Shop floor redo

[kvom]

After about 17 years, my shop's concrete floor is stained and has some minor cracks.  It's 25x30', but the back is partially taken up by a staircase.  My plan until yesterday was to clear out the left half and move everything to the right, then clean and paint.  Repeat for the right half.  I've now decided to cover the floor with plastic interlocking tiles.  The tiles I'll use are each one foot square and are made by Vevor.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D25NR4LB?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

I ordered 50 from Amazon to try out before ordering enough for the entire shop. 

[Don1966]

I had ordered something similar for my garage floor. It has a Tendency to shrink and opens in gaps.

Regards Don

[kvom]

The remaining 11 boxes (x50) of tiles arrived today.  As they're made in China, I'm glad I ordered from existing warehouse stock before the tariffs kick in.   

Given that I have radiant heating in the slab, it will be interesting to see how well heat radiates through the tiles next winter.

[kvom]

Today I needed to move the Bridgeport mill to allow placing tiles where it sits.  When I first built the shop I had a cherry picker crane, and I was able to move the turret and base separately.  With that crane now gone (someone bortowed it and never returned it) I have only the pallet jack for heavy lifting.  The top of the jack's arms are 3" above the floor, so I needed to lift the mill 3".

My solution was to lower the knee  so that a 4' length of 3" diameter aluminum rod was wedged underneath and sticking out on both sides.  With one arm of the jack under the rod, I could lever the mill into leaning sideways until there was a 1" space.  Then I placed 2 1-2-3 blocks under the base and lowered the jack.  Then the same operation on the other side.  The mill was then sitting 1" above the floor.  Repeating the operations I got the mill to sit on the 2" sides of the blocks, and then the 3" sides.  The jack's arms then slid (barely) under the mill.  Had I not had the aluminum rod I would have stacked 2 pieces of 4x4 wood.  One piece might crack the wood before lifting the base.