Saving screws, nuts and bolts..................

[Flytyer24]

So I have been known to save some stuff...

My personal favorite would be the wires off of Chinese food take-out containers. They already have hooks and make great hangers. Nails to hang the hooks on they can be used to dry peppers or anything like that. Or if you need a little wire... I only keep a handful though... Probably cause I haven't had Chinese food in too long.

Growing up a son of a Carpenter I was always hardwarre rich (lol). I remember when he renovated an old school house we put the old windows in our camp and I pounded 1000s of nails out of the hardwood flooring wnd we reused both.

Made an ice shack (for fishing) out of scraps from him. The sleigh that held it was made out of the old swimming pool we used as kids.

I miss the abudance of useful things. I never used to have to go to a hardware store...\\

 

[~gd]

I wish I knew of a hardware store! We had a Lowes big box 'home improvement' store move into town and slowly but surely they either bought out the old stores [hired the best of their employees also] or just plain drove them out of business. They got theirs on April 16Th 2010 the area was hit by a F3 tornado. Direct hit on Lowes and Tractor Supply! I ended up needing a new roof. By the time I could line up someone to repair/replace the materials had to be bought more than 50 miles from my place. Oh yes I did get the makings of a new chicken coop out of the deal one of those huge industrial roofing panels landed in my back yard I couldn't figure where it had came from. Then I realized it was Lowes Blue but the store was 7 miles away as the roof flies. It was bent so that it made a nice A frame. Lined it up to get the best breeze through and fencened the two ends. I suppose it will be gone with the wind the next storm that comes along. Meanwhile I managened to salvage all kinds of lumber but orderning nails and screws by mail is no fun.

 

[Cindlady2]

Wow gd! I can't imagine having to order nails ans screws from the mail!
My grandfather worked at the oldest hardware store in town and it's still here and family owned! It's a "True Value" but that's for buying power and advertizing. They own 3 or 4 stores in the area but all run by family and they will bend over backwards to get you what you need! They even hire and train people that know something about what they sell! We have a Manards in town and some other big chains in the area but I don't think our Hardware Store is going anywhere soon.

 

[~gd]

Wow gd! I can't imagine having to order nails ans screws from the mail!
My grandfather worked at the oldest hardware store in town and it's still here and family owned! It's a "True Value" but that's for buying power and advertizing. They own 3 or 4 stores in the area but all run by family and they will bend over backwards to get you what you need! They even hire and train people that know something about what they sell! We have a Manards in town and some other big chains in the area but I don't think our Hardware Store is going anywhere soon.

Our True Value store was the last to fall. It too was a family operation One of the founders sons ran the Hardware and the other run a home and garden store and they used to direct customers to the other store. Of course Lowes had the same type of stuff all under one roof. They [the brothers] also gave 'book credit' a small handyman or a landscaper could get carried 'on the books' because people don't like to pay up front and really want to see the finished project before they pay up. Both operations seemed to doing well until 2008 when unemployment took a huge jump [to 16%] when many manufacturing jobs were outsourced. It took a fair amount of time but the lack of customers who could pay slowly wiped out many merchants.
The first to fall happened shortly after Lowes opened. Suddenly Mann's Hardware [the bigest in town] had a closed sign. No going out of business sale, nothing like that. Turns out that Lowes had bought everything but the building and hired all of the Mann family that used to work in the store. Good move on their part because the youngers had grown up in hardware, and the old man was now the manager of the Plumbing department! Now I know why smaller markets hate the big box stores. ~gd

 

[Icu4dzs]

ME: Hi, My name's Trim and I'm a Save-a-holic!
Group: HI TRIM
Me: Well, I started with just wood and nuts and bolts. I moved into nails and now I am saving darn near everything in creation that will hold those things. I got the idea from the father of a guy I knew in California many years ago. He was a brilliant man who had millions of hardware items, all neatly stored and categorized in containers on shelves in his garage. I was most impressed with his AIR-CAR. It was an old Studebaker that he had converted into an aircraft cockpit on the inside. He got all the instruments from an old airplane and took out all the dashboard "JUNK" from the old car and installed all the aircraft instruments into the "control panel". His son, Bill and my friend Jack and I used to drive all over LosT Angels in that thing and had the best time. It probably was the source of my desire to actully fly when I got into the Navy.Well from there it progressed to saving wood; particularly any thing that was already milled. If I can't use it in the shop, I burn it in the furnace.
Then it was welders. I have the usual O-A rig, a small Hobart 135, A Lincoln 216, and then there are the old Lincoln "tombstones" of which I have 2 and the Airco 225 stick welder.
Now I am starting to save containers...almost anything that will hold a nail, screw or bolt or washer. Trouble is I have large volumes of it and never get time to sort it and categorize it so I can find it when I need it. I eve went so far as to go to sales at the local hardware store when they are clearing out stuff that just won't sell.
Sheeesh...and to think there was nothing on my farm when I got there...You'd think I lived there all my life to see the place now. People just stop by and give me stuff. Most of it is useful so I don't throw anything out, but now I am becoming more discriminating and won't keep old junk screwdrivers. Some of them I either sharpen and use for a turning tool on my lathe or burnishing my scrapers.
O well, some day when I am old I'll find it all when I think I need it.
Trim sends
//BT//

 

[FranklinStreetWest]

I save EVERY cut nail that I pull from something around my house. They straighten out and hold just fine...AND...they are period/original to the home!

Every time I consider just "junking" random fasteners, I remember that every gram of steel or brass adds up and can be sold to the scrap yard. So I have two recycle bags for metal... sheet metal/steel for empty food cans... aluminum for drink cans and foil. Fasteners get sorted into two different fastener bins... brass screws, hinges, what-not & steel screws, hinges, nails, what-not. It's like a small savings account.

 

[Cindlady2]

When we first bought this place and moved in my little heart went pitter patter over the 2 1/2 car garage with a huge work shop behind... the work shop is the width of the garage and 1 1/2 times the length! We used it as a staging area when moving.... things happen and I didn't get to many of the boxes and there wasn't room for some furniture so there it all sat... plans for a rummage sale came and went. Now our youngest son had to move in because the place he was renting got sold and his roomy moved home. So.... 1/2 of my nice work shop is a little apartment...The other 1/2 is so stuffed with our moving stuff that I can't even get to stuff... plus my son's stuff! He also took over a large portion of the garage.... which contains 2 cars that are being worked on! My dreams of nice neat shelves of labeled buckets and bins holding salvaged treasures awaiting new life will remain a dream.... at least for now.:/ I even figured out a design for a scrap wood bin where I didn't have to dig too much. *Sigh*


~gd... That store wasn't in Wisconsin was it? That sounds so familiar

 

[~gd]

When we first bought this place and moved in my little heart went pitter patter over the 2 1/2 car garage with a huge work shop behind... the work shop is the width of the garage and 1 1/2 times the length! We used it as a staging area when moving.... things happen and I didn't get to many of the boxes and there wasn't room for some furniture so there it all sat... plans for a rummage sale came and went. Now our youngest son had to move in because the place he was renting got sold and his roomy moved home. So.... 1/2 of my nice work shop is a little apartment...The other 1/2 is so stuffed with our moving stuff that I can't even get to stuff... plus my son's stuff! He also took over a large portion of the garage.... which contains 2 cars that are being worked on! My dreams of nice neat shelves of labeled buckets and bins holding salvaged treasures awaiting new life will remain a dream.... at least for now.:/ I even figured out a design for a scrap wood bin where I didn't have to dig too much. *Sigh*


~gd... That store wasn't in Wisconsin was it? That sounds so familiar

Nope,a smal city in NC. And I forgot to mention the kicker. lots of goods were salvaged by local volenteers after the tornado did Lowes donate any of the items that might have helped in the recovery, or did they set up a sidewalk sale like Tractor Supply Store did? HE77 NO! The stuff was all loaded onto trucks and trucked OUT of the area. I am not talking about from the damaged part of town to undamaged sections, I don't know where it went but the trucks didn't return for 24 hours. Funny we had aid pouring into town from all over and these SOBs Were busy shipping needed tools and materials OUT. We had a mill that made Pressed wood panels [Cheap sub for plywood] they brought a truck load to each of the 2 hard hit housing areas sign said "not suitable for long term roofs, good for covering missing windows TAKE WHAT YOU NEED" we also have a CAT plant that assembles those little Bobcats [boy are they handy for moving and loading stuff!] every morning they had trucks of them of them available to anyone that could pass the operation skills tests. Finally this is a logging area [long neddle pines make wonderful utility poles] and they would bring their big rigs to areas that needed them. ~gd