Metal Shopping

Steve, the welder had given Howard a list of materials he needed to fabricate the stoke hole doors, the main door and the chimney reinforcement. The list was emailed to me over the weekend.

Early Monday morning, I was calling around Roseburg to find the materials, and priced some of the items. Just before I left the house, I received a message from Umpqua Sheet Metal that my chimney cap was ready.

It was going to take at least 4 stops to get everything. First, I went to Claude's house a mile down the road. I had tried cutting a piece of rebar with a large pair of bolt cutters, but that was a joke. Claude had a metal cutting saw that did the job in a matter of minutes.

Next, I headed to the south end of Roseburg to purchase 4 pieces of 6' long threaded rod. I figured I would need washers and nuts, but forgot to count how many I had left from what I purchased earlier for the corner posts. 16 sets of nuts & washers will be needed, so I got 12 of each. Later I found extras of washers & lock washers, but I'm 2 nuts short. (I'm sure worse has been said of me - those can easily be picked up later.)

The 1/2" steel pipe I needed comes in 20' lengths, but all I wanted was 5'. I was sent to a welding shop around the corner so I could get the shorter piece I wanted. Did I want the 1/2" measure to be on the inside of the pipe, which was the standard way it is referred to, or the outside of the pipe. Well, that was not on the list, so I thought for a moment and went with the standard of 1/2" being the inside measurement. I'm guessing that 1/2" rebar or threaded rod will go through the pipe. (But another instance of my learning more about materials I never imagined I would want or need to know.)

Last, I drove to another part of town for angle iron. 2 of 20' lengths cut into 2 pieces. But they were overhanging the bed of my truck by a lot. I should have thought of that earlier, I know full well the bed on my truck is 6' long. The man was very nice & tied fluorescent orange plastic tape on the end of the iron. He also wired the pieces together in 2 places so they wouldn't be moving around in the truck bed. The iron was hanging over to one side, as well as quite a bit behind the truck, as it was in at an angle. He was quite concerned about my driving through town like this. So I assured him I would stay in the right hand lane all the way and not try to pass anyone on the freeway, either. I had at least a 30-mile drive to deliver the metal supplies.

On the way out of town, I made one last stop for the stainless steel chimney cap. It is not large or complicated, and not inexpensive either. I wanted Steve to be able to at least see the cap, in case it would make any difference to what he was doing. Apparently not, so I brought the cap home. Just another kiln part sitting around until it is needed.