Moving Tools

[Larry Klaaren]

Hi all,

After fifteen months of studying and working through red tape, I finally restored my veterinary license this month. I had accidentally allowed it to expire when my forwarding address expired and the renewal on my three year licenses in Iowa and Minnesota weren't forwarded to me. (I was working in another profession at the time, and just didn't notice it.) Unfortunately for me, the licensing criteria changed in the meantime and I needed an exam called the Clinical Competency Exam, which did not exist when I graduated. The Indiana Board made me take the National Licensing Exam, which I passed (28 years after graduation), as well as a state jurisprudence exam.

So . . . I applied for an Illinois license also, and I've accepted a position in Plainfield, Illinois, and we are moving up there, or to the Frankfort area, as soon as we can find housing. My wife is up there looking, and I am packing.

Here's my question: anything I need to know about moving my tools? Most of my tools are bench tools, and I guess we'll pad them and get them into boxes if we can find some large enough.

What about hand tools, like wrenches, hammers, and chisels? I broke them into two tool boxes, one for each vehicle, and the rest are in a rolling cabinet. I wrapped up the router bits, drill bits, and things like that.

As far as routers and circular saws, etc. I have the original boxes for some and I wrapped them all and put them into the cabinets for moving.

I don't know if we are going to get movers. Depends how deep the housing gets into our funds.

Thanks in advance,
Larry

[tod evans]

larry, sounds like you`ve got the tools under control. congratulations on passing the exams! moving the tools yourself is much wiser than hiring it out if you can do it...02 tod

[Kyle Kraft]

The only person I trust to move heavy machinery is myself, or maybe my millwright buddies.

Kyle in K'zoo

[Dan McGuire]

Larry,

Let me be the first SMC member to welcome you to Plainfield, IL. A great, growing community, been living here for the past 4 years.

In terms of moving tools, I have moved my tools over four states and never really had a problem. All hand tools were wrapped in newsprint, boxed and overpacked with newsprint. In my last move, I took my table saw, broke it down and packed it myself so I was sure that the rails and wings would not be damaged.

In fact, I am getting ready to move my tools again. Fortunately, it will only be from current house to the one being built about a 3/4 mile down the road.

PM me if you need any information on the community.

Dan

[Mark Pruitt]

Larry,
I moved a little over two years ago. In packing my tools, I decided upon two guidelines and stuck with them: Bubble-wrap everything extremely well, and don't use boxes that are big (i.e. over 4500 cubic inches or so). Everything arrived completely undamaged. I have a couple of plastic cabinets with small drawers to hold screws, nuts, washers, etc. I took the time to pack the content of each drawer in a ziplock bag. I have a couple of bowl gouges and a long auger for boring spindles on the lathe, which I used mailing tubes to package. I bubble wrapped them as well. As for machines, the smaller ones--miter saw, disc sander, grinder etc--I packed in boxes. The larger machines were moved w/o any packing, after the mover (I used Allied) assured me that they could pack them into the truck in such a way as not to cause damage. The whole process was very, very tedious for me--probably not what you want to hear someone saying, but I'm just being honest. All I can say is, thank God it all got her safely and thank God it's now all unpacked. (which means I now have to find other excuses for my shop looking like a war zone....:eek: )

Also, if you have a dust collection system, get the mover to supply you with some used wardrobe boxes. Sometimes clients will return these boxes for others to use, and the company will give them away, whereas they would charge an arm and a leg for new ones. These big boxes are excellent for packing large segments of DC hose, so you don't have to break down the entire system!

I hope you can take your time and pack everything in a way that gives you peace of mind. Also hope you enjoy your new job and location!

[Jesse Cloud]

Sounds like you have it under control. Only additional advice I would offer (and you are probably way ahead of me) is to think through which tools you will need first and be sure they are easy to get to. Also, clearly label the boxes and don't combine a lot of different stuff in each box. I didn't do a good job of that and when I last moved I spent a long time looking for screw drivers, pliers, hammers, etc that I needed to hang pictures with, etc.
Get some wine cartons from your liquor store. For hand tools like planes, gouges, etc. I wrapped them in newsprint and then stuck them in the partitions. Worked fine - if only I had labelled the individual pieces :p

[Charlie Plesums]

One thing I saw in another post... don't label the boxes too well. If you have a box labeled "Lie Nelson planes," that box may be missing, or may "accidentally" be broken and a plane missing. Labels like "Shop second shelf" should help you without tempting a mover.

Although you may do a better job packing, it does reduce the moving company liability... if it is broken, it must have been inadequately packed; if something is missing, you forgot to put it in the box. Catch 22 anyone?

[Larry Klaaren]

Good stuff, I was hoping someone would say "Don't individually wrap them." Maybe not.

I put all the tools I think I will need to set things up in the toolboxes. I also put red duck tape on the boxes that we should open first. I did know enough not to label them too precisely.

We've always had movers before, but this is not a company move.

Now if we can find a place to live . . . we'll get the moving in high gear.

Larry

[Don Baer]

Larry,
I am in the middle of a move right now and am moving all of my shop myself. The move is about 400 miles. I already moved my TS and CMS as well as some hand tools and am fortunate in that my son has a house in the area already so I am storing my shop in his garage until my house is built. I just put the hand tools in boxes and move em. The TS (a jet contractor saw) I removed the fence and motor and just put it in the back of my truck. along with the jointer and CMS. I strapped enerything down and tarped it and had no problems. I'll be moving the bandsaw and Lathe the last minute but will do the same with them. The rest of my hand tolls will be boxed and transported along with the BS and Lathe the way I did the TS etc.

[tod evans]

Good stuff, I was hoping someone would say "Don't individually wrap them." Maybe not.

I put all the tools I think I will need to set things up in the toolboxes. I also put red duck tape on the boxes that we should open first. I did know enough not to label them too precisely.

We've always had movers before, but this is not a company move.

Now if we can find a place to live . . . we'll get the moving in high gear.

Larry

larry, since you`re footing the bill for the move it`s a good/great time to look into a new flatbed trailer. when i bought mine i was able to get a 20ft with 12k capacity electric breaks ect. for around 2500. never regretted buying it for a moment! .02 tod

[Larry Klaaren]

larry, since you`re footing the bill for the move it`s a good/great time to look into a new flatbed trailer. when i bought mine i was able to get a 20ft with 12k capacity electric breaks ect. for around 2500. never regretted buying it for a moment! .02 tod

Tod,

That's a great idea. Now if I can think of a way to explain to my wife what else we can do with that, and why it's better to load it ourselves, I will be set. We are already set up for electric brakes. The only other thing we could do with it that I know of is haul around our camping trailer. Don't think that would make sense to her. There may be a problem with parking it if we end up in the city, but those things can all be worked out.

Obviously the advantage would be that it would take the urgency and hurry out of the move.

Larry

[tod evans]

larry, hauling lumber and the occasional piece of ol`arn pops into my mind right away:) . tod

[Joe Scarfo]

Larry,

I recently completed a move from Tampa up to Green Bay.

To move the bulk of my household, I contact ABF trucking. Rented a 28' tractor trailer really cheap... It was up to me to pack my items as well as load the truck, the move was amazingly cheap.

For my heavy tools (2 x Uni's, Band Saw, Roll around tool chests, combo sanders, etc... I rented a 12' uhaul to pull behind my truck. It was fantastic... You can rent blankets (I rented about 35 or so) to wrap the furniture and tools in.....

If I pay for my own move again, it'll be how it was done.....

The trailer was about 2500 or so, the uhaul was less than 250.

Uhaul was a shock.. the amount of the rental was determined by the zip code from which the trailer was picked up. Two towns that shared a border had a price difference of almost $100 for the same 12' trailer. I was shocked....

standard moving companies wanted almost $12000 to move my stuff and store for up to 6 months. I did the move for less than $4000 and only pay 75 a month for the 12 x 30 storage / rental space...

Good luck with the new job and the move... and shop around, you can get it done cheap w/ a little sweat equity....

Joe

[Larry Klaaren]

larry, hauling lumber and the occasional piece of ol`arn pops into my mind right away:) . tod

Tod,

Do you loosen up ol 'arn with motor orl?

This comes from a southern Iowa boy. That's where pool and school are two syllable words. Poo-al, and schoo-al.

Larry

[Vaughn McMillan]

Congrats on getting the license renewal thing sorted out, Larry. If you do go the flatbed trailer route that Tod has suggested, and don't have the place to keep it after the move, you could always sell it once you get there and recoup some of your expenses.

However, the thought of seeing a camping trailer being towed on a flatbed trailer does paint a pretty funny picture...especially if you have a little Mini Cooper or VW Bug attached to the front of the camper, also on the flatbed. :)

- Vaughn

[Mark Ebert]

Wow, yet another Woodworker in Plainfield! At this rate, we'll have to start a WW club or at least start holding some get togethers. Once you're settled down in your new home, post a message and I can give you some ideas on where to buy hardwoods in the area.

Mark

[Larry Klaaren]

I was thinking about that. When I was in Rochelle, I used to go to Sycamore Hardwood, which I think was actually in DeKalb on Oak Street, rather than in Sycamore. How far is that from Plainfield?

Larry

[Mark Ebert]

I was thinking about that. When I was in Rochelle, I used to go to Sycamore Hardwood, which I think was actually in DeKalb on Oak Street, rather than in Sycamore. How far is that from Plainfield?

Larry

Are you referring to The Hardwood Connection? I'm guessing that its a 35-40 mile drive, up Rt. 59 to I-88 then West. However, there is a place in Morris on Rt. 47 (about a 30 minute drive West of here) called The Woodworkers Shop that has decent prices and a decent selection of Domestic hardwoods and plywood veneers. There is also a sawmill in the town of Yorkville, about 12 miles away, that usually carries Red Oak, Cherry and sometimes Maple. The quality is kind of mixed there however...

-Mark

[Larry Klaaren]

Are you referring to The Hardwood Connection? I'm guessing that its a 35-40 mile drive, up Rt. 59 to I-88 then West. However, there is a place in Morris on Rt. 47 (about a 30 minute drive West of here) called The Woodworkers Shop that has decent prices and a decent selection of Domestic hardwoods and plywood veneers. There is also a sawmill in the town of Yorkville, about 12 miles away, that usually carries Red Oak, Cherry and sometimes Maple. The quality is kind of mixed there however...

-Mark

I think it probably was. I'm thinking the store started out in Sycamore and we just called it the Sycamore Hardwood store.

We thought about a place in Yorkville. We need to get that worked out before I do much else. So it is really only twelve miles, that's good to hear. Do they still have that wrestling coach named Hastert? Dennis if I remember right. He's probably moved on to something else.:D :rolleyes:

Larry

[Daniel Heine]

Larry,

My father, and my sister both have homes in Frankfort, IL. It is a very nice town. Let me know if you decide to move there, my father is a retired widower, and I'm sure would love to show you around.

Good Luck,
Dan