Doug how do you plan to bust this down? Into tube frame list and a large frame list or one big one for everything bolens made in 40 years?
Jerome, I am hoping to have one big database for all the tractors. That way, if a part was used on a Power Ho or Vers-A-Matic and also used on an early tubeframe, you would be able to see that.
I am thinking about the possibility of removing commonly available, hardware store parts like bolts and nuts and plain washers from the list. To me at least, all they do is bloat the list. What do you think?
Just a suggestion - you could do each model as a separate sheet and rename the tabs at the bottom to identify the models such as in this example.
29Chev, I would do what you suggest if I were going to leave this whole thing in an Excel format. The Excel files are only the intermediate step I am using to get the data into a form that can then be imported into MS Access. (What I am trying to do would most likely be in Access as the database management software because there are free, readily available viewers that allow someone to use the file without having Access on their computer.) That way, the user does not actually see the data tables, but uses a dialog box to set the search parameters by part number. Sort of like a "Ctrl + F" on every steroid known to man. The return from the query would then give the user a list of all of the tractors that used that part.