Changed the lock on my workshop.

He got insulted and I am relieved to still have a workshop. Guess who lost shop priviledges ?

The pilot light ignited the gas, blew every window out of the house but never harmed the bachelor. They hauled the poor old boy off to the assylum.

He's got one of the few heated garages in the neighborhood and it tends to draw folks in from the road if his lights are on.

He's got a salvaged home forced air furnace out there, but had the foresight to rig it so that his combustion air is drawn from outdoors. Still, no reason to get sloppy about combustible fumes. The wood heat is less costly to put in, but those fumes are the big drawback. 8^(

He was good enough to let me tie up his heated side for a couple weeks last spring to paint my Farmall BN. Acrylic urethane fumes, and all went well. Even with the external air source, I took some care to keep the shop warm (like a curing temp) overnight, heat it up a bit more before I'd start for the day, then dial it back while I was painting and for a while after to give the fumes time to dissipate.

That's in contrast to our earlier project which was repainting one of his old Wheel Hosses. A little research showed that IH red 2150 would atually be right. I had some hanging around, and contributed it to the project. We were close, but not quite done with the prep work when I stepped out back one fine spring morning for some fresh air and a cigarette and looked over toward the garage in question. Garage door was down, but I could hear the compressor running in the shed. Unknown Ford Ranger in the driveway.
The big clue was that the rabbit hutch had been set outdoors. "Painting already?, sez I

I try not to leave the boys over there without adult supervision for too long, so I refilled the coffee mug and headed over, thinking Imy presence might be needed to restore order.

I was too late. The rabbits in the hutch outside had a rosy hue on their backs and I walked into a cloud of red enamel.

Dave showed up having applied a little too much hair of the dog in hopes of remedying teh prior night's bender. He actually has a reputation as a good hand with a paint gun when he's straight. In this case he wandered in bein' sociable and asked what was goin' on. Armed with that infomation, he spied an old siphon gun hangin' on the wall. (WE had a couple HVLP guns on had for the job.) Next thing anybody knew, he'd mixed himself up a quart and hitched that siphon gun onto the air hose and was sprayin' away. Did I mention that nobody had dialed the air regulator back from the 90+ pounds needed for the prior night's impact wrench project? He mistook the footrests/running boards for fenders and laid the heavy paint on the wrong side (All the time assuring us that "runs don't rust.")

We were two evenings undoing his havoc.

Since then the neighbor has been on a mission to strip anything that might be misused from the main bay of his garage. Put a sliding door with a lock between the two sides. And behind that, a lock on the fridge.

We've always been pretty good about keeping the work bay cleaned up, but it's a lot easier to work in and sure looks nicer since he's been re-arranging things. He11, we might even put a nice epoxy finish on his floor and paint the walls, as nice as it is.

If the combustion air for the furnace is drawn from outside the garage, and it's obviously vented to the outside where's the danger of igniting fumes come from? I'd think the pilot wold draw air from outside, as well. Is that wrong?

We've all done some not-so-smart stuff sometime in our lives...most of us got off lucky is the difference, and we usually learned something from it as well.

Very picky who is in my shop.