Extreme hoarder helps out BTO... (Or, the ULTIMATE recycler)

In the early 70's, I had just become a teenager.

My uncles bought a 14 foot DEERE LLA grain drill with a broken press wheel shaft and repaired it with a new shaft to make a double hookup with another LLA we already had.

That's how things went around here... there wasn't much new equipment bought and lots of "fixer-upper stuff" 'cuz it seemed money was always tight and we did repair work for others, anyway.

ANYHOW, fast-forward ahead 40+ years... today a nearby BTO stopped by 'cuz he knows I have a lathe and can whip up some simple machined stuff on short notice.

He needed two steel sleeves, 1.5" OD, 1.25" ID, 2" wide for a piece of potato loading equipment ASAP.

(Something to do with a changeover on the tightening system on a conveyor that didn't come with all the parts and they had trucks to load NOW.)

ANYHOW, I didn't have any 1.5" shafting in the odds-and-ends steel rack, so I went outside and looked at a pile of hoarded broken parts behind a shed and fund the long-saved broken press wheel shaft and was able to section out a couple of unworn pieces and make him his sleeves without delay. A little sandblasting and the steel looked like new.

<img src = "http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u125/27Grainfield/Stuff/Spacer_Sleeves_From_Press_Drill_Shaft_zps67473d40.jpg">

And they say hoarding is BAD!

Just put a new oak threshhold in the shop.I got some free that were slighty warped when I worked at a lumber yard.They were due to be scrapped as kindling to start a foundry furnace.We ran it thru the planer because it was thicker than the original.I got the thresholds in the early 60s, moved 250 miles away, took them with me.If you throw some thing out you will need it the next day.

I know what you mean. Both of the boys worked for a guy one time in an auto repair/engine machine shop. This place was spotless,nothing laying around that didn't need to be there. He wanted me to go up there one time and take his trailer to go pick up an Allis WD that somebody wanted overhauled. I went to put his ball on my truck but I needed a spacer,or a stack of washers. No washers that size,no scrap pieces of steel with a hole in it,nothing. We must have searched for half an hour. I thought we would have to turn out something on the lathe before we got done.

Around here,I could have picked up a piece of bearing race out of the dirt and had the job done in a minute.

Not when it comes to farming, one does need a junk pile or if possible a somewhat neater, stash of steel, old parts or what have you, one thing I do not toss is used tractor parts, and or anything that does have use, within reason and without excess. Anything of quality material, especially metal. I've got a small satellite yard, small pile of scrap and some items that should be sorted and tossed and a neater but accessible stack of odds and ends, lot of galvanized hardware etc, some giant turnbuckles, thigns I have found on high rise jobsites, I could have started a hardware store with the waste I have seen.

Going back to about the same time, one of our large barns was still standing, which was later done in by a high wind, my father must have had some things stashed on the 2nd floor, I found stainless steel flashing, like a bundle stainless steel sheet metal, like many sheets, unwrinkled, showing in the thick sod and grasses, some unused T posts, went and looked in an old truck tool box, still a bunch of goodies in there, need to get that sheet metal, have no idea where or what it was for, but that stuff is very useful, just laying under the sod. Me thinks the dented ones will make nice firewood stack covers, with some weights on top.

Good post Bob.
The trouble here is I live in the city and with all the iron I have stashed behind the garage, in the brush at the back of my lot, in the garage and basement, plus my PU, trailer, 2 tractors and all my work tools my lot has already sunk about 6" below my neighbors'.

Invariably whenever I get tired of looking at some junk and haul it off I'll need a part off of it the next day. I have over a hundred drawers and cubby hole cabinets I've made through the years just for hoarded parts. Trouble with tucking the stuff away is you can't remember which drawer it's in five years later even if it's labeled. Jim

Well done.

"Waste not - Want not"

This was the saying of our ancestors who survived the great depression. It served them well.

My neighbor, Elmer Lippert, never threw antything away that had any possible use. He was a product of the depression and one of the best men I ever knew. The old old saying "I'd rather have his word than anyone elses contract" was written about Elmer. His iron pile was the source of machinery repairs around here for years. RIP Elmer.