Upcycled/repurposed projects (MANY)

Joel_BC

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http://inhabitat.com/index.php?s=upcycled

I was searching the Web trying to find good repurposing & upcycling sites. I found this one, above, that has some real interesting ideas.

Here's an interesting page about the re-purposing of containers to make shelter:
http://inhabitat.com/stacked-shippi...alaysia/malaysian-container-home-10/?extend=1

This site goes more in the direction of art, decorative, and craft. Very imaginative:
http://www.recyclart.org/
Scroll down the page about 3/4 of the way and you get the option to see many more examples on pages 2, 3, 4, etc.

On the lighter side, here's some meaty design and repurposing - toward the goal of a functional "bridging machine" that can be moved into place and put a 16-foot temporary bridge across a chasm, such as a creek. "Serious" in terms of something that will work, but entertaining in presentation, as it's a contest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pso_ijy-h9A

On mchine is moorized, the other human-powered. This is about a 45-minute vid. It's from a TV show called Scrapheap Challenge, from the UK. It's interesting and enjoyable to watch, maybe especially if you like British-style fun and documentary! But if you want to "cut to the chase", you'll find the whole end result of the design and building processes in the last nine minutes. (If you liked, you could download the vid, set it for replay after its first go-through, advance the playback redline, and then turn up the sound just for the last portion.)


There's a lot of junk around in the world, as we all know. Re-purposing and upcycling make a lot of sense. I know a lot of people here at SS re-purpose as a matter of course.

Got any good Web sites to share? Got some pics to post?
 

Joel_BC

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Hey... Not unrealistic to imagine this thread is going to hit 40,000 views! Thanks go to everyone who's contributed and made comments.

Okay, here's another clever repurposing how-to. This guy used imagination plus two truck wheel rims and not much else to make a stove for barbecuing, cooking a stew, and such.
RecycledRimBBQFirePit.jpg


More pictures and discussion here: http://ideas2live4.com/2015/09/10/bbq-firepit/

See the how-to video walk-thru here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=126&v=3MfnfRGzfkk
 

Beekissed

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I'm always refurbishing, recycling or upcycling things, so too many to list but here's one larger one I finished just recently, though I still have to add one component.

This is a full sized antique bed frame bought at Good Will for $15 that I turned into a tiny daybed/bench for my granddaughter for when she sleeps over at my house.

The headboard already had a single coat of white paint on it~not well done, dripped and such~and the footboard did not. This bedstead appears to be made from cherry....hard as a rock and even the brand new drill bits smoked all the way through the wood.

The frame was made from old 2x6 scrap lumber we've had for a long time, so it too was a little tough to work through. The only new lumber on it was the seat, which was from "seconds" lumber at Lowe's, and a 2x2. I was trying to keep costs to a minimum.

I cut the footboard in half and used them to form the armrests....you guys have probably seen benches like this before. Now, I'm none too skilled in construction and don't always have the proper tools or hardware, so please don't snicker at my cobbled up efforts...paint often hides a multitude of sins! :D

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The rocking chair you can see in the background there was out on the curb where someone had thrown it away due to having a split seat and really weathered paint over varnish. I reinforced the seat and am currently painting it...not sure if I want to use it on the front porch or out in my garden, but either way it now has a new home. That thing is HEAVY. :eek:

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Had to make this wide enough for sleeping, so it's not real comfortable for sitting...much like a traditional daybed. We'll have to make a really good cushion for that purpose. When she is done with it as a bed, I may knock down that width a tad so it will make a more comfy bench.

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The padding/mattress for this was comprised of parts of a chaise lounge cushion and pieces of memory foam, with a cut down trash bag to protect the foam from any moisture that may happen when a little girl sleeps there. All in all, those pieces of this or that came out pretty comfy for her bed...she really LOVES this thing!

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LL


This thing has been weight tested at over 700# without a single creak or wiggle, so it's sturdy...and really HEAVY to move. Almost didn't fit through the door, either, so it's a little bulky for a bench but makes a sweet little daybed.

She really likes it....

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I have some heavy brocade material I'm going to use for devising a sleep guard for the front of it to keep her from falling out of bed...it was material from the bargain bin, so not a real good match but it should only show when she's sleeping and will be rolled up and stashed under the bed when not in use.

I'll post a pic when I get that completed. Will also post a pic of the rescued rocker when I get it done.
 

Beekissed

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This year I tweaked my coop to be bigger, more easily battened down for cold weather and also to have more light in the winter months. Last year's severe weather taught me a lot about the short comings of my original design of my hoop coop~it was too dark, too dank, too small. I also changed the nest boxes so that I had more and so they were on the interior of the coop. With the addition of another hoop, I also had to brace the roof in case of heavy snows, so door frames were changed from 2x2 to 2x4, a 2x4 runs the length of the coop under the arch of the roof and I have bracing on each end and left the original bracing in the middle.

I also added a dog house on the back using pallets and the scrap lumber, as well as the old tin. The pallets are stuffed to the max with old hay for insulation.

I bought minimal materials..a few 2x4s, another cattle panel, more zip ties, and a clear tarp. The rest of the build was found here on the place or scrounged for free other places. Hinges, old tin and wood scraps from homes we owned more than 25 yrs ago. I even used an antique glass door knob I had been saving for many a long year, that I had bought at a yard sale. I bought little glass drawer pulls for the nest boxes to match the doorknob.

All the wood was old, tough, small lengths and different sizes from old packing crates, old fences, etc, so the coop has a hodge podge look to it...but I love that! It was like putting together a puzzle to try and fit them all in and also accommodate the curve of the hoop framework.

Here's the before....

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And the after..... I left strategic little gaps here and there at all levels to make up some of my ventilation. Other areas of ventilation are adjustable to the max. With the roosting at the back now and my open areas in the front, this coop sort of works like a Wood's style coop now, so even with half the front door left open to air and some spaces over the shutters, it stays warm and toasty in there.

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The other tarps were here already and were cut to fit certain areas of the coop. The feed bag rain flaps are a repurpose I especially like..they keep the rain from blowing into the access doors of my nest boxes. I still need to sew the curtain for the top half of the front door.

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The new roosts can all be accessed by standing in the middle...I can reach any bird from there. The back windows can be opened for more ventilation in the summer and the clear tarp will be changed out for a shadier one come spring and the flaps will still be lifted then. Directly behind the roosts is a large window that can be opened as well, so the roosting area has three large windows that will be open in the warmer months.

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The clear tarp lets in natural light and sun and changed the whole feel of the coop...wish I had done this all along! This pic shows the new scrapped up nest boxes with cedar logs helping the birds get into the nests, a new work station and tool box on top of the nest boxes, along with a light that I repurposed from an old heat lamp wire and a new ceramic light fixture..even the chain pull on that light was repurposed from an old ceiling fan we had. The areas directly above the nest boxes can be opened further to let in air.

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The shutters over the nest boxes are hinged and drop open, held in place with 550 cord, as were the nest box doors.

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This pic is far away, but you can see the additional hoop on the back has windows that can be propped open and I've used the short scraps of lumber to make lap siding on the hoop to comprise solid walls. You can just see the corner of the dog house porch that extends out over the back pop door. The windows are just frames of wood with clear heavy mil plastic stapled in.

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I love the new atmosphere in the coop and I love the cheery new color. The dog house is wonderful as well...I can open the back of it up completely, as I hinged the pallet to swing open for cleaning of the house. It's so warm in there that some temporarily new chickens were sleeping in there instead of the coop(they've since been butchered, so Jake got his house back).

His house is insulated with tightly packed hay in the floor, the ceiling and all walls, except the wall that he shares with the coop. He has a wind block wall on his porch so the wind doesn't blow into his house or into the coop through the pop door there. The house was then filled with a cedar shavings floor covered with a lot of straw for making a cozy nest. The door was covered with a thick flap of material and it also has a solid wood door I can close when he doesn't use the house in the summer months...this will keep the hens from laying eggs in there.

This is a pic of his new house before we painted the coop and doghouse roof. We bent the edges of the old tin roof down with a hammer so that no sharp edges could harm anyone walking by and brushing up against it.

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The back wall of the dog house is hinged and fastens tightly closed when shut.

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So...there you have it. My big fat coop tweak of the year using repurposed items, scraps of this or that from many years of collecting and saving useful things.

Oh...and I also built a broody/mating/brood/holding pen using pallets and the old nest boxes taken out of the coop during the tweak. This is where I now brood chicks, keep broodies, mating trios, and keep birds awaiting processing.

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None of it's pretty, but it didn't cost anything either, so that makes it pretty to me.

That old tire in the pic keeps my communal water pan up out of the dust and litter, makes it a good height for the dog, the chickens can stand on the tire and get a drink...even the little ones, and it seems to keep my water cooler also. It also helps me level the pan on a slanted surface, so I can fill it more full. Another neat repurpose!

I'm sure I missed something...I repurpose so many things. Oh...remembered one more... I made a feed trough from Dad's old miter box and some scrap lumber for the feet. Also made a mini feeder from scrap lumber and covered it with some fencing attached with zip ties to make a chick feeder for FF.

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I'm sure there is more but that's all I can remember tonight. Been doing construction all year on this or that, using mostly repurposed things...that's sort of my "thing"~to try and make something without spending any money to make it.
 

Joel_BC

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Hello - I haven’t posted here for a while. I thought I’d share this very simple and useful tool that I made from a few things lying around my shop. It’s a fid. A fid is used for untying tight knots in cord or rope, by pressing the pointed end in and working a loop (or loops) of the knot a bit until the knot is loosened and can then be pulled open with your fingers. Anyone who works with rope at times - and that includes virtually all homesteaders - finds a tool like this quite valuable.

The fid I made is a real basic, even fairly crude, tool that simply does the job. I made this from a 5/16" by 7” “lag bolt” (wood bolt). I cut off the hex head with an angle grinder fitted with a zip disc, but could have used a hacksaw. I sharpened the bolt at the other end to the point you see in the pic, using a wheel on my bench grinder.

I found two sizes of copper plumbing pipe around the shop such that one slipped fairly snugly around the bolt, and the other fit fairly snugly around the first pipe. I cut them to a comfortable handle length, and ground away any burrs remaining from the cutting procedure. I heated the handle end of the bolt with a propane torch, and applied flux and plumber’s 50/50 solder to it. With the pointy end of the bolt held secure in a bench vise, I slid the other end into the smaller copper pipe. Then I heated the copper piece with the torch and fed more solder into the space between (as if I was “sweating” a plumbing joint). After that, I melted a thin coat of solder onto the outside of the small copper pipe, then slid the other copper pipe over it and again fed solder in to bond the larger pipe around the smaller.

Once everything was cooled, I did a slapdash but sufficient job of grinding a bit of shape into the handle for comfort in the hand when using the tool.

That was basically it.

The tool works well for me and the threads left on the lance made from the bolt can actually be helpful for teasing portions of a knot as you work to loosen it’s loops.
 

Beekissed

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View attachment 1985 Hello - I haven’t posted here for a while. I thought I’d share this very simple and useful tool that I made from a few things lying around my shop. It’s a fid. A fid is used for untying tight knots in cord or rope, by pressing the pointed end in and working a loop (or loops) of the knot a bit until the knot is loosened and can then be pulled open with your fingers. Anyone who works with rope at times - and that includes virtually all homesteaders - finds a tool like this quite valuable.

The fid I made is a real basic, even fairly crude, tool that simply does the job. I made this from a 5/16" by 7” “lag bolt” (wood bolt). I cut off the hex head with an angle grinder fitted with a zip disc, but could have used a hacksaw. I sharpened the bolt at the other end to the point you see in the pic, using a wheel on my bench grinder.

I found two sizes of copper plumbing pipe around the shop such that one slipped fairly snugly around the bolt, and the other fit fairly snugly around the first pipe. I cut them to a comfortable handle length, and ground away any burrs remaining from the cutting procedure. I heated the handle end of the bolt with a propane torch, and applied flux and plumber’s 50/50 solder to it. With the pointy end of the bolt held secure in a bench vise, I slid the other end into the smaller copper pipe. Then I heated the copper piece with the torch and fed more solder into the space between (as if I was “sweating” a plumbing joint). After that, I melted a thin coat of solder onto the outside of the small copper pipe, then slid the other copper pipe over it and again fed solder in to bond the larger pipe around the smaller.

Once everything was cooled, I did a slapdash but sufficient job of grinding a bit of shape into the handle for comfort in the hand when using the tool.

That was basically it.

The tool works well for me and the threads left on the lance made from the bolt can actually be helpful for teasing portions of a knot as you work to loosen it’s loops.

Joel, I really like that and now I have a new word in my vocabulary! Countless times I've needed a fid. Sure wish I had workshop equipment around here for welding and such.

There's only one improvement I'd make on it to adapt it to MY place here...a bright orange piece of duct tape or even a bright orange coat of paint to the handle so I wouldn't lose it when I sat it down here and there. Brown hand tools have a way of getting lost around these parts, so I've taken to banding them all with fluorescent orange or pink duct tape so I can spot them more easily.

Wouldn't go amiss to glue or weld a magnet on one side too, so you can afix it to your tractor, work station, etc., as well.
 

Beekissed

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Traded some labor with my brother for some old stuff in his basement, with the intent of using the old stuff on upcoming projects. We helped him trade out furniture yesterday and then shopped in his ancient house basement for old fixtures. Came home with an old, sturdy screen door(they don't make them like that anymore) to use in our outhouse rebuild, some other old, large framed out screens to use for making garden gates, and a little box of glass door and cupboard knobs.

Can't wait to use this stuff!!! :weee
 

Joel_BC

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This is ingenious. It's a small-scale soil cultivator that is powered by a cordless electric drill. The prototype device can be powered by the drill because its gear ratio reduces the rpm (revolutions per minute) provided by the drill's motor, which at the same time increases the turning power (torque).
I found the video on this site: https://www.milkwood.net/2014/12/15/drill-powered-microfarming-slow-tools-humanity/

The drill's battery can be recharged from any appropriate source, such as your regular 110/120v house or shop electricity. And also, as the page says, "this means that if you’re on solar power (or whatever renewable power source) then you can re-charge this device, in the form of the drill batteries, as much as needed... It’s also quiet (or, only as loud as a drill), and light to carry.

This cultivator is designed to cultivate the top of an already prepared bed to a fine tilth – either as a final stage before planting small seeds, or to incorporate compost into the future seedbed layer." IOW, it's not a rototiller.


To my mind, what this prototype mainly does is to show the principle of using a fairly low-power electric motor, having a rechargeable power supply, to operate the tilther. Probably this fairly small drill's motor or battery would be overtaxed and worn out before too long. But you can see the implication as to how a slightly beefier motor (like from a larger, more heavy-duty type of electric drill, etc) could be adapted to do the job of providing motive power.
 

Joel_BC

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This guy has taken the rocket stove general principle and design and adapted it to an outdoor grill. No need for fuels like propane or charcoal, it can burn wood (and he says twigs, wood chips, and other stuff, too). The design uses repurposed and salvaged components and materials...
4407_rocket_grill.jpg


Here's the site where he takes you, step-by-step, through the process of making one:
http://youdidit.org/en/articles/15
 
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