[AT] Farmer's Road Trip

[Indiana Robinson]

On 1 Feb 2006 at 13:31, rasmith4 at juno.com wrote:

> 
> Farmer
> 
> Did you make the road trip to Sturbridge?  How did it go?
> 
> Which route did you take?
> 
> Richard
> In Central NY



	Yes, we made it Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. It 
was supposed to be just be three days but it took longer 
than we expected. I am sure I passed close by a number of 
list members and would have given my eye teeth to have made 
a batch of stops but it was just not to be. We plan to make 
another trip to that area before too long and I hope we can 
do some visiting then.
	This trip came about as an escape trip... Dealing with two 
failing mothers is really dragging us down and we just got 
to the point that we said that we had to break loose or go 
nuts.   :-)   Our lives have become one big string of 
doctors, hospitals, waiting rooms (and not one damn decent 
magazine in any of them) and problems... Insurance 
companies, lawyers etc...
	The trip went well and neither cell phone rang even 
once...   :-)   We did make a couple of calls home.
	We were trying to figure out a break and I happened to 
spot what looked like a very good Shopsmith woodworking 
unit on ebay that for some reason was selling well under 
value. Some guys hate Shopsmiths and some guys love them. I 
happen to love them for my particular purpose. I am on an 
email list with almost 4,000 members that feel the same 
way.   :-)   Anywho, when I saw that one I said here is an 
excuse...  I fully expected it to sell for about $500 to 
$850 (out of my buying range) but I bought it for $203 (I 
am extremely pleased with it). I said OK, if we call the 
trip vacation and pick it up the shipping is free...   :-)  
 Or we can call it a business trip and say that the saved 
shipping paid part of the vacation trip.   :-)
	I am clearing out part of my shop and setting up a 
production wood shop. As I retire farther I plan to spend 
more and more time in the shop doing what I like. This 
Shopsmith is number 6. I really love the way they can be 
used in speciality set-ups and by using all Shopsmiths I 
can shuffle attachments and set-ups all over the place 
since 5 are all the same model and everything will 
interchange totally. The only one that is a bit different 
is one I bought new in 1988 and it is newer than the 
others. Almost everything will still interchange with it 
too but a few things are different.
	Here is a pasted part of a post to the Shopsmith Users 
Group (SSUG) about my planning:
########################################
      I want to spend much of my time from this point on in 
my woodshop but I want and need ($$$) to do production 
work. 
While I don't find the SS set ups at all difficult, I do 
want to be able to do setups and leave them intact at 
times. I could of course go out and buy a couple of extra 
table saws or an extra drill press or what-ever and 
probably do it for less money than buying all of these SS's 
but then what? "MAYBE" I could use some attachments on more 
than one saw or more than one drill press. By setting up a 
roomful of SS's (I have the room) I can switch accessories 
all over the place and if I make a particular set-up on one 
SS I can make any other set-upon about any of the others. 
It is not like it might be if I make a set-up on my main 
table saw then I have to tear it down because I really need 
that saw for something else before I am done with the first 
set-up. Even though a few things are specific to the one 
model 510 I have, "everything" will interchange between the 
rest of them... everything. The model 510 will be the one 
that gets changed the most and will not normally be used 
for long term set-ups.
      The main table saw will always just be a saw... Heavy 
ripping will be done on the 5 HP Foley Bellsaw 
Planer/molder/ripper. The long bed jointer will probably 
never be touched as far as settings, it will just joint 
boards.
      After a lot of looking and thinking I just couldn't 
come up with a more flexible way to have the productive 
shop I want than a small herd of Shopsmiths.
      Different strokes for different folks of course and 
your milage may vary...   :-)
#####################################

	The trip route was east from here on I-70 to Columbus OH. 
then up I-71 toward Cleveland and then up along Lake 
Ontario to Buffalo NY. where we spent the night. I had 
planned to stop there but had not told Diana. Saturday 
morning we spent about 4 hours checking out Niagara Falls. 
It was nice and peaceful being the off season. We fired 
across upper NY on I-90 to Spring field MA stopping only 
for gas, food and restrooms.   :-)   We picked up the 
Shopsmith at the guys house shortly after dark at Monson 
MA. and went back to Springfield to eat and find a motel. I 
really wanted to run on over to the coast and see Plymouth 
where a number of my ancestors landed both on the Mayflower 
and later trips. I finally decide that we just didn't have 
time and we dropped down from Springfield MA to Hartford CT 
then cut out east to avoid NY City then down to I-80 which 
we drove across PA then spent the night at Youngstown OH. 
We hit I-71 again down to Columbus and I-70 back to Central 
Indiana.
	The trip included a lot of long stretches where the mile 
coming up looked just like the last 50 miles so there was 
plenty of time to talk and think about things. No phones 
ringing, nobody pulling in the driveway... It gave us a lot 
of time to consider priorities and try planning as best we 
can for the next few years. Also time to consider a few 
hard decisions... 
	There is one nice thing about a Shopsmith that a lot of 
guys never consider. Most guys expect to have to haul one 
in a truck or at least a van and tie it down. All it takes 
is one long allen wrench, a 9/16" wrench and my soft faced 
dead-blow hammer and I can have one apart and in my trunk 
in 5 minutes.   :-)   They go back together just as fast. 
	We had planned to drive "The White Knight" (Diana's 90 
Lincoln Town Car) but it has developed a running problem 
and I didn't have time to get it in proper condition for 
the trip and feel sure about it. We ended up driving "Black 
Beauty" which is my old 85 Lincoln Town Car. It only has 
about 80,000 miles on it and is in excellent mechanical 
shape but is throttle body fuel injected and does not get 
near the gas milage as the later multi-port injected 
engine. The multi-port routinely gets around 25 MPG or 
better out on the road. The one we drove didn't do just 
awful but the best we did was about 19 MPG. We drove on all 
clear roads and except for a few light rains coming home it 
was all dry. Beautiful weather. Road trips and buffet 
restaurants do not go well together... The scales were 
angry with both of us when we got home.   ;-)
	We have planned to make several trips over the next couple 
of years and one will be back to that area just for site-
seeing especially around the Boston / Cape Cod area. We 
both have ancestors buried in York and Lancaster Counties 
of PA and I have a flock of them in VA that date back to 
the the mid 1600's.

	BTW, I only recall seeing one antique tractor sitting out 
by the road (about all interstate) for sale. It was a 
Farmall, maybe a regular or F-20 ??? sitting on a blue 
trailer, I think in PA. The next time we will drive more 
side roads.


--
"farmer"

I try to take one day at a time but sometimes several days attack
me at once.   :-) 


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net