Escape FROM my dream shop

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

The back story:

After retiring from a 20 year military career, I bought a commercial property and opened a business. The business took off and exceeded my business plan and put me on a roller coaster ride. Within 18 months I had a staff of 3 employees and 3 factory franchises. Game on. I worked my *** off for about 5 years, paid off all my mortgages and debt, life was good. I got to the point where I either had to expand my business or throttle back and coast. My kids were high school age and we had a serious talk about my business. Both my daughter and son had no interest in the family business that I built so I decided not to expand my business but to throttle it back and get smaller. I got rid of my staff, sold the commercial property, built a 40x40 pole barn on my residential property and continued to run my business on a smaller scale. With a very loyal clientele, and without the overhead of a staff, my business was 2x as profitable as it had been before, life was even better as I was working less and making more. I considered myself as “Semi-Retired”. I was able to spend time on the things in the shop that I wanted to do. I bought old machine tools and restored them in my more than ample spare time. Life was even better that it had been before.

It was about this time when things were really going good (as far as I was concerned) that my wife of 25 years went off the deep end. About a year later, I filed for divorce. It took over 2 years and more money than I had. In the end, I had my house, my shop, my two kids (along with 8 years worth of their college debt) and a mortgage that was almost twice what I had originally bought the house for the first time I bought it. I was 52 years old and starting over. I got a full time job for the government and now live pay check to pay check, so that’s the back story.

I have a 40x40 pole barn that is completely finished inside with almost all the machines and equipment that I could ever want. What's wrong with that you might ask…………….It’s in NJ is the answer. I want out of NJ as I just can’t afford to live here anymore. And that’s all I have to say about that. I don’t’ know where I’m going to move to, but I know it will be much farther south of NJ, east of the Mississippi River, and not in Florida. So there you have it. I have the 40x40 of my dreams with most all of the things I want in it and I want out of it. I don’t know when I’m moving but do know that I WILL be moving.

So this thread is not so much about how I built in my dream 40x40, but what I’m doing to facilitate the move of many tons to my next shop (which might not be 40x40).
So just to let you see where I ‘m starting from, here are a few pics of the build. It was a basic pole barn built by Conestoga from PA. I had a wonderful experience with Conestoga and there were no surprises. The crew showed up when they were supposed to and it was built as was promised. I will note here that my building was built in 9 hours by 5 young Mennonites that barely spoke to each other during the build. It was like they each could read the mind of the other and it was amazing to watch as they worked together to put this building up so quickly. With the building shell up, I did the concrete floor, insulated the building, did all of the electrical, plumbing, drywall, and finishing myself. Start to finish was about 8 weeks and that was due to me working solo after an 8 hour day in the evenings.

(I had some more pics but have format issues with them)

Deezler · Mar 3, 2016

Whoa, thats a story we don't read too often on here. Sorry to hear about your troubles. You need to leave NJ due to, what, property taxes? General cost of living? Isn't moving just going to add more expense to your life to get all set up again?

Divorce sounds... expensive. oof.

davo727 · Mar 3, 2016

Fricking women.......

maverick3316 · Mar 3, 2016

Ummm...... That *****. I am sorry to hear all that.

HemiRamOn22s · Mar 3, 2016

He is probably paying 10-15k in property taxes alone. i dont blame you for wanting to move. Delaware is pretty cheap. Low property taxes and no sales tax. You cant beat that.

Stories like this make me never want to get married.

theoldwizard1 · Mar 3, 2016

rmack898 said:
I don’t’ know where I’m going to move to, but I know it will be much farther south of NJ, east of the Mississippi River, and not in Florida.

Pretty amazing that you have a job with that much flexibility to choose where you want to live, or are you going to be living off your military pension, at least until you get your feet back on the ground and maybe restart your business.

I would look in GA, SC or NC. None have what I would consider "great" public schools, but NC might be the worst. Different parts of those states are very different socially and economically. Anything near the coast is going to be influenced by tourism. Atlanta (and its suburbs) has all of the "big city" problems, especially with traffic. Western NC is very rural and hilly. Middle NC is different from the coast and the western part.

Good luck finding a place to put your roots down.

P.S. It sounds like you kids are not to far from college. Try to take their input on where they would like to live. Given you financial situation, you likely will NOT be able to pay for 8 years of college. Tell them that now and that scholarships will help. If you restart your business, tell them they might have to work there at least part time to pay the bills.

T_R · Mar 3, 2016

Maybe consider moving up here to Maine? Just about zero crime, low taxes, good people cheap living. Yeah it's cold in the winter, but you get used to it. I'm from NJ and would never go back.

MarkG · Mar 3, 2016

Good idea! Plus you have the Appalachian Trail!

Richard Cranium · Mar 3, 2016

Wow, sorry to hear your story, Best of luck.

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

Well guys I'm certainly not looking for sympathy as I really don't see my situation as problematic. Both Kids are out of college and doing well. I live in a resort town that has 95,000 year round residents, and for 4 months of the year the population swells to over 1 million. The cost of living here is ridiculous and I'm going to move someplace cheaper, that's not a problem.

The problem is that I have maybe 40 tons of stuff that I want to move with me at some point in the not too distant future. I'm in the process of making everything in my shop easier to accomplish that goal. I have learned a lot of things hear on GJ that will help me do that and in return I hope show you all some of the things that I have already done and hopefully some one might benefit from what I have done or learn from the things that I did that didn't work out as well as I had planned.

Stay tuned.

Mr_P · Mar 3, 2016

Hey Mack,

Sorry to hear about the need to move. I bet you thought you were done moving after the military, but hopefully this will be your last one. There are a few houses out here with shops and/or barns for relatively cheap. Depending if your business would thrive in a small town like Meridian, MS.

rattle_snake · Mar 3, 2016

If you have 40 tons to move a long ways maybe buy a medium duty truck with a lift gate and sell it when your done with it. So what was the business?

Mr_P · Mar 3, 2016

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/8559-S-Old-MS19_Collinsville_MS_39325_M86019-76172

Just an example of how cheap houses are out here. That's not even the cream of the crop. You could by by the acre out here at about 5k/acre

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

The shop has morphed several times over the years from one configuration to the next, and it is currently on it’s third major reconfiguration since I built it.

When I originally built it, I spent a lot of time measuring equipment and making paper templates to figure out where everything would go, and everything fit as planned. It took me about a year of working in the space to realize that what once looked good on paper really didn’t work out to well in actual use. So armed with a year’s worth of experience of what did not work, I reconfigured machines and benches to new locations that made working in the space easier and more productive. This worked out well at first but as I continued to add machines and equipment, I had to find a place for each new addition. This required minor tweaking of the lay out and moving machines. I started putting additional equipment on wheels to make moving them easier but quickly learned that good quality wheels and casters are expen$ive. I needed a new approach, one that would also make my future move easier.

I found a brand new 5K pound capacity pallet jack on ebay for $99 and that changed everything. I bought some 4x8 11 ga. and some 2x4 11 ga. tube and made mounting bases with fork pockets for the pallet jack. Now with the exception of one 8K pound machine, I can move anything in the shop single handed with little effort. This new found maneuverability made me re-think everything.

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

Mr_P said:
but hopefully this will be your last one.

I certainly hope so

rattle_snake said:
If you have 40 tons to move a long ways maybe buy a medium duty truck with a lift gate and sell it when your done with it. So what was the business?

I plan to use a freight company when the time comes. I had a boat and motor dealership

Mr_P said:
You could by by the acre out here at about 5k/acre

I have 3 acres here and would like to go a little bigger wherever I go. MS meets my self imposed geographic limitations, so I won't rule it out.

LXCam · Mar 3, 2016

I have a story somewhat similar to yours but without the divorce thing.....yet.

I plan on moving as soon as a few things are out of my hair. I'm using shipping containers to minimize the effort. For what I can hire a flat bed for, everything will be loaded up in three 40ft'rs. Rent a 30klb forklift for loading and unloading and once it's all emptied out of the containers, sell the damn things. This way I can somewhat take my time on both ends.

Good luck bud, I hope everything works out for the best. It ain't easy working your life away like that and having to start over.

Mr_P · Mar 3, 2016

I drove up to this house just now to get a better picture of the shop. It's at least a 40x40 with a carport and a separate carport attached to the house

Lassen Forge · Mar 3, 2016

It would be cool to make this a win win - relocate to a small town that needs the skillset you have, and restart your business there... maybe with the eventual plan of being an owner more than an onsite boss, I dunno... I take it you're moving south because of the weather... otherwise NH or Maine would be pretty cool. Of course, there's also Texas - other side of The River but not a bad place to live (and the weather is usually awesome).

Moving all that stuff? If you have an overlap where you have shop A and still have shop B , you can either hire a crew and a good truck and forklift and ship your stuff from one location to the other - you may need to make 2 transport runs, but that works - or rent a lowboy trailer and make several runs with your machines yourself - a lot more labor intensive, but do-able...

Ideally - you buy a 54' trailer, hire a semitractor, load your gear in the trailer (with said forklift or a small lift truck or ??), you can store your stuff in the trailer at either location, and when you're ready to set up the new business you unload the semitractor, then use it as your materials storage unit. This is what my granddaddy did back in the 50's when they moved from the SF Bay Area (where he had a shop) to Nevada. Once he was set up he built stairs and a ramp into the trailer and it became their storeroom...

And... oh yeah... don't look at this as the end of something, but the beginning of a much better new opportunity - without the drama of a failing and flailing other half to throw wrenches in the future. After all, you're only 52... the same age I was when I bought the Forge in kindasortasomewhat circumstances (tho, fortunately, the ex was long gone by then) and it's been nothing but a rocket ride to the stratosphere since then!

And fer Gawdsakes don't vanish - we want to hear (like Paul Harvey says)... "The rest of the story"...

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

I had been working on narrow wooden work benches that came from my old building and they just didn’t match my needs anymore. So I decided to build a stand alone work table to put in the center of my work space.

I had an odd shaped piece of ¾” steel plate that came as a base plate for a drill press that I bought. Since I wasn’t using the base plate, I decided to use it as my new table top. I used 4x4 square tube for the legs, 2x4 tube for the frame, and 1x1 square tube for some shelf risers. I added in a little cabinet with 11 drawers that I had made for my now ex wife, and a hitch type mount for some of my bench mount tools. I also added some short hitch tubes to store the bench mount tools in the inverted position under the table when not in use. The table fully loaded with cabinet, tools, and shelves weighs about 1500*s and is easily moved around the shop with the pallet jack. The table top has many holes that are tapped ½”-13 and I use them for fixturing or just to hold stuff down when I need to. When I need to, I just drill and tap a new hole for the particular job I might be working on. I later scored a nice Wilton vise on CL and that is bolted to the end of the table. This table is the most used work surface in my shop.

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

As far as the move goes, this is how I plan to do it. There is a freight company that will drop of two 28' enclosed trailers here and they will give me 20 days to load them. They haul the trailers to my new location and I will have 20 days to unload them. If I went with a bigger truck I'm certain that it wouldn't all fit and it would be over weight. I might have to rent a forklift on the receiving end, but that's the plan for the move.

gte718p · Mar 3, 2016

I'm guessing the 40 tons is a SWAG (scientific wild *** guess). You are right in range with the max cargo of a shipping container. If you are in a resort city you are also near a port and they can be had cheap.

Moving a connex box is relatively cheap. It is no more then a $3k~$4k to get it anywhere in the country. It might take some time especially if it requires trains and truck transportation, and can involve lots of moving pieces but there are brokers who work that sort of thing. Hiring a moving company to do the same thing would be epically more expensive.

They also make convenient storage if you need time to build or setup a shop while you move.

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

Mr_P said:
I drove up to this house just now to get a better picture of the shop. It's at least a 40x40 with a carport and a separate carport attached to the house

I just looked at the listing, that place would be $500K+ here

Lassen Forge said:
After all, you're only 52... the same age I was when I bought the Forge in kindasortasomewhat circumstances (tho, fortunately, the ex was long gone by then) and it's been nothing but a rocket ride to the stratosphere since then!

And fer Gawdsakes don't vanish - we want to hear (like Paul Harvey says)... "The rest of the story"...

Well I'm 56 now and I feel like my biological clock is going TIC TIC TIC
I just want to get out of here before I'm too old to do it.

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

gte718p said:
I'm guessing the 40 tons is a SWAG (scientific wild *** guess). You are right in range with the max cargo of a shipping container. If you are in a resort city you are also near a port and they can be had cheap.

Moving a connex box is relatively cheap. It is no more then a $3k~$4k to get it anywhere in the country. It might take some time especially if it requires trains and truck transportation, and can involve lots of moving pieces but there are brokers who work that sort of thing. Hiring a moving company to do the same thing would be epically more expensive.

They also make convenient storage if you need time to build or setup a shop while you move.

I think I'm pretty close on the 40 tons in the shop, I already have a 20' conex box next to the shop and its full. I'll do a major purge when the time comes.

bczygan · Mar 3, 2016

I would be interested in how your final shop layout was configured.

Bill

Bib Overalls · Mar 3, 2016

Came home one day many years ago when I was living and working in Albuquerque to find my neighbor sitting on my porch with a pile of clothes. Told me he came home from work a few minutes befor I did and his wife had met him at the front door with a court order that basically told him get out and stay away.

With no place to turn and hopelessly confused he grabbed some clothes and toiletries and came over to ask if he could stay the night and that in the morning he would get himself situated. He stayed well over a year.

Early in the process of being shed by his spouse I told him the best solution to his problem was to hook up with someone in the South Valley and have her taken out when he was away on a work trip. Said he could not do that. She was the mother of his children and despite the way she was screwing him around he still had some residual affection for her.

18 months later, with the ink still wet on the divorce decree he told me that of all the advice he had received from friends, work mates, lawyers, social workers, etal. mine was the best.

First, I like your idea of pre palletizing all of your heavy equipment. If you will be doing Federal Civil Service job related move you will not normally get the advance notification that most military folks do when they PCS. With two weeks to get there you won't have time to get everything ready, particularly heavy machinery.

I am an old soldier, originally from California, and my career took me all over the USA, Europe, and East Asia. From the aspect of cost of living and quality of life I don't think you can do better than the states that touch both sides of the Mississippi River. I'd scratch Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota and pencil in Alabama, Texas and Eastern Oklahoma. A completely different mind set from the Left and Right Coasts.

One thing I will tell you is that finding good used machinery in this neck of the woods is hard to do and expensive when you can. Bringing what you have is a smart move.

polexican23 · Mar 3, 2016

*Buy the land
*Get the shop built.
*Load up some shipping containers with your machines.
*Get them truck out to the land you bought
*Load machines into built shop
*Convert shipping containers into kick *** house and zombie fallout shelter
* Bang lots of women.

C_F · Mar 3, 2016

Mr_P said:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/8559-S-Old-MS19_Collinsville_MS_39325_M86019-76172

Just an example of how cheap houses are out here. That's not even the cream of the crop. You could by by the acre out here at about 5k/acre

Wow, that's a great looking place! That place would probably be $250K or more here, I would think. Now I wanna pack up all my **** & move there next week! If only I could sell my place that fast. :lol:

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

bczygan said:
I would be interested in how your final shop layout was configured.

Bill

Bill, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a "final" layout. All it takes is one good find on CL to upset the whole thing.

I'm home with the flu and my son has a major project going on in the shop, but here is how it looks as of today.

rmack898 · Mar 3, 2016

And the rest of it.

theoldwizard1 · Mar 3, 2016

rmack898 said:
MS meets my self imposed geographic limitations, so I won't rule it out.

My niece moved to MS almost 10 years ago. She still get called a Yankee which she doesn't care for because she is from KS !

Not the most welcoming state to outsiders.

dshop · Mar 3, 2016

Mac,
I used ABF freight to move big lots of car parts from CA to NC a few years ago.
They parked two 40' trailers in front of my place and I loaded them with everything I had, then I put my padlocks on them.
They came and hooked them up and 10 days later they unhooked them at my new place. I had 10 days to unload the trailers and then ABF came and hauled the empty trailers away.
The whole operation was very easy to deal with and priced fairly.
You might consider giving them a call, I would certainly use them again.
regards,
Doug

bry@n · Mar 3, 2016

I can certainly understand why you'd like to leave NJ.

I've used ABF moving stuff to TX from NJ. Worked out great for me.

matt_i · Mar 3, 2016

Sweet machines.

There are two ways to proceed as I see it (and I have done it)

1. Buy gooseneck deckover trailer and a turbodiesel truck 2500 or higher.
2. Buy "full load" semi truck flatbed trailer.

I moved a full load semi and a couple of gooseneck loads myself (minus the turbodiesel, its a big block TBI that gets 5-10mpg, but that is another story)

If I did it again, I would opt for the semis. Too much time sweating over stuff on the road, trying to get gas in remote locations at odd hours, constantly worried the truck was going to nuke the transmission, etc. I would definitely need 2 if not 3 semis, the one I loaded in the pictures is over the gross legal weight after going over the scales, and had to go back and pull a machine off....having am 11.5k forklift (7k cap) on the back didn't help.

One thing that helped immensely was crates, you see them on the truck. Starting with pallets I built 3 full height sides, and one side that was cut in half (for ease of loading). I cut shelves and had 6 posts (4 corner plus 1 each long side midspan) so that each shelf was independent more or less and wouldn't be crushing everything on the bottom. In a spiral notebook I wrote down what was on each level so I knew exactly what was where for de-packing or in case of some dire emergency needing something. The crates are heavy, one easily 3000 lbs.

You will need to rent forklifts, one at each end. They are not cheap but the alternative is to buy and care for them (can't get good deals without the time to troubleshoot and solve problems that others couldn't figure out). Make sure to get 6 to 8 foot forks when doing so. Make sure the trucker knows the load is to be tarped, and work with him on strapping down machines so they don't break off handles, etc. The trucker may have hourly rates for load and unload past some amount of time. I worked with my guy to fold the tarps, roll up straps, basically worked as his helper. Also, I unloaded all of the machines right now onto the pavement, out of the way, and then rearranged them into the shop after that.

The stuff that I was most concerned about, my rollaround toolboxes, my 10EE, my Gerstner, I moved myself on the gooseneck or in a double axle uhaul, these were also tarped if outside. While I ended up with a great relationship with my trucker, I didn't want to take on the risk of a shiny bling colored toolbox magically disappear or be broken into overnight. It wouldn't be out of the question to use a Uhaul, Ryder, Penske van to move toolboxes. You have to estimate weights and keep a notebook full of records, its very easy to overload any of the above, semi, box truck, or trailer, when dealing with machine shop machinery.

I would stay away from the "dry van" semi trailers to move machines. While mostly dry, there are no tie-downs other than E-track, and I view that as something slightly stronger than stretch wrap when moving a 5k to 10k machine. Heavy trucks are incredibly stiff sprung, there are air-ride trailers but its something you have to spec up-front.

Sorry to hear of your situation. Things can get messy for awhile. But, you will pull out of it. Best advice is to leave your kids out of it and don't involve them in the vitriol of emotions, don't make them messengers to your ex-spouse, etc. Just try to avoid talking to the ex- as much as possible, except where it relates to kids and try to keep that professional. I tried to convince my ex- that we have two choices here, send our kids to college, or send the lawyers' kids to college. That thought sort of worked but not as well as it could have.

code4pay · Mar 5, 2016

HemiRamOn22s said:
He is probably paying 10-15k in property taxes alone. i dont blame you for wanting to move. Delaware is pretty cheap. Low property taxes and no sales tax. You cant beat that.

Stories like this make me never want to get married.

15k of tax a year for owning a property? Wow that's the nuts. Is that common in America?

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

txbonds · Mar 5, 2016

Don't forget to consider where the children will be living unless they are coming with you. If not I would want to stay as close to them as possible if it were me. Good luck.

rmack898 · Mar 5, 2016

Thanks for all of the advice guys. The divorce thing is 6 years in my rear view mirror and I only posted it so you would know where I was coming from.

I'm pretty sure it was ABF freight that I got the idea from. I have a forklift on this end and will rent or buy on the other end (where ever that may be)

Matt, I hadn't considered the lack of substantial tie downs in a dry van. When the actual time gets here, I'll take a close look at the inside of the ABF trailers. I will most likely move my 10EE myself also.

Code4 pay, Property taxes in NJ are insane. The guy across the street from my mom pays $30K a year for a 100'x200' lot with a 3 BR house just because it is on the river front.

A_Pmech · Mar 5, 2016

I remember that Pacemaker from PM...

As a former NJ tax refugee, I understand why you're moving. I suggest looking for unincorporated counties in poorer areas if you plan on living rural. Taxes are low enough that they can't afford the bureaucracy to tell you what color you can paint your shutters.

rmack898 · Mar 5, 2016

A_Pmech said:
I remember that Pacemaker from PM...

As a former NJ tax refugee, I understand why you're moving. I suggest looking for unincorporated counties in poorer areas if you plan on living rural. Taxes are low enough that they can't afford the bureaucracy to tell you what color you can paint your shutters.

The Pacemaker (I call it "Fat 99") runs great and is a joy to run.

I didn't know you were a former NJ inmate and escaped.

I made one recon trip to SC in December but I'm still looking. Planning on two more recon trips this spring.

RentedDreams · Apr 16, 2016

Mac,

I don't know if you have moved yet, but I recently moved from San Antonio, Texas to Birmingham, Alabama due to a scenario very much like yours.

My brother found me a house in Alabama that was built by a former NASCAR mechanic. 1200 sq ft house, 4000 sq ft workshop and 4 car garage on 3 acres for less than I could build a metal building in Texas.

Climate down here is great, cost of living unbelievably cheap, and you are right in the heart of hot rod country. Down side is you will have to tell everyone you live in Alabama.

I've added just a few pics to give you an idea what $100K can buy down here.

Ron

Power Sedan · Apr 17, 2016

RentedDreams said:
Mac,

I don't know if you have moved yet, but I recently moved from San Antonio, Texas to Birmingham, Alabama due to a scenario very much like yours.

My brother found me a house in Alabama that was built by a former NASCAR mechanic. 1200 sq ft house, 4000 sq ft workshop and 4 car garage on 3 acres for less than I could build a metal building in Texas.

Climate down here is great, cost of living unbelievably cheap, and you are right in the heart of hot rod country. Down side is you will have to tell everyone you live in Alabama.

I've added just a few pics to give you an idea what $100K can buy down here.

Ron

$100k for all that... Ahhh yeah, sign me up!

Seriously though, what a great investment property you've acquired. So much potential!

Escape FROM my dream shop

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