packing for the exodus!

[mobile_bob]

my old tech school teacher back in the early 70's had an oldsmobile 4 door that he drove to and from school
he had been hit by at least 6 or 7 different people, each time the insurance would appraise the damage and send him a check
he would go to the junkyard, buy whatever he needed and swapped out the parts.

that old car had 4 different colored doors, different colored front fenders, different hood, and deck/boot lid

it was so comical to look at, i ask him why not get it painted, he replied "paint don't make it run any better"

i think he told me he was ahead of the game about 10 grand!

that was about the price of 3  comparable new cars back then!

luckily he was never hurt in any of the accidents, so either he was lucky, had a guardian angel looking after him, or
a mid 60's oldsmobile was the safest car on the road at the time.

bob g

[mobile_bob]

so far i got

10k lbs loaded into the container

11k lbs palleted and waiting for the forklift tomorrow

another 7k lbs or so left to palletize in the garage

a 3500lb 55 chevy

approx 12k lbs of engines, grain press, generator heads, propane gensets, etc over at Marks shop

hmmm,,, i think i might be over weight!

crap!

bob g

[billswan]

well i guess it is time to rent a storage locker.............

or beg the use of friends and neighbors garage space for a couple of months.........

Billswan

[mobile_bob]

storage is not an option, once i leave for kansas i am only making one more trip back
that to pickup my service van and use it to drag back my toyota diesel pickup

the van is maxed out weight wise as it is, and the toyo has a cargo  capacity of a couple bags of groceries

bob g

[mobile_bob]

well  i am now about 75% packed

the 55 is going on a trailer, and the toyo diesel pickup is going in the can

the toyo is only 74 inches wide and i don't care if it gets skinned up

the container is 102 wide so i have a bonus of 38"x 16 feet of floor space available which i would not have with the 55 in there.

i am at the point where every square foot of space is golden

i had planned on having to tow the toyo anyway, so its just as easy to tow the 55, and who knows maybe someone will make me
an offer on old brutus while in transit!

you guys should see triple deck pallets with a thousand pound or more per deck, boxed in, banded and loaded, total size
42 x 48" x 7 feet high,  i know i have a couple that probably weigh 4klbs or more.

only had one mishap, the forklift dropped out of reverse at a bad moment and  toppled my rollaway tool chest, top box went over hard
and bent the crap out of the lid,, only took about 10 good swats with a 12 lb sledge to make it close again,, i guess it adds character to
a 32 year old box set.  all i can say is when 3klbs or more goes over, it makes a big boom.

i feel very sorry for the soul who wins the bid on the auction when they move me to either the old folks home or the grave.

he will get a very interesting collection of useful stuff, but will sure pay dearly moving it all.

maybe he ought to buy the home too, do a lock/stock and barrel sale.

it looks as though i will be leaving a large 3 phase mig, and an Ltec plasma cutter, both need a bit of work, (contactors, consumables)
i just don't have the space left to take them along.

if anyone here wants them, please let me know, i will give them to a good home, you gotta come pick them up though
and i will not ship,
if you want them quick and can get here next week end i will have the fork lift available again to load them.

one of the two units will run on single phase i know for sure, the other i am not sure.

they both have to be gone by the end of the month, if they are still here they are going to the recycler with is a sad end for useful equipment.

bob g

[LowGear]

Hi Bob G.

You could leave the diesel Toyota over at my house in Renton.  Of course I'd need to guard the title too.  There was one here in Kona last week that lasted for almost a full day on CL.  It had overheated and was an 87 4X4 Transvestite I believe.  It barely ran but pulled $2,000.  Obviously they hadn't welded the drive train bolts to the frame or much else.

If you decide to leave the Toyota in the box I think this is a far better decision than the 55.  Incidentally; if you were shipping that to Hawaii there would be a $1,000 sir charge for the vehicle inside your container (if they knew it was in there.)

Casey

[mobile_bob]

i am slowly coming to the conclusion that it might be best to not ship either of the vehicles in the container
this would allow me enough room to finish packing all my crap.

i have to go back to unload the can next month, so i could drive the toyo back then and fly back afterwards.

just hate driving with a passion the older i get, and the thought of having to make 3 such trips over the next 4 months is not something
i am at all crazy about.

i gotta say though it sure would make getting this can finished off a much easier prospect, and at this point i am weighing the drive
vs fighting to optimize space.

bob g

[AdeV]

I have to say this:

[mobile_bob]

who the hell has time for pics?

lmao

i will try and post some pics later today

bob g

[mobile_bob]

some pics toward the end of the container

1st pic, is a brown and sharp milling machine, it is a bit over 2 tons or cast iron, about 64 inches in width, length and height

2nd is the forklift i rented, actually one of a pair i rented because i had to have another to use at the same time at another location
to pick up stuff

3rd is a pair of telecom generac 24vdc propane fired generator sets, the lower cube is the propane tank.

4th is the final view, finally done! 
on the lower left is my southbend heavy 10 (10L) lathe, above is one of the generac 24 volt generator sets, barely visible under the lathe through the knee hole is an AG395 in the crate, to the lower right is a 4ton grain press, up top right side is the wifes ex400 honda quad, and in the middle is a near pristine 55 chevy hood,, and oh yes right above the grain press is a 3.5 hp petteroid

more pictures when i unload in kansas!, i will have more help and more time to take them, and hopefully less rain

bob g

[BioHazard]

Sneaky, you even got some old guy to stand in the pic so nobody suspects you're a robot! 

[rcavictim]

Sneaky, you even got some old guy to stand in the pic so nobody suspects you're a robot! 

LOL 

[bschwartz]

I think this is all your own fault!!!
You should have taken the name Stationary Bob........ 

[mobile_bob]

stationary_bob, hey i like that!

believe me, after this move i will be very stationary!

an update for those either interested or have nothing better to read about:

the container is now on its merry way to the land of Oz, kansas

not without much bullcrap and not without me having to learn again why i have no interest in shipping anything anywhere anytime
for anyone at anyprice!

the container was due to be picked up at noon friday, the driver arrived 15 minutes early, and that was as good as it got, from there it went
downhill in a hurry.

he went to back out off the hardpack gravel and all was well, until for some unknown reason he decided to take another run at it and pulled forward about 100 ft, right off into a swamp!  the front axle went down to where the changfa factory is located, or nearly so it seemed.

suffice it to say its been a very long time since i have seen a class 8 truck sunk down to the headlights in a mudhole!

2 plus hours and 250 bucks later a monster wrecker/tow truck managed to suck both the truck and chassis with my container out of the swamp, not without first having to drag the truck through 150 ft of swamp,  with him having to continue to sink oak timbers to provide some means of footing for the steer axle,,, but he managed to get it out, and on the street without damage to anything other than huge gapping holes down into the changfa factory (anyone needing changfa spares should let me know, i think i can see them tucked away neatly in their bins)

next we left for the scales to see if my load would be legal

first weight showed 5500 lbs light on the tractors tandems and 7800 lbs heavy on the chassis tandems, at this point the driver wanted to drop the trailer and go home, however i persuaded him to release the tandem slider and slide the tandems back, he did and across the scales we go again. this time 3500 overweight, so slide it all the way back like i originally suggested and we get a final weight that is 1960 lbs overweight on the rear tandems,,, shit!

thinking ahead while watching the swamp saga, i called one of my customers who happens to have a huge hard pack gravel lot where they park their semi's and trailers, and made arrangements should i need to have an alternate place to park this bitch to rearrange the loading.

glad i did, because that is where i had to twist the drivers arm into taking it, he wanted to go home and figured he would just drive around the dot scale to avoid being weighed,

i explained to him that it was ok with me if he bypassed the scale but what about the poor bastard in kansas that has to pass three scales to get the thing delivered on the other end?

anyway we get it parked and him on his way to a better life sans my container

i called the rental yard and arranged for the rental of another forklift for saturday, went out and removed the 4 ton grain press which was sitting at the back doors over the rear tandems that cut 1150lbs of the 1960 needed

moved my wifes honda ex400 quad from the rear upper shelf via two 16ft long 2x4's to the front of the trailer, this i figure split its weight between the front and rear tandems, clipping another 200 lbs where i needed it

i removed on of 3 generac 24volt genset which cut easily another 300 lbs

moved some boxed goods forward clipping another 100 or so lbs

two large steel saw horses that easily moved another 100 lbs

then i removed all the tooling, chucks, milling attachments, t slot tables, tail stock and my seat grinder equipment that was stowed in the bottom of my southbend 10L lathe which was behind the rear tandems that clipped another 150 plus lbs

moved the AG 395, 90 degrees and forward a couple feet, that might have shaved 50 lbs or so off the rear tandems

removed the minipetter which trimmed 300 lbs of motor/spares/crate

and a few other minor tweaks should have trimmed the rear axle/tandems weight when they are slid to the rear to get the weight down to under 34k lbs, the magic number.

all told, i found out that my can full of crap's net weight of the crap alone is just a bit over 38k lbs, that is a lot of iron!

the grain press went on my isuzu npr, along with the minipetter and the lathe tooling, some of this stuff will likely find another path to kansas
on one of my other vehicles, not sure yet but it will all get their by the time i am done.

the upside is i was able to save the brown and sharp horizontal milling machine, which i guess is pretty cool after all.  taking it off would have solved the problem right now, but created another as i had no place to go with it and couldn't simply leave it in my customers parking lot.

i really couldn't see taking it off, only to have to spend another 250 bucks later to come back with another rented forklift to retrieve it only to take it in for scrap should a new home not be found for it.

i was never so happy to finally see that container rolling effortlessly down the highway...

later this afternoon i picked up about 4000 watts of solar panels and loaded them in the isuzu, which creates another problem, the eat up valuable space that is pledged to my wife's household goods, so i can see another problem a brewing , oh boy!

by sunday i have high hopes of having the 55 chevy moved to my oldest daughter my soninoutlaws house (i have no idea when they
are getting married, 10 years together so something must be working), and have us all packed into the npr's box, and the bare necessities of
life moved about a half mile away to an apartment (short term lease till my daughter graduates in june), then by this time next week
if all the stars align i will be putting away down the highway in my '83 toyo diesel pickup working my way back to kansas ( 1850 miles)

then if all goes well, the container should be there waiting for me to rent another forklift and unload the damn thing into a 40 footer i have purchased and had set on the property, the things that can safely sit outside such as the remaining two generac gensets will find a new home under the blue skies of kansas, and what can't fit in the container will find a temporary home in the garage of the house.

then i can fly back, and have maybe 3 months to recoup, before the next road trip

it would have been so much easier to have just called an auctioneer and given him the keys and an address to mail the check to when he was done.

at this point, would i do it all over again?  oh hell no!

truth?

ok probably...

"high my name is bob, and i am a hoarder"

bob g

[Lloyd]

Professor, and I think at least I can call you that.

What a hella of a story.

I'm not sure where you got your constitution...but I think we need to get together, and develop a recipe. Then teach that in grades K-12...then we'll send em to the RCA School of further education.

Then let the world come knocking.

Really I want to, sit and at least have a cup of coffee with you, before your final exodus to the land of OZ.

Sincerely,

your student