, and now all my gates and doors are screwed shut and i got a k9 system.
When the Tuscany LRT first went in, crime shot up, especially car prowling. Sometimes two different groups in one evening blessed me with a visit. What astonished me was that many of the creatures were girls. They look for unlocked cars, valuables and garage door openers especially. I've had so many police at my house gathering video evidence over the years I can't even count. Even when I am not hit, my neighbours still send the cops to my place.
I also bought a cheap trail cam from Canadian Tire. When I see activity in an area that is a dead zone for my CCTV, I place the trail cam there temporarily so I can understand what's going on.
Between the CCTV, Trail Cam, and alarming the garage door, I can't tell you guys how much better I sleep at night. Ironically, the one time the night crawlers actually broke into a vehicle instead of just prowling was my son's car at 0730 hrs. My dog was barking at them through the window but I just told him to be quiet from bed. Sure enough, two guys were stealing my kid's tools. My dog gave me the stink eye for two weeks afterwards.
Cops told me that machinery and tools left outside—even if old and no good—send a signal to night crawlers that the good tools are inside and you just ran out of room for the old stuff. Makes sense.
I went to Princess Auto and picked up one of these thermostats for $44.00 bucks it can be left on or set to min / max above or below the temp settings.
Crazy - guess my neighborhood is not that bad then - maybe living next to some of the poorest areas is a kind of a protection - they just assume you are as poor as they are and go steal from the "rich". This would be reverse of what is usually in the US - where they don't bother going to far from their home and it is poor on poor action. US generally is far more safe as far as stealing then Canada - rarely doors are locked and if they are its single door knob lock. Through you do have more gun action.
I'm in the NE. The last thing to grow legs was a 6V battery (one of two) from my travel trailer. The thieves cut the battery cables but left the battery box and tiedown straps intact. The batteries now wear a paddle locked chain around them. I wonder where that battery ended up once they discovered it was a 6V LOL.
The other thing that growed legs was some fire wood we had stacked beside our garbage bins. I guess if it's not in the yard proper it's free for the taking?
As for vandalism. Some 10 years ago some idiot went down the back alley throwing large rocks through the back window of any vehicle parked there. 5 or so vehicles got hit. About 8 years ago a pumpkin launched out of vehicle took out the side mirror on my mini-van (it was parked in the front). Daughter had the tires slashed on her car. Son's fiancé had a car window smashed while we were in Mexico (her fault, she had too may goodies in plain view).
Minor stuff compared to a house 3 down. They had their car totaled while parked on the street. A drugged out teen drove a car (not his and no licence) into their living room about 3 years ago and later that year some space cadet drove his truck across the park into their garage taking one wall out. Also had their garage broken into and power tools (table saw etc.) stolen. That property is currently listed for sale.
On occasion I have to tell the drug dealers parked behind the house to take it else where.
Now back to "fume extractors".
This is my boolit casting setup.
Drier vent stuff. That's an 6" fan.
There is another 4" fan mounted just above the hood that sits over my lead pot (not shown).
Seems to do the trick. Not setting the smoke alarms off now.
Should work good I wouldn't do lead without one! I'm getting the itch to get mine out and melt some aluminum / brass I was out at cross iron today looking at their cast iron cookware they have a nice cast bread pan for a mold.
how much heat do these fume extractors remove from the room when working in the winter? We are working on installing a heater into the garage, and if I put together a fume extractor without a filtration system that runs out the side of the building, then how much heat is usually taken along with it?
I have a 180CFM bathroom fan running when welding. It vents outside and a flexible dryer vent tube goes to the fan and above the welding. This cools down the garage but not overly so. Do the math - what is the volume of the garage divided by the fan CFM. That's how quick the air leaves and you'll need to replace it with heated air. In practice it's ok for gas MIG and TIG but not for flux core or stick. For those I want the garage door open.
My portable fume extractor biologically heats and humidifies the air before turning it back to the shop. If you don't care to do it the same way as me, and I suggest you don't, then anything is better than nothing.
Unless you use a heat exchanger, you just have to live with taking out dirty warm air and replacing that with fresh and cold air.
I find it useful when welding and sand casting to recycle air, but am looking for something more focused
I picked up some boxes squirrel cage fans (big ones) at an auction. I plan to adapt those, but need to find source for 12-18 inch piping View attachment 5474
I picked up some boxes squirrel cage fans (big ones) at an auction. I plan to adapt those, but need to find source for 12-18 inch piping.
Round concrete piling forms. should be able to get from local box store's.
I should have checked the date on the post before replying since I'm sure you have already solved this issue by now
I tried using a 1044 CFM air cleaner from princess auto, but even at 1044 CFM it didn't seem to have enough suction to capture all the fumes. When placed 1 ft away from the weld it could capture about 50% of it; but welding that close would often allow some of the spatter to hit the filter and melted some of it. I'm thinking I might as well put together an exhaust system with an inline fan and duct work.
I finished putting together this extractor with 2 inline fans connected to some flexible solid aluminum duct welded to a mechanical arm that I designed. The arm rotates on a steel plate mounted to the wall, and holds its position on both joints with a series of strong springs.
I finished that fume extractor quite a while ago, and it works well for extracting fumes; but on the other hand, I am trying to build a well working downdraft table where I do my frequent grinding with my belt grinder and angle grinder. The fume extractor does have enough air flow to capture metal dust if it is placed right in front of the grinding, but I still get excessive metal dust spred over my bench and against the walls. So far just the way the frame/body is designed it still keeps the dust within the table but the 880cfm extraction fan that I have sucking air from a narrow area under the table top doesn't create any suction through the holes in the table top.
I finished putting together this extractor with 2 inline fans connected to some flexible solid aluminum duct welded to a mechanical arm that I designed. The arm rotates on a steel plate mounted to the wall, and holds its position on both joints with a series of strong springs.
