Shop Improvements: Overhead Hoist

To some this may be old news, but this is the first I have to post about this (to me, rather important) shop upgrade. For Christmas my Grandfather gave me money, which I spent on this 3-ton chain hoist; an invaluable tool for any sort of heavy automotive or small engine work, or any work that involves lifting heavy objects.
The hoist itself is a reletavely inexpensive, "Made in China" tool that, despite it's origin, seems to be of comparatively good quality (though it is in no way as good as a name-brand "Made in USA" hoist it was a far more cost-effective tool for my needs). To it I added a chain bag, which as you can see is made from a pair of bread bags! The only other alteration I made to this hoist was to paint the lifting hook safety yellow, which makes it more visable (and therefore less likely to be hit by accident).
The hoist is currently mounted to the rafters by a 7-foot length of 7/8 inch SAE 1040 bar stock, purchased from Innovative Tool and Die. This bar contacts four beams, and by my calculations (judging from seeing a 200 pound man stand on one beam without causing any visable deflection, and having used this hoist to lift a 450-pound locomotive cylinder head whilst supported by a lengh of pipe contacting only two beams)I'd judge it's maximum safe load as-is at 1,000 pounds. This rating more than satisfies my needs; I could use it to lift an entire lawn tractor, or any automotive engine without trouble.
Needless to say this is only a semi-permanant installation. Though I have load-tested it I don't like the idea of using the rafters to support weight, however for the moment I have no choice in the matter. Eventually I plan on mointing an I-beam to the rafters and supporting it on both ends with pillars, and adding a trolley to my hoist arrangement (which allows the load to be moved along the length of the beam). However at the moment what I have will need to make due. I plan at the very minimum to reinforce the rafters and to shim the support bar to help even out the loading before I use the hoist to lift over 400 pounds again...

Tornado Warning!

Now assuming for a moment that this was the STATE of Texas, and not the town, this would be a common occurence... However this is the Village of Tesas, a hamlet located in central Henry County of Ohio... In the early days of the Month of March... Needless to say I was more than a little surprised!
After a rainy day of railroad work I went home to finish washing my laundary, before heading to my parents' house in Napoleon to dry it. After my work uniforms had finished drying I spent easily half an hour idily chatting with my mother about movies before finally deciding to head home... Almost as I pulled out of the driveway I heard an odd wailing sound, which I first attributed to the poor condition of my car, before realizing that it was the all but forgotten sound of the air-raid sirens (and undoubtedly I am probaly the ONLY person in my age group that calls them that!)! Almost immeditely thereafter I reviefed a call from my mother, who informed me that there was a CONFIRMED tornado on the ground near Sherwood, OH....
I probably set a personal record for time getting home (normally if the sign says "speed limit 55 MPH" I drive at 54.9 MPH) I immediately sprinted to one neighbor's house, and then the other, to inform them of the threat and to invite them to my basement...
It is more than notworthy to say this: I am literally the ONLY owner of a real basement in this part of Texas, and that both of my neighbors live in converted house trailers. Needless to say I was more than a little concerned with their safety!
As soon as I had informed them I went into my house and fired up both the Media Center and my laptop. I immediately tuned the Media Centar into Channel 13 (which is host to both of the regions' most experianced meterologists, Stan Stacheck and Bill Spencer), and as soon as my laptop came up I went to the National Weather Service website. The latter took substansially longer than it should''ve. and by the time I got the dopplar radar readout up the supercell was direcltly over my house!!!!!!!!
At about that time my neighbors, the Cooks, walked up to make good on my invitation to use my basement. All but two immediately went down, the rest stayed outside with me as I carefully observed the clouds as I prepared to signal my other neighbors (whose name I can't remember) at the first sign of trouble...
Fortunately that sign never came. Though I observed several scuds (convective downdrafts) I couldn't sight either a wall cloud or funnel cloud as the storm passed overhead. As the storm finished it's passover the Cooks went home, and several minutes later two of the daughters of my other neighbor stopped over to ask me if I thought it was over. I explained to them my interpretation of the situation (that the storm in question had passed directly overhead, but was dying off), and shortly thereafter went home...

In retrospect I am glad both that my neighbors took my message seriously, and that my offer of shelter was totally unnesasary... With both luck and God's grace I hope I won't have to make that offer again...

(P.S. The picture posted at the head of this post is an actual photograph of the tornado that touched down near Sherwood, OH. The image is taken from the NOAA's National Weather Service.)

Shop Improvements: Metal Halide Lamps

About three weeks ago I added a second metal halide lamp to my workshop. For those of you who don't know metal halides are High Intensity Discharge lamps which, in principle of operation, are nearly identical to the ubiquidous Mercury Vapor lamps. The only real difference between MH and MV lamps is the gas that the arc tube is filled with. Mercury Vapor lamps contain only native mercury (and a small amount of argon to aid in arc starting), which when ionized emit a bluish-green ligjt. Metal Halide lamps contain a variety of metal halides (the compounds of various metals and corrosive halogen gases, such as chlorine and bromine), and, when used in combination, emit a white light.
I had previously had a single 400 watt MH lamp for the entire shop which, though satisfactorally bright, made the lighting extremely directional. I purchased this second MH lamp from the Big Buffalo Pawn Shop and, upon installation, both evened out the lighting and made the working light level more natural (and therefore pleasant). I purchased this lamp for $50, they retail (with the reflector assembly) for almost five times that!
Below is a picture of my shop with both lamps operating (I removed the reflector from my new lamp, the celings are too low for me to use it). Though it may seem excessively bright in this picture bear in mind that I make my living in a room (About the same size, if not smaller) with THREE of these lamps, with white-painted walls (unlike the unfinished OSB in my shop) and there I honestly believe that I could use a fourth lamp!
Despite using 800 watts of electricity I think I now have the proper amount of lighting for a shop my size. And despite the cost of both the fixtures and the bulbs (also almost $50 apiece!) I believe that this is a cost-effective approach: For what I have spent on this lighting system I'd be hard pressed to get a half dozen high-quality shoplights and bulbs, which would in no way equal either the quantity of light or it's quality...