bertram31.com

Most recently I have been fabricating the exhaust parts for DeNada.

With the Stainless steel pipe and shower head fabricated and the "Y" pipe complete its time to move on to the transom thru hull.

Take a look..........



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Harry that is very nice work.

Is that Mama's mixing bowl that you used for the FG mold?

Very cool Harry, I'll have our CAD guys make some drawing for my exhaust system and send them over.

Just kidding, I just completed the designed of my exhaust, picking up the fittings next week. Did you use 10s or sch 40? Is the 90 inside the elbow LR or SR? It looks like SR.

Nice work. You add a new dimension to "DIY", I would call your stuff: "better than you can buy" The term home-made does not apply.

Very nice work! How about some pics of that shop. Looks like you have a lot of cool stuff in there.

I'm with Brewster, let's see your playroom.
Very nice work, Harry.

Thanks for the compliments........

My "Toy Box" is really a "Machine Shop" by day and "Toy Box" by night..........so its not really my hobby/boat shop....its really my livelyhood

I am really passionate about manufacturing and my profession and tend to get carried away applying my abilities and resources to my projects.........I really enjoy experimenting.........trying new and different things. Sometimes my ideas work and sometimes they don't.

Sean......the end cap mold is a piece of 1018 steel machined on a CNC lathe to a 2.6565" radius....never thought about a mixing bowl....good idea

Scot.....funny thing.....I fitted all of the exhaust pipe in the boat. The engine is in the correct location and the 6" FG pipe was in place....all I had to do was get the 2 connected together. Now, my brother does some pipe fitting and he laughed at my methods and told me that I was not "Pipe Fitting"..........he said I was "Stove Piping". Any thing that touches saltwater is 316L sch 40 the rest is 316L Sch 10. The elbows are 3" Long Rad. I have one section that is a 3" Sch 40 long rad inside of a 4" Sch 10 Short Rad that makes a jacketed section (Water cooled)

How about it Mikey.....Brewster...........whatcha thing????? I didn't realize how much the shop needs cleaning until I started looking at the pics that I posted here.......Its kinda crowded.........thats why I am headed to IMTS....may see something that we cannot live without.

At any rate here are a few pics around the shop..........

Harry



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Is that yellow box a time machine??????

That's not a shop, it's a factory! Walter

Andre,

That is a teleporter and you better not use it if you aren't alone in it. You know what can happen. "Heellpp Meeee!" said the fly.

Dick

Damn, Rawleigh is going to be more jealous than I. He is building a shop with lots of machining toys and when I need help he jumps into the fray. Harry, that is a sandbox for big kids, especially kids with a passion for building great boats. I don't understand half of what I'm looking at and I'm jealous as hell. Can you fix popcorn or open beer with any of those?

Mikey
I will gladly open your beer.........buttttttttt...........I will get a short clip of the "CAN SQUOZER" that my son Chris and one of his friends built.......its pretty cool

I have been known to warm my lunch with an acetylene torch when the power was out........This little fat boy AIN'T gonna miss lunch.

Harry

Holly smokes!! That is a factory! AWSOME!!!

in a few days ill post some shots of my"shop" for comparison purposes. that is a very impressive shop....it would take me a life time just to learn how to use all that stuff.....let alone make anything.

I posted here.......Its kinda crowded.........thats why I am headed to IMTS....may see something that we cannot live without.


Harry you think that is crowded... wait let me show you crowded. Nice Puma!

Harry,
Back in the '60's when race cars were my passion I shared a warehouse with several guys with the same disease. One of our crowd distributed Jiffy Pop, that stuff in the aluminum container ready to pop. We had a case of it and no conventional stove. But being young, enthusiastic, hungry and resourceful he soldiered on. The first attempt was an acetylene torch with a very cool flame. Shot right through the pan and we had flaming hot cheap oil with gobbets of corn popping in midair and caroming across the warehouse in fiery chase of us all. Another attempt was to take a small pan with a 1/4 cup of gasoline and holding the pan with about four vise grips snapped together and a pair of work gloves to hold it. Corn popped but tasted of fuel. About to give up we were standing in a group cogitating when we suddenly had the smell of burning wood and pop corn. In a corner, away from the pyromaniacs, my brother had gathered bits of wood and started a small fire in '57 Ford air cleaner and was quietly popping corn. Lunch! Cold beer and warm pop corn. Still one of my favorite meals.

Mikey
My parents were, in my opinion, unreasonably strict on me when I was growing up.

Like your popcorn story I have a similar story that I often remember. On Saturday night I would hang out with my buds at the local municipal pier on Mobile Bay. A couple of times I went home to either get dry clothes or fishing tackle or what ever and for what ever reason my dad would not let me go back out for the remainder of the evening even though it was early....9:00 or so.

One night we were at the bay fishing, watching for a Jubilee, goofing around and I/we got really hungry....there were NO, I mean NO!!, stores open to get a snack. Fairhope rolled up the sidewalks at 5 in the afternoon back in the 60's.

I knew better than to go home for a snack so....I borrowed a cast net and managed to catch a (thats a quantity of one) Mullet. I built a fire on the beach (aganist the law) and using sticks I roasted my prize catch........my memory is that, that was the best damn Mullet that I have ever eaten.

I'm still gonna get you guys a video of Chris's "CAN SQUOZER" this weekend........these guys worked several weenends on the "CAN SQUOZER"

Harry

As long as we are talking crazy meals, lake crawfish cooked over a zippo lighter was our delicacy.

Harry,

Beautiful shop. I will tell you, it looks to me like you have made really good use of the space you have. It may be full, but it is pretty clean in my eyes!

I will see if I can snap up a few of our places at some point and get them up here...

I will say, for those of us with machine shops and manufacturing businesses as our "play fields" it is a true luxury to have the equipment and people who are skilled to know how to use it around and with us.

I borrowed my dad's tractor and bush hog last week to knock down some tall grass at the entry to the shop I run. I backed into a tree, and broke his 3 point hitch in half. There were cracks there before, and I just finished his job...

I just backed it into our welding and fab section, and lickety split it was good as new in about 45 minutes! Then maintenance greased the whole tractor at all zerks, and tightened the lug nuts on the front tires that he hadn't quite tightened enough.

It is a true luxury. But fun... The guys we have here are completely amazing.

OK...heres my "shop" for six months of the year i do almost all the work at the outside "station".

Randall,

That looks like the millright's shop that used to be on PBS TV years ago. I watched it all the time. You're lucky to have a nice place like that to work in. I have a hot, sweaty garage and a small fridge for my beer.

Dick

Randall,
Looks like you have a lot of dremmel type bits. I recently bought a Dremmel Stylus kit. It has rotary tool and a driver. By far one of the neatest rotary tools I have ever had. Cordless and variable speed and has some grunt too. Wish I had all those bits that you have though. The driver tool is about the size of my hand and will put 3 inch screws into a deck. Great for tight spaces that regular drill will not fit into.

Hey Randall
Your shop pics bring back a lot of good memories.......My grandfather had a garage with a wide selection of wood working equipment. I spent a good bit of time in his garage attempting to build bird houses, gun racks, chess/checker boards and what have you.

What was so neat was that I in a world of my own when I was in his garage. He never let me use power tools......I was to young.....but I thought it was really cool when I clamped a board in the vise to saw it.....the board stayed still and suddenly sawing was not a wrestling match. I remember using a hand powered drill, you know.....it worked like a hand egg beater.

Just looking at your shop pics I can almost smell the freshly sawn wood and the multitude of paint, stains and thinners.

Good memories

Thanks

Harry

harry...thanks...i have a few of those drills. whenever i have the choice i always use hand tools. i find them very satisfying.
kevin...thats a twenty year collection. i get a lot of stuff from jewelry supply. for me dremels are a throw away tool. i burn em out.

I bet I'm not the only one with serious shed envy.

Nic

thanks nic....i built the shop....but the house actually is a 130 year old tool shed....somewhat updated.

Randall, Harry
Love to see those chisels in the box. Reminds me of my Grandfather's. He had a shop twenty by forty. Two drill presses, three table saws, shapers, routers, a twelve-inch planer, clamps of every size. A row of chisels to make you drool, and the piece-d-resistance a lathe that would turn an eight-foot bed post. And all of this was in the forties. He did some of the most amazing work and this was his avocation. He and my father would work in there endlessly and turn out some of the most amazing thing. I have only three items, but I have that love of working with wood (and fiberglass) and I agree, hand tools are the most satisfying.

mikey...you calling me a chiseler?....those are gouges. funny...my dad was a great navigator...but he couldnt change a light bulb.

I told you guy that I would post a short clip of the "Can Squozer" that my son Chris and his friend John built a couple of years ago.

We were talking about our shops being a playground for Big Boys.....and I guess the apple did not fall far from the tree.

The story is that Chris and John aquire a large quantity of aluminum cans....they sell them to fund a school bus/RV conversion. They take the Bus to Gulfport every year to the Harley convention. During the year they pick a project that will improve the bus such as adding roof top air conditioners, generator, running water and they fund part of their passion with aluminum cans.....of which they aquire a bunch of at the Harley convention....Imagine that! ! ! !

At any rate they designed the entire machine using AutoCad then they manufactured all of the components in the shop on rainy Saturdays.

I am proud of the boys......it was their idea.....the crankshaft is mounted on Timkin bearings, they figured the stroke needed to accomendate the can lengths, the connecting rod length needed to clear the cylinder....although the design is pretty simple there are a lot of details to figure out in order for the "Squozer" to work right out of the box.....and it did.....very well!!!

great story....great idea. i love this kind of stuff. to quote einstein...."imagination is more important than knowledge"

Similar quotation by a Japanese carmaker when asked about Creativity. He said "Creativity is curiosity".