[TheForge] Shop Cranes was (Yes you do need power)

[Jerry Frost]

One of the "mistakes" (sort of) I made when we started 
building this place was not buying a backhoe. 10 years 
ago there was a glut on the used market and I could've 
picked up a mid hr. Case 580 or Cat 416 for around 
$12-14K and a low hr one for under $20K. I didn't 
because I wanted to put the money into the house and 
shop instead. I can't say I've spent that much in 
rentals but I wouldn't be surprised if I have. <sigh>

 If I had picked one up I could've made it pay it's way 
in side work easily not to mention saving the rental 
money. I'd also have a raft of attachments made for the 
thing: a thumb, (no brainer) forks, log grapple, roto 
tiller, barn cleaning rakes and bucket, etc. etc.

There's no glut of hoes now and I'll be happy to find a 
halfway decent forklift I can afford. I'd settle for a 
Bobcat, skidsteer, etc. but I'm not all that fond of 
them. Too many years getting beat on by heavy equipment 
to want to ride one of the bucking buggies. Besides, 
one in decent condition isn't that much more than a 
halfway decent backhoe.

Heck, I'd be thrilled with a pickup truck that wasn't 
20 years old!

Our auxillary power is my Lincoln Ranger 9 portable, 
9kw is plenty to run the house and our grid power is 
pretty reliable anymore. The wood stove is more 
important in a power failure even though the Viking, 
propane range top will put out more BTUs than the oil 
fired boiler. <grin> Neither Deb nor I want to breath 
the CO from even a well adjusted range top longer than 
necessary.

What I've been kicking around lately is designs for the 
shop heater. I'm thinking of making it a wood 
gassification unit with coils to heat the infloor 
radiant and a largish aimable stack robber with a 
blower for warm air delivery. It'd be about double the 
work of a plain steel fire box with a stack but it'd 
not only burn cleaner it'd double as a charcoal retort 
as well.

It might actually get up to almost freezing today! 
WooHoo! It's been a long cold one hereabouts. Kind of 
puts your mind to heating you know. <grin>

Frosty
-------------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.

http://www.artmetalradio.com/


From: "Jerry Smith" 
<jerry_smith at anvilsandinkstudios.com>


> Frosty,
>
> I was think of a low mass forklift or a "Bobcat" with
> a back hoe, as well as other accessories. Right now I
> am looking for a tractor of any sort to help work my
> land. All the collectors have been buying up the old
> medium size ones, which is what I need.
>
> So I may get a John Deer D and rebuild it, take a
> piece of rail road rail and make a plow out of it. 
> The
> get some old lawn mowers and make a drag gang out of
> them.
>
> Or the ulimate thing: hire a guy with one of those
> great big giant tractors, when he or she is done, the
> tractor goes home. So I don't have to maintain it.
>
> Then my other thing around my place, we don't have
> power outages very often, and I can only remember
> maybe one in the last couple of years. Many people 
> get
> one of those little generators, I have a 15 Kw
> multifuel, start iup peak of 22.5 Kw, auto idle, it
> has wheels, type of generator. This will run my 
> house,
> I know it will run my TIG welder and some other shop
> equipment maybe at the same time.
>
> Jerry
>
>