Totally on board with useful trucks. My 73 is nothing but a pretty prom queen.

My 79 is gonna be totally useful and the CC will never see new paint other than underneath the skin.

Keep up the good work!!!

 

When everything gets settled down here I'll take measurements of everything and note options that could be or may have been done different. I'll make a parts and pieces count while I'm at it. I'm used to " building to site specs" and working from the revision page when it comes to landscaping. Used string lines and the 3, 4, 5 measurement and a level a whole lot more than a tape measure the last 11 years so I'm somewhat interested in these measurements myself in case I need to do a variation of this project in the future. Theres good weather coming in this weekend and this shop is easy to drop, I'm using the cold weather to get my running around caught up on and done. I'm temperature restricted, can do anything I want as long as my lungs don't get cold. My body is 53, my heart and lungs are 83, can be a real big time PITA, but I know a few tricks and they aren't for kids. Should be back on the program by monday or tues.

 

Took care of my shelter problem, went to Canadian Tire and bought a 10' x 10' and a 10' x 20' shelter. They were on sale at 50% off, with taxes $420. At that price I save myself a lot of time and effort trying to scrounge something together. Will need to modify them a bit for height and need to make the small one 9' wide but I got lots of pipe and lots of heavy duty tarp. Got them just in time as the sale ended today, sure is going to make life easy. I don't mind spending money I just don't like to waste it unless I'm going out with a hot chick.

 

Sounds like a great deal. You might need to splurge on the hot chick to stay warm out there this winter

 

Hi there, still around and kicking shop is down, kid picked up his wood, Luigi's junkie henchman Wayne broke the rear window in my truck, he tried the one on the street but got chased off. Was going to post before and after pics of yard cleanup but I got that "are you insane" evil eye look but in the next day or 2 when everything is pretty I'll take pics. The pita part of the job is done and now the work I do makes the back yard look good.

This is what it's like to live in Calgary if you have a terminal illness, a heart attack, a stroke, brain cancer, or are handicapped in anyway. in the next day or 2 either Luigi, Wayne or both will see my window open and yell "like what we did to your truck ha ha ha". I'm the 4th person in this neighbourhood that they have targetted, theres nothing illegal about what they do, I'm the problem and I had better move because nobody wants me living here. That's the official police line. Neither one of these 2 goofs lives in this neighbourhood. According to the news 87% of Calgarians think this is a wonderful city to live in.

 

did they spit all over your window or something?

 

Wayne does the vandalism, it happened 2 nights ago, he got the house across the alley also. Susan left to go to work and stepped on some glass, looked up and saw that their sensor lights were broken, they live beside the house that Wayne and Luigi thought they were going to steal from Tamara, (brain cancer, 3rd chemo). The house has a new owner as she had to sell it to get out from the debt Wayne's renovation scam caused. Martin across the street leaves for work at 4am and saw someone at my truck on the street and yelled at him and it was Wayne, he was scratching up my passenger side window, the spit is Waynes idea of being a tough guy. He spits on anyone who's not white and won't fight back and windows, he hides from me. Last time I actually saw him he was jumping off the front deck of Tamaras house and landed in a mess of big hairy boots. Obviously he didn't learn his lesson.
Luigi is the alibi agent as he leaches off his wife who pays the mortgage on the house they live in. They live in one of the newer developements in town, about 140 blocks away. He drinks in the basement of the house next door with their buddy Mohammed, he's being evicted. look in the mobile uploads page 3 and you'll see what they did to Tamaras yard, the stuff there was what they tore out of the house and were tripping over. I could burn these 2 in the middle of the street like salem witches, the neighbours would make sure the fire doesn't go out and nobody would have seen a thing. Remember that ugly green cage truck of mine skip, theres a purpose for it.

 

Ahhh, adventures in wonderland. There's a lot of people that walk down my alley and of course we chat a bit, I'm the guy who's always working on or doing something. Today was put up the 10x10 joint and a bit of clean up day, I've got 19' of space and 20' of shelters to put in so, something is getting modified. This is a common theme around my place and it seems to keep the passerby's entertained as I see the same faces pretty much every day. Pic time

These frames are pretty basic, but use clear cargo tape on any loose joints so they don't come apart on you. Thank my grandma for that one.

Reinforced fence and wind/snow block and the key to my modifications

Shift change, laugh session for my supervisors

Mounted 2x2 to wall 20" above the brown board in second photo, its in the middle of the panels. This lifts the frame up 20" higher and narrows the frame width about 9" overall. It also allows me to take off the bottom section of the legs to use on the other side. There are curved footings on each corner leg, wont be needing them as the pipes I took of turned out to be equal in length as the footing + 20".

And thats how the wall mounts were made, if it catches wind I'll put a bolt through the leg and wall but I doubt if I need to. Theres a future pic that will show why not.

This is the only piece I had to cut, it's for the middle leg of the regular wall. It's 20" plus the length of the tapered end.

Luckily there is a 15" flap in the middle of the wall of the tarp and makes everything easy to square up. the flap is meant for a pole that holds the 3 legs together. It's supposed to be 10" off the ground apparently.

I used the pole flap as a guide and mounting cleat to make it tight to the wall and should help keep the tent from lifting in the wind. this is that future pic.

This is the rope that allows you to tie down the main tarp that is your roof and sides.

This is the end wall, the other end has the door. I don't want the door open to the alley as when the flatdeck project is done I have a lot of stuff going into here.

This pic was taken at 5.30pm with just the flash from my camera. the white reflects really well so I think I'm going to buy 3 - 4' 2 bulb flourescents to supply my base lighting and look into some LED spot lights. The joint isn't done as I had to get some cleanup done before it got dark. tomorrow I'll finish it and take pics of a few details I left out but you should see if you want to build one of these yourself. Why follow the directions when you can make them up as you go, worked to site specs for too long I guess, or read to many revision pages.

Like my potential tailgate, Doc says I'm not supposed to lift anything I can't carry, oops. That damn thing is heavy the way it is now.

 

wow thats comming out really great, a friend of mine used cardboard between the pipes and material roof and sides and it held heat fairly well.

 

Did squat on the shelter, needed to get caught up on putting away as much of the stuff in the box of my other truck. Had to do some demo and reconstruction in order to do that plus being winter I've got to stay weather ready. In order to properly finish off this shelter I've got to move my project truck over 3 - 4' so that I have enough room to start building the other shelter. I'm wanting to put in a pass through or door flap in the shelters so that I don't need to go outside to get to the other shelter, hmmm, conjoined shelters disguised to look like 2 seperate shelters. 1 for work and storage and 1 for project. Was thinking about insulating the place as I have some styrofoam, will be putting on some heavy truck tarps and would like to put something inbetween and 1" styrofoam should do the trick, don't want to sacrifice the light reflection that these joints have. Will have results on monday, not likely on sunday.

 

Lots of fun the last 2 days, good thing I have to many tools. Filled my temporary shelf, may keep it as it is one of those multi use structures, walkway, block out wall, wind block, gate holder, garbage can pad and shelves. Put up second shelter but had to do area and truck box clean up and re-establish my foot print and rebuild the step to the tool shed first. Here we go.

Old footprint

New footprint, all that stuff along the left side goes into the small shelter when the flatdeck is done.

Had to move truck over 2', steel stakes make good rollers.


According to our police service nobody wants me in this neighbourhood, the sausages are from Horst 6 doors down and the Tshirts are from the Palestinian lady accross the street, now you know why some days I don't get that much done.

Tape your joints if they don't get bolted together or if you need to take it apart and don't want to mess with nuts and bolts.

The end walls are simple enough but on this unit directions are nessesary. Pre fabbing is the order of the day, those silver plates are the side leg feet the pointed end goes towards the inside.

Top of leg dont over tighten the silver bracket as that holds your siderail and its easier to attach them if the bracket is easy to move.


roof rails x3

Center roof rail, roof arch add leg, attach other leg, repeat

Upper wall support rails, these attach to those silver brackets

Done for the day as its getting dark and I can't see well enough to attach the lower wall rail, the extension cord is a safety as there is about a foot of grade and I dont want it to fall down. When I raise the shelter I'll just make the legs a foot taller at the alley end, I just want it up before it snows again

Thats how it looks for now, tomorrows sched is going to be a bit of everything as we have 5 days of cold weather coming in and I need to make sure all my projects are in order. the green truck needs a hinge put on and some lumber put in and I have to make some new tarp coverings. Remember the cardboard idea Skip, thars styrofoam in that truck box, enough to do the small shelter. On the 2nd or 3rd I'll be back on the flat deck unless we get a warm day in between now and then.

 

wish i was around to help out, looks like allot of fun.

 

Did my running around on wed, went to Princess Auto, our harbour freight, to pick up lights on sale.. sold out. No problem as I had a shopping list of oddball things that are cheap there plus its one stop shopping for all these goofy things. Stopped at Home Depot on way back and picked up 3 light cans for same price as PA, not on sale?!, grabbed a box of bulbs to go with them. Spent $175 in total. On thurs I framed in a doorway using 2x8s for the frame and header and a 2x4 for the sill plate, sure strengthens the 10x10 and adds about 40lbs of anchor weight. dug out an old set of light cans that I scored on a clean out job a few years ago, was gonna toss them until the customer gave me bulbs to go with them, they're t5s so they should be good for cold weather if they work. measured 10x10s roof and wall, and emptied the storage of all the cardboard boxes, thank you Skip. Weather went away and that ended my day.

Today is -21c, -35c with wind chill so it was all indoors for me. Light cans work. Made a second roof skin with an old tarp, new 1/4" nylon cord and the grapple grommets I got from Pa. It measure 11' x 27'+, only needed 22' of length so the extra becomes 1 more roof layer. I folded it over on the sides and used the grommets to make a flap for the rope, new roof ties on they same way as the original roof does. No more inside jobs to do unless I get real bored and brave enough to go through my old electrical cords and find some to attach to the light cans. Weather doesn't break until sunday according to the radio, then it goes above 0 next week. That's what I like about Calgary, winter 1 week then spring the next week. Going to make a hot box/ heat exchanger hopefully during the next warm spell, should get me about 50 more working days per year and make it a lot nicer to work in the shelters.
Cats are looking out the window and getting p.o'd at the weather, I open their door and they stick their noses out and high tail it back to their room. They can sure mess up a house fast when they start chasing each other in doors and they're to fast for the water pistol.
I posted because I'm bored out of my skull.

 

So, it's been fun in the snow time, temp has been border line for me, it's warm enough but my circulation is bad this year and I've been freezing my feet off. It's supposed to get above freezing in the next day or 2 but the weatherman has been saying that all week. I made a custom tarp to go over the roof, grommeted in a sleeve to put a rope down each side so that I could tie it on. Found an old set of light cans and put on cords and S hooks and that was the end of the indoor work. So heres the story in pictures in order for me to save some typing and have some supper.

Forgot to take a pic of the load of cardboard or the cleat I put on to hold the tarp in place. Nieghbour is still trying to figure out how I can walk on a 1/2" wide edge of plywood

This is Sally's inspection, her and Frankie use the roofs as landing pads when they want out of the trees, the other reason I'm double layering the roof.

Warmth sandwich

Doesn't look that bad and it tied down tight

Kind of azz backwards story telling but the wood strapping was actually the first thing I put in. The cardboard and insulation was second, the tarping thats used for these shelters is like paper, the cats would go straight through it if they jumped out of the trees onto it. I would double roof it even if I had no cats, that's how thin it is and it hardens up in the winter. They are still a good deal though as the frames would have cost me more to build than the cost of these 2 shelters. There is still some side to side flex in it. That wood on the wall is some roughing in for when I put in the inter shelter doorway. Theres 5 light cans in here for now as I still have to finish off the flat deck. Redid my main in wiring, the power bar is for lights and low amp tools and I have a seperate high amp (40 amps) line for the welder and my metal band saw. Band Saw?, I don't have the room to set it up properly or it would have been set up a couple of months ago. When I'm done with the flatdeck i'm putting it in here. When everything is put away I'll be building a hotbox for a heater, it's kinda like a wood stove stuffed with a heat exchanger powered by a 12 volt fan.

This little bit of skirting sure makes a difference temperature wise. Tomorrow is supposed to be the last day below zero and there may be snow. From saturday on it's above zero so it's back to the trucks until they are done. Then I'm back on my time and my projects and I get to raise some hell on my favorite idiot.

 

looks like itll b warm one