Stuff, Stuff, Stuff

Darren Wright

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
20,087
Location
Springfield, Missouri
This week I decided to be more systematic about the layout and organization of my shop. I began making a list of items that were taking up floor space in the shop and their dimensions. I put down as many things as I could think of and grabbed a tape measure to start taking dimensions.

As I headed out of the office. I saw a few things I forgot, and wrote them down.

Started working down the list taking measurements, saw a few other things I had not thought of, and wrote them down.

Stepped to the North side of the shop, saw a few other things I had not thought of, and wrote them down.

This went on for a few other sections of the shop. I ended up with 3 more pages in the tablet. :doh:
 
And that right there is why I gave up trying to work out a shop floor plan with Sketchup. Last time I did that exercise, I had scale drawings for each of the major tools, and all I was able to achieve was to show on paper that it was impossible to fit my tools in the shop, despite the fact that I already HAD all the tools in the shop. :D
 
I'm not even going to bother. All I try to do now is to get rid of anything out there sucking up floor space I don't need. If I do need it, it goes on wheels....
 
I am thinking about what 'machine' I'll be sacrificing to monitor the greenhouse microclimate :D

Will definitely be wanting to set something up to track a number of variables like ambient air temp, humidity, heat sink temperature, etc... :thumb:
 
vaughn, that reminds me of the one and only time i watched my sister clean out her purse. it was like watching a live version of the scene in love happy (marx brothers last movie), where the finally empty harpo's trenchcoat, and wind up with a small mountain of stuff that could not have possibly been in there. after about a half hour (and i could be wrong, could have been longer), she finally pulled the last item out of her purse. she then proceeded to throw away a good, heavy 2/3 of the stuff, and then found that she could not fit the remaining 1/3 back in the purse. i walked away quickly, so that i could laugh until i fell over....
 
Darren i decided Allen has the right idea. Make it all mobile. Then move out the way what is not needed or being used on current project.
Thats my plan:)

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
 
Darren i decided Allen has the right idea. Make it all mobile. Then move out the way what is not needed or being used on current project.
Thats my plan:)

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

Yeah, just goes to show that even when you have a lot of space, you never have enough. We're like goldfish, we grow to fit the space. :D
 
Darren i decided Allen has the right idea. Make it all mobile. Then move out the way what is not needed or being used on current project.
Thats my plan:)

Eventually though it gets so you can't roll the piece in the back around the 3 or 4 or 6 in front of it and end up having to pull everything out into the driveway, which isn't easy if it weight 800 or 1000 lbs and then you can't figure out how it all fit in there originally and are left with three pieces that don't fit.

I vigorously deny that this has actually happened to me (so far) and refute any of my friends claims that it is likely (yet).

I have had sort of the opposite experience with sketchup and layout as Vaughn, it all LOOKS good on paper (computer)..

I'm pretty sure the correct answer is just a sufficiently large shop and then its moot. Its like the old saying "you can never be to lucky, to rich, have to many hand planes, or have a large enough shop".
 
Quick. Somebody get Brent some oxygen. He's talkin' crazy.

Rest easy... By Machine I meant, "computer"... :rofl:

[Threadjackmode]

:threadjacked:

But on the upside, I think I figured out how to monitor all the things in the greenhouse I'll be wanting to monitor... It will involved a couple of arduino microcontrollers and a bunch of 'one wire' sensors...



[/Threadjackmode]
 
Rest easy... By Machine I meant, "computer"... :rofl:

[Threadjackmode]

:threadjacked:

But on the upside, I think I figured out how to monitor all the things in the greenhouse I'll be wanting to monitor... It will involved a couple of arduino microcontrollers and a bunch of 'one wire' sensors...



[/Threadjackmode]

How did i just know you were going to go that route. that will have to be a thread for us all in theoff topic section. I think our off topic forum could do with partitioning into errrr computer stuff, weather stuff...arduino stuff....etc etc lol and even a heavy equipment stuff....there are many here with tractors and bobs or the likes. :)
 
I'm not even going to bother. All I try to do now is to get rid of anything out there sucking up floor space I don't need. If I do need it, it goes on wheels....

That's basically what I've tried to do, but I've been losing ground in the past year and there's less room in there than before:( Farm stuff, greasy machine parts, freeeze-sensitive supplies, even winter sleeping quarters for one of the dogs (can't get along with the other one!!)
I've started putting more things on wheels and move them out to the other (unheated) area temporarily if it's something that won't rust.
I gave up trying to achieve the "perfect" floor plan and just work around things that are more or less fixed in place like the tablesaw and outfeed table in the center and the linear machines along one wall.
The worst space-consuming things are scrap, which will choke you, and having multiple projects on the go.
That's a great building Darren and you have the advantage of vertical space too.
 
Top