Hey Dave,

I've got Turbo-cad, Bobcad, AutoCAD and CADkey programs, and I did it
like the other replies said, with the "card-board" cut-outs and graph
paper instead. So much easier and faster, easier to doodle and a
better sense of what's happening somehow. And instead of a 19"
screen, you're working in a decent scale with those really large
graph-paper sheets, maybe about 24 X 36, or even Bristol-board (do you
call it poster-board??) and draw the lines on yourself. In fact,
work it out in 3D if you can.

I also found that I was way off in what I required from my "old place"
to the "new" house.

My "old place" over about a 4 year period was as much space as I
wanted in a 100 wide X 200 long X 30 foot high factory complete with
overhead crane. This was my friends a newly acquired building for
future expansion, adjacent to his main tool & die shop building next
door. A lot of the space I DIDN'T need was used by him (my friend) to
store his old machinery and die-sets and "odd' and surplus materials,
and also had the company beer fridge too! In order to keep the crane
"free" for his use, I put all my powered stuff along the walls, so I
could wire it in to meet the commercial electrical codes, and not have
any possibility that the crane would whack any of it, unless somebody
tried to. Suffice it to say, I just spread everything out as I
acquired it, and I easily used up maybe 5000 square feet of the place.
I literally FILLED a 53 foot van rental-trailer when I moved out.

Now, the "new place" is my new-to-us house with an existing attached
25 X 25 garage with 10 foot ceiling fully insulated and dry-wall
finished, which certainly wasn't going to be big enough for
everything, so I had a 2nd detached one the same size built (but so
far just stud inside walls and no ceiling), giving me two separate
"shops" totaling 1,250 square feet. Quite a come-down!! But it
wasn't/isn't as bad as I had imagined! Where I just spread "out" in
the old place, here I made 32" aisles and also spread "up". The
"back" shop is for dirty stuff like grinding and welding and assembly
and nuts & bolts bins and electrical storage on shelves I put in both
along and perpendicular to the walls. In the "front" shop I built
storage shelving in a "ring" all the way around at 7-1/2 feet high,
and also down the centre between the garage door rails from front to
back. Instead of machines along the wall, I have storage racks and
work-benches, with the machines where I want them in the middle of the
floor. And shelves shelves shelves along with drawers drawers drawers
and 7 tool-boxes and a BIG heavy filing cabinet storing about 500
pounds of brass and copper. Hmmmm....I could still use another one
of those. We've been here almost three years now, and until just
before Christmas 2005 we worked almost daily on getting the "house"
to suit SWMBO's standards, I'm starting to get everything set up in
the shop(s), I can see an end in sight, and I haven't had to
"eliminate" much at all. Hopefully you can do the same.

Anyway, my point is that you can probably use the walls and overhead
to greater advantage in the garage than you might think. I even took
the hinged tops off some of the 36" high tool boxes I have so I didn't
need to leave waste space above the boxes to "lift them" to get into
the tops. I put drawer slides on them and hung them above the boxes
upside down as drawers under the work-bench. Works a treat.

Good luck! Take care.

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX



On Mon, 15 May 2006 11:40:32 -0400, dave
wrote:

looking for some type of simple 2D 'plain jane' windows software,
hopefully freeware, to help me draw numerous (all different sized)
rectangular shapes "to the same scale", given my dimensions. planning to
use it to print out the rectangles (on card stock), cut out the
rectangles with scissors, and move 'em around on a big graph paper....

if I could also 'twist, turn, drag, and drop' said icons as 'moveable
objects' within the app itself, it'd be a plus, but I don't expect that
capability in a freeware, and, anyway, it might boggle my 'shallow
learning curve'

does such an app exist? anything close?

need it to help plan how to move 1500 sq feet of toolboxes and machinery
into a 2 car garage (and to better visualize "what's gotta be
eliminated, in what order")

thanks for leads and ideas, guys,

toolie

--
replies by e-mail, if any, should remove the weirdstuff from my address
before clicking 'send'. thanks