Workshop sturdyness/safety.

[oiad]

Hi guys,

I'm from Christchurch, New Zealand, not sure if any of you read the international news but we had a decent (7.1 magnitude) earthquake on september the 4th at 4:35AM.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/4 ... ristchurch

After my workshop survived quite well, albiet my argon cylinder breaking its tether and landing on my water cooled torch for my dynasty 200dx. It busted the water cooled torch lead, $180 later it's fixed, but it could have been alot worse.. When the cylinder toppled it pushed aside my water cooler (with 3 gallons of antifreeze/water in it) and pushed over my dynasty 200dx.

In the picture you can see my G size argon cylinder on its side, about 2 gallons of antifreeze/water on the floor

This got me wondering, How earthquake/disaster proof is your shop?

[Michael_Moore]

It's a concern for me here in San Francisco but there's only so much I can do in a residence to deal with 2-3 ton machine tools and all the other stuff crammed into a small space.

I note your argon bottle was not capped when it fell over.

I have recently been making a point of keeping my gas bottles capped when not in use, which I think is a standard safety recommendation. It is a bit of extra bother, but I have visions of a bottle falling over and snapping the valve and rocketing through walls/ceilings and I'd like to not worry about that even a little bit.

cheers,
Michael

[ken572]

Hello oiad,

I'm glad that the damage wasn't any worse for you.
The one thing that bothers me is I can't see how your
tank was secured.. I think if you would have had
that tank strapped and or chained in place, you would
not have had this problem.

Ken.

[Rosco-P]

The event portrayed in Hollywood movies such as "Chain Reaction", is all but impossible. As shown on Mythbuster and easily confirmed by you industrial gas dealer, the tank valve is very difficult to shear off. That doesn't mean that you should have your cylinder secured to prevent it from damaging other objects if it falls over

[oiad]

Ken: I had the tank secured to the bench by a strap that was liberated from an army bag I have, imagine a woven 2 inch wide strap that would go over your shoulder, it had metal clips that clipped into each other.. The metal clips broke from the force of the quake (It was an up and down quake) and the strapping landed over the other side of the room (not in picture)

Capping the bottle would be alot of time for me.. I have myself listed as an afterhours welder, so I get people coming over all the time at night when I'm home so I dont believe it would be an advantage to cap it, It's a very good point, though.. But I also did watch the myth busters episode where they broke off the regulators..

The tank is now securely dynabolted to the wall with chain.. That puppy is not going anywhere

[randyc]

That was quite a shakeup you had - miraculous that no one was killed ! I've been through any number of eathquakes in the almost forty years that I've lived in California, including the Loma Prieta quake in '89 (a 7.3) that trashed the internals of my home in Santa Clara (but no structural damage since the house was bolted to the foundation, as is required in this state). Last year, we had a 6.3 here in Eureka that shook things up but that is a "small" quake compared to yours. (The Richter scale is logarythmic so your magnitude was about ten times the energy as our 6.3.)

I do take precautions in the shop however. Most everything that is top heavy is bolted down, the lathe table is secured to wall studs and certain heavy items of tooling that are on rollers for convenience are secured to "immoveable" objects. And of course, all gas cylinders are secured although I wouldn't have expected an Army duffel bag strap to have failed as it did in your case !

Appreciate your post because it reminds me that a floor drill press (VERY top heavy) has not yet been secured so that goes on the "to-do" list immediately.

Cheers,
Randy C

[oiad]

That was quite a shakeup you had - miraculous that no one was killed ! I've been through any number of eathquakes in the almost forty years that I've lived in California, including the Loma Prieta quake in '89 (a 7.3) that trashed the internals of my home in Santa Clara (but no structural damage since the house was bolted to the foundation, as is required in this state). Last year, we had a 6.3 here in Eureka that shook things up but that is a "small" quake compared to yours. (The Richter scale is logarythmic so your magnitude was about ten times the energy as our 6.3.)

I do take precautions in the shop however. Most everything that is top heavy is bolted down, the lathe table is secured to wall studs and certain heavy items of tooling that are on rollers for convenience are secured to "immoveable" objects. And of course, all gas cylinders are secured although I wouldn't have expected an Army duffel bag strap to have failed as it did in your case !

Appreciate your post because it reminds me that a floor drill press (VERY top heavy) has not yet been secured so that goes on the "to-do" list immediately.

Cheers,
Randy C

I would have thought the duffel strap would have held it, It was strapped to the wooden leg you can see in the picture, Perhaps the up and down movement of the earthquake made the bottle sway, then it was all over from there.

My Tooline (It's a china import brand here in New Zealand similar to your JET or grizzly) bandsaw and drill press didnt move at all.. The drill press is dynabolted down now (albeit with only 2 diagonally opposed dynabolts, need to get more) The bandsaw is free to roam but didnt..

In the general scale of things, My partner and I were quite well off in the earthquake, the side of town we live in faired very well, with only a broken glass, the torch line for my tig welder and my partner, She lost a fish due to a rock squashing it

There's alot of people here in my city that are now homeless and struggling to find places to live because of the quake

There's a song here in new zealand sung by Fred Dagg, it's entitled "You dont know how lucky we are"

Fits the bill rather nicely I think.

[spro]

Relieved that you weren't harmed. There were many here that were concerned. Many neighbors of course did not strap things or take the same precautions.
It's only a matter of time of course that a message goes from there to one coast here. A message of concern.
Yet I can only see this while negating a completely different .