so waht ya doin today?

Probably shouldn't post this but,screw it....

And in NO way trying to "sell" anything.

Cheap arse "latex" house paint on a,"working" shop floor is about as good as it gets. I choose a bare floor,BTW. Just sayin from decades of dinking around in every kind of conceivable shop both as builder AND user. The more $$ a coating costs dosen't correlate to anything when we're punching holes in it for fixtures,or dragging equipment,or welding or everything else that goes on.

NOT poopoo'ing Keith's epoxy. Fantastic. Just sayin for folks who "may" not want to drop the coinage or it isn't a tax deduction,cheap latex is the way to go.

Dang new commander has a "eating disorder".

Oh it "digests" the bullseye load Jim Dandy,the problem is appetite. Like trying to feed a 17 year old athlete's hollow leg? I'm used to bughole CB rifles..... their appetite is like your 90 y.o. grandmother.

Loading up some 185 Lee sumthin or other CB's cast back it the late 70's,early 80's. Going to go with the same "4" Accumeasure rotor. The "L" (large) drops 4g of 700X. Gonna spin it around to the "S" end and see if the 185's like it? Shoot them for awhile.

Accumeasure rotors;

Have made them from yellow brass,6061 aluminum,O1,and mild steel. Other than their machining characteristics,dang if I can tell the difference?

They're WAY easier to make than RCBS little dandy rotors BTW. To the point,that even when you could get them from the mothership (Lyman) it was easier just to make them. I need to make a cpl,will try to take a pic or 3 and start a quicky thread. Heck,the whole Accumeasure assembly is WELL within home shop capacity. If you can find'm cheap,don't need to make but.... just sayin for you guys with idle lathes. That and a drill press,baddaboom.

Need pics or it doesn't count roight?

Wouldn't recommend latex paint on cement floor, ever. My parents bought a house, where the previous owner painted the (awning covered) cement porch with latex paint. Looked horrible from the intermittent peeling, Tried numerous solvents to no avail. Even tried sand blasting with my Craftsman air compressor. Took all day to do 4' x 4' area. Finally, had it professionally removed. Left it bare, after that.

First experience with epoxy floors was when I worked as a maintenance pipefitter at GM. The complex had eight separate plants. They remodeled one and had the floor aisles epoxied. Looked nice but very slippery, when wet with water and/or the constant oil mist. Which is a fact of life in a machining factory. I was always hesitant when working off a ladder, in that plant. GM never epoxied the remaining seven.

When I built my retirement home, nine years ago, I had the attached garage floor epoxied. Builder used Sherwin Williams two part epoxy. I requested that a nonslip agent was added to the application..............Sharkbite, IIRC. Floor still looks good, if and when inadvertently spill any oil, cleanup is easy.................the main reason for the epoxy. Granted, I'm not running a machine shop in there.

My basement reloading shop has bare concrete floor that was sealed with a clear product. Has held up very well and makes for a semi finished look, making sweeping/vacuuming a breeze. Gun oil and cleaning products, haven't hurt it. I like it so well, when I built the detached garage, last Spring............I had my cement contractor seal it, with the same product he used on my basement floor. People that have seen it, comment on how nice it looks, compared to a regular cement floor.

Hope the new job works out Ian, tough way to make a living, ask me how I know.

How does a service tech's pay work in Texas? I'm assuming at a dealership. Friend of mine, son works at a Ford dealership, in Michigan. He only get paid when actually working. Not a true hourly rate, IMO. No work available, no pay...........just sit there waiting on work.

Flat rate commission. Feast or famine. Did it for 15 years straight before this, some years were great, some so bad I bounced between jobs every few months trying to find work. BUT, I've been back in my small town for a long time now and it is a cell that has been very isolated from ups and downs in the general economy. We're at ~50K residents in the county but have the second highest per capita net worth in the state, so I'm pretty confident this will work out. I've worked for a dealership here before right before I took the job I'm now leaving and the only reason I quit that dealer back then was the service manager was an incorrigible prick and the only reason I took the job in the first place was desperation.

I have the potential to easily double what I have been making on an average and well more than double it when things click along, so there's plenty of cushion. As Steve well knows we have to keep a healthy savings account to function as an "accumulator" to keep the money pressure constant throughout the year.

Winelover,I know it doesn't make a lick of sense but it works great. And the cheaper the better. But is one of those subjects where SO much $$ has been put on the line from an investment standpoint that customers will buy into it.

Sure,epoxy is great stuff... mighty purty too. I'm talkin big arse job shops with toe motors dragging chit around. Heck,we'll drill a hole for a drop in anchor for big fixtures so fast it'll make your head spin. And seeing as we built the fricken joint,to include ALL aspects of the concrete engineering...... eff that floor.

I know folks in fancy shops don't see it that way.... just sayin what the pros use.

Ahh, commission. A hard workers friend. A lazy man's nightmare. Managers get mad if they see what a motivated commission seeker makes. Only way for a "work animal" to be well compensated.

Last "job" I had. They wanted me to explain in a meeting why my secondary sales were so much higher. Why people would wait 3 weeks+ to be on my schedule when other could do it this week. Why my van was already clean & ready to go every morning. I put it simple- Pride, caring, honesty, & hungry. Can't make the other techs have that.

Wish ya best of luck on the new journey. I bet you'll do well.

The newer epoxied might surprise you. They drive airplanes over it & lasts years.

I latexed a section of floor once after observing that my paint splatters on the concrete here and there seemed to not ever come off. I even used satin sheen latex. The part I did on purpose got flakey in spots over a short time and was a real PITA to mop or wipe oil off of. Epoxy has no pores, seals moisture out 100%, and mops like a dream unless you use a very aggressive traction enhancer. Saw a commercial kitchen done in the sandy finish once and it was the ugliest, most impossible mess you ever saw because nothing short of a pressure washer would remove grease and stains from it.

One important thing about epoxy finishes is to keep the chips repaired, like if you drop something and nick it. Moisture gets in there and the adhesion around the hole starts to fail and it just keeps getting bigger.

i can tell you how mint gets from point A to point B like magic.
every September when it's time to harvest it instantly goes to seed as soon as it gets cold.
I have been keeping a 3x3 foot box full of regular mint out back for a couple of years now, the key is to go and harvest it and then bend over the stalks to keep them inside the box.
the seeds are so tiny they will roll down the box and lodge in a crack and you get plants growing out sideways.
pretty much all you have to do it walk past it to pick up the seeds especially if it's damp or you have mud on your shoes.

this mint is Banana mint and hasn't really seen a good cold yet or gone to real seed so everything coming up now is off the roots.
I cropped it all out yesterday, so hopefully I can get it to seed this fall, then I will put it out in some junk dirt I have packed down around the green house and let it battle with the weeds that try to grow there.

Oh, you haven't lived till you have drank the sauce-broth off of a can of warmed up Hormel corn tamales.

Ian,
Whatever decision you would have made would have been the correct decision for your family's benefit, and I wish you and them all the best.

I worked straight commission for 15 years, so I'm very familiar with its ups and downs. An understanding wife helps soothe the downs.

Some new grips arrived with the new 38S mags.
one grip was either warped? or just wasn't machined/sanded smooth...but for the price ($12)
that I sniped them for (on ebay), I wasn't concerned with having to tweak one of them
to get it to fit.
The Mags are an awesome fit, I cycled some dummies through successfully.

Intheshop said:

Cheap arse "latex" house paint on a,"working" shop floor is about as good as it gets.

Click to expand...

Intheshop....
That is the only thing I use on my 40 ft X 60 ft Cyc wall in my commercial photography studio! But I use Valspar Aspire flat "white base" house paint from Ace Hardware it ani't cheep but I can photograph cars ....horses Large groups of people wearing black shoose and then just clean it up with Spic & Span powder and water! Best stuff ever and it photographes pure white with out glare... (This cyc wall has been in service since 1992 ...had to bring in a Polish and a Czech Lad from Europe to build that wall.... they travel all over the world doing this one type job)
I really only need to paint it twice a year any more

JW,the whole epoxy/sprinkle thing was very popular in bathrooms in the 1950's. It was post war utilization of that technology. Sort of a fad but a pretty good product nevertheless. It was about the same time as "inlaid" linoleum.... which Armstrong really took full advantage of. The colour pcs were orientated and went all the way through to the backing.

New epoxy floors are water based now to get past OSHA VOC regs. Kinda like waterborne lacquer...... yes,semantics but still,that ain't epoxy.

Anyway,when some enterprising co. digs that old tech up and starts marketing it to the hotrod,fancy garage crowd say 1990's? We used to bust out laughing because the sq footage price was literally HIGHER than 12X12,half inch thick MARBLE.

Got the manual lathe leveled and clamped down. Worked on the air compressor still in our old shop. Got it unhooked from the plumbing and electricity and raised it off the floor bolts by using a come-along hooked to a couple of ceiling trusses. Sat it down on a piano dolly and moved it to the front of the shop. Lifted it back up, I backed the trailer under it and we sat it down and strapped it in place. Only problem was that it sticks up about 4" higher than the garage door frame. We were both worn out so we just called it a day.

Just so happened that the owner of the carpentry service stopped by to drop off the invoice for the shop work. I showed him the garage door and he said no problem, we'll cut out the lower beam and replace it... I asked if it would be ok if we cut out the beam enough to get the trailer out and he said sure, knock yourself out. So tomorrow Scott will stop by the new shop and grab the Sawzall and bring it over.

About floor sealing. What ended up on our floor is a water soluble compound that contains a hgh proportion of solids. After three moisture tests the moisture content of the concrete never got low enough to use an epoxy. The contractor would not guarantee the epoxy finish if the moisture content was too high. He said that the floor formed such an effective moisture barrier that the sealer would blister and peal off. The finish we have is slightly less durable but rates high in resisting scrub off from rubber tires and is easier to refinish.

We know the floor of a shop gets hard use, and we're not going to get too anal about the whole issue. But bare concrete is an oil sponge, and once its oil saturated it will turn into a dark, greasy mess. A clean floor shows oil leaks, which can be cleaned up and fixed. We also know that welding and flame cutting won't do the floor any good. But we do a minimal amount of welding and we have enough rubber floor mats, plywood sheeting, and metal panels to protect a pretty wide area. We can flame cut outside if the weather is dry.

We're pretty happy with the floor so far. Is it the best floor finish? Don't know yet. But it sweeps clean and it mops clean. We'll see what it's like in a year or two.

Concrete "27" rules.

27 cu ft per yard.

A yard weighs 2700#'s

Takes 27 days to build on

27 years to peak strength

Good for you Ian! Best of luck!