Quick Links

Photo of Hardware seller in Haiti – I’ll never take Home Depot for granted again

Nice Video of a backhoe loader getting onto a truck bed without a ramp. Ramp? Who needs a ramp?

While looking for info on my newest tool purchase – the Fein Multimaster, I found a pretty cool site for tool reviews – Tool Snob.

Grinders are awesome tools to have on the jobsite, and here’s a new tool to put on yours: the Arbortech Turboplane. It’s a circular planer for freehand work. Dunno what I’d use it for but it looks quite cool!

Wagner Metals

I need some new resources for architectural metal parts so I just ordered the Wagner Metals catalog and just wanted to share the awesome cover. Kinda got a bad-ass cartoon-y thing going on…

F*** Yeah Made in the USA

Beautiful videos of products made in the USA.

via swissmiss

Bike Chain Chandelier

Just saw this over at DesignRulz.com on a page titled 25 ideas of how to recycle old bicycles wisely.  Lots of great stuff, but this chandelier stands out from the rest. Sadly they don’t link to where they got it from. I wonder how much it weighs…

(via designrulz.com)

NYC Parking Map

I’ve always said that the primary challenge of construction work in a city can boil down to one word: LOGISTICS. In the city, getting stuff from point A to point B can be a royal pain. Not only that, but once you’ve arrived at point B, you have all new problems. Getting into the building and then up to the job-site is a completely different set of hurdles. Does the building have a work entrance? Does everybody on your crew have ID? Does all the stuff fit into the elevator? Did you bring a dolly so you can easily get the stuff TO the elevator? Did you arrive when the elevator operator is at lunch?  Now say you are taking care of all this, what are you going to do with your vehicle? Did you bring enough people so one can sit in the vehicle, or do you have to find parking?

Need to know ahead of time what kind of parking rules you will find? Check out NYC’s DOT map portal. You can search for any address in the city and show parking signs in the neighborhood. For those of us with small to midsize projects, knowing stuff like this helps, especially when the cost of a parking ticket can easily cost above $100 per pop.

Dog Update

Yep. Georgia’s still awesome.

Reference Poster

I got tired of searching for the right tables online every time I needed them, so I put together this poster a little while ago based upon individual tables I gathered. It still needs a few tweaks (not sure I need the density of Cobalt on there…) but it covers the basics pretty well. Feel free to download & enjoy.

Chem-Sharp

Been doing some job-site TIG welding of stainless lately and it’s a pain to have to sharpen tips all the time with a grinder or whatever, plus theres all sorts of nasty contamination from the grinders. Just saw this video on a chemical product called Chem-Sharp which will chemically do the sharpening of a TIG electrode. Pretty bad-ass method. Heat the electrode, and just dip it into the jar several times to create a beautiful tapered tip.

via weldingtipsandtricks.com

Amazin Blaze Welding Service

Just saw this video at the fantastic Welding Tips & Tricks. A welder by the name of Glen David Thornton ( “Amazin Blaze” to his friends) pitches his skills. Enjoy.

Hurricane Sandy in Red Hook

Although Wilsonbuilt is now in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, I still know many folks with homes & businesses in Red Hook who suffered massive amounts of water damage during last week’s hurricane. Floods swept through the neighborhood, filling basements & buildings with briny water and large areas are still without power, telephone, heat, or plumbing.

On the water’s edge in particular things are very bad – with flood waters in excess of five feet sweeping through businesses as though walls & doors did not exist. Lots of beautiful equipment was destroyed in an instant.

Nevertheless things must go on and folks are cleaning up & sorting through the remains to see what can be salvaged or thrown out. I myself have been wrestling to restore to life a forklift that was submerged. Each day ends in some sort of success (it starts!) and the next begins with a setback (it doesn’t start anymore!). New item for Hurricane checklist: disconnect batteries from equipment….

Despite all the depressing events, I was amazed the other day when a crowd of fantastic volunteers organized by Red Hook Initiative swept through the building, helping to clean & sort & dry. A gang of super nice volunteers from all over the metro area, they got right down to the dirty work & were such a great help in helping move forward! Hooray!