[AT] Shop thoughts (was)Air Lines

[Indiana Robinson]

	This thread has taken an interesting turn... All of a sudden it all seems to be about 
huge commercial or near commercial shops and what is needed in them. When I posted that I 
had not found any problems using common air hose to get air around the shop I was not 
thinking that nobody should use anything else or that no one should plan or dream for 
their ultimate dream shop. Rather I was thinking that here is a list of several hundred 
guys (and maybe a few gals) that have an interest in old tractors and in some cases have 
very limited shop facilities and limited funds. Sometimes I tend to forget in my own 
tight cash situation just how much money some of you guys have to throw at the hobby and 
how casually you spend hundreds of dollars on extra toys. The dozen email list I own are 
all oriented toward "the little guy" and the frugal. My mind just works that way all of 
the time. When I try to say something hopefully helpful it will almost always be based on 
spending the least amount of money to accomplish the goal at hand in a satisfactory 
manner. When I discuss shop things I am really talking to the probably 80% of the members 
of this list who have the more limited shops to work in.
	There is a reason that Tim Allen's character Tim Taylor become so well known. It is a 
"guy" thing with an awful lot of guys. "More is always better", "bigger is always 
better", "more power is always better" and so on. That thought process is fine if they 
can afford it but the problem of sorts comes when that thought process is espoused or 
assumed to be for everybody.
	I tend to be an oddball...   :-)   I love to see guys shops of all sizes. I am not all 
that impressed by the big huge shops that have just had $$$ tossed at them. One shop that 
should impress anybody is George Willer's. It is disgustingly well organized and complete 
but he hasn't just tossed money at it.  Larry Goss is another with an organized shop. I 
would about kill to be organized... The "Dotson Gang" do not keep "flashy" shops but they 
do some of the finest work I have seen. I get impressed when I see good work coming out 
of a very simple shop or a very crude building. One of my ongoing fears is of us turning 
even one new antique tractor guy off on the hobby because we convey a tone of "if you 
don't have "x" or "y" to work with then you have no business in our hobby.
	Some of you know that I spent 20 years as a shoemaker / cobbler / cordwainer / shoe 
service technician (you pick a name). There was a fellow named Roy Sutton who became the 
one true giant in that industry who bought out almost everybody else in the shoe repair 
machinery industry. Roy started out in the depression working on the sidewalk. His tool 
kit consisted of an old claw hammer, a couple of knives "borrowed" from his mother's 
kitchen, an ice pick and some pieces of broken glass which he used to scrape finish the 
sole edges. He bought a large box of used shoes and had to scramble to borrow $5 to pay 
for them when they arrived COD. He carefully repaired all of them and began selling them. 
>From that start he became the giant. That impresses me.
	There are likely a few on this list that would be embarrassed to have to work out of my 
shop but it has served me well for a long time. Its biggest failing is my lack of time 
and organized work habits. Too often I roll up to the shop with a tractor and implement 
and make some rushed repair and head back to the field leaving tools and scraps in a pile 
to be put away later, after all the rain is coming quickly. That and a lack of space to 
put all of the "stuff" that shouldn't be in there in the first place.   ;-)  
	I guess I have only a passing interest in hearing from guys that are doing 
"professional" restorations or the guys with the big huge complete shops doing big 
things. I prefer hearing from guys that are solving problems the best they can with 
things the average list member has at hand to work with. The younger guys with a table, a 
vice and a small box of tools are the future of this hobby (I hope)...

-- 
"farmer", Esquire
At Hewick Midwest
      Wealth beyond belief, just no money...

Paternal Robinson's here by way of Norway (Clan Gunn), Scottish Highlands,
Cleasby Yorkshire England, Virginia, Kentucky then Indiana. In America 100 
years 
before the revolution.


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson at svs.net