Salvage Yards, Thrift Shops, and Yard Sales.

[heavyhitterokra]

Salvage yards, Thrift shops, and Yard Sales.

All those things can be a really good asset when you're homesteading, farming, or just trying to enjoy life with a little less overhead.  I have four children, three boys and a girl; all grown now, but still very dear to me.

My middle son, John, is a trader, much the same as I am; he trades labor mostly.  He's very skilled with his hands and has a lot of talents that others don't have.  He's probably hands down, the best painter in the Tahlequah area.  He paints cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, golf carts, you name it.  He's also a pretty salty welder, among other things.  

He's the son that we built the homemade smoker for last summer.  I wrote a whole thread about that project back in July of 2020.  He and I found a really good deal on a 24" inch diameter air tank for that project ... The best kind of deal (free).  It was an old 24" x 48" inch tank with a pin hole in it.  The owner was just glad to find someone strong enough to haul it off for him.  It took us half of the first day of the smoker project, just to strip the motor mounts, brackets, and legs off of it.

Recently, John saw some pre-fabricated, pipe-framed stock panels at Atwoods, for $104.00 each.  The kind of ready-made, pipe-framed, stock panels that you buy in 8' foot x 5' foot sections to bolt together at home, to build dog pens, goat pens, sheep pens, and calf pens out of.  John, kind of choked at the price, since he needed 10 of them, and called me that evening, to ask if I could think of a way to build our own pipe-framed, panels from scratch. 

Right away, we started brainstorming and thinking of places that might have the things we needed, second-hand.  It took us a couple of days to track down all the things we needed, but within a week of shopping salvage yards, yard sales, and second hand stores, we had found a box of used door hinges, 400' feet of used chain-link top-rails, some old tin, and a pile of used bed rails. Much of it was for the price of digging it out of the weeds and hauling it off, to help a guy clean up his back yard.  Some of it was purchased at a second-hand store, some of it we had to buy new.

Old, rusty, bent up, chain-link top-rails are fairly easy to find and it's really tough to think of a way to use them.  Since they come in 21' foot lengths, most people have no way to haul them off.  This is where a good set of trading skills comes in handy ...  Trading labor for building materials.

We were happy to have found the materials we needed, and the guy who had them was happy to find someone who was willing to haul them off for free.   We paid 25 cents each for the pile of old bed rails at a second-hand store, and lucked in to some old, used tin, for the price of tearing down and hauling away an old shed.

We paid $153.00 for the cattle panels we needed.  We bought 10 of them, 16' feet long and cut them into 8' foot pieces. So the project was not free, but it was a lot cheaper than buying our pipe-framed panels already fabricated.  We traded labor for the tin, the chain-link top rails, and the door hinges.

It took us two days labor to cut up and weld all the top rails and cattle panels.  We used the hinges to build a walk-through gate.  It took 340' feet of top rails and 160' feet of cattle panels cut up into 8' foot pieces.  We ended up with 10 pipe-framed panels, enough to build a 24' x 16' foot calf pen.  The panels we built were 8' feet long, by 5' feet tall, and will stack up in the bed of a pickup truck, so they can be hauled from place to place and re-assembled where ever they need to be used. 

The total price before taxes would have been $1040.00 at Atwoods.  It cost us $153.00 plus a spool of MIG Welding wire, plus two days labor, plus the labor needed to dig the salvaged parts out of the weeds and to pull a few nails to get the tin for another project, plus the $5.00 we spent on used bed rails for 25 cents each.  We'll use the bed rails in the place of angle iron to build something else. 

We had a good time building another project together.  That was priceless.

Example of some of the top rails we used.
Not the prettiest in the world, but they worked!

Day one.  Welding all the parts together.
This project took two days labor, 340' feet of top rails, and 160' feet of cattle panels.

Day two.  Things are starting to pile up and looking good!



Late in the evening of day two, Loaded up and ready to go! 
Enough pre-fabricated panels to build a 24' x 16' portable calf pen.  

The smoker we built from a salvaged air tank last summer. 
This one wasn't as easy as we thought it was going to be.

Those were some really good eats!
If there's one thing my boys can do well, it's Bar-B-Que. 
We enjoy a good family get together.

[macmex]

It's a great thing to be able to save money so creatively, and even better when you can do with with your son! I haven't met John, or if I have, only passingly. Sounds like a "chip off the old block!"

[theozarkan]

That top rail pipe is used to make high tunnels. I've been looking at benders online. I may try to make a bender first before I order one. I'd like to have a smaller sized bender too for making some hoop hog houses.

[heavyhitterokra]

I've got three oak trees growing out of one stump here at the house that I use as a pipe bender. That top rail that we salvaged was bent up pretty bad, so I had to spend a little time on the tree bender straightening it all out so we could even use it.

I've bent pipe most of my life.  I used to bend pipe for a living, on powerhouse, and paper mill jobs. I used to trail ride a quite a bit and would bend people a full set of wagon bows out of 1" inch EMT for $100.00 per wagon, using nothing but a hand held conduit bender, but that was in my younger days.  I don't think I'd bend that much pipe for a hundred dollars anymore.  Most wagons have 5 or 6 bows.  It would take about 100' feet of pipe to bend that many bows.

The formula for bending pipe on a large radius is as follows:
Measure the radius of the bend you want to make, (from the center of a circle to the outside).  Then multiply that number by half of Pi, which is 1.57 

Your radius times 1.57 will give you the developed length for a 90 degree bend. Say, you want a 72" inch radius, take 72" inches times 1.57  That will equal 113.04" inches. 

The 113.04" inches represents the developed length for a 90 degree angle.  A full hoop for a hoop house would require 180 degrees.  So one full hoop at that radius would require at least 226.08" inches of pipe or about 19' feet of pipe.  Plus, the straight ends on each side that insert into the underground pipe sleeves you'll be driving.

A hoop with a 12' foot span is about all you can get out of a single length of top rail, since the top rails come in 21' foot lengths.  

A 72" inch radius is half of a 12' foot span, so your full hoop would be 12' feet across when you put your two 90 degree angles together.  I use an exhaust pipe swaging tool to expand the end of the pipe to join two pipes together.  Then, I drill and bolt them together with 1/4 x 20 bolts. 

This is what a ratchet type exhaust pipe expanding tool looks like.  There are several different sizes available, so be sure to get the correct size:
 
www.grainger.com/product/1MUE4?ef_id=Cj0KCQiAj9iBBhCJARIsAE9qRtAxqsiW5cgrQ70mlUJwpuITIDx87LZ5kFgjkr4Byknji1psHZ1sZWsaAt-TEALw_wcB:G:s&s_kwcid=AL

The developed length is the amount of pipe it will require to form the radius of your bend to 90 degrees of a full circle (or 1/4 of the entire circle). A hoop house bend takes a half circle or 180 degrees.  So, two 90 degree bends placed end to end will make one hoop.

Once you have your developed length figured for 90 degrees, you divide your developed length by a number that goes into 90 evenly. (That number will determine the number of incremental bends that it will take to complete 90 degrees).

Say, 18 bends, just as an example.  90 degrees divided by 18 = 5 degrees per bend, times 18 bends.  If your developed length was 10' feet (just for example) that would be 120" inches.  So, 120" inches divided by 18 bends = 6.66" inches between bends.  Given that example, you just place a mark on your pipe every 6.66" inches and bend it at 5 degrees on every mark.  By the 18th bend, you'll have a 90 degree angle.

The Pi multiplier will work for any size radius, but the distance between bends will differ, depending on your developed length.  Every different radius has a different developed length.  Just remember, radius times 1.57
Then divide that length by a number that goes into 90 degrees evenly. 

One thing you have to watch out for is "segmentation" which is what the flat spots between your bends is called.  If you place your bends too far apart, there will be a flat piece of pipe between bends, making your radius look 'segmented.'  Flat spots don't really hurt anything, they just don't look good.  To have what appears to be a continuous bend, your bends can be no farther apart than 3" inches, but on a hoop house, I'm not that picky.  To change the distance between bends, just change the number of bends, say from 18 bends to 30 bends or any number that divides into 90 evenly.

I've had a few pipe bending jobs where the radius was so large that it took several lengths of pipe to make a 90 degree angle. I used to have to match the radius of pulper tanks, conveyors, and silos.

Probably the hardest part of this whole process is to keep your pipe level throughout, so that the bends are all in a straight line and not looking off over yonder somewhere when you're through bending.

For a little extra cash, they make a three wheel, continuous bender for creating hoop house hoops, but I never purchased one.  That might be worth your money if you were building quite a few hoops.

The guys in this video have a pretty good system worked out, and the bender they have could be easily fabricated at home, using two existing green house hoops to form a pipe bending shoe.

 

[rdback]

Nicely done Ron. You fellas got some skills!

[Deleted]

These family projects are the bestust.  You can all look at it and say "We built that." 

[heavyhitterokra]

That's actually a lot of it right there, Bon, just like you said. There's a lot of good in being able to look back someday and say, "We built that!"

One of these days, I'm gonna have to do a write up about the 30" foot long, footbridge that we built.  We fabricated the whole thing in place using reclaimed, 5" inch square tubing, repurposed concrete, and recycled reinforcement rods for strength. That bridge has seen dozens of highwater events and feels just as sturdy as it did the day it was built. That one is kind of the crown jewel of my personal home projects. It took quite a while to design, and even longer to build, but it turned out so well, that I'm still proud of it 6 years down the road.

Who knows what it would cost to buy a thing like that already built?  A few carpentry skills and a little time on a welder can save a homesteader a lot of money.

[Deleted]

The engineering for such a feat (the bridge) is no joke.  You gotta figure the movement of the earth.

I can lay out a linear algebraic equation on paper, but my husband cannot read it.  Greek to him.  Yet, he can calculate, formulate, build and provide accurate dimensions with minimal tolerances over a 3 dimensional object all in his head.  He is nearly dead on accurate every time.  That's the impressive part.

Like you, he's been working with metal for a lotta years.  He went and took on a welding job years ago without ever having held a welding job.  Like you and your son, he just knows what he's doing.  

When I came along with my privileges of white collar architecture and foundational engineering, it emboldened him to step out of his blue collar suppressed mind to tolerate riskier designs with greater engineering strengths and weights with success.  He has emboldened me to a great many things, mostly to stop being bratty.  

When we build things together, it is a celebratory event.  


   

[macmex]

Warms my heart to read things like what Bon wrote about her husband, and what Ron is always doing, showing such creativity and ingenuity. My youngest brother struggled through high school, though I know he has an IQ along the line of Einstein's. For years he had to use  tape recorder in order to take notes in school, finally breaking through that barrier and becoming an avid reader. He does tree service and landscaping for a living and amazes most everyone by being able to calculate in his head all the materials, time and cost required to accomplish the most intricate jobs. Out East folk buy a house and want to tear out EVERYTHING in the yard and redo the entire landscape. Pete sometimes bargains for the stuff he's going to tear out, and gets to reuse it in other jobs. He, like Ron, is really into BBQ and has designed some special equipment which he sometimes hopes to patent. 

[heavyhitterokra]

A while back, two of my sons and I traded the labor of installing an automatic transmission in a 4x4 Chevy pickup truck, in exchange for an old go-kart frame and an 8-horsepower gas engine.

(The two things were not assembled at the time, but the engine was still in good shape from having been stashed away in a cardboard box for six-years, as part of a forgotten project in the corner of a guy's garage).

The trade also included us removing three old, dusty cardboard boxes full of dry-rotted go-cart tires, dusty old-aluminum wheels, a few brake cables, several varieties of split aluminum sprockets, several small, cast-iron drive sprockets of varying diameters, a hodgepodge of motorcycle-type drive chains, a few cans of spray paint, some pieces of old key stock of varying sizes, a few old Allen wrenches, a few spare brake parts, and a few odds and ends that he needed to have moved out of his garage.

We just happened to have an old, empty hog shed at home, having gotten out of the business of selling hogs Fall before last. It was the perfect size storage shed for the old go-Kart as well as all its boxes of assorted spare parts. So, we loaded them all into John's truck and brought them over to my house, where the empty hog shed is located.

We had to haul a few loads of gravel inside there to convert the hog shed floor from a muddy hog wallow mess to something that we could all stand on without sinking in the mud. After that, we pushed the old go-kart frame inside the hog shed and began the transformation of turning it from a pile of junk to a heap of country fun!

About 6 hours later, we had installed the motor, uninstalled the motor, re-installed the motor, changed a variety of sprockets, replaced a hodgepodge of various drive chains, and readjusted many things, until we finally got it to running pretty well. 

By dusk, we had it out on our homemade dirt track, throwing rooster tails, spinning doughnuts, drifting around corners, and dodging trees out in our woods. It's kinda scary at times, now that we've modified the gear ratio by changing the drive sprockets for higher torque, as you can cut a doughnut in mid-flight, by accident if you hit the throttle wrong.  It's got a surprising amount of power. 

After a few trial runs, we took the 12" inch wide, grooved tires off of it and replaced them with smaller diameter racing slicks, so we could gain even more torque and be able to drift in the mud better.  It only has about an inch or so of clearance underneath it now, and it's 4' feet wide, so you can spin it around pretty hard before you ever get a tire off the ground. 

To raise the back tires off the ground to work on the cart, we just lay a house brick flat on its side and rest the frame on the brick.  This gives us about a half an inch clearance between the rubber and the ground, so we can adjust the throttle without the tires contacting the soil.  That's how close the ground clearance is. 

The low profile makes it a pretty good road grader, so we had to cut out all the tree roots and pick up lots of rocks to get a decent track made.  This go-Kart has zero suspension, being how the axles are directly supported by the frame, so you feel every little bump. 

We worked on the dirt track for almost as long as we worked on the go-kart. We were still working on the dirt track after dark. We've been counting on poor traction to keep it upright, so the rain really helps in that regard, but the amount of mud that it throws up from all four open tires makes us have to wear ear plugs and safety glasses.  As a testament to that, Josh came in from riding the new trail last night and left almost enough topsoil in the bottom of our bathtub to plant potatoes.

[heavyhitterokra]

It's a little rough on the ol' gimpy leg and pretty tough on all the back joints in general, so I have most of my fun, just watching the boys have fun.

While we were working on it last night, I stepped on the throttle cable while the engine was running and it took off with my legs astraddle of the seat. Thank goodness, when it lunged forward it ran out from under my foot and only caused me to do the banana splits halfway. I'm getting too old to do the splits all the way anymore.