The "What followed me home" thread

That would be the prettiest gasifier ever. How thick are the walls.

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My test would be to simply to support the ends of one and stand in the middle. If you can’t break a 8 foot span they will be plenty strong for the bed. You might just want to not drop heavy things on it to avoid denting.
As to sizing then you can definitely do that with a table saw. If there is no straight edge you can clamp the wood to something with a true straight edge and run that against your fence. Then you have cut a straight edge and can flip the board and cut the other side parallel. It is how you true rough cout lumber.
I don’t think i would bother with the burning either. I would just oil the bed once or twice a year and it will hold up for decades. I have a manure spreader someone did that with from the 60s. It could definitely use new wood now but they got well over 50 years out of it with just oil and it is just soft wood. Nothing special.

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Luckily my work got a few more wood braces that used some dimensional 2x6 heat treated boards, and they’re already 6 feet long, it’s a lot more close grained than the red pine. I’m definitely going to use those 2x3.5" boards for a shed or something to store my wood chunks and other junk. Good to know I can get away with just oiling it once a year. I’ve been saving all my oil and transmission fluid changes in a 55 gallon drum for the last decade.

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Scored this central vac on my lunch break, metal barrels with locking mechanisms. Hoping for an ametek lamb blower inside, google tells me there should be…can’t wait to get home and open it up

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David, I have something similar in my house and it has been going strong for 15+ years. You have reason to expect quality out of that unit.

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Well, it says ‘Lamb’ on it :smiley:

Hope this is similar to the one other fellows are using. Last vacuum I took apart the airflow was through all the innards, and sparking brushes. No good for woodgas. I hope this one is separated, blower part and motor part. There is a fan pulling air down on top but I think it’s just for motor cooling purposes. I lit a match to try to smoke trace airflow but way too much airflow to tell

As a bonus the metal cannister is sealed, with only and inlet and outlet port. Was thinking it might make a good blower/hay filter cannister if i moved the outlet to the bottom…

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I just found a whole parts baler for $75. Besides the gearbox, there is a lot of good sheet metal on this thing.
I dont have time to do anything with this right now and I’m sure it will not raise any brownie points with my wife… but i think this one will have to follow me home.

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Any way you can hide it at your dad’s? That’s a deal of the century right there.

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always a good deal for this price,( paper dollars for solid metal) can be useful for a lot of things, pieces for a chunker…a woodgas car so comes always more nearby…

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Lol, i thought the same thing Cody.
Out of sight, out of mind… i already have a 90 dakota and a 97 ranger rat hold away over there.

Its just too good a deal to pass up!

Like giorgio said, there are the resources for countless projects and tons of potential sitting there.

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Park it on the back corner of the property out of window site from the house, and then tell her it is the neighbors. :slight_smile:

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Yep, my mom was awsome. If she couldn’t see our projects or hey thats neat and free, Lets take it home stuff, she was good with it. I learned the hard way it was best in long run if i told wife up front.

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My mom has put up with it long enough and she finally put her foot down. Got to hide it all behind the barn, now. Wish I had a couple car ports to store it under.

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Your absolutly right, best to just be upfront… she doesnt understand most of my projects. But as long as i can keep them hidden behind the shed, im good for the most part.

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guys, how you have educated your wifes…?
myne says always: it is important you are happy with this (useful) scrap…
( and a side effect…the husbands are in the workshop and doing something instead hanging out and drinking somewhere with not so relieable friends)
tip: this is also a good argument to your wifes… :wink:

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I’m pretty sure my wife did all the educating.

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Well its official, on Dads trailer and headed for home so i can officially say its mine…
I wasnt sure it would still be there when i finally got around to going and getting it.
Dad volunteered and ended up picking it up this morning for me, while I’m at work.

I see someone swapped out the rims and took the rubber when comparing photos from craigslist.
But i would say i still got a good deal.
Hopfully the rims are good enough to mount some tires on. If so i will incorporate them into the build.

Wanted to show you all my latest find as well. I’m very excited about this one!

I saw a listing for a 5hp single phase electric motor. Guy was asking $50! It wasnt pretty, but he said it worked. Took his word for it…figured if nothing else i could recoup my pennys from the copper.

Its not something i would leave out in the elements but for the price i couldn’t pass it up.

When i got it home and gave it a good going over/threw i found one set of brushes rusted solid (you can see in one of the photos) but after drilling out the rivits i was able to knock loose the brushes and clean it all back up. Then it was a matter of riviting the brush holder back in place and putting it all back together. I should probably search out new brushes, these leads were frayed pretty bad. But as is, once wiring a plug up motor ran like a top when i flipped the breaker. (Im running on 220v)













Thought i had a picture with the vent covers back on but must not have taken one. I’ll have to get one for you all. Im pleased with the transformation. Blue with black vent covers.
1 1/8" shaft. Thing must weight in the ballpark of 150-200lbs its all i can do to move it without fearing an injury. Cant believe there is no lifting eyes on it… going to have to rectify that.

Someone with more knowlage than i on the topic can chime in here. This motor had grease fittings on the front bearing. Thinking of adding one for the rear too. Should i use anything special for lurication? And how often?

Edit:

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A baler like that has a lot of useful parts. Are you going to fix it up and use it as a baler or utilize that gearbox to make a chunker?
That’s a very nice restoration on that motor. I like the colour you painted it. 5 hp is a lot of power. Do you know yet what it will be used for?

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Thanks for you comments.:+1:

Yes, baler will be cannibalize. As of now i am thinking the gear box and motor will be paired together into some form of chunker. Some of the baler remnants will be used to accomplish this task.

Thinking mabe even be able to go portable to the woods with it. Run the motor off of a geni.(even better if said geni ran on charcoal)

Thats a ways off though. No real time to speak of right now. But doesnt hurt to grab a good deal when you see one.

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Chris,
That is a Big Dawg! Woof! Good Boy!
Good find and fix. It will run another 50 years. Power for chunking! REAL 5HP, no fuzzy math. I would think a good general heavy-duty farm quality grease would work. Apply once in awhile. Because the plate says 208V 1ph vs. the 220Vac 1Phase you are using, just keep an eye out for overheating when chunking, until you see how it runs under load. :cowboy_hat_face:

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