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Thread: Do you re-purpose things to use in the shop?

  1. #1

    Do you re-purpose things to use in the shop?

    About 2 years ago, I found a collapsible medical IV stand at a Church garage sale for $2. Its got 8 wheels and an extensible pole. Today, I adapted it to serve as a rolling stand for a new Husky worklite that I bought. It works great!

    I sometimes use the bottom rack from an old dishwasher as a drying rack when finishing doors or small shelves. And I use the old lexan bins from my failed refrigerator as sturdy storage bins around the shop.

    Finally, I cut the cords off of old appliances and use them again, if I need such - especially long ones from vacuum cleaners.

    For me, this isn't a matter of being frugal. It's more that I really hate to waste useful "stuff".
    (You dont want to see my scrap bin or the many bottles/containers I've saved. )

    I'd love to hear about ways that other people have turned "waste" into something useful for the shop.

    Thanks!
    Fred
    Last edited by Frederick Skelly; 09-23-2017 at 9:03 PM.

  2. #2
    Fred, taking this approach will lead you to have a shop full I've junk. If you doubt me, come look at my garage.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Conerly View Post
    Fred, taking this approach will lead you to have a shop full I've junk. If you doubt me, come look at my garage.


    LOL , nice one!

    I reuse plastic tubs from our local Chinese place and potatoes salad tubs for stain and finishing.

  4. #4
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    I've got a few freestanding, open frame, two-post electronic equipment racks that I repurposed to a clamp rack (until I outgrew it), a lumber rack (a failure and waste of space), and most recently as an elevated, semi-permanent platform for my dust collector.

    i also have a shop full of junk. Coincidence?
    Chuck Taylor

  5. #5
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    Fred, my wife always cleans and saves used cottage cheese containers as well as deli containers & other round or square food containers for my use to mix 2 part epoxy. I really love West System epoxy and use tons of it restoring windows, doors, etc. in old buildings. Newspapers are saved, in a reasonable amount, to cover my bench for painting and epoxy work. Then there's the hotel key cards that make great shims for fences and the like. Oh yeah, 1/16th to 1/8th inch thick off-cut rips that I cut to roughly 8" lengths which I use to mix epoxy & spread glue. I do the same as you with electrical device cords. Frankly, it's not necessarily the concept of frugality, it's really having these things when I need them.
    Last edited by Bob Michaels; 09-23-2017 at 9:44 PM.

  6. #6
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    Yes I do. As a kid I would see junk as valuable building material. I did it the least when I was doing woodworking for a living. Now I have lots of discarded stuff stored to make repairs and useful things.
    My favorite is inner tubes. I use bike tubes up to truck size tubes a lot.
    "Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t - you’re right."
    - Henry Ford

  7. #7
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    Here;s a weird one. I don't know how many of these things I tossed until it hit me to hang on to a few. They are the little tops that come under the cap of my anti-persperant when they are new. They make great painter's pyramids for small or long thin stock:

    Random Tip-6 (1).jpgRandom Tip-6 (2).jpg

    A friend on another forum enables his wife's addiction to International Coffees. Once he had all the empties he could stand he offered some up to others. I have a couple of dozen that hold odd-shaped hardware, odd project parts and other things that don't fit into my standard organizational system. The lids stay on well and they stack.

    Random Tip-6 (3).jpg

    I also use k-cup coffee boxes in a system that is on plywood runners over the rafters. This is semi-long term storage of those pesky things like plumbing repair parts, computer and stereo cables, holiday stuff, light bulbs, antique tools that I can't seem to let go of, etc. The boxes stack nicely, have a large face to apply a label big enough to read from the ground and are free once you pay for the coffee ;-)

    As to the 'shop full of junk' problem, that comes from gathering things that don't have a use. Things that may have a use 'someday' are a plague in a shop. If you want to gather stuff that may be useful when some rare and perfect series of events presents themselves, get a shed and fill that with junk, keep your shop clean and accident free.
    Last edited by glenn bradley; 09-25-2017 at 8:50 AM.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  8. #8
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    I have a small shop and have found that I can't afford to do this as it increases clutter and leads to a loss of space and organization. Yes, if something has a use that I can see right away, I'll do it. But if I have to store the item waiting for the perfect use, no way. It's taken me many years to figure this out and goes against my "save and repurpose" instincts, but has proven counterproductive for me in the long run.

  9. #9
    I don't unless I have an immediate need for something that is on the way into the trash. I don't save things in hopes that someday I might find a use for them. That just leads to clutter and I hate clutter.

  10. #10
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    Yes, admit I am a Packrat and saver/reuser.....Ocassionally, though I have to "thin out " the junk and make space.
    Just my nature.....At cabin, I always saved scraps of wood to use as kindling..
    Jerry

  11. #11
    Thanks guy. Glad I'm not the only one, even though I too have to thin the herd sometimes!

    Glenn - I have the international coffee tins too. I use 45* cutoffs from dimentioned lumber for painting pyramids - I end up with a bunch whenever I make tool stands.

    Fred

  12. #12
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    I am frugal to a fault. Cannot remember the last time a threw away a cord that was attached to an appliance. I like the ideas in the responses above and will use some of them in the future. My garage and shop are cluttered but I frequently use wedges from tapered table legs and collected screws, washers, nuts, etc. One of these days, my heirs are likely to suffer for my frugality. In the meantime, I will continue to make and repair items for them.
    Rustic? Well, no. That was not my intention!

  13. #13
    Join Date
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    My shop is full of repurposed items, saves money and keeps stuff out of a landfill. It's also fun figuring out how to repurpose something. My workbench base is an old harvest table found in the shed of our old house, the top is a solid wood door from a factory and I use the old plywood drawers from the old house kitchen to store nails and screws etc. The top of my assembly table is a kitchen island laminate top. The first stage of my dust collection system is a Thien baffle in an old shop vac canister. An old floor lamp base supports a work light and dust collector hose. I use a 4 drawer file cabinet as storage. I've often reused old power cords from dead tools. I do get carried away sometimes and hang on to cut offs hoping to reuse them and end up wasting more time looking for the perfect cut off than it would take to cut it from new stock. If I had a woodburning fireplace half the scraps would be long gone by now.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doug Garson View Post
    My shop is full of repurposed items, saves money and keeps stuff out of a landfill. It's also fun figuring out how to repurpose something....
    Same here: I use salvaged cabinets and shelves, work benches built on and around carts and base cabinets (one with a bowling alley surface) many reused containers, bookcases from a yard sale in the office, file cabinets from an auction. I have lots of salvaged plastics and metals to use in my little welding and machine shops. Tools I've made from pieces. And of course, re-purposed trees in the form of boards and turning blanks!! (Don't we all. )

    One way to keeping it from being nothing but junk is to have a separate storage space for those things that are not immediately useful. For example I have plastic bins on shelves, some for electronic parts, some for small mechanical things, small offcuts of exotic woods, etc.

    Don't get me wrong - I love to buy new and I always buy quality, never from HF. (sorry, HF lovers!) But anyone who has a farm knows all about putting used things to work. That is, unless they are independently wealthy...

    JKJ

  15. #15
    It's called hoarding. I try to refrain from it as much as I can. I have a friend who takes it to the extreme. I asked him one day why he had a jar full of those rectangular, metal knockouts from putting circuit breakers in an electrical panel. He said you never know when you need a little piece of metal for welding practice or something like that.

    I call his 3000 sq ft the labyrinth. There's a narrow little maze to follow to get around the shop, and everywhere else is stacked 7-feet high with junk. It's okay to keep stuff in supply that you have a legitimate, near term use for, but storing stuff just in case you "might" be able to find a use for it again is just hoarding.

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