Can't take it anymore...

[vtsteam]

I've finally had enough of working out of three unheated sheds crammed with stored items so that I can hardly move. I decided to stop all projects I'm working on, and do something about it. I pulled the door hinge pins on the shed that was originally supposed to be a workshop, removed the door and started carting stuff out onto the lawn. The object was to move the lathe from one "temporary" bench to my real workbench, buried under years of debris.

On the lawn I made one section for pipe and tube, one for small metal bits, one for angle and bar, one for plate, one for paint and other liquids, one for long wood, one for plywood and sheets, one for power tools, one for welding related stuff, one for electric motors, one for completed projects, and one for miscellaneous and family items, to numerous and varied to categorize. Gradually space appeared in my workshop. Space between where the lathe is and where it should be.

Oh, I forgot, I had a whole section devoted to lathe and other machine tooling it was located on top of the removed door.
I found mouse nests and the damage they caused made me cringe, and curse both them and myself for letting things go so far. And all kinds of fun stuff. Things I had no idea I even owned.

Finally I had cleared enough room to move the lathe to it's new home. I leveled that up. Then I started taking the machine apart. I remembered from past experience that even stripped of motor and mount, case covers, slides, chuck, and tailstock, that Craftsman is still deceptively heavy to lift -- the darn thing is 62 inches long, too, and unwieldy.

I barely got it across to its new home -- managed to get the headstock end up on the benchtop, and then lifted and slid the tailstock end on. Phew!

The temporary bench that it vacated will be removed to make room for my mill drill, which is in another shed close by. Now they will both be in the same space. I also have a rolling tool cart I'll be moving with the mill. The shed where the mill was will house organized storage in the back portion, and my metal cutting band saw and welding tool and compressor section in the front. It will remain unheated.

My real workshed will become a workshop with NOTHING stored there except what small pieces I need to work on a project. Shelves and storage boxes behind where I've cleared so far will be moved out to the storage shed.

There is already a partially restored shaper in that section, underneath a lot of junk. That will remain and be brought operational. I will also install a small wood stove, so I can work all day in the rapidly approaching winter -- I do have a small propane space heater in there already for quick heat.

There is a bench grinder in the workshed now, that will be moved out to where I will have my welding tools. The drill press sharing the bench with the lathe now will remain, as will the bench vise.

Moving the mill will happen tomorrow -- I hope. It is going to be a struggle to do alone, especially because it has to come up three stairs. It is supposed to rain the day after, so I do have to get everything indoors and squared away by then.

[Brass_Machine]

It's 'fun' moving machines by yourself isn't it? I am having sort of a similar experience. I just moved house... So everything out of the basement and old garage and into the new one. Found stuff I had completely forgotten about.

It sounds like you made some ground today though!

Eric

[DaveH]

 
 
DaveH

[vtsteam]

 
DaveH

I don't dare!

[dsquire]

Steve

Sometimes you have to do that just so that you can remind yourself of what you have that you have forgotten about. 

I'm bad for that as well, no camera's allowed. 

Cheers 

Don

[chipenter]

I know how you feel our club inherited a workshop , Wednesday I cleaned and installed a Raglan Little John that hadn't been used for over ten years , took four of us to lift it onto its bench all 3 1\2 hundred weight of it .

[awemawson]

Steve
At my last place I had a garage, an extension to the garage, a building at the far end of the garden, a concrete sectional garage I added to that building, then a shed tacked onto that. So I know where you are coming from!
One of my motivators for moving was to get enough space to get it all under one roof. Now I have the main workshop with two wings. One is for welding and other dirty tasks and is I unheated, the other is Yorkshire boarded ie gapped boards for storing mowers rollers etc and doubles as a lambing shed in the spring. Across the yard I have a well insulated but unheated woodwork shop. In all there is just under 4000 sq foot and yet it still gets overfull!

Good luck with the rest of the sort out

Andrew

[75Plus]

Steve, Beware of Rust!!

If the propane heater is unvented it will be a moisture generator and your machines become water magnets. Ask me how I know!! The wood stove, being vented and dumping the combustion by-products outside, will not cause your machines to sweat as badly.

Joe

[vtsteam]

Absolutely right about the propane heater problem Joe! Forgot about that. I actually haven't used the heater in years. Well woodstove only it is.

[Pete.]

I think you're doing the right thing, I have fought an uphill battle with gathering clutter for the last few years and now I'm finally winning. This year I have really gone to town on it, getting rid of mostly anything I haven't used in the last two years. I figure if it's material, I probably won't remember I have it and if it's a tool I never used I probably never will. I also just bought three 15-drawer Bisley cabinets that fit perfectly under my bench. That's 45 separate a4-sized drawers at 2" deep. Got my granddaughter cutting labels for them this weekend. The main aim is to get rid of all the parts bins I have lining the walls which have stuff in them I can't even see mostly. Once I'm sorted out I think my workshop will be a much nicer place to work.

[75Plus]

Absolutely right about the propane heater problem Joe! Forgot about that. I actually haven't used the heater in years. Well woodstove only it is.

Steve, You might look around for a wall heater that uses propane. They are vented and don't generate moisture. Another solution is to pick up a small forced air furnace  and use it. A horizontal unit could be suspended from the ceiling so it would be out of the way.

Joe

[vtsteam]

Thanks Joe, but for now, I'll probably have to make do with a very small woodstove I have already.

Pete -- some very good suggestions there. Especially to get rid of things which haven't been used for 2 years. I'll try to be ruthless, might not make it though. Keep telling me this kind of stuff, it really helps!

Andrew, sounds like you have a GREAT setup! I will be happy once this is over with, but it's hard right now.

Chipenter, yes mate, it's a struggle short handed. All that mass you appreciate in a machine when using it, doesn't want to move elsewhere than where it's planted!

Today I fought with the mill. Lifted it from the stand slung from an overhead beam with a come-along to gradually convince it onto a dolly, which bent visibly under the weight. And then using a pry bar, inched it towards the doorway. What do these things weigh altogether 600 lbs maybe?

Anyway, got it to the edge where it could be reached by a boom on the tractor. Unfortunately a 1951 John Deere Model M only has 18 horsepower, though they are honest horses. But the state of hydraulics back then on a small tractor aren't what they are today, and it couldn't lift the mill drill. So I pulled the 4 bolts that held the ways to the pillar, guess I'll be shimming and tramming.

I had the head and pillar up in the air ready to move on over to the other shed and the slides and base on the dolly when the tractor engine suddenly stopped. I was just over the door threshold. Couldn't restart and the boom started to come down -- old hydraulics don't hold forever. I decided to lower it myself rather than wait (a mistake) and it came down too fast with the pillar tilted enough to start keeling over. I caught it with the control before it dropped, but it gradually lowered itself on its side -- half on the concrete pad and half in the dirt outside the shop.

Luckily it was on the left side, and nothing contacted that could get bent or broken, but still I was acursin'!

Turned out the tractor battery was dead -- the generator wasn't charging. It was nearly evening, so I moved sensitive stuff indoors, covered over others, including the mill head and ways, and put the tractor on a charger. I couldn't close the shed door because the mill head was half in and half out.

Oh well, we'll sort it in the morning. That mill WILL arrive in its new quarters before rainfall (100 % chance of heavy rain) Saturday evening, even if I have to take it and the tractor to bits!

Don, grateful for a lack of photographic equipment today. It would only have been thrown at a tree! 

I promise to take photos when and if there is something civilized to shoot! 

[dsquire]

Steve

I feel your pain. Been there, done that years ago. Patience is your best friend. That light you see at the end of the tunnel is not a freight train, but a candle and it will get brighter as you approach it.

We are getting thunder showers as I write this so I will try and hold them back to give you time to do your thing tomorrow. All the best. 

Cheers 

Don

[awemawson]

Steve,

Sorry to hear of your moving issues, I hope today goes better.

Working single handed can be a real pain. I recently shunted stuff about in my welding shop to make room for the Edwards box pan folder, and an extra pair of eyes would have been SO useful! The major stuff to move was a 2 ton radial arm drill, and a 3/4 ton 'garage press' . Although I had the right kit (skates, hydraulic toe jack, pallet truck, firm concrete floor etc) I had headroom issues - both items have top mounted motors and the roof construction meant they had to be moved in a particular path to avoid beams. Not so easy seeing where the top is when you're at the other end shoving !

I will be thinking of you today and hope that the weather holds off for you to get things sorted. One thing I have come to appreciate in a workshop is a good solid level floor. At least then shoving stuff about becomes possible single handed even if an extra pair of hands would help enormously.

[DavidA]

Can I join your club ?

  My workshops seem to be in a constant state of flux.  I'm also trying to rationalise my (still) growing stock of off cuts etc.  The problem is,  I find,  that you think of thowing something out,  then get paralised by a fear that you may just need that particular item. Maybe tomorrow,  maybe next week.  So you keep it 'just in case'.

After long and painfull contemplation I have come to realise that the problem is basically due to an over optomistic image of what the future after retirement would be like. There would be the re-building of my two old cars,  the garden to play about in,  all the little projects that would be used to pass the 'golden years'.

But ,  of course,  it doesn't turn out quite that way.

You don't fell quite as enthusiastic about crawling under cars at 69 as you thought you would when you were,  say,  forty.

But I still try my best to get rid of all the stuff I won't need. I think it is mostly psychological. A built in aversion to discarding what is after all,  still usfull 'stuff' even if you know in your heart of hearts you will never use it.

Dave.

[awemawson]

Oh you'll certainly need it .... just after you've thrown it away 

I remember the sheer frustration, having had a good sort out before I moved here, of NOT having those odd bits of scrap to use. Silly things like needing a drift to knock something out and having to use good stock.

And even worse when everything was in storage for a time while I was building the workshop of not even having a bench with a vice on it. Not going back there !!!

[Brass_Machine]

...
  My workshops seem to be in a constant state of flux.  I'm also trying to rationalise my (still) growing stock of off cuts etc.  The problem is,  I find,  that you think of thowing something out,  then get paralised by a fear that you may just need that particular item. Maybe tomorrow,  maybe next week.  So you keep it 'just in case'.
...

That is me all the way. The pile of scrap, junk and old stuff because I "might" need it. My wife keeps trying to get me to follow the "if you haven't used it in two years get rid of it" process.

[Pete W.]

Hi there, all,

When you're retired, there's a particular incentive to hoard 'stuff'.  When I was still in regular gainful employment (and before the bean-counters out-sourced the machine shop), I lived fairly well off the factory skip.  Nowadays I don't have that facility.          

Also, back in the 70s and 80s, I did a series of 'Model Engineering' evening courses in the local tech.  A side benefit of those courses was the ability to 'mine' the swarf trays of the workshop machines - if the day course vocational students made a machining error, they just threw the billet into the swarf tray and drew another from the stores!  A very useful source of free turning MS.          

It isn't just material (aka 'stuff').  I had a job that required three cuts across a piece of 18 SWG mild steel sheet.  In my pre-retirement days, I would have strolled into the machine shop where the bloke in charge knew that I had done workshop time during my sandwich course.  After a bit of chaffing, and a caution just for the record, I'd have been allowed to guillotine my job myself.  Not having that facility these days, I took my sheet of steel to the local black-smith - he quoted me the cost of half our weekly grocery shopping!  So I did that job another way.

[PekkaNF]

I'm in your club too. Have been moving all machinery around last two months, recycling stuff and organizing rest of the stuff. Biggest moves are behind. Now I only have all storage selves and small machines (150 kg and less) left to move on their proper places.

Pekka

[Alan Haisley]

Just remember when labeling new drawers and bins: Don't use the label "Miscellaneous!

Alan

[dsquire]

Just remember when labeling new drawers and bins: Don't use the label "Miscellaneous!

Alan

Alan

But where are you going to put the 20 different whatumucallit gizmoes? 

Cheers 

Don

[AdeV]

Just remember when labeling new drawers and bins: Don't use the label "Miscellaneous!

It is, however, wise to label at least one drawer or bin "Somewhere Safe", and another one "The Obvious Place".

Anything you subsequently cannot find should be in one of those two places 

[dsquire]

Ade

That is the perfect solution. I'm going to label half of my drawers "Somewhere Safe", and the other half  "The Obvious Place". That way I'll always be able to find it. 

Cheers 

Don

[vtsteam]

Seems like I have a LOT of company!


Well one strike for order achieved today, the mill is in the workshop. Not back together yet but up the steps and inside out of the rain. 

Mill and lathe moved are two steps forward, but had to take one step back due to rain -- had to pile everything I took out of the shed back inside -- still without building shelves or other orderly means to deal with the clutter.     HOWEVER, I put them mostly inside the storage shed, NOT the workshop. It helped that the storage shed had more room due to the vacating of the mill. And it will shortly have even more room when I move the rolling tool chest out.

Looks like we will just have a night of heavy rain, and then clear weather for a spell, so I'll trot all the stuff back out again    and then start work on shelving, etc.

There's light at the end of the tunnel! 

[awemawson]

Many years ago I had to act as the company liaison officer with the British Standards Institute when the company was going through BS5750 accreditation (forerunner of ISO9001). An inspection was due at our Livingston office in Scotland, so I went up a couple of days before to check that the local staff were organised. Everything was fine, paperwork in order, everything suitably labelled. BUT the first impressions were AWFUL ! Stuff everywhere, jammed into odd corners, piled high - looked dreadful. Absolutely nowhere to put anything to tidy the place up as the office was too small. I called a local lorry rental place and got the biggest van they had, and  parked it in the car park, and got everything that could be, shoved into it. We worked late that night but the transformation was very dramatic. Next morning, Mr BSI walked in, got the right first impression, and the rest of the inspection was a breeze. Passed with flying colours! Left the local staff to unpack only what was essential from the lorry and scrap the rest.

Point of the story: is there no way you can create a temporary, albeit rather ad hoc, storage to avoid all the double shifting to let you sort things out?