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The impossible question, when do you start to get rid of your machines?

rivett608

Diamond
Joined
Oct 25, 2002
Location
Kansas City, Mo.
Hello all, clearly I am in some kind of a mood here. I don’t know that I expect to find the answer but it is just to start the discussion. Lately I have been looking around my shop and thinking about getting rid of stuff. It is all small and I really don’t need the space or even the money which of course I could find a good use for. There is no pressing need to do this which makes me think it is a good time to think about it.

Here is a brief run down on my situation, I just turned 63, I have been collecting tools and machinery to use for over 40 years, many of you know I have good taste in nice tools. It has been said I don’t buy rust. My shop is where I make my living, it is about 500sf. It is very nice, not cluttered and decorated well. I have seen a lot of the old guys in their last years stressing over their stuff. I don’t want that to be me. I think of my friend the late Ed Battison.

Now I’m not even thinking about giving up my shop or it’s capabilities. What I’m thinking of getting rid of is all the stuff I never use, the stuff squirreled away in case maybe I might need that. Or something that was just so cool I wanted one, got it but never used it.

I’ll just give some examples so you can understand better my quandary. Rivett lathes, which I was and am a fan of, hence my name on the PM. I have a early #4 and a late 608-5c that are in fine condition, they are not mounted on bases nor have drives. Basically they are eye candy. They have been in this state for over 20 years. Clearly if I wanted to set them up or really needed them I would have. I simply have very little desire to fix up machinery anymore and haven’t in a long time. As I get older I have even less interest. Now I also have all kinds of drives for these (in the attic of the garage) and almost every accessory Rivett ever made. That is super cool stuff but most of it has never even been mounted on a lathe let alone used. I clearly don’t need this stuff, I have fun owning it but there is no one who cares for me to even share it with. There are even NOS lead screws and boxes of parts. I do have and would keep my “user” Rivett, it is a early 608 with the change gears removed, kind of ugly but it is the one I like.

The truth is I must face the fact I only have so many years left, now hopefully that might be 30 but after over 40 years playing in my shop I must admit I’m loosing interest. Will it come back? If I get rid of stuff can I always buy other cool things? Maybe it would make it exciting again? I mean I hardly ever buy anything because I pretty well have anything I wanted. No, by no means do I have the coolest most well equipped shop, but it is a shop I’m happy with and can do what I want in. I don’t really need more things.

In thinking of getting rid of rare good things some of the thoughts that go through my mind are. It will be less work for the estates trustees to deal with whenever that time may come. Btw, I have no kids. It would get near impossiable to find tools and accessories out in the market for the next owners to play with. It will lessen the “oh my god what am I going to do with all this when I’m old?” Question that perks up when I look at it.

So I guess the question is when is it time to start thinning stuff. It is good stuff, not junk. Also another example is I have a machineshop supply trade catalog collection. I’m referring to the 1920s to 1950s, a lot of nice hardbound dealer catalogs some with great color illustrations. Truth is I haven’t even opened the cabinet that houses these in nearly 10 years because there has been a sofa in front of it. I must not miss looking at them so why do I need to own them? Yes, they are cool with great info, but do I need that?

My interests have changed to much older stuff, 17th and 18th centuries and that stuff along with the good catalogs and rare machinist tools I fully attend to keep.

So what are your thoughts? I know most of us here on the PM are all about getting stuff, not getting rid of stuff.

How bad will I miss it?

Thanks
 
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I'll follow this with interest. At the least, you're showing a lot of wisdom in addressing this now (while there's the best chance for finding good homes for your "stuff") rather then when the clock is closer to midnight.
 
You are right, remember that garage full of nice machines some guys son had to deal with last year in Ohio? That is what should be avoided both for the seller and the stress of the buyers when stuff gets all mixed up.

What also might be interesting if responders list their approximate age so we can kind of have some extra insight as where they may be coming from on this issue.
 
My dad used his shop up until his last year of life. He was still in good shape and could have used but just didn't have anything he wanted to make or fix. He lived to 87.
 
Rivett: Find someone who you can 'mentor' in the trade. Will the tools to him/her.
Then just go ahead and do what you want. Don't sweat what happens after you are gone. Now if you have items that should be in libraries or museums. then get them to the right places while you can. That amount of care for your things will not likely happen after you are gone.

I'm NOT 'old', I'm 66. most people who take any reasonable care of themselves can expect to have another 10-20 years ahead of us. i'm expecting to stay functional in the shop for another 10-20 years. My family tends to push 100 before they stop breathing.

I too do not have any children. I do have friends who will get certain machines, if I still have them when I can no longer run them.

My nieces and great nephews ask why i keep so much 'stuff' and they dread the day that I'm gone and they have to 'dispose' of it..
I simply tell them to not be greedy, it cost them nothing to inherit it, so if you sell it for a tenth of it's potential value, you still made out pretty well.

I'm the one who doesn't want to sell something at a loss. That's my problem, not your's.

DV
 
Thanks, I just finished reading George Daniels, the famous watchmakers book. The last part was about the man he mentored and gave the shop to. This is something easier said than done. I would love to find that right person but I suspect that isn’t going to happen.

As for the good stuff, it goes to museums, etc. I have a trust that deals with this.

I know you can’t control from the grave.
 
There is a book that discusses that. Don't recall the title, just heard about it on the radio.

Put all the same kinds of things in a pile, like all your shirts. Throw out or give away what you never use.
If it works for shirts and ties then it should work for other stuff too.

I have noticed that people keep accumulating stuff in their house until they decide to move. Then they clean up the place. Why wait that long.
 
My brother and I are in the early stages of shutting down our shop. We've been at this since '74. I'm 72 and
he's three years younger. We're currently in a 2500 sq. ft. rented shop that is pretty well stuffed with stuff and
we both intend to set up smaller home shops--his is about 570 sq. ft. and mine will be around 325 (basically a
40 ft. container). I'm going to be watching this thread as well.

We do have a young fellow who we have befriended and mentored for the last 5-6 years. He's smart and
ambitious and is just starting out with a rented shop of his own. He actually has about 3700 sq. ft. and a lot
of the stuff we can't use anymore will end up at his place. Some of it we're just going to give to him, some of
the more valuable items will become his on a long-term purchase basis--gives him some time to pay for the
stuff while giving us a bit of short term cash-flow.

Of course anything that goes to his place will be available to us if we need to use it. He's been using our shop
for several years so we'll return the favour by using his if necessary.:D Both my brother and I see this as a way to
phase ourselves out as we get older. We won't be doing a lot but we will stay in touch with some of our better
customers and, over time, the young fellow will be able to take over a lot of that work. So far it seems that this
will be a win-win for all of us...
 
My father worked for the Collins Ax Company In Collinsville Ct. worked there over 20 years
Our family Friend Raymond Anderson we a Patten Maker there.
They help close the place down in 1964
Old Raymond never married lived alone in a house too big for him and ended up with way too much stuff..
All good antiques mind you and good for conversation on the Saturday morning we would stop by for instant Coffey and kind of old cookies as too their worth and such Raymond had traveled the world but came back to Canton where he finished up working at the Collins company.
A lot of the left over from the Collins company ended up at his place as it did at ours.
As both he and my father got older they decided to start thinning down a bit. And with vision of $$ started to price thing for sale, well they found out it’s a lot easier to gather that stuff up than to sell at a price that they expected…..
I was living in New Hampshire at the time and the last time I saw him he remarked that he felt all this stuff was just a mill stone around his neck and to take whatever I wanted…
He remarked that there was and old swede who ran a fork lift for 20 years at the Collins Company. Lived in the Valley house
The old company boarding house. He had his work outfit and a good suit. Would buy a paper and a cigar on Sunday and take the trolley to Hartford once a moth to see a Movie.
When they closed the place he got in his suit and went back to Sweden…
Lot to be said about that.
Course I got have way too much Snap on stuff and Caterpillar tooling plus my hobby machines
And being a 64 year old Cat field mechanic trying to figure out what I going do with all my stuff…
O I know I leave it to my Brothers daughter …..:) she will be cursing me all the way to the auction house…
 
At 60 I'm starting to feel old.

I think it is important to realise that what is gold to you may be junk to a future generation (and certainly , what you consider junk now will remain junk, even if an historian might find it interesting) . The little that survives from the past does so because no one though it was junk (or it was too big to knock down!) . Should one lumber the future with ones junk?

Bill
 
Rivett,
We all have that time card, but, nobody knows when its time to punch out.


At 60, with some health issues, but, not ready to part with my treasures.

Most is only treasure to me.

I like it "as found" condition, so, little is restored.
That limits any sales.


As a collector, I paid a fair price for most, and more than fair when buying from friends.

Everything is treasure prices coming in, but, scrap value as it goes out.
Funny how that works.
But I have very few stories of how cheap I got something, since my intention was never resale.

Starting putting stuff on e bay, at reasonable prices, and lowering until it sells, or I toss in the trash.

A friend got cancer. Fought it for two years.

He started getting ready for an auction, but, kept putting stuff aside, in case he made it.
After he left, at 67, before the auction, the son that was going to get the stuff was also going to get more money, to pay the scrap man to haul it all away.

I promised my friend that none of his stuff would go to scrap, and I hauled most of it here, gradually finding new homes for it.
Alas, some IS scrap.


Typical auctioneer.
Poorly advertised, he did no work whatsoever in organizing or moving stuff.
I helped the family do that.
All the auctioneer did was yell Yabba Dabba Doo in a microphone and collect a major fee.


One particularly rare item, I found parts for it in the basement, the garage, the side barn, and all four corners of both floors of the barn. Luckily, I had some knowledge of the item, so was able to gather the parts.
He had labeled many parts and pieces of various machines, but many were labeled wrong.
I can only imagine the stress he was under, fighting cancer AND fighting the horror of parting with "stuff", and being forced to do so.

I helped a friend, a normal family, not a collector at all, move.
Never again.
Two U Haul loads of busted furniture, precious garbage bags of knick-knacks and misc. boxes of stuff the trash man would hold his nose to load.
But, it was their "stuff".

Gives one a good perspective of one's own treasure.

As a collector, AKA Mentally Ill, I go full bore in an interest, for a decade or two.
Then, as interest fades, off on a tangent for another decade or so.

I'm on my third major tangent and, ready to begin a fourth, and/but I can see that there just are not many/enough decades ahead!

I spent many years to get three quarters of the way through a complete ground up on a 1948 International KBS 6 and discovered that there were nine rubber grommets that were not available.


I fought through the learning curve of rubber mold making, made all the grommets I needed, made enough extra to sell to pay for mine, kept going with rubber molds to make plastic foundry patterns... and the truck has been waiting for my return for years...


So far, e bay has been ok, selling a few items. Many are evidently not as desirable to others as they were to me.
Some I will simply give away or trash, so that whoever has to clean up my mess that I leave won't have to make those decisions.


Some items have peoples names on them, and others are destined for museums, but, much only has value to me.

99% I am not ready to part with.. yet.


I urge you to (do as I say, not as I do) write the provenance, if any, of anything you treasure.
It will affirm the affection you hold for the item, even if the next guy could not care less.

I bought a gear machine from a gear company, both to treasure as a historical piece and to eventually make gears, and he told me that when he bought it from the original factory where it was used, that they handed him the original receipt from 1916, but, he didn't care.
He just wanted to make gears!
So, all I have is that story.


I have a truck that I am documented to be the third owner of since 1928. My late friend bought it from the original owner, and took a picture of him when he bought the truck.
I guess I should have someone take a picture of ME next to it, in case the fourth owner would care about any of that.

If not, what am I going to do?
Haunt them?


I do my part to preserve what history I can, and that is important to me, if only to me, and that is all I can do.


I hope something of what just wrote is inspirational to you.
It's making me get up and go organize something!

Mike
 
Touché! Me too! I would say none of your toys are junk,Rivett and nothing too big either which is all to the good. I have let a few things go recently. A couple of years ago I took in a small planing machine,but then something else went. I have a Herbert production mill that an old family friend told me on his deathbed to take. It's a difficult subject. For now,I am making a register of all my items with a photo of each. A page for each-type of machine,make,date,where and when bought,original owner and known history. It doesn't take long to bang onto the page and Mrs M will make 2 or 3registers. That way anyone coming along after me will know about them all I did. I have a friend in Lincs who has a Huge collection. He's 82 and I broached this subject with him and he wasn't bothered! I will help his daughter as best I can when the time comes.
 
Thank you all so far, great conversation. One odd thing is that I realize my few friends that are part of a “shop culture” are all much older than me and live over a thousand miles away.

I just keep thinking I don’t want be one of those guys that leaves a mess.

Ted is also right that most of my stuff is pretty good, it is maybe not the typical junk and a lot of it has a good story behind it. Things like drill chucks from the machine shop in Antarctica that burned years ago. While it looks like a grungy charred Jacobs ball bearing chuck that one would think is junk it has a story. I think of that each time I use it and how many people have tooling in their shop from that far down under?

Also what is driving my thoughts is I have a friend who is in the process of shutting down a shop in Europe and another local who is sick and dealing with a house they’ve been in for 35 years.
 
I think its actually pretty healthy to cut some of that stuff loose.
I have been chipping away a little at the edges myself lately, realizing that if I havent even looked at it 20 years, I am not likely to.
A couple of years ago I gave away all the neon parts and pieces I had been hauling around since the seventies- a transformer, boxes of glass standoffs, a new unused spool of cable- to a neon guy who actually uses the stuff.
I am currently giving away about a thousand vinyl albums, to a dozen or so younger friends who are really excited to get them.

The best way to do this is slowly, with care, selling or giving it away to people who really appreciate it.

I, too, have a big shelf full of those old hardbound industrial hardware catalogs- but I cant quite give em up yet.
A few years ago, though, I did cull a few thousand old magazines- a couple dozen titles, ranging from machining to welding to art and architecture. Realizing I hadnt opened one of em in decades, I found homes for them, and everyone was happier.

Which is not to say there arent a few machine tools I still wouldnt mind owning.

But my shop, the tools I actually use, is much less than the sum total of iron that I am sitting on, like dragon on treasure. And I have been actively trying to find good homes for the stuff that I know I will not ever use.

I have seen my share of hoarders shops, where by the time the old guy died, the leaks and rats and rust had rendered things that were once wonderful into useless scrap. There was a guy near me who had over 2000 cars- and let every one of em rot into rusty hulks with trees growing thru them- rather than sell them for "too little" to people who really loved them and wanted to restore them.
And I have seen amazing shops rust away into nothing.
Or, worse, get sold for scrap by heirs who just dont care.
Around here, often, the real estate is worth so much that taking the time to find homes for wonderful old machines is just not worth it- I saw a couple line shaft drive shops just scrapped, because the few grand they could earn, which would take months to realize, was a pittance compared to the land value.
 
Like rustyironism, i've had a number of tangents. I've been a woodworker my whole life, got into boats and have only in the past couple of years begun acquiring machine tools. The supreme commander and i just finished building our retirement home a couple of years ago and the shop is attached. Moving in required us to dig through 25 years of accumulated stuff from the family homestead. This experience as well as dealing with my in-laws estate has convinced me that cleaning out the stuff you don't use can be liberating. I'm one of those guys that hates clutter and even though few things bother me more than waste, i'm not above burning the accumulated scrap lumber taking up more space than it's worth. I realize this isn't like selling off cherished historical artifacts if you find yourself stressing over having too much stuff, it may be better to find good homes for some of this stuff sooner rather than later if for no other reason that to enjoy the stress relief.

Now, for me and my latest tangent, the fun is in the journey not the destination. A few years ago, i rebuilt a 1972 chriscraft lancer for my wife. We've used it maybe 5 times. I thoroughly enjoyed the project. Now that it's done and all nice and pretty, i've lost all interest.

I'm fortunate in that my boy who is 28, shares my pathological project gene and has an interest in old cars. He'll be inheriting a bunch of nice old stuff.
 
I'm 63 also and one similarity I share is the amount of "stuff" bought and stored over the years. Selling gets problematic because I bought tools and machines I liked as opposed to a price point. It seems to make it hard to deal with someone that shows little appreciation of the condition or usefulness when their biggest concern is price. An example is a collet chuck with collets I recently sold (no longer made)that is possibly in the best condition out of any offered yet all offers were low ball.
I used to be into rebuilding engines and customizing motorcycles but the older I get the more I'd rather just have a clean good running bike that I can ride with my friends. Not to confuse anyone, I still enjoy making things in my shop but now it seems like it is more for the projects I do to my house.
There's one problem I have with finding someone to will my shop to that others may have; I don't like the way others treat tools and machinery! Might be from years of working in one of the biggest machine shops and seeing in person what can be wrecked or maybe from fixing what others broke? I don't know for sure on that but I do believe some people are lucky if they get 50 thousand miles out of a new car because of lack of care.
I'm going to keep an eye on this and maybe it will help me figure out what to do in my situation.
 
I'm 64 and have not only a well equipped garage shop, but an electronics lab full of classic test equipment. Most of it is in fantastic condition, treasure to me, but potentially junk to somebody that doesn't "get it". Have barely started, but I got one of those little hand-held recorders for Christmas. My plan is to walk around the lab and the shop, dictating what everything is, the potential value, and how to dispose of it. It took me a long time to acquire various accessories, so it's important that certain things and manuals remain together. An auction house will purposely and maddeningly split everything up. I can burn those files to a CD so wife or somebody will have easy access when the time comes. I don't have the time, energy or frame of mind to get rid of anything now, so I don't expect any change in the status quo.
 
I will liquidate my shop when I start having trouble moving the machines around, at the very latest. At that point the game will be to sell them at whatever price I can get (including scrap) so as to clear the space. Having been involved with cleaning up after packrats I no longer have any mercy whatever for "stuff" no matter how valuable I think it is.

When I die, if all that remains is a few pickup truck loads of old stuff nobody wants going to the landfill I'm happy with that.
 
Sold the bulk - bought and paid for - in 2014 when I was 74. A bit less than 25 tons. With the written understanding removal would be some point in future

If the buyer changes his mind by that time, the funds are there to help them get them to the scrap yard:D
 
I sometimes wonder if I’m bipolar... some days I walk into my shops and grin from ear to ear... there is something about owning things that makes me happy, the more the better and not just junky things but solid quality things that can last a lifetime. Some days I walk in to my shops and look at the same things and wonder why in the world do I need all this stuff? Why would someone create so much unwarranted work on themselves by owning things that require so much work, money and time to preserve correctly. Sometimes I think I should sell all this stuff free up a ton of my time buy a fancy hot rod car and drive around picking up some woman ... and then I realize my wife probably wouldn’t like that very much. Seriously though I have sold a lot of nice pieces over the years and I look back and wonder why? The only answer I have is that I was jonesing for something new so by selling some things allows me to buy something different... and when that wears off I will do it again... and still wonder why?
 








 
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