Despite my ignorance, I was hooked, and I absolutely wanted to build one. Busy boards weren’t a thing in the Midwest in the 1980s and -90s kids kept busy in garages, yards, or the woods. The truth was, however, I had never seen one before.

She thought that I might like to build one for Jameson. One evening this past spring, Natalie and I were lounging on the couch and she showed me a picture of a “busy board” on Pinterest. Thankfully, my wife is a Pinterest connoisseur and she knew exactly what my son Jameson and I might like. As such, I needed a way to give my son a small collection of odds and ends to play with so he could tinker and toil as well. Unfortunately, there are a number of things currently working against my son having the same sort of workshop-experience I did: 1) those old garages that I used to play in are all gone and 2) I currently live in an apartment, so I can’t get a good collection of junk going without my wife’s disapproval. Now that I have a son, I want the same sort of hands-on discovery that my grandfathers’ garages gave me.

In fact, much of my current knowledge of carpentry, plumbing, mechanics, or general handiwork is built upon the foundation of those many summers in some detached, back-of-the-property garage. I spent many summers there building, exploring, and imagining. They were a treasure-trove of history and experience. Fishing poles, cedar wood planks, lawnmower parts, and metal coffee cans full of odds and ends: these dusty, forgotten relics were my toys and teachers when I was young.įrom as far back as I can remember, I loved tinkering in the tactile world of my grandfathers’ garages. It was in those garages that I could see the remnants of their labor, projects unfinished, or pieces of the past hanging from some old, rusty nail on the wall. Tools, scraps of metal and wood, sawdust, two-stroke motors, and oil cans tell the story of the men in my family. They were the manhood museums of my late grandfathers they held a half-century’s worth of their work and whatchamacallits. Anything less than this will not be fail safe in this environment.I spent a lot of time growing up in garages. I think the only way to reasonably suspend the sign is to weld a octagon frame of stainless steel channel (2x1x0.25) that clam shells the wood and has two eyebolt lifting points. Painting helps but the rain just seems to turn it all into mush sooner or later. The wood used for the sign is not pressure treated and will be exposed to a harsh rain/marine environment (washington peninsula, on the beach), everything made of wood rots out here. My main concern with this type of configuration is that the wood will eventually deteriorate over time and the lags will either corrode and snap, or fatigue and snap, or withdraw. The ratings for these type of bolts is not good, at least not when compared to the machined eye bolts I was planning to install into the sign mount:

I'm now revisiting the eye lag bolt issue that is currently installed into the wood sign (2 places). I'll check McMaster Carr for a similar part but with a 3/8' link size. RE: Hanging like the reasoning behind the use of the S-265 Pivot Link, I just wish they made one size smaller. Initially I thought to use pressure treated lumber but I think the welded rectangular HSS will give me a cleaner look. Perhaps the steel manual.īelow is a quick mock up of the design concept. I can't seem to find anything in the ASCE related to this sort of thing, probably looking in the wrong place though. Granted the weight of the sign is relatively light but the 'Home Depot' (lag) eye-bolts are somewhat questionable at first glance, I'm thinking to treat the hardware (bolts, chains etc.) as lifting gear (ASME B30.20-2010) with its associated safety margins. Since the sign is simply hanging down I'm wondering if it flapping around in the wind like a flag might trigger some additional dynamic loading case or scenario that my current static approach is missing.Ģ.) Any suggestion on structural eye-bolts (McMaster Carr ?). This is something new for me so I thought I might post a few questions.ġ.) Calculated the wind loads using ASCE 7-10 eqn. I have a small job to design a steel mount for a hanging sign (approx.

Stainless steel eye bolts home depot