Tools and Weight

[Seajatt]

For those with a lot of tools, how are you managing them during your travels and what is your setup like? I'm wondering because it seems like a decent tool selection precludes something like a van, because there just wouldn't be enough space and weight capacity to make a home out of the same place I'm storing the things that make me money.

So, how are you managing it if so?

I was thinking I could use the bed of my truck for tools, welder, etc, and then pull a little trailer for quarters.

 

[NctryBen]

Toy hauler/ camper. Forest River work and play model. So instead of my truck camper and trailer. Have a tool chest, air compressor, generator and table saw.
Can do wood and building projects, mechanical and electrical. Big floor jack too.

 

[bullfrog]

We started out with an older 1983 motorhome in 2005 and a 1991 Honda Civic Hatchback with only a driver’s seat, completely full and overloaded with tools by the motorhome. Also my wife drove a second 1991 Honda Civic Hatchback with a full interior and more tools. The older cars were cheaper than cargo trailers and gave us both cheap transportation while parked doing seasonal jobs. We used a commercial walled Easyup for storage while parked. As the motorhome had a 7K generator and storage compartments we had pretty much a complete welding and mechanic tool sets in the motorhome and towed. The second vehicle had mainly wood working tools and 18 volt tools. As I got older I slowly got over my tool addiction, I’m down to a tote of basic emergency tools stored in the vehicles.

 

[maki2]

It is easy just spend more time watching other people work instead of
Hauling around tools and actually using them. Besides supervising pay is a lot better than doing manual labor.

 

[Seajatt]

It is easy just spend more time watching other people work instead of
Hauling around tools and actually using them. Besides supervising pay is a lot better than doing manual labor.

That seems like the rule of construction, six guys standing around in a circle watching one poor SOB dig a hole.

 

[Seajatt]

Toy hauler/ camper. Forest River work and play model. So instead of my truck camper and trailer. Have a tool chest, air compressor, generator and table saw.
Can do wood and building projects, mechanical and electrical. Big floor jack too.

Sounds like you've dabbled in quite a few trades over the years.

 

[Seajatt]

We started out with an older 1983 motorhome in 2005 and a 1991 Honda Civic Hatchback with only a driver’s seat, completely full and overloaded with tools by the motorhome. Also my wife drove a second 1991 Honda Civic Hatchback with a full interior and more tools. The older cars were cheaper than cargo trailers and gave us both cheap transportation while parked doing seasonal jobs. We used a commercial walled Easyup for storage while parked. As the motorhome had a 7K generator and storage compartments we had pretty much a complete welding and mechanic tool sets in the motorhome and towed. The second vehicle had mainly wood working tools and 18 volt tools. As I got older I slowly got over my tool addiction, I’m down to a tote of basic emergency tools stored in the vehicles.

I can understand the tool addiction. Not only are they expensive, but I fear gettting rid of something, and then freaking needing it.

 

[maki2]

That seems like the rule of construction, six guys standing around in a circle watching one poor SOB dig a hole.

Construction site? No that is the norm when someone in the neighborhood be it in a house or a campsite is working on projects. Maybe even especially at campsites where entertainment is often in short supply

I have camped with friends where the intent is helping each other with projects. We lend each other tools at times because you can’t carry everything and sometimes one person has a type of tool that is hands down the winner in the group for making great cuts or has more power, etc.

You can carry a whole workshop or you can have friends who also enjoy making things and essentially have a “working collective workshop” which gathers together now and again. One of those events called Van Aid is happening in the Quartzsite AZ area in February 2023.

 

[LargeMarge]

a)
2003, for our ExpeditionVehicle, I installed a nine-drawer lift-top tool chest.
Using yuge worshers over a flat plate of steel, the cabinet is secured through the floor next to the forward wall.
.
During a sudden stop, all that mass is restrained by the wall.
.
For our toy-hauler, I have a standard garage-style tool cabinet and chest.
Using the 'yuge worshers plus flat plate' system, the two are bolted together, then bolted through the floor and wall.
.
These storage units carry mechanic and welding gear.
.
During a crash or roll, I doubt any fasteners would be adequate to slow the flow of sockets and such.
.
.
b)
Our rig GVWR -- 29,000#.
Our loaded weight across the scale -- 14,000#.
Our cargo capacity -- about seven ton.
.
Our toy-hauler GVWR -- 12,000#.
Weight across the scale -- gross... and this concerns me.
Should we dump:
* SCUBA gear?
* spares of engine parts and clothes?
* a couple-three dozen Pepsi kegs of drinking water?
* dog food?
* kayaks and mountain-bikes?
* the 120-gallon fuel tank?
* the two spare tires/wheels for the rig?
Noooooo!, anything but that, and that, and those....!
.
.
For our introduction with plenty of portraits, plus our reasons for our decisions:
https://vanlivingforum.com/threads/expeditionvehicle-build.44908/#post-576110

 

[Seajatt]

a)
2003, for our ExpeditionVehicle, I installed a nine-drawer lift-top tool chest.
Using yuge worshers over a flat plate of steel, the cabinet is secured through the floor next to the forward wall.
.
During a sudden stop, all that mass is restrained by the wall.
.
For our toy-hauler, I have a standard garage-style tool cabinet and chest.
Using the 'yuge worshers plus flat plate' system, the two are bolted together, then bolted through the floor and wall.
.
These storage units carry mechanic and welding gear.
.
During a crash or roll, I doubt any fasteners would be adequate to slow the flow of sockets and such.
.
.
b)
Our rig GVWR -- 29,000#.
Our loaded weight across the scale -- 14,000#.
Our cargo capacity -- about seven ton.
.
Our toy-hauler GVWR -- 12,000#.
Weight across the scale -- gross... and this concerns me.
Should we dump:
* SCUBA gear?
* spares of engine parts and clothes?
* a couple-three dozen Pepsi kegs of drinking water?
* dog food?
* kayaks and mountain-bikes?
* the 120-gallon fuel tank?
* the two spare tires/wheels for the rig?
Noooooo!, anything but that, and that, and those....!
.
.
For our introduction with plenty of portraits, plus our reasons for our decisions:
https://vanlivingforum.com/threads/expeditionvehicle-build.44908/#post-576110

Now that's a thought. I may very well adapt your system for travel. I think that's probably about the safest way one could it. Thank you for posting.
Also, just curious, but what got you on the road?

 

[Seajatt]

Construction site? No that is the norm when someone in the neighborhood be it in a house or a campsite is working on projects. Maybe even especially at campsites where entertainment is often in short supply

I have camped with friends where the intent is helping each other with projects. We lend each other tools at times because you can’t carry everything and sometimes one person has a type of tool that is hands down the winner in the group for making great cuts or has more power, etc.

You can carry a whole workshop or you can have friends who also enjoy making things and essentially have a “working collective workshop” which gathers together now and again. One of those events called Van Aid is happening in the Quartzsite AZ area in February 2023.

That sounds like something I'd like to be involved in. Ideally, I'd like to travel with a 'family unit' of a few rigs where we decide where we're going and for what reason, and we go. We are all so fractured and isolated in modern society, and it need not be like that.

 

[maki2]

It is not a reflection of a “fractured society” to wish to have time alone. It is simply human nature to wish to have more space rather than living like ants in a colony. The fracturing comes from overcrowding.

 

[Seajatt]

It is not a reflection of a “fractured society” to wish to have time alone. It is simply human nature to wish to have more space rather than living like ants in a colony. The fracturing comes from overcrowding.

I don't know a single individual on my block. I bet that's true for the grand majority. I'd say that qualifies, but ymmv.

 

[maki2]

I did have to buy a new small screw driver yesterday. Unfortunately it only came as part of a set but I realized I was likely to need a few others tools in the set next week for installing another replacement part on the same machine. Fortunately they are very small tools so the weight and space is not a big impact on my storage.

 

[LargeMarge]

...what got you on the road?

.
Excellent q!
.
I turn 71 in a few weeks.
Hx:
* At 10, I was a foreign-exchange student.
* As early as I can remember, every vacation, my family roamed North and Central America in travel-trailers.
* I lived and worked all over this particular planet.
* For a half-century, I lived in a series of home-built conversions.
* I seem to embrace the hunter-gatherer genetic coding of my ancestors.
.
And here is the kicker:
According to researchers, the Neanderthal people were very accomplished merchant-traders for about 300,000(!) years, working from the Iberian peninsula to the Russ steppes.
According to DNA testing, I carry greater than usual Neanderthal DNA.
Most Northern European Heritage folk carry about three percent (3%) Neanderthal.
.
According to the first test, I am about eleven percent (11%) Neanderthal.
Intrigued, I repeated the test... resulting in a thirteen percent (13%).
I know no other way.
.
.
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/who-were-the-neanderthals.html#:~:text=The%20Neanderthals%20have%20a%20long,physical%20evidence%20of%20them%20vanishes.

 

[LargeMarge]

...I'd like to travel with a 'family unit' of a few rigs...

.
This's our preference.
.
To accomplish this goal, we approach likely candidates.
* we kick around some ideas.
* we share meals.
* we exchange contact information.
And we are comfortable hearing 'no'.
.
Anybody with similar goals, I suggest:
* start with similar basic road-worthy rigs, no BillionBuxBus for off-highway, no rancid reeking tilters for Baja.
* start with common interests -- kayak, SCUBA, dogs, festivals, pick your specialness.
* start with a firm start-time and an established end-time.
* start with commitment and intention, instead of the vague 'we are considering forming a committee to look into the possibility of someday...'.
* start with similar incomes, so nobody needs to drop if a us$300 per night resort is scheduled... although they miss the shuffleboard tournaments and canasta marathons, and the perky 'Activities Director', and name-badges, and folks 'just stopping by to say hi'.
.
Keyword:
* perky

 

[LargeMarge]

I don't know a single individual on my block....

.
a)
I recruit strangers.
.
We occasionally house-sit professionally.
Our rig is hardly the vehicle any respectable straight wants in the neighborhood.
How do we work with them?
* we knock on doors,
* we explain our service,
* we hand out flyers with our contact information,
* we explain our time at the gig, and our departure date.
.
And here is the kicker:
From among the geezers in the neighborhood, we ask them to contact us if they notice anything unusual.
Recruit.
Between MATLOCK marathons and back-to-front JEOPARDYs, they sit at the window anyway.
Can I add to their sense of self-worth by recruiting them?
.
.
b)
We workkamp a small organic teaching farm near the outskirts of Eugene, Oregon.
Within three days of landing:
* we met everybody in a twenty-minute walk.
* we knew the trustables, we knew the geezers at the windows.
* we knew the folks with a wobbly fence or a yard in need of raking, and we offered to lend a hand.
.
During the next circuit, we dragged a garden-wagon of eggs...
... 'and could you save the cartons for us?'.
Recruit.
A part of that exchange is 'be indispensable'.

 

[Seajatt]

.
Excellent q!
.
I turn 71 in a few weeks.
Hx:
* At 10, I was a foreign-exchange student.
* As early as I can remember, every vacation, my family roamed North and Central America in travel-trailers.
* I lived and worked all over this particular planet.
* For a half-century, I lived in a series of home-built conversions.
* I seem to embrace the hunter-gatherer genetic coding of my ancestors.
.
And here is the kicker:
According to researchers, the Neanderthal people were very accomplished merchant-traders for about 300,000(!) years, working from the Iberian peninsula to the Russ steppes.
According to DNA testing, I carry greater than usual Neanderthal DNA.
Most Northern European Heritage folk carry about three percent (3%) Neanderthal.
.
According to the first test, I am about eleven percent (11%) Neanderthal.
Intrigued, I repeated the test... resulting in a thirteen percent (13%).
I know no other way.
.
.
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/who-were-the-neanderthals.html#:~:text=The%20Neanderthals%20have%20a%20long,physical%20evidence%20of%20them%20vanishes.

We've been nomads longer than we've been stationary. Everyone loves travel and road trips, maybe that's a manifestation of our history??

 

[Seajatt]

.
This's our preference.
.
To accomplish this goal, we approach likely candidates.
* we kick around some ideas.
* we share meals.
* we exchange contact information.
And we are comfortable hearing 'no'.
.
Anybody with similar goals, I suggest:
* start with similar basic road-worthy rigs, no BillionBuxBus for off-highway, no rancid reeking tilters for Baja.
* start with common interests -- kayak, SCUBA, dogs, festivals, pick your specialness.
* start with a firm start-time and an established end-time.
* start with commitment and intention, instead of the vague 'we are considering forming a committee to look into the possibility of someday...'.
* start with similar incomes, so nobody needs to drop if a us$300 per night resort is scheduled... although they miss the shuffleboard tournaments and canasta marathons, and the perky 'Activities Director', and name-badges, and folks 'just stopping by to say hi'.
.
Keyword:
* perky

I got about seven more months before I'm done here, but once I hit the road and am comfortable, I may start reaching out to people that want to travel as a tribe. Common interests and shared commitments of course being part of that. There's no point in recruiting contentious types that will only cause trouble. We'll see!

 

[tradesman]

Could we get back on topic? I'm not sure how any of the last eight or so posts have anything to do with "tools and weight"