Against All Oddities: The Fool’s Errand
For those following along this column, Against All Oddities, I bought a 13,000-square-foot century-old foundry. I mostly did it to store my awful cars and maybe make some new friends who wanted to store theirs. The space exists, so I feel compelled to fill it with useful stuff, or at least stuff that I’ve always wanted to have. My wife, knowing exactly how to enable my adventures, recently sent me a link to a local warehouse auction containing a variety of treasures. The online page showed gym lockers and a forklift, which was enough for me to clear out my schedule and check the place out.
And wouldn’t you know it, one of my foundry renters (storing a few tons of walnut next to the defunct smelter) also happened to be a tenant at the warehouse hosting the auction. Naturally, yours truly got an early-access sneak peek.
The place was mostly junk, but the rows of brand-new pallet racking caught my eye. That could make a nice loft. The warehouse was formerly used for cotton storage, so sturdy sleds adorned the racks. They’d look nice stained, I thought.
In the middle of the clutter was something else of potentially great usefulness: a 1952 Towmaster forklift with a tiny 62-cubic-inch flathead. A must-have if the price was right. Upon inspection, I noticed new hose clamps, a new radiator cap, and no rust on the hydraulic cylinder. Hmm, promising.
The initial clean-out, ahead of the auction, started with a Saturday tag sale at which everything was up for negotiation. I went in with a few prices in mind. But I got distracted when more and more temptations started popping up out of the woodwork. The dollar amount per item that I could afford to spend was rapidly crashing, so I had to be bold with my offers.
I managed to secure the forklift, three rows of pallet racking, a Tenant floor scrubber, six cotton sleds, two rolling carts, a pallet jack, a 1930s tanker desk (!), and some other odds and ends. Grand total: $925.
A very sleepy older gentleman in a skid steer loader, who had flattened a sizable percentage of the inventory, helped me with preparing this stuff for future transport to the foundry. The skid steer didn’t have any mirrors, and I don’t think he could turn his neck anymore. He relied on tactile feedback and sounds in the same way that bats navigate at night, albeit with more bumping into things. I got what I could as quickly as possible, and for the rest, I had until the end of the month to drag my treasure from the bottom of the sea.
The forklift was the main pain-in-the-butt to haul home. To be fair, “home” was some six-tenths of a mile away—within potential driving (or dragging) distance. My friend Thomas volunteered his services.
Things went sideways. The scrappers who were there to drag out the unclaimed inventory from the auction agreed to pull the Towmaster out onto the street. Thomas and a different Matt Anderson (really!) went out to the very sketchy industrial row at midnight and tried to pilot it home. Though they made tremendous progress, the forklift, uh, exploded. In the process, it burned off a sizable chunk of Thomas’ hair. Our friend Parker (another renter) was on his way with a fire extinguisher, before which point the cops showed up to the boys swatting the flames with a wet towel.
After a very brief interrogation, it was mutually agreed that the fire be put out as quickly as possible. One of the officers offered up a blue raspberry slushy and handed it over to be thrown on the blaze. The fire, miraculously, was no match for the frozen treat.
Around 2:00 a.m., a second round of officers responded to what I am certain looked like a suspicious gathering of two guys, scattered tools, and a charred forklift. After briefly explaining the goings-on of the past two hours—slushy included—the suspects’ story jibed with the dispatch gossip. They were pronounced free to go. Hooray! The Towmaster, however, was rightfully abandoned.
A few days later, my buddy Jon and my father-in-law were in town for our baby shower. I was relieved from party-planning duties until gift-opening time, so the three of us quickly rebuilt the forklift’s carb using cereal box snippings and got it running for long enough to get the forks up… but not long enough to drive it home. Again, the Towmaster was left behind, but I’d come back to it again later.
With the forklift still decorating the entrance to the other warehouse after more than two weeks, I headed back in for the official auction. I went in not really wanting to spend any more money, having already blown nearly a grand on trinkets and a lot of effort trying to move that damn forklift. Really, I attended more to monitor the goods that I had already purchased at the tag sale to make sure they weren’t re-auctioned.
The Studebaker broke down on the way, as if to warn me. Ignoring the sign, I walked the remaining distance. As soon as I strolled in, I was informed that my tanker desk was crushed by the not-so-careful skid steer driver. If I hadn’t already witnessed so many unopened packages and pieces of patio furniture succumb to the rubber tracks and blind spots, I would’ve suspected theft. Not in this case.
My commitment to not spending money didn’t last long. I was assigned card #11, and from then on couldn’t keep my hands in my pockets.
A brand new, bright blue service desk: $20 on 11!
A pallet of mystery chemicals and 28 pounds of taco seasoning: Just get it out of here, no charge.
A beautiful rolling cart with a solid oak deck: To the guy in the gum boots, $15!
A huge Lista cabinet with a missing key: $13 to the gentleman who won’t stop sulking about his crushed office furniture!
A large wall mount cabinet built and painted like a battleship: $5 and I hope you’ve got friends to help you!
A bright yellow fire cabinet: $10 to the fellow with the flammables and taco seasoning!
A seemingly armored letterbox: Sold for a ten-dollar bill!
Three more pallet racking sections: $30 each. A new 10-foot whiteboard: a mere dollar per foot. A welding table, 8’ x 4’ workbench, a whole-house fan, a new rolling staircase, a hand truck that could lift a real truck. All for $90!
I couldn’t stop, and why should I? Truckloads upon truckloads of items continued to bless bidder number 11. Quite pleased with myself, I walked up to Ziggy’s Closeouts and bought a further $13 worth of tools and a fuel filter (plus some snacks) to get the Stude back home. From there I snagged Fuggles, the foundry shop Dodge truck.
The real loading day approached pretty quickly, as all of my winnings had to be out of the warehouse by the following Monday.
To further complicate things, I scheduled pressure washers to start cleaning up the muck in four of the foundry bays that same morning. That meant that everything had to be shuffled and tessellated in an ever-increasing mound of crap, Tetris-style.
The pressure washers were late to arrive, so I had Thomas go out and make the first run. I kept myself busy by mounting wheels, which Thomas had earlier seated with brake cleaner and fire, back on the Simca. He returned with a load of cabinets and an assortment of other junk (that I nearly forgot I purchased) right as the cleaners arrived. As a footnote, the GT Hawk managed to break down in the exact same spot, so the tools from last time—still in the same plastic bag—saved the day again. Subsequent runs had us taking down pallet racks together while steering clear of the hazardous skid steer loader. By about 4 o’clock, everything that could be cleared out was back in the shop.
That left just the poor, maimed forklift.
Leaning on the error of driving over my desk earlier, the driver agreed to drop off the forklift at the foundry free of charge. Thomas and I set the forks in position just to see if the skid steer could even lift the 4200-pound Towmaster, which it did fabulously. As it stands now, there’s a questionable forklift sitting in the driveway of the foundry with, thankfully, no damage to surrounding property. The grand total for everything came out to $1178 for practically a shopload of stuff.
And by the way, thanks for many of your comments congratulating me on my impending fatherhood. I’ve been helping my wife, Dana, with a lot of errands lately, but I guess I’ll ask her to send me on more since this one was so fruitful.
Woo-Hoo, another installment! I was beginning to have withdrawal symptoms. Man, that auction haul is awesome! I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating, Matthew – we all are so-o-o-o-o jealous (but happy for you and you buddies at the same time). Great update – oh, and TowMaybe is an outstanding name…
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Sorry for any fevers, aches, chills, or random purchases you may have encountered!
Towmaybe!!! That fabulous. 🙂
The wonderful thing about old forklifts is they have a decent amount of intrinsic scrap value even if they don’t run. It sounds like you got that one right in the butter zone. The downside of old forklifts (I used to work on them) is that parts are near unobtanium
And to do simple repairs on just about any forklift like changing the starter requires as many hands as your old girlfriend accused you of having.
You’re right on all counts! I haven’t dug in too deep but it looks like I lucked out on the motor. If I’m not mistaken it’s shared with a Farmall Cub (which is also on my list…) And as far as scrap price goes, that’s what we were negotiating around.
My neighbor owned a machinery moving company. Fleet of tricks and tow motors. If you get the right one you can rebuild it right if not it can become a money pit. Some abandon lift trucks can be parked for something as simple as a bad hose or as bad as a blown engine.
Anyways he sold the company and now keep one town motor and it has become a great tool in his shop. Also it has been a benefit for many of us in the neighborhood. I had a our storage building that needed moved. He was right on it.
It is amazing the things and the ways he uses it. Just use care as they can become dangerous too if not used correctly or just flat wrong.
These adventures are so great, it’s tempting to move down from the Great White North just to be a part of them!
I already told him we’d band together and bail him out of this White Elephant for 50-cents-on-the-dollar. He didn’t bite.
Maybe you should call it TowJob? :^)
Tow Jamb?
Someone get Gary a cool drink and a place to lie down for a bit – he’s obviously overheated… 😁
Tow Much?
😂🤣😂🤣
*Snort* :<)
This story reminds me of some of the long ago impossible situations I found myself in and these days go out of my way to avoid.
Well bought!
Y’all done good, son! I paid $200 for a fire cabinet and had to drive 75 miles each way to get it.
Be very d*mn careful with and around that fork lift. They are surprisingly easy to tip over and you don’t want it to fall on you or any of your body parts (car or personal). Install a seatbelt, just in case. They will also absolutely destroy anything you run over, run into or impale on the forks. Be careful to have your load centered and balanced on the forks, too, stuff can fall off to either side, off the front, or worse, onto your head. People get hurt or killed on or around these things every day, I would prefer you not be one of them.
I have a Kubota tractor with pallet forks, and the combination is endlessly useful. Need to pick up an engine on a pallet? Done. (Be 1,000% sure that engine is securely fastened on the pallet though!) Someone gave me a Shopmaster woodworking tool, dropped it on the ground in front of my hangar . . . how the heck am I going to move this? Some chains, “up” on the forks, up it went, drove inside the hangar and put it exactly where I wanted it. Two minutes. I unloaded the fire cabinet I referred to above onto a pallet. The cabinet weighs over 300 pounds, tractor+forks lifted it with about as much effort as we lift a kitten.
Biggest risk is going to be “spectators”. Everyone wants to watch the machinery work, not understanding the risk that if something falls off, it could land on THEM. I was unloading a palletized shipment from a container on a truck, one guy was inside with a pallet jack, he moved the pallets to where I could get the pallet forks in, and then take the pallet out. I’m sitting there about five feet from the back of the truck, engine running and my foot on the brake, and the owner of the shipment walks between the running tractor and the back of the truck.
I yelled at him – if my foot had slipped off the brake, he could have been crushed. Suitably chastised, he moved away. Five minutes later, he walked between the tractor and the truck again. This time I told him to go get a chair, put it down OVER THERE and if you get up out of that chair, I’m quitting and you can unload this (bleeping) truck by hand. He sat down and stayed there.
Dear Bride ™ is videoing this on her phone. She’s about six feet from the tractor. I told her to move back, she moves back about two feet. No, go get another chair, put it next to the first one and STAY THERE until I’m done. She was a bit miffed, but that beats the heck out of being flattened.
As the owner of the place and the operator of the equipment, YOU are responsible for workplace safety. Most people have zero idea of how dangerous this stuff can be. It is far better to be a bad-*** about safety and perhaps hurt some delicate flower’s feelings a bit than send them to the hospital or worse. Maybe a rule – nobody within 30 feet of the fork lift operation area – period. Go slow, look around, be careful.
Also, in light of your adventure in getting it “home” perhaps mount a fire extinguisher on it someplace . . .
Best regards and keep up the good work!
You forgot something (although this is a good list): watch your overhead clearance with the mast! Ask me how I know…no, don’t, ’cause you already know, don’t you?
The waiver box, the fire cabinet, I hope you’re recognizing where some of these suggestions came from 🙂
Some people rely on E.F. Hutton, but Matthew has his own E.F. consultant! 😜
If he’s renting that shop to others, some forklift training goes a long way for liability concerns. I’m a certified forklift and MEWP instructor if you ever have any questions and/or wanna bring someone in for training, Matt.
and make sure the parking brakes work well. I once had an unattended forklift roll partly over my right little toe. Just enough to trap my foot – not enough to cause people to call me Chester for long. I had to give my secretary a crash course in how to back the thing up.
Matt you probably already know this but but I’ll mention it because I see it too often: don’t ever raise a load higher than necessary for picking or placing especially while traveling…. So envious. So, so envious.
These never get old… https://www.google.com/search?q=forklift+destroys+warehous+racks&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS979US979&oq=forklift+destroys+warehous+racks&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAEyCQgDECEYChigAdIBCjIwODI1ajBqMTWoAgiwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:7594c1ae,vid:pbIjL2jdn8M,st:0
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmLuo_cNXYg
Great advice on being careful not to ever raise a load higher than necessary. Especially while moving. A friend rented a small bulldozer. All was going well until he moved across a hillside with the bucket full and elevated. You guessed it. With a lot of weight up in the air in the bucket the bulldozer started to roll over on the hillside. Not being an experienced dozer operator, he didn’t know that quickly lowering the bucket would have stabilized things, so the dozer rolled. Luckily for him it stopped at a half roll on its side, and he wasn’t hurt. Just shaken and scared realizing how it could have turned out. He learned his lesson.
Man, scary stuff!
I didn’t see in the text as to what make and model this lift truck is, but I think it was made by Towmotor and a Model 35. It sure looks like the ones I worked many years ago. Great little lift truck.
Did you get a refund for the smashed desk?
You’re collecting all that stuff so that your future son will one day get to go through it all and wonder what to do with it. Perhaps he’ll have an auction and someday be saying, “Sold for a ten-dollar bill!” and “Just get it out of here, no charge.” 😆
Life: just one big circle!