MD, remember this is not wood but fuel oil, and if it would need cleaned out before I build the mechanical room addition I can reach in with the shop vac hose
Yesterday I got the plate for the thimble cut out, the hole's location laid out and then cut out. I laid out the position of the support tabs for the chimney on the plate also.
Today I will be cutting the angle iron for the support tabs and getting them mounted on the plate.

About 12" of snow from the storm that rolled through here from Friday evening to Sunday morning.

About 12" of the white stuff, that had to be cleaned up before I could work outside the shop.

28" X 28" square laid out.

Plate cut out using a grinder with wafer wheels.
This particular tank has set around here for about ten to twelve years open so it could air out, I checked the interior of it for residual oil before cutting into it. It was dry, no liquid oil showing I blew air through it for about an hour to remove any vapors that could be left also.
The cut went without any surprises, it did not take as long as I thought it would, only about ten minutes to cut it out.
Dan.

Now on to the plate,

Once the plate came free it landed in the bottom of the tank.

The interior of the tank.

The plate with the hole cut.

The coupon from the hole. Who says you can only cut straight lines with a wafer wheel.
Dan.

Nice job on the round hole with a straight wheel! That takes patience. I always hate the first penetration on a fuel tank. I'm with you and would rather use a cutoff wheel than a torch. I have an old beater Bosch grinder that I do all my cutting with. Looks like it will wear me out before it does. The cheapie HF wheels cut and last real good too......T

Terry, thanks.
I have the thimble built and mounted in the wall of the "new" boiler room, the chimney is almost complete all it lacks is the rain cap. I have photos of those parts but not here on my laptop. I have to finish the rain cap and build the upper chimney support bracket
Today I am hoping to get the chimney up so I can start assembling the boiler. Once the chimney is up I can set the boiler in place and start to assemble the heating system.
Dan.

The Russian HF wheels are great, but I've not seen them locally for a while, just the Chinese ones which don't have as many reinforcing fibers (~1/4" spacing instead of ~1/16"). The Chinese ones fly apart at very little use, so I've had to go back to name brand (Norton mostly) unless I can find more of the "good" HF ones again.

I use Sait 045 wheels, have never had much luck with other brands of wafer wheels. The Sait wafer wheels can be used up right down to the grinders flange and nut. I buy them buy the box of 50 or 100 when I need them. A box of 50 will last me a few years.
Dan.

Pictures of the progress.

Chimney support tabs welded on.

The radiation ring welded on. This ring blocks the radiant heat from the flue pipe from overheating the wooden framing.

The opening for the thimble.

Thimble installed in opening.

Exterior view of the thimble.
Dan.

More photos.

Ready to weld the bottom plate on the chimneys riser.

Weep hole drilled to prevent the boiler from being flooded.

End plate weld.

The end plate welded on and insertion depth marked.
Dan.

Here is the rain cap in progress.

I used a bent L&G tractor wheel that had the axle shaft seized into the hub as the basis for the rain cap. I had to remove the bent section of the wheel and grind the seam smooth to prevent water from building up on the top of the rain cap. I welded the wheel weight holes, the valve stem hole shut and welded the stub of the seized shaft into the hub.

The reason to use the wheel as the rain cap is that the flue pipe fit the ID of the wheels rim. The flange will allow condensate to drip off outside of the pipe.

Rain cap support (typical) ready to weld on to the caps rim.

Rain cap done and welded to the end of the pipe.

Close up of the support leg.

The wind braces for the chimney, they are made from EMT tubing, 1/2" and 3/4".
Today I hope to have the chimney erected.
Dan.

The chimney is up!

Chimney installed #1

Chimney installed #2

Chimney installed #3

Chimney installed in thimble.
Now I can finish the boiler up.
Dan.

The new chimney is working great, the thimble is doing its job and the rain cap is working.
I still have to run a dedicated electrical circuit to the boiler, but I am going to do that when I run the new circuits for the shop lighting this week.
Dan.

Spring cleaning has started, along with daylight saving time.
I have three 21' joints of 6" schedule 40 (0.280" wall) pipe coming this week. I am going to use it as the columns to support the beams in the work bay area of the shop.
For years I have been using five de-headed 55 gallon drums for small heavy scrap storage, and over the last few years sheet metal has gotten intermixed into the heavy scrap. I decided that instead of working on the lift table I would sort out and move the barrels out of the way to give me room to drop the pipe. I started out with an empty drum in the new location and I sorted the heavy scrap into one of my wheelbarrows. I then could haul the scrap to the empty drum and once the drum was down to the bottom ring I could move it with my hand truck to the new location. I got four of the five sorted out and the trash and other stuff picked up. I also moved inventory around to get more room to drop the pipe. The area I am cleaning up is on the south side of my work bays. I would have needed to clean this area up anyway before I could start on the new shop building.
Dan.

Well I have spent the last two days doing some figuring on the floor plan for the work bay section of the shop. In the original plan of the shop I was just going to have two bays, one for projects and one for automotive repair. But that leaves me with a problem of where to park the lawn tractors, crawler and the Chevelle.
The total length of the work bay addition would be 38' with a width of 30', the project bay would end up being 26' x 30' with a post in the middle of it, or both bays would be 19' X 30' being that the automotive bay would not be need as much as the project bay that seemed to me to be a little wasteful of space. So I came up with a new plan for the work bay area.
I am going to make it into three bays, the first bay from the machine area would be the projects bay(14' X 30'), the second bay(12' X 30') would be for automotive repairs and the third bay(12' X 30') would be for storage of the Chevelle, the lawn and garden equipment and the crawler.
The third bay will be enclosed with an enclosed loft above it for storage of inventory. The Chevelle would have it own enclosed area to keep welding smoke and grinding dust from getting all over it. The automotive bay would be used to store the Cadtrac and the Super-H when it is not needed for actual automotive work.
This would effectively double my storage space with the loft over the machine area and mechanical room being 12' X 30'
I have been researching wooden I-beam joists to use instead of dimensional lumber for the loft floor joists and the roof rafters. I have a request in for pricing on them both. We will see how the prices shake out.
Dan.

The pipe for the columns in the work bay area of the shop arrived today.

This pipe had been in a well with a 30HP submersible pump hung on the end of 10 joints (210'), serving a city here in my area.

The water in this well attacks the bare steel left from threading the pipe.

The other end of the pipe has the coupler on it, there were a couple of holes eaten through the pipe at the couplings.
We figured the whole shooting match weighs 4490LBS , makes for a scary trip out of the well.

i think it is even scarier.. if you drink that water.. un treated... i know i dont drink mine at the farms.. one is brown.. rust etc.. i treat that.. the other foams too much.. and it ate up the well pump and fittings after 5 years..

md, the water from that well goes through the treatment plant and then out into the system. The water is so bad in that well that the gate in the gate valve turned to mush and they had to replace the valve before the pump could be pulled out of the pitless.
The pipe is in pretty good shape where the mill varnish was intact.
The city is drilling two new wells to replace this well. They figure that the new wells will come on line sometime late this year or early next. Much better water, they drilled two exploratory wells to test the water at that location.
The pipe was installed in that well about 2-1/2 years ago.
Dan

I got several prices on the W6 - 15 beam for the project bay, a 15' piece will run me about $250. So once I buy that I will be locked into the latest set of plans for the shop.
Dan.

I have spent the last several days doing clean up around the shop building. Today I prospected in my old pipe inventory location with my backhoe. I turned up a bunch of buried treasure in there. There was at least double the amount of pipe in there then showed on the surface, Most of it will go to the scrapyard, as it is too crusty to use now. Before I could do that I had to move a soon to be wood hauling trailer out of the way and then do a general clean up in that area. After all the tire work I have done in the last year I do not need to do anymore for a while.
I then moved two 275 gallon fuel tanks over to behind the shop so I can grind the welds off the end caps and then cut them down into useable pieces of metal. Then I can build my new pipe racks to hold my sorted inventory of pipe. I was thinking of using some PT lumber but there is a goodly amount of 6" and 2-1/2" pipe in there that I could build a good set of pipe racks out of.
Dan

Dan you sure keep busy!
Wish I had the time and space to do the projects I wanted to.

If I would have kept things straightened out better over the years I could be busy building stuff.
I will be culling the old pipe inventory pile today. See what I can use and see what can go to the scrapyard.
I want to build the pipe rack to keep the pipe from sinking into the ground again, so I can see what I have without having to dig through it.
Dan.