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

[Jerry Smith]

Frosty,

2 Years ago I could have gotten a Bobcat, 1 year out
of the rebuild shop for 5K, now I can't find anything
like that.

I have a gas radiant heater in the basement, it
requires no blower to heat the house, sort of like a
gravity furnace from the old days. It uses less gas
than the furnace does and keep the house toasty, it
just take a 3 hours to warm the house up..

My shop is a lot of new and old stuff, I have a Bed
Knife Cutter, nearly a milling machine in quality, but
a great grinder. I do have a knee mill, it is a Jet
with DROs, it was cheaper than than buying a
Bridgeport and having it rebuilt or finding a Kent
that was in good shape or one of the Italian ones.

I have a couple of things to do yet tonight,

Take care and thanks,

Jerry




--- Jerry Frost <frosty at customcpu.com> wrote:

> 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
> >
> >
> 
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