Something just clicked…..

[Strouty]

If I recall correctly your thread went like this:
Clean, clean, buy, buy, buy, clean, sell, buy, buy, clean, buy, buy, sell, buy, clean.....Kinda kidding.

First, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read the entire thread. Second, it is refreshing having someone summarize things as an outsider. You pretty much hit the nail on the head, I am working towards become a crack dealer, rather than an addict.

 

[Strouty]

I spent 11 hours behind the wheel today, and a whopping 3.5 getting the boat loaded. I will say that the boat is much nicer than I thought, but the trailer is going to need some serious work. It will be another good project for the winter, I know I need another project like I need a hole in my head, but I would like to be able to use the boat in the spring. The deal for this boat and trailer is I had to go and get it, then I have to help swap the outboard and controls over to my Dad's boat. He wanted the nice Yamaha motor off this one and I get his older Merc. Basically, I have about 20 hours of my time invested so far and I am guessing I will have another 40 hours and some cash to get things completed. I don't think it will be a bad deal when everything is said and done. The boat is an early 80s 21 foot regal cuddy cabin. It is in pretty good shape and should need very little to be an awesome toy. I had to dissect the trailer for it to fit on the truck rack. It needs new bolts anyways.

 

[keelan]

Should we start a pool betting on your chances the boat will be ready for spring?

 

[Strouty]

What are the odds?


We are going to go out in the boat on Friday (yes Black Friday), Dad wants to see how the Yamaha motor goes. Of course we are getting 10" of snow tomorrow, so we will see what happens. I just got the snowblower to the house, I kept saying I was going to buy a used Honda snowblower, but that never happened. So now I need to rebuild the carb on this one and hope I can limp it through another winter. I spent a few hours at the shop tonight moving some more stuff around. I have a few more hours tomorrow, so I hope to have everything ready for the snow. I still need to move the conex, so depending on how that goes, things may turn to **** pretty quickly.

On a good note, I got two tower inspections done today (the field work), so now I do not have any other scheduled work for the rest of the winter. Once I get a breather I can assemble the reports in the office and bill the jobs out. I will be glad when that is done.

 

[Wanna Ride]

I enjoy your thread - it makes me wish I could just work on my own projects instead of actually going to work.

 

[Strouty]

I enjoy your thread - it makes me wish I could just work on my own projects instead of actually going to work.

I am just living the dream, err nightmare.


Our boat ride is out, my Dad got stuck out of town for T-day, so next week we will go for a ride. I was going to take some pictures of the boat, but since we lost power, it was just too dark for the camera. I will definitely get some next week.

 

[Strouty]

Here is my pre-snowstorm update that I never got to on Wednesday. I moved almost everything, of course not exactly where I wanted it, but I was racing against the clock. I will try and shuffle some stuff this weekend, I have help and I am going to use it.


Cleaned up the end wall and laid down plastic pallets so everything is up off the ground.


Found a new use for a "Bagster", I had a bunch of rims to move, so I loaded it up, then used the crane to move them. It worked very well and saved some serious effort and time.



Setup to move the conex, one end at a time and only a few feet at a time. It was a lot heavier than I thought. I could only move it so far, but it is out of the way so I can plow near the building. I figure I can move it next year when I finish up the earth work.



Snow started! I got all the tires and rims organized behind the two other boxes. This is a safe out of the way location.



I moved the sandblast cabinet and dust collector out behind the boxes as well. I hope that I can set up the cabinet next year, I would really like to be able to actually use it!



The conex is not exactly where I wanted it, but it is far enough away from the building that I can at least plow instead of shovel the snow.



I am going to move my garage door over with the bridge crane so it will be safe for the winter.

 

[Thumper68]

Looking so much better! You my friend have turned the corner now the trick is to keep it that way.

Just goes to show that if you are willing to put forth the effort and keep at it just about anything can be accomplished.

 

[Strouty]

Looking so much better! You my friend have turned the corner now the trick is to keep it that way.

Just goes to show that if you are willing to put forth the effort and keep at it just about anything can be accomplished.

Thanks for the encouraging words. I am going to be working on the inside this weekend. I started moving some of the cabinets and shelves around today. I am starting to feel the progress. I am assuming that this weekend will feel like a few steps back, as I will have to tear the place apart to move everything around. I do have a basic plan, so at least I have some direction to follow.

Here is the start of my moving things, that damn vidmar cabinet is so freaking heavy. I had to unload half of it just to get it to budge.









I decided that I really was wasting the space where I had my recliner, so I moved it to the warmest part of the shop, my little storage space. Now I have to climb a ladder to get to it and my feet hang off the edge when I recline, but it is still usable!

 

[Thumper68]

Have you used the floorplan and paper cutouts trick yet?

If you haven't I would suggest doing so, in the end it will save you so much time and hart ache, moving slips of paper is so much easier than moving steel.

I'm in a real good mood tonight so nice seeing the Wild beat the Stars for the third time this year.

Back to your regularly scheduled thread.

 

[Strouty]

Have you used the floorplan and paper cutouts trick yet?

If you haven't I would suggest doing so, in the end it will save you so much time and hart ache, moving slips of paper is so much easier than moving steel.

I'm in a real good mood tonight so nice seeing the Wild beat the Stars for the third time this year.

Back to your regularly scheduled thread.

I should take the time to do it, I take measurements before moving things, but sometimes there is nothing like actually seeing the thing in place to get a feel for how well it "fits". At one point I had made a layout, but I kept changing cabinets so I would have to constantly make new cutouts. I would say that my cabinets have stayed the same now for a while, so maybe it is time to reinvest some time into another layout. I will see if I can at least find my original floor plan.

 

[Strouty]

As I had hoped, today was productive, although things look like a mess right now. Tomorrow should be even better, I now have a pretty solid plan to follow. I am sure things will change on the fly, but that happened a lot today and it did not stop productivity. Tomorrow I need to do some fab work to make a few cabinets fit the space better. I don't think that there is anything besides the steel rack that has not been touched or moved today. I even got the rest of my snow cleanup done!


When my buddy showed up, I finished the stockroom and finally got to put back all my bins that were floating around for the last few months.


We put the drawers back in the big vidmar cabinet and it looks pretty good where it is.



This is the mess early in the day, it gets worse. I always say moving stuff in my shop is like that car game called "parking lot", I always have to shuffle stuff around and be thinking two steps ahead otherwise you get yourself blocked in.

 

[Strouty]

I know that I will not get to install my mohawk lift for a while and it was taking up a ton of room, so we took the arms off and banded them to the columns so they take up about a third of the space now. It was kind of a pain since I do not have my compressor hook up yet. Luckily I own a swench and it worked perfectly, took the large (2" socket) fine thread nyloc nuts off no problem. We first tried it with a wrench and a 4 foot pipe, but could not get them to budge, we were just trying to spin the column. The swench is a mechanical impact wrench and it works great. I only used the ¾" drive one, but I also have a 1" drive version that is much more powerful.


Here is what they looked like in the old configuration.


Another view.


The tools we used.



Banded up all nested together.



All tucked away, I also moved my stack racks to that side of the shop, they just seemed to fit better.

 

[Strouty]

I am packing it in for the night, will get more done tomorrow for sure. I moved the big drill press, surprisingly my pallet jack does a great job moving it. Except near the old floor drains, then I have to push 5000 pounds of steel up hill. I moved it in front of the big door, I figure if I need to get to the back of the machine I can always open the door. It looks like I will be able to move it one more time after I finish wiring it up and cleaning out the coolant tank. I will update more tomorrow.

 

[Wanna Ride]

Good progress!
I worked in my shop all day today too, just finishing up some similar projects. Ever once in a while you have to wipe the slate clean, and just do work on the shop itself!

 

[Strouty]

Good progress!
I worked in my shop all day today too, just finishing up some similar projects. Ever once in a while you have to wipe the slate clean, and just do work on the shop itself!

Thank you!

I can't wait until it is every once in a while that I take a day to clean the shop. Right now it is more like every once in a while I can take a day to do a project instead of cleaning the shop.

It is getting better, I will still have a ton of organizing and purging to do in the stockroom, but since I have help I am concentrating on the big stuff for now.

 

[Strouty]

The next update will be life altering.

 

[dlcwent]

^^I hate cliffhangers...Why did you have to leave it that way?

 

[Strouty]

Be patient.

 

[Wanna Ride]

The next update will be life altering.

As in yours, or mine? Unless you're sending me a truckload of cool stuff you're not using, like that hibernating lift, then I'm assuming you mean yours.

 

[d3ad1ysp0rk]

Scrapping anything of value? My girlfriend isn't bothered by my mild hoarding yet.. so that means I've got space for more!

 

[Strouty]

As in yours, or mine? Unless you're sending me a truckload of cool stuff you're not using, like that hibernating lift, then I'm assuming you mean yours.

My life altering update is going to have to wait another day at least, life got in the way.

Scrapping anything of value? My girlfriend isn't bothered by my mild hoarding yet.. so that means I've got space for more!

I do not want to enable or encourage you.



Today was so nice, it was just about 60 degrees, so I got a few more outside things done. I was on a roll, so I tried to move the conex a little more………….and now I am in a mess. The conex is sinking in the mud on one side, angled up at one end, the doors are not lined up now and I damaged a shelf inside during the moving adventure. Now I am, as you say, "up **** creek without a paddle". I put some blocking under the muddy edge so it would not freeze in, tomorrow will be in the 20's. I think I need to make some larger outrigger pads for the crane, then I can go into some of the softer areas. I may also just wait until it does freeze, then I should be able to get where I need to straighten things out. No matter what, tomorrow I need to unload the shelf that is tipping over and see if it can be salvaged. Hopefully I did not break anything "valuable", realistically if someone went in tonight and tossed the stuff on the shelves, I would probably never even be able to tell you what was missing. I went from having a great day to holy ****, what do I do now in the span of about 20 minutes. I may have to hire a larger crane to help me move the damn thing into position. My original plan was to setup another conex and transfer everything into the new one, then move the old one once it is empty. I wish I had just left well enough alone.

 

[Strouty]

So I checked on prices to bring another crane in and I found that no one local would help me out, they all wanted to bring in a huge crane to pick the entire box at once. I only wanted to shuffle one end at a time with a normal size crane. I did find a guy who would help out, but it would still be about $600, lucky for me I was at an auction……………….

So I bought an old moving van trailer. Now I can put stuff in the moving van to empty out the conex so I can move it myself. The only problem is now I have to empty the new trailer, because it has a bunch of stuff that I bought at the auction. I think some would call this a backslide, I only took a sip, honest.

 

[ishiboo]

So I checked on prices to bring another crane in and I found that no one local would help me out, they all wanted to bring in a huge crane to pick the entire box at once. I only wanted to shuffle one end at a time with a normal size crane. I did find a guy who would help out, but it would still be about $600, lucky for me I was at an auction……………….

So I bought an old moving van trailer. Now I can put stuff in the moving van to empty out the conex so I can move it myself. The only problem is now I have to empty the new trailer, because it has a bunch of stuff that I bought at the auction in it. I think some would call this a backslide, I only took a sip, honest.

One thing I've noticed is you have to STOP buying.

If you keep up the "oh it'd be easier if I had ____" or "i could save money in the future I could have ____" you keep acquiring.

Same reason more storage/shelving/etc. is a bad idea. I am in the same crush - I have a ton of storage, so I use it. When I clean I think hey, it'd be great to have MORE storage to put this stuff on. And it keeps going.

Just my .02 I'm in the same boat. Oh yeah... I have 5 boats.

 

[Strouty]

I don't think I can ever stop buying, but I do think I can get to the point where I either even things out with selling or end up with less stuff overall. I have worked wonders so far and I will continue pushing forward. I will do my "life altering" update this weekend when I have a decent amount of time. I like to be able to buy things, especially when I know I can turn a profit. Sometimes the profit is not realized instantly, but I do look at most of my stuff as a sort of bank account. If I really need some cash, I can always get some from selling something. Weird way to rationalize things, but it has been working so far this year. I think once you guys see the inside of the shop, you will understand what I mean. This will be the winter that changes everything for me, I am truly looking forward to it.

 

[Farmall450]

That lift looks sad all boxed up!
Great progress Strouty...I haven't kept up to date with this thread and it was a real eye-opener.

 

[Strouty]

Thanks Farmall I have been busy!

Here is the conex mess, I did not get to take all the stuff off the shelf yet, but it does not appear to be as bad as I originally thought.








This is the trailer I bought to transfer stuff from the conex. It will be a big help and a great long term solution for me.

 

[GarageWarrior]

I like to be able to buy things, especially when I know I can turn a profit. Sometimes the profit is not realized instantly, but I do look at most of my stuff as a sort of bank account. If I really need some cash, I can always get some from selling something. Weird way to rationalize things, but it has been working so far this year.

Are you honestly turning good steady profit with the resale business?

I found it to be a lot of work for the $ when selling low-value items, illiquid items, and items that require extensive prep or are difficult to handle. In the mean-time things become obsolete, deteriorate, require intermittent handling, and take up valuable storage space.

You can rent-out those containers for storage and get steady, easy income. I know several people that do that. Even outdoor space can be rented out for decent profit. Just a thought.

 

[Strouty]

I don't usually mess with low dollar items. I have sold some, but usually at auction with no real effort on my part. The last few items that I have sold were big machines and as an example I paid $250 for one and sold it for $2500 within two days. My profit was about $1,000. I am current working a deal with some 2000 gallon double wall tanks. I should also make about $1,000 profit on those. I sell stuff right now as supplemental income. In the future I would love to do it full time because most of the fun for me is the "hunt" for the stuff. I have been pretty consistently making about $1,000 per week in between my real jobs. Those make me much more than that. I know my plan is a work in progress and will have to be updated as I adjust. Overall I am learning as I go and for the most part I am having a good time.

 

[Strouty]

Yesterday was the start of the boat swapping extravaganza, today I am working at the house trying to get some stuff cleaned up. I hope to get the "life altering" update done midweek. Sorry for the delay, but life hit pretty hard in the last week. Gotta love it when things get out of control! Anyways, here is the mess I have made with the boats, but this mess is at my Dad's shop, so it doesn't really hurt me.

 

[GarageWarrior]

Yesterday was the start of the boat swapping extravaganza, today I am working at the house trying to get some stuff cleaned up. I hope to get the "life altering" update done midweek. Sorry for the delay, but life hit pretty hard in the last week. Gotta love it when things get out of control! Anyways, here is the mess I have made with the boats, but this mess is at my Dad's shop, so it doesn't really hurt me.

Sounds like you doing good buddy, and getting a handle on things!

I'm not on here much any more, but looking forward to your updates.

 

[Strouty]

Sounds like you doing good buddy, and getting a handle on things!

I'm not on here much any more, but looking forward to your updates.

I have been busy making a mess lately. I think that now my "life altering" update is going to be a ho hum update.

So everyone knows, I had the entire first bay cleaned up, we installed another section of pallet racking, and I started working on the compressor. There was twice as much room as before and I actually had more stuff in the shop than I had a few weeks ago. Right now is a different story, I had to bring a bunch of things inside due to freezing rain and now I have most of the first bay ******* with things that really should not be in the shop. I am also working on part of the house, so I had to bring more items from the house to the shop as well. As I said before, life really got in the way. I will keep updating as I get more accomplished. I have to go outside in the rain to do a bunch of stuff today and I am not looking forward to that at all.

 

[Strouty]

The rain stopped this morning and I got a chance to unload my new (to me) and potentially unusable (by me) 2000 gallon double wall heating oil tank. I wish I had never bought it,they say ignorance is bliss, but not when you spend a grand on something that needs permits up the wahzoo to use. I am headed back out to try and move some trailers around. I will take a few pics to show my progress and some of the stuff I got from the auction last week.

 

[Strouty]

I did not get any pictures of the progress because I worked until after dark, so I will get some tomorrow. I got some of the stuff I bought at the auction last week inside so I could figure out what I am going to do with it. It is funny the one thing I bought was an air ride fifth wheel for a medium duty truck. After researching it I found that a new one is $2500, it looks to be in good condition, plus I only paid about $175 for it.











There was a ballast box that came with it, I figured it was full of concrete, but I could not even budge it. I knew the hitch weighed 230 pounds and I figured the ballast box was about 500 pounds. I had to use a large pry bar to slide it onto the forks.




When I got it inside I opened it up and boy did I get a surprise, the box was full of lead.

 

[kgorman]

Trucks, vidmars, forklifts, deuces, lateral files, stacks of tools, tons of bins, my head is spinning.

I herby call this garage 'candyland'. It's amazing.

Pull all the stuff out and put it back in piece by piece. Take pics. Have fun!

 

[Strouty]

It is a one stop shop, all the goodies in one place.

 

[Strouty]

Today I have been playing with lead, there was 995.9 pounds in the ballast box. I am going to save some for resale on ebay/craigslist. I figure I will take some to the scrap yard just so it is not hanging around. They told me 54 cents a pound I should be able to get my money back just from the stuff I bring today.

 

[Strouty]

Last night I got the trucks put away, of course it was dark and I have terrible lighting. Looks like I ended up parking them fine, I love it when that happens!



I have to admit, I have no use for this, I just bought it because it was cheap. I paid $45 for the whole thing. I am sure I can get my money back.




One of these runs, the other one does not, I guess I will have to figure out what is up with it, good learning experience. I figured $65 each was an OK price.

 

[propav8r]

Hey Multi-Xs!

One of the more sought-after RWD volvo wheels. I could use a single one, but can never find someone willing so split up a set.

 

[Strouty]

propav8r I sent you a PM about the wheel.

I ended up taking just under 400 pounds to the scrap yard, I also grabbed my copper and wire. I ended up with $285, nice to have some extra this time of year. I figure it will help offset the possible loss I may have to take on the big heating oil tank. Now I have to figure out how to divvy up the rest of the lead. I will absolutely put an add on craigslist and then I figure I will do some ebay auctions as well.