The Trash Box

One thing the Panamanians have down is they put their trash in metal boxes or grill fronted concrete enclosures. In Costa Rica the trash is put in wooden boxes with no top or an open front and animals come in and scatter the trash or take whole bags and tear them apart somewhere within a hundred meters.

The box in front of my apartment had deteriorated to the point that it need to be replaced.

Supplies

• 1 4' x 8' sheet of expanded steel
• 40' or so of 1/2 tubular 8 gauge steel tubing.

Tools:

• Hacksaw
• Arc Welder DW402-B3 120V AC
• Cutoff Grinder Dewalt DW402-B3 absent blade guard.

The goal

• Create 1 2' x 4' replacement panel framed with two intermediate rails on 1' centers.
  

My estimate?

• One person
• Measure and cut steel tubing 20 minutes.
• Cut expanded steel 10 minutes.
• welding, 10 - 20 minutes.

Five guys have been working on this since 10:00.

One works, four watch.

I was listening to the guy cutting expanded steel. Expanded steel looks like It is made buy punching slits in sheet steel and then pulling on the ends. After half an hour I had to go outside and see what the hell they were doing. Mr. Panama had the expanded steel 1/2" off the ground on top of the cut steel tubing and was cutting the steel at the end points of the diamonds. As soon as I walked out of my apartment, the sound told me what was wrong.

A grinder emits a free spinning sound and a loaded sounded from the motor and a sound from the abrasives acting on the material being ground. A loaded sound and the fact that concrete dust was filling the air was my subtle clue that the bonehead with the tool was unqualified for the job.


Upon visual inspection... Yup sure enough the guy was cutting a 1/2 groove in the concrete while cutting the steel. I had them raise the whole frame onto cinder blocks and he finished the remaining 3/4's of the work in two minutes and saved a cutoff wheel in the process. Those wheels are $5 - $6 in the US, so probably $10-15 down here, a days wages.