Dan Barber
03-28-2004, 10:13 AM
Hi everyone,
I've not been posting too much lately and have to confess I've been visiting another forum regularly - one on compact utility tractors - not woodworking.
We moved to our present house in September of last year and I soon discovered that during heavy rains that water entered the 30' x 40' shop building where we were intending to put all the woodworking gear. Not a good thing for cast iron:). The floor of the building is actually slightly below the surrounding grade. I knew that some major dirt moving was in my future. The lawn also needs a lot of regrading work and we want to put a connecting drive from the house to the shop.
I looked into rental of equipment or hiring the work done and before my investigation was complete I had decided that a small tractor and implements might allow me to do the work myself as well as provide the means to maintain the three acres we live on in the years to come.
After an exhaustive search for decent used equipment at an affordable price and research into new small tractors, it became apparent that a new tractor represented the best value. With my somewhat unpredictable schedule, the last thing I wanted to do was to work on a tractor every time I needed to use it.
So ultimately I ended up with the unit you see in the picture.
How does this relate to woodworking? Well, you see it will now be much easier to move all the power tools from the garage at the house to the shop once my water problem is solved. Oh yeah, it will also come in handy loading those really big turning blanks on the lathe too. I guess a bigger lathe might be needed now to justify the tractor:).
For those that are interested it's a Kubota B7800, 30HP four cylinder diesel four wheel drive. The mower in the picture came as part of the house purchase - also diesel and four wheel drive - really needed for this yard. I think I'm covered for yard maintenance, might just have to go into landscaping when I get tired of the rat race. If you are considering a tractor purchase or have questions, I found a very good forum - TractorByNet - http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/index.php Friendly folks who are knowledgeable, quite a few dealers hang out there as well.
Everyone enjoy the weekend, I know I will!
Cheers,
Dan
I've not been posting too much lately and have to confess I've been visiting another forum regularly - one on compact utility tractors - not woodworking.
We moved to our present house in September of last year and I soon discovered that during heavy rains that water entered the 30' x 40' shop building where we were intending to put all the woodworking gear. Not a good thing for cast iron:). The floor of the building is actually slightly below the surrounding grade. I knew that some major dirt moving was in my future. The lawn also needs a lot of regrading work and we want to put a connecting drive from the house to the shop.
I looked into rental of equipment or hiring the work done and before my investigation was complete I had decided that a small tractor and implements might allow me to do the work myself as well as provide the means to maintain the three acres we live on in the years to come.
After an exhaustive search for decent used equipment at an affordable price and research into new small tractors, it became apparent that a new tractor represented the best value. With my somewhat unpredictable schedule, the last thing I wanted to do was to work on a tractor every time I needed to use it.
So ultimately I ended up with the unit you see in the picture.
How does this relate to woodworking? Well, you see it will now be much easier to move all the power tools from the garage at the house to the shop once my water problem is solved. Oh yeah, it will also come in handy loading those really big turning blanks on the lathe too. I guess a bigger lathe might be needed now to justify the tractor:).
For those that are interested it's a Kubota B7800, 30HP four cylinder diesel four wheel drive. The mower in the picture came as part of the house purchase - also diesel and four wheel drive - really needed for this yard. I think I'm covered for yard maintenance, might just have to go into landscaping when I get tired of the rat race. If you are considering a tractor purchase or have questions, I found a very good forum - TractorByNet - http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/index.php Friendly folks who are knowledgeable, quite a few dealers hang out there as well.
Everyone enjoy the weekend, I know I will!
Cheers,
Dan