GreenStart's mission is to foster a resilient energy and food system for New Hampshire by providing technical education and practical agricultural examples. An educational non-profit organization established in 2006, GreenStart sees food and fuel security as the end-product of a vibrant, sustainable agriculture system in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire has 40% of its land area in agricultural soils, yet farms only 10% and imports 95% of its food and fuel. New Hampshire has no significant petroleum resources. To feed and fuel itself from sustainable natural resources, New Hampshire must improve its soils while also improving production.
To achieve this end, GreenStart facilitates projects that
1) increase soil carbon “banking”
2) decrease energy inputs
3) increase both food and fuel outputs (positive energy and carbon balance)
4) promote “tight” cycling of nutrients
5) provide opensource access to appropriate knowledge, seeds and equipment
On our farm we have an equipment shop, and black smith shop, and a wood shop each with different sets of kits and tools. This thread started as simply documenting the original discussion from the Intervale Farm Hack and was around prioritizing farm shop tools for fabrication of farm tools and prototyping. The original post mentioned that the next step was to prioritize organize and expand. An earlier post also opened up a wiki for modifying organizing and prioritizing http://farmhack.net/wiki/farm-shop-basics. It is fair to say that the focus was on metal, but for fabrication of farm tools, much of the work on our farm does tend to be metal work. The level of equipment needed will really be dictated by the scale and type of operation. You may also notice that on the "to do" list is to separate out advanced fabrication from the basics, and also that urban needs will be different than fabrication or repair. From my perspective there are certain tools that make a lot possible and I know that I wish I had purchased years ago. For example, a metal cutting bandsaw for cutting stock is one of the most used pieces of equipment in my shop - but until I got it I didn't know what I was missing. I haven't put a bridgeport on my own priority list, but it isn't far off and if I had one it would get weekly use redoing bushings, and opening up larger holes for implement pins etc. that the drill press simply isn't set up for. I know that the better our farm shop gets the faster the turn around time and the higher quality the implements that we either create of modify. The faster we can get repairs done or modifications done the more ideas we can try in the field and the better the results on the ground. I agree with the principle of keep it simple, but also I know when there is a build vs. buy calculation that I would rather put the investment in the tools to build than into new paint and waiting for a part to ship from who knows where in the middle of planting or harvest.
I would love to see a tread and tool entries for fabrication of tools themselves.
Some of the tools I could see documented for farm shops that could be fairly easily fabricated:
Gantry crane
metal shear
shop press
forge
power hammer
heavy shop tables
(others)??
there are forums out there for build it yourself machine tools - but the build vs. buy is a little tougher on those (at least for me)
but perhaps what might be needed are some categories of tools associated with fabrication of particular types of farm activities for example:
heavy farm equipment fabrication
light farm implement fabrication
hand tool fabrication tools
tractor repair - engine/transmission/fuel/frame/body etc.
General electrical
power transfer (gearboxes, chains, bearings etc.)
hydraulic and pneumatic systems
irrigation/animal water systems/general farm plumbing including fuel transfer etc.
fencing
farm building construction
(others?) each of these could have their own floating wiki to build out and prioritize?