Some of you may remember what I went through building my pole barn that turned into my giant man cave. It was my place away from home that I spent many hours in playing with all my toys. I had all my most sacred things that I had gathered over my life time. All my machines, two lathes, my mill, all of the tooling, my Bickford 21" Super Service, 2 more drill presses. Three welders, Dynasty 300, millermatic 252 and an older miller AC/DC buzz box and all the stuff that went along with my welding shop. I never realized how much stuff I had in that building until I started going through the rubble. I never thought about how much in dollars I had laying around. In just different clamps and vices I have found over $7,000.00 in the rubble. It hasn't been too hard to find things because I had everything in there own spaces, plumbing, electrical, AC, hydraulic stuff, test equipment, welding equipment and consumables all had their own little spot in the shop.
One of the hardest things I have had to deal with was all my civil war relics, my native american artifact, bottle collection and my fossil collection. it's hard to lose stuff I have spent a lifetime collecting but all my books for the different habbits, my research papers and recording books that took more time to do than the actural collecting itself.
Everything was gone in less than 2 hours from the time it started to when there was nothing else to burn. In the end all that is left is the siding and roof metal and what's few 6x6 post that are still standing. One of the firemen that was here told me that in 20 years of fire fighting this was the hottest fire he had ever been to. That huge trolly beam system I built and was so proud of now looks like a big pertzel still hanging from it's upright support beams. Anything aluminum or copper was turned to liquid, every where you look there are piles of melted lead, aluminum and cooper parts that were once motors, tools or anything else that was made of these metals.
After a little over a month I have finally gotten the go ahead from the insurance co to start clean up and that will be a giant under taking in itself. I have enough insurance to cover most of the contence except my historical items but The way insurance work it you only get a certain percent of the amount of what it would cost to bebuild the the house itself. I already know there is not enough in that part to cover the cost of what I had so I'll have to do all the clean up just like I built it to begin with by myself. It probably will take the better part of a couple months to get it all cleaned up so I can start over.
