There missing?

[jeep]

did we lose Larry & Rob somewhere? Jeep

[Rich Waugh]

Wondering about that myself. I know Larry travels some for his work,and Rob plays a lot of golf, so that may account for their absence.

Rich

[GuglioLS]

I'm still here staying on top of and enjoying all the posts.

No real new projects to report, Although I am slowly working on a new dozer add-on project. Grew a garden this year actually grew some decent corn at high desert elevation plus pumpkins, and other assorted veggies.

Rich nailed it, I travel quite a bit - this year has been absolutely nuts with a new product introduction. It's selling around the globe like hot cakes. I took a new position at work and are supporting this product. Next scheduled trip.... Anchorage Alaska. The week ends are just about the only time I have "to my self" and most of that time was used to cut, split and stack fire wood for this season. The "remaining" time I somehow fit in home maintenance / repair, honey do's and getting ready for the next trip. Being super productive at work with no end in sight sure beats the alternative and the rewards are nothing to sneeze at either.

This is the new product I'm working on...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTlAHyOsNXE
It's so advanced the US dept of Commerce has controlled it's export to certain countries.

Rob as usual is probably super busy himself. Have you ever seen Iron Man (1 and 2)? Rob IS Iron Man - he never sleeps and is always deeply involved with some high level super duper project.

Larry

[jeep]

glad your ok congrat on the new job just mist your input on here Jeep

[Rich Waugh]

That's a pretty snazzy looking machine, Larry. I was all impressed by the FTIR-2000 when we got it a long time ago at the cop shop, but this thing is generations ahead of that. I can see why they're selling like hotcakes.

Sadly, the cop shop never did put the FTIR-2000 to proper use and and left its lines open and just sitting for a few years and then a few years later disposed of it - what a waste! Governments can be totally stupid.

Rich

[bradblazer]

Larry,
Glad to hear you're doing well. That is a cool technology.

[3RRL]

Hello fellow CTW members,
Thank you for thinking of Larry and myself. I apologize for not being as active as I was before. Indeed I am busy everyday with the dang maintenance are our small ranch. Geez, I thought I would be getting a break and be able to do more tractor projects and things but ... WRONG!

I do play golf but on Friday afternoons only.
I don't ever practice for the same reason I don't post as much. There is one project I will be doing, and that is to build a garden shed for Loretta's stuff. Believe it or not, my 2000sq ft barn is filled to the brim already! I've got it squared away pretty good though. There is the tractor and car maintenance area, then my metal working shop, and now a wood working area for Loretta. There is also a central "stock shelf" near the bathroom where we keep all our fasteners, screws, nails pipe stuff etc. Then there is the other bay door where I park all the gardening equipment and tools (and my fork lift and golf cart). So the whole barn is being used.

The Garden shed will allow (should allow...lol) storage for all the gardening stuff in the barn. It will be 12'x20" with a roll up door on one end and a man door on the other. Our plan is to be able to have all the shovels and rakes, spray trailer, chain saw cart and everything pertaining to "gardening and lawn & tree care" stored in it. It will have a small area for Loretta to do her plant potting. There will be an inside and outside shelf more like a built in bench table and a sink. I can tell you right now it probably won't be big enough ... lol ;D. I didn't want to bore you guys with posting the whole construction like I did for the log home. But I will take a few snapshots of some of the progress.

The other thing that just came up is that I bought some of Scott's equipment.
Yes, that is Scott our leader here. Among other implements in the deal, his LW-8 backhoe is quite a bit larger than my Nardi 220 backhoe. Stretched out, I measured where the stabilizer feet touched the ground. The LW-8 feet touch the ground about 5-½ feet farther back with the bucket in the same place as the Nardi bucket was. That means A LOT less re-positioning the tractor while digging ditches. It has larger cylinders too. In comparison though, the Nardi hoe is very well engineered with several attributes that the LW-8 hoe does not have. I looked up some pricing and found out it retails for just about double that of the LW-8.

I will then sell the Nardi hoe along with several other implements.
Now I have 2 backhoes, 2 post hole diggers, 2 hydraulic 1 ton trailers, 2 landscape rakes (5 and 6 footers) and 2 bitchen heavy duty tillers. One is a 4 footer and the other is a 6 footer. If anyone is interested, I will sell the duplicates for a super deluxe package deal or separate.

Anyway, my plan is to make lots of improvements to the LW-8, and to make a sub-frame for it.
Being able to make a direct comparison with the Nardi, some of the improvements will be to make the controls truly able to move in all directions simultaneously (like some of have already done). Then I want to make the boom able to raise up more vertical than now and also have the hoe swing 180° instead of the 140° it is now. These are simple but rewarding improvements. Other improvements such as being able to hook the hoe boom up and keep it there during transportation and little things like that. But the big thing is a really good sub-frame the things I wrote above. I'll take photos of that project, because I know some of you guys have that kind of hoe and maybe there will be some useful information there?

Looking forward to boring you guys once again ;D
Rob-

[Rich Waugh]

Hey, it's good to finally hear from you, Rob! As I suspected, you were playing golf. Okay, so you were doing other stuff too, but it is much easier and more socially acceptable to blame your absence on golf. If you carried a 27 handicap I might cut you some slack, but scratch golfers don't get a break in my book. In another post I said I figured that you ere off golfing and Larry was too busy working, so you can see how that low handicap works against you. ;D

Your tale about the new ranch causing you all those maintenance chores really hits home with me. I need to get our land cleared and build a house, but it sounds as though I'll be opening the door to a whole host of work I don't enjoy. Maybe I'll look into an assisted-living facility instead.

I'm glad to hear that you're staying busy and also that you're planning to build Loretta a space of her own. Every woman needs that - well, every man needs his woman to have that so he can hold it over her head...maybe I'll build the house after all. Sally does mention from time to time that my shop is just eight times the square footage of our rented cottage. (And the rent is the same.)

I only raised this whole issue of you and Larry being absent because I was feeling deprived of new project reports. I'm looking forward to the reports of the new gardening warehouse and the backhoe rehabilitation. Knowing you, those little tasks won't take too long, so you'd better start thinking about what comes after those. You don't want me to start jonesing again, do you?

Rich