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Heavy Metal Bargoon

Ironman said:
But your comment on the shop chaos I like, because I am the same way. I keep trying to do better but as long as I can see the floor all is good.
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I sure called that one wrong eh! LOL! Thanks for not ripping me a new one. Glad to know you are another brother.
 
DPittman said:
My new shop is about double the size of the old one but I can see it resembling the old one before long. Yup I think it's a genetic thing.
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Mine increased 8 fold in size. But in my defence I had to cram tractors and farm impliments into it too.

I believe it's definitely Genetic but it's one of those switch genes that are like flipping a coin.
 
PeterT said:
One day when they get into deeper into genetic mapping the will find the 'messy' chromosome. Or maybe the lack of 'neat & tidy' chromosome. I've changed my ways over the years to what could be called OCD level. But at some point I came to the realization the time I spent looking for something was becoming disproportionate to time actually making things.
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Exactly. As the years have gone by and more stuff is accumulated (and memory declines), good organization becomes more and more important. 3D printing helps lol......

I like to leave the shop with nothing on a bench and nothing on a machine tool table. That goes out the window in the midst of a project, but its always the goal. Now I'm talking myself into going out and cleaning





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PeterT said:
Or maybe the lack of 'neat & tidy' chromosome. I've changed my ways over the years to what could be called OCD level. But at some point I came to the realization the time I spent looking for something was becoming disproportionate to time actually making things.
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You know, I think we have been forgetting about two other segments of this behaviour. We have discussed neat and tidy behaviours as well as organized chaos. But we have not talked about two subgroups. Those who are inherently messy and wish they could be better organized, and those who are inherently well organized but wish they didn't care. Perhaps you are one of the first group of those two.

I think it's a mistake to believe any one is better than the other though. It might be better for each of us but it's not better to think that someone else should be more like ourselves or whatever we view as the most desirable behaviour.

With the exception of my phone and my glasses, I am actually very good at finding things in my organized chaos. I've solved the lost phone problem by installing Google Home in the shop. All I have to do now is ask google to find my phone and it rings wherever it is. My glasses are becoming less of a problem with time because I hardly ever take them off anymore. Other stuff in my shop is not really a problem. I am a spacially centric individual. I don't get lost in the forest, I always know where I am and where most things are. To be honest, things are usually harder to find for me if I put them away out of sight. I'd go crazy if everything had a strict place and was always in it.

I do confess that this isn't true for everything. Certain things do have a required designated spot - things like cutting oil, way oil, chuck wrenches and other machine tools, the broom & dust pan, the magnifier, etc all have a place and are always in it. On the other hand my calipers, tape measures, sockets, ratchet wrenches, etc could be anyplace. As I write this though, my calipers are in the break room sitting on the open copy of Machinery's Handbook marking the page on gear teeth calculations. One of my tape measures is on the rotary table on top of my mill tool cabinet, one is over on the deck of my band saw, one is on the backseat floor of my truck, and another is in the top right drawer of my tool chest. I have some metric sockets on the floor beside the zero turn Mower along with a 3/8 drive ratchet and a pair of needle nose pliers. There are some bigger imperial sockets and a half inch ratchet on the table behind my mill drill still waiting for me to finish bolting my sprayer boom back up after I find (or make) the fittings to splice in a remote pressure gauge. There are also a few small metric sockets on top of my lathe tool chest mixed in with some allen keys that I put there when I was fiddling around with how to make a better oil fitting for the autofeed sector gear and two more in the chip pan that I've been using to find a better way to use my smile wrench on my compound too. In fact, I can visualize almost everything in my shop right now from one end to the other without even going out there.

I was at a junk yard the other day. The owner was amazing. He knew exactly where everything was. To my eyes the place was a total junk yard. To his eyes, it was extremely well organized chaos. I needed some pulverizor wheel shaft bearings. We went to a back shed (one if 30 sheds on the yard), he moved some equipment, and there they were under some boxes in a corner piled high with other stuff and covered in dust. They looked like they had been there for 30 years.

I recall an emissions chemistry specialist whose office looked like an abandoned storeroom. Piles of paper 3 ft high that you had to step around to get from the door to his desk chair. But he knew exactly where each report or research paper was. He was better than google by a wide margin. I would never have wanted to change that man or his habits. He was brilliant and amazing just the way he was.

I am the proud owner of a machine shop that makes my bride want to puke. She can't stand my messes and all my works in progress. So she doesn't go out there except on rare occasions. I like that.

Conversely her house looks like something out of a cottage life magazine. Everything spotless and in its place. She gets an anxiety attack when I leave a coffee cup on an end table. The devil in me often leaves things laying around intentionally just to distract her from complaining about something else and sometimes just to make her happy! That sounds odd but it's true. If there isn't something obvious to tidy up, she goes crazy looking for something. In a very real sense, putting my cup away satisfies that inner need in her and then she is at peace. Yes, she complains about the cup, but a minute later she is crawling into my lap and purring like a kitten. Without the cup to put away she is like a caged tiger looking for something to kill.

Sometimes I think the only reason she stays with me is that she can't stand the idea of an unfinished project. She has been working on me for over half a century and she keeps trying to fix me. I'll never understand what her goals really are or why she keeps trying.

All just different strokes for different folks. It's all good!
 
Susquatch said:
Sometimes I think the only reason she stays with me is that she can't stand the idea of an unfinished project.
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:D

I think there are 'very special skills' that chaos people have (thanks , Liam Neeson). I often in the middle of a job make the tool completely disappear. In an organized shop - to wit: John N and I were talking in the middle of his shop, in a fairly barren area, away from every thing else. I was scraping off decals from a tool box that he bought for nearly nothing. I put down the scraper. 5 years later it is still missing....

For many common tools I have to have duplicates. That just adds to the organization burden.
 
Today we began the 'parking' of the press close to the storage shelves, piick up front ne, drag over, down, back end up, side, down... Then a couple of phone calls and necessities, and done for the day. We will try to get it positioned tomorrow so the cranes can be put away. As measured by my crane scale the beast is 2280 lbs.

Then to weigh the fly press, put away the engine hoists, and then rearrange the shop to make the new additions usable and accessible. Then to shoot the videos for Janger and all.
 
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