The ever expanding/shrinking workshop

[diggerop]

Some time ago, my workshop was getting so disorganised and cluttered, I had no option but to have a big cleanout and re-organise everything efficiently. I built more benches and wall storage and made everything neat and tidy. I was amazed at how much space I created. (It's only about 500 sq ft.) Then .... I realized I could fit a planer/jointer in without *too* much trouble. At a pinch I could get a second TS as a ripsaw. And of course I would need a shopvac.

*Sigh* Back to square one. Not enough room to swing a cat. Have been pondering extensions. Thought about another 250 sq ft and how I would use that. Then decided that if I extended, I would always regret not going the whole hog. So it became an extra 500 Sq ft. That would be perfect. Any man would be happy with that. Could do anything with that much space. ...... Anything? ...... hmmmm ........ with so much space, I could build larger projects, - even play with wooden boats again. ....... then I'd need more space of course ........

I think I need a Bex and a lie down. Maybe then my sanity will return. I'm not hopeful.

diggerop (whose wallet has the following written on it in large red letters, "Not to be used for woodworking purposes.")

[Greg G]

Is this a drive by gloat, mate? ;-) How many people here would love to have 500 sq ft? Approximately half of a garage here, which is only

400 sq ft total, although there is some (ply)wood storage along the wall of the forbidden zone. And automotive tools, gardening tools, brooms, paint, renovation supplies, and plants brought indoors for the winter. The terrain doesn't allow for more construction either. Personally, after all the residing, rewindowing, reframing, and reroofing would like to forget I ever saw the hole mess and start over elsewhere with a nice single story in the middle no nowhere. Say, what's property going for in the Outback?

Last attempt to organize (3 days ago!) resulted in a 2 hour session of OMG where did all this crap come from and where can I put it... It's better now, but the laws of physics seem to be immotile here...

One thing to remember is that no matter how much room you have, junk will expand to fill available space. If you're gonna build, do it up right the first time. A divided finishing area, a separate boat/auto/loading area walled from the shop so that moving materials and vehicles doesn't suck the heat from the shop area. Material storage.

Well, one can (pipe) dream, no?...

Greg G.

[diggerop]

Heh. No gloat. I just forget at times just how lucky we have been in Oz to be able to spread out a little. Having grown up in the wheatbelt and worked mainly in the Kimberly and Pilbara, Perth seems so cramped and crowded. How people keep their sanity in places like Hong Kong or New York has me beat. Even that's changing. Land prices have doubled where I live in the last 6 years. Everyone wants a 4 bedroom/2 bathroom house as a minimum. So house blocks are shrinking. Ours is the traditional 1/4 acre size, while over the other side of the street, a new subdivision is being completed with block sizes about 1/3 the size of ours. The eaves of the houses they are building are almost touching the neighbors'. Almost no yard space. Suburban ghettoes, I call them.

My pipe dream includes a 5T overhead travelling gantry crane in a 100 x 60 shed. Separate sections for storage, woodwork, major projects, paint booth, welding/steelworks and dedicated car restoration area.

Dreams are good. : )

diggerop

[Bill]

I know you know how to operate one, but why do you want a 5T overhead traveling gantry crane? Actually, don't answer. I think I know why. I think it would be cool to excavate on a whim too. : ) I think it would be fun to have some arc and oxy-acetylene welding equipment too!

Bill

[Greg G]

McMansions here. Using the term ghetto tends to piss-off those who don't understand the word's etymology. It carries a racial connotation here. I called one particular locality a corporate ghetto once and a dude spit on the ground. He was not Jewish. Or Italian.

I don't even want to think about the metalworking stuff. Or the car stuff. I've had a need as of late for a lathe and welding equipment. No where to put it and moving stuff that heavy has become problematic. Your gantry crane seems quite prudent.

When in my teens, worked for a guy in Newnan, GA who owned most of the town. He gave me the creeps and the commute was miserable so the job didn't last long, but he had a large collection of exotic sports, racing, and luxury cars stored in a huge, rambling building constructed as post and beam, gravel floor with vapour barrier, and fibreglass panel roof. Nice setup if you're a crook. Last I heard he was in Federal Prison for selling stolen cars badged with insurance write-off VINs at his car lots. What a Guy!

It's damned tough to get rich while honest these days.

Greg G.

[diggerop]

The gantry crane is built into the internal structure. Runs on overhead parallel beams, can be positioned at will via electric drives. Doesn't excavate, it lifts. Handy as a pocket on a shirt. Great for lifting steelwork, heavy machinery and most importantly, wooden boat hulls. Would also cost far more than the building, but this is a dream so that's ok.

diggerop

[Greg G]

Like this:

this: can lay in bed and hear the neighbors fart. (No I don't live in one.)

Shudder.

Greg G.

[J. Clarke]

I am curious--with so much unoccupied land, why are Australians so driven to crowd themselves into cities?

[Steve Turner]

I'm still trapped in suburbia where we have the schools that will make SWMBO happy, at least until the kids have all flown the nest. As such, I consider myself lucky to have a THREE car garage (where no cars are allowed, or even lawn equipment; I have a back yard shed for that) and I have 540 square feet at my disposal. I'd love to have a lot more, but it's proven sufficient for the time being.

[Bill]

Thank you for the lesson! Bill

[Greg G]

On behalf of those of us who are spatially challenged, allow me to be the first to say, "You suck." ;-) Schools and a three car garage...

Greg G.

[Lew Hodgett]

Ever been to Toronto?

Same thing, especially in the burbs.

Minimal yards with a common park near by.

Lew

[FrozenNorth]

Yep, I live in Toronto, but in an older neighbourhood, house built in 1952.

Smaller house on a reasonable piece of land for the size of the house. I have friends in some of those areas you have seen, almost have to turn sideways to walk between the houses. At one of these houses I went to a party once, 10 people in lawn chairs and the backyard was full.

[diggerop]

Doesn't seem to make sense on the surface of it. Worlds fifth largest land area and the least densely populated.

It's primarily about Economics. Factors include lack of water, infrastructure costs, having a small industrial base, employment opportunities. There are only two main industries of any size outside the cities, both export based. Mining and agriculture. Mining, by it's very nature, is a short-term proposition. Market forces or depletion of ore bodies can cause them to shut down at any time. Towns that rely solely on mining become ghost towns, virtually overnight. Although in previous years, government and industry have tried building towns near the mining areas, they almost always end up being abandoned in the end. Kalgoorlie is one mining town that has survived long term, but has been through many severe cycles. In the 90's, during a severe dowturn in mining, I bought a house in kalgoorlie for $15,000. There were hundreds of houses for sale, very few opportunities for employment. Shortly after, gold started to move again, mines reopened, housing prices soared. I sold within 4 years for $160,000. Timing is everything. : )

Agriculture has had to implement economies of scale to survive. That means expansion of land area. My grandfather had 3000 acres that supported two families and as many as 20 full time employees. Over the years, succeeding generations have bought out the neighbors to maintain viable size. Today, that family farm comprises 20,000 acres, supporting one family and one full time worker. Turns over millions. Can be quite profitable, yet three droughts in a row could wipe them out financially. The associated towns are losing population proportionately. A town that had three grocery stores 25 years ago, would now have one. Some country towns have resorted to entreprenueurial schemes to encourage population growth. Giving land away for free, if you undertake to build on it. Also, building commercial premises and leasing them to small business operaters for low rents. All to little avail. Climate. If it isn't viable to live in the country side, then the natural choice is close to the sea and in an area with an mild climate. 80% of us live within 60 miles of the coastline and clustered aroung the major cities.

diggerop

[dpb]

diggerop wrote: ...

The US demographics (particularly agricultural in the mid-section) on a much smaller scale w/ the coastal bias somewhat more pronounced. I've not looked it up but surely a very sizable proportion of US population is within a short distance of the shorelines.

For ag, _much_ higher input costs and only marginally higher commodity prices means either expand both size of operation and equipment to increase productivity or fail. The High Plains in the US are also similar in that are in the "iffy" rainfall areas so dryland farming is always a gamble even more than just the usual fluctuations of weather in those areas that have higher normal precipitation levels. (I know that well; our average annual is roughly 18" and we've been thru about five years of well below while just 100 miles or so east they've been drowned the last two. While we're ok again for just now, W TX and some other areas south are still hurting while cornbelt guys can't get in to get it out or if are may be cutting up to 30% moisture. We've still got corn and milo standing that isn't ready yet because we've barely had a really killing freeze and they're now talking perhaps significant snow by Sunday/Monday while it's 70-75F all this week. If it does indeed do this to us, we'll still be trying to cut past the first of the year in all likelihood. If it hammers them up north they'll probably never get it all before it goes down. :( )

The trend to the suburban expansion as described is also the same--most of the developments are single-developer so they have high incentive to maximize number of lots on a given acreage, hence the eaves-touching building. In the 50s/60s, folks were buying individual lots in ones/twos or farm tracts and selling off a couple lots so before they built their own in more affluent areas while the tract housing was much smaller houses on probably similarly-sized lots as the current ones.

Escalation of development costs and population growth have probably made this a totally universal trend in developed economies.

--

[diggerop]

The family farm is in a 15 inch rainfall area. Used to be 50/50 wheat and sheep. Now it's 90/10 Wool prices just don't show enough return any more. They've had two tough years in a row, but survived, albeit without making a profit. This year, they planted 16,000 acres to wheat and the season was *very very* good. Yields will probabably vary between 40 to 55 bushels per acre. As a reward for that, the FOB price at the closest port looks like being 30% less than last year at current predictions. Last year's break even was around 30 bushels/acre at $335 /tonne delivered to port. This years costs have risen, the current price is about $230/tonne So the proportion of production required to meet costs has just risen dramatically. Break even is probably in the order of 40 bushels per acre at those prices. They've just started harvest, got my fingers crossed the weather gives them a good run.

Our farmers suffer badly from perceptions of city dwellers. This year, city folk will read of record production levels, see the huge gross returns, (Should be in excess of $5 million for the family this year,) yet fail to understand why we say that there is little or no money in farming! I was trying to explain to a friend why the farm needed to invest in a new combine to take the crop off. (A John Deere rotary, over half a million plus the custom 42ft front.) He maintains it's just a tax dodge and all farmers complain about everything to try and hide the fact that it's really a license to print money. Sheesh!

What you describe is a mirror image of the situation here.

diggerop

[dpb]

That's similar to roughly 100 miles west of us as move more and more into the rain shadow of the Rocky Mtn's it gets drier every mile.

...

Them's remarkable yields over that much acreage--we'll get some like that in good years but a 40 bu/A average would be pretty remarkable.

Let's see...230AUD/Mt works out to roughly $5.80/but US if I assume about 8% exchange premium. HR#1 closed yesterday (KC cash) at $4.75-4.80/bu and we lose almost $0.50/bu in transportation penalties locally. Since we're in fall harvest at the present I didn't pay any attention when at Equity yesterday what local wheat actually was; the KC prices are what I heard on farmcast news this morning.

...

Again, no different here -- the city editorials are all about high food prices when there's less than a quarter's worth of wheat in a pound of bread even if wheat were $10/bu and it's only a little over half that to the farmer so it's patently clear the cost to the consumer isn't in the raw product.

Also, I had just commented in another posting a day or two ago in a thread on a new shop that the new corn head had sorta' taken the place and was a little higher up on the priority list. I hear ya' on the new machine; that'll have to wait.

We're small potatoes by those numbers--Dad didn't try to expand from what we were when I was growing up since neither my brother nor I stayed home. I came back after Dad passed away and since was reasonably successful w/ engineering career all really have to do is not lose too much but if were going to do more than that such as try to raise a family w/ a decent living we'd have to grow significantly, too. If I can pay production costs and have enough for the property taxes, etc., w/ a little left over I can survive. Couldn't put kids through school or such, though, simply relying on the farm at this size.

As you say, cash flow may be sizable but ROI on production agriculture would be better w/ almost any other use of the principal invested other than perhaps burying it in the proverbial tin can in the back 40. :(

--

[diggerop]

"dpb" wrote in message news:hdkhv9$8j0$ [e-mail]...

Several factors, first is this year the rainfall was above average and more importantly, fell just at the right time and in the right quantities. Second is the wheat varieties keep getting better and better. The plant breeders are producing plants with yields that were not thought possible and seem somehow to continue to do that. The inputs are carefully controlled as well. Soil sampling is a necessary part. Everything, including spraying and fertilising is custom applied through GPS linked computer controlled equipment. It all gets downloaded to a database and forms the basis for the following year as well. An example is ryegrass control. At harvest, the GPS records the exact path the combine takes. When the first rains occur prior to planting, the emerging weeds are sprayed. Each nozzle on the boom spray is linked to a computer that has the information from harvest of the combine path. It applies the heaviest dose on the area where the combine left the windrow containing most weed seeds in the prior harvest. Same principal applies to seeding, - fertiliser rates are automatically adjusted according to last seasons yields and soil analysis via GPS. The next combine that is bought , which will probably need to be in 3 years time, will also have full automatic control via GPS. No need for operator input at all. It will steer itself, continually adjust threshing settings and ground speed as well as controlling the cutting height of the front. We'll probably see 60ft fronts by that stage. The operator will simply sit there and monitor what is happening. I can see the day when even that will occur remotely.

How things change. It's all moved so quickly. (My last combine, - we call them headers, - when I was contract harvesting, had a 22ft open front. 18ft was considered by most at that time as being the maximum that an operator could handle safely. That was less than 20 years ago!

I'm off to make some sawdust.

diggerop

[Nonny]

Out home had a walk out lower level that housed a 4-car garage, set up as 2 cars wide by 2 cars deep and separated by a 10' tall roll-up door. The 2+2 garage also formed one wall of my workshop. This garage arrangement was terrific on cold or hot days, since the inner garage was at house temperature despite whether the outer doors were open or closed. Ceiling height in the lower level basement was 12' and there was an exposed I-beam in the rear garage.

While not nearly as elaborate as your gantry crane, I got a Harbor Freight roller truck to mount on the lower section of the I-beam and used it to suspend a 1-ton chain hoist. I could drive my pickup in with a load, such as a 20" planer, and using the chain hoist lift it a few inches to clear the truck bed. Once lifted, I'd drive the truck out and lower the item onto a roller platform I built. . . rolling it right into my shop. With the kids gone and nobody to help, it was a really great thing to have around.

[Nonny]

snakes?