[twoartistic]

Hi everyone,

I recently published an article, "How to Engineer like a Redneck." The article is about how to innovate solutions with little resources and how to use what is on hand. The article was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed giving respect to my redneck history. I have been asked to share more stories (redneck case studies). I have a bunch I can share, but I would like to hear other peoples stories.

Do you have a redneck solution? Share it and I will consider it for the next installment. I can give you credit, or keep you anonymous if you're a little shy about your redneck skills.

Here is a link to the article, give it a gander, then share your story!
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-e...?trk=prof-post

Thank you,
Shane McKenna

[twoartistic]

To prime the pump, here is an example from the first article. This is the kind of examples I am looking for. It can be just that short and sweet.

"A- Needed a chiller to prove out a new process.

Redneck solution: Bought a fridge out of the want ads for $50 bucks, put a used compressor tank in the fridge and plumbed in a re-circulation pump."

Here is a link to the article; https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-e...?trk=prof-post

Thanks in advance,

[twoartistic]

Here is another redneck case study from the article. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-e...mp-reader-card

"B- Had an Italian gearbox fail, the new one was going to take two weeks to get expedited in.

Redneck solution: Paired two gearboxes out of the used parts room, to get close to the ratio needed. Fabricated a temporary mount and shaft extension. It was ugly, but it kept the machine running while waiting for parts."

Do you have a similar story? How have you solved challenges by converting something differently than it was intended?

Thank you in advance!

[tjschweizer]

My grandfather has a "shop", which is basically an old barn built with 2x6 boards and thats it. The roof has holes, and there is no insulation. He heats his house with a wood burner, but the shop is too cold to use in the winter. So he ran two water lines from the wood burner to the shop, got a radiator from an old jeep deuce and a half, built a small plywood box to mount the radiator and a box fan. The fan blows the heat from the radiator into the non insulated barn. I was working out there when it was -10 F, windchill was -30 F, and I was sweating in my tshirt.

[twoartistic]

I love the repurposing of the deuce and a half radiator. Your grandfather is my kind of engineer!

[J2daJ]

Thank you so much for bringing this article into my life!!

[stucapco]

Absolutely! Thanks for this post (I thought I was alone out here). If it works, IT WORKS! Get yourself a good pair of vise grips, duct tape, wire assortment and check local stores for various other items. Asses the problem then run with it. Fails are a necessary component to the WIN! I have stories you would not believe, I wouldn't believe them. Stay in there. lol It's mandatory in some cases.

Good post.

[tjschweizer]

I just remembered another story about my grandpa, he is truly the reason I got interested in engineering. The house he lives in actually used to be a double wide trailer home. He poured the foundation for a below-ground basement, then moved the trailer home onto the basement. It actually turned out very nice, they have since built additions to the house and you wouldn't even know it was a manufactured home, but I digress. The moving of the trailer is a story in itself - I heard when they moved it, they had to drag the trailer onto the basement, so my grandpa pulled one half of the house with a tractor and chain, while the other half was pulled by my uncle using a come along with a chain wrapped around a tree

But manufactured homes are not build to be unsupported in the middle, so of course the middle of the house started to drop causing some obvious floor slanting and some doors that didn't fit quite perfectly in the frames. I will never forget my grandpa asking me for help in "leveling" the floor; when I went to the basement to help him, I saw a hydraulic service car jack and a 4X4 wooden post. He put the jack under the post, and the post up against the ceiling of the basement, and literally jacked the floor up until it was level. So then that jack was left to hold the floor level, and I'm pretty sure it is still there to this day.

My family likes to tease my grandpa for his innovative solutions, but I admire the ingenuity of this man. He truly has one of the most brilliant minds I have ever seen. One of his greatest creations is a late 19060's Dodge truck with an inline 6, this wonderful truck named "Dwayne". Dwayne was a 2 wheel drive, that had been used throughout the years for way more than it should have been. Despite being a two wheel drive, Dwayne had a plow attached to it during the winter and with some tire chains managed to do quite a bit of plowing. Now the chains weren't quite enough to get the traction required to plow, so the box of the truck was removed, leaving just a frame and drivetrain, upon which a HUGE chunk of tree was chained for added weight.

The best feature that Dwayne ever had was a hydraulic dump box. The pump used to power this box was by far my grandpa's most creative innovation; where the AC pump used to be located, my grandpa had bolted a hydraulic pump. He took the wires that activated the AC pump and connected them to the pump, so to raise the bed of the truck you just had to turn the AC on! Then there was a toggle switch for actually raising and lowering the bed. The retrofitted dump box actually covered up the the place to refuel gas, so to fill the truck up with gas you had to raise the bed all the way, making it a comical sight at a gas station.

Another fun story involves the wood splitter they use to cut wood up for burning. This wood splitter is a contained unit with a Briggs 5HP powering a hydraulic pump. But a Briggs only lasts for so long, so when the engine inevitably failed several things have replaced it. The two that strike my memory are when a double pulley was placed on the water pump of Dwayne so a belt could be run from Dwayne to the hydraulic pump on the wood splitter, and another time when the hydraulic lines from a Cub Cadet were plumbed to the wood splitter.

My grandpa truly is an inspirational man.

[twoartistic]

Thanks TJ,

I would have liked to meet your grandfather. I bet he would have fit right in with all the guys I tagged along behind to learn how to innovate. That is a huge part of what redneck engineering is, innovation through re-purposing. Your story reminds me of the time I used a tire off a truck, and an air compressor to lift a heavy section of industrial equipment into position. I mostly deflated the tire, with the tire on it's side on the concrete pad, wedged some boards and plywood between the tire and the frame of the equipment, then inflated the tire. At 33psi a tire can lift 100 pounds for every inch of surface area making contact. the plywood and boards helped give more surface area contact. I only had to lift the section about an inch, so this method worked great, and was way safer than trying to use the wimpy little jack I had with me.