After 40 years, an new top...

[Bill Huber]

40 years ago I was a copy machine tech for Xerox and traveled all over the Kansas City area. One day while I was in route to a call I passed a samll factory that was closing down and they had a bunch of junk set out to haul off.

It was junk, bent and busted metal shelves, some really worked over office furniture and the like. I had to stop and take a look, you just never know when you will find that great find. Well under some of the shelving there was a metal stool, the seat was gone, just a metal frame, so in the van it went.

I took it home, cut 2 circles of 3/4 plywood and screwed it one. It has been that way for the last 40 years. It has been used for just about everything you could thing of, saw horse, ladder, paint stand, grinder stand, even a boat draining stand but its always been there for me. Oh, and it was also used as a stool.

After I finished my last project I had 2, 6/4 maple blocks left over, just enough to glue together and make a new seat, I even convexed it.

I am not going to do anything with the frame, it has to many badges of honor on it.

Now ain't she pretty..........

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[Greg Cuetara]

Now that is what I call recycling. Great looking stool and ready for 40 more years.

[Ben Galluzzo]

Hey that's pretty nice. I really like those diamonds in the rough.

I especially like when you get something nearly for free at an auction or yard sale. Then when people realize what you've seen all along, they make comments or even offer you something for it.

It's nice to hear another one who keeps an eye out for rewards like that.

[Matt Meiser]

You could probably sell it at a trendy furniture place for $500.

[Mitchell Andrus]

I've got two just like it, but one has a small back-rest. They've got to be 70+ years old, salvaged by my grandfather from Bell Labs in the 50's, passed to my dad, and now to me about 15 years ago. Mine have each still got their original wooden tops and look it. Hunks of dumpster fodder that I just couldn't part with.

.... funny, the stuff that just hangs around....
.

[Mike Langford]

....Now ain't she pretty..........

She's mighty pretty, Bill.

[Andrew Joiner]

I'm with you on this one Bill. I've done similar things. Not only is it fun it's very green. If more people did this the world would be much cleaner.
It really bugs me that people buy so much large plastic crap and toss it in a landfill when it cracks. Not us. We save solid things,fix it and make it last.

I've found most woodworkers can appreciate this kind of stuff. I guess when you know how to make products from scratch,it seems like a true waste to toss something someone spent time making.

The cool thing about what you did Bill is not only did you save the stool,you wrote a nice little story to inspire us.
Thanks

[John Keeton]

Bill, it is so interesting to know that others have a shop stool that has such great history behind it. The question is, did you take the old top, and hang it on the wall as an art piece?

I had posted a pic of my stool in the thread on my shop tour. The top is an ever changing montage of spray paints, and other added components. I would imagine it is a good inch thicker than when new - whenever that was! If and when I change the top, it will have to remain a part of the shop in some capacity - just too much history there to be relegated to the trash!

[Von Bickley]

Bill,

Everybody needs a good shop stool or chair. The new seat on your stool looks GREAT. I would have to disagree with you about the frame. I would sand it down, paint it, and give that nice seat a new place to rest on...

[James Carmichael]

40 years ago I was a copy machine tech for Xerox
P8179106.jpg

Cool. Were you ever in the old Dallas-based Office Products Division? I spent 6 years there as an SW engineer, 1984-90, mostly in Lewisville.

Of course, OPD was the incredible shrinking business during my entire tenure. Although the PC, mouse, GUI, and Ethernet all came directly from the Palo Alto Research Center, Xerox sure didn't know how to make any money off of them.

[Bill Huber]

Cool. Were you ever in the old Dallas-based Office Products Division? I spent 6 years there as an SW engineer, 1984-90, mostly in Lewisville.

Of course, OPD was the incredible shrinking business during my entire tenure. Although the PC, mouse, GUI, and Ethernet all came directly from the Palo Alto Research Center, Xerox sure didn't know how to make any money off of them.

No I was always in KC as a tech, I left Xerox in 1984 when I went to work for Fedex.

It always killed me that all the technology that Xerox came up with the only one they really did any good with was xerography.

The last 10 years at the big X I was an engineering equipment and color copy tech.

[Bill Huber]

Bill, it is so interesting to know that others have a shop stool that has such great history behind it. The question is, did you take the old top, and hang it on the wall as an art piece?

I had posted a pic of my stool in the thread on my shop tour. The top is an ever changing montage of spray paints, and other added components. I would imagine it is a good inch thicker than when new - whenever that was! If and when I change the top, it will have to remain a part of the shop in some capacity - just too much history there to be relegated to the trash!

I should have, its still out in the shop and it looks about like yours.
I may have to make a clock out of it or something like that.