"I'm not a hoarder. I'm a 'REPURPOSER'." ~ paraphrased. Me too. LOL. I found an old, beautiful 'powder table" (A thing for women to do makeup in their room) that I cut the legs off and have a nice hardwood coffee table for the living-room and I put rollers on the bottom from some other free object. It's been over 35 years and we will never part with it. The list goes on with me. Perspective minus commercial programming=sanity. Great wisdom shared yet again. Thanks!
Holy moly, you know I’ve been in search for months to find a violin 🎻 I can afford for my daughter, and you just pull one right out of the trash. Simply amazing. We still watch you almost everyday in our shop. Thanks for your content.
If there isn't anything near where you live, go around to the yard/garage sales in your town at the end of the day. Most people just want to get rid of the stuff. And rather than haul it off, they will give stuff to you. You might have to haul off some stuff you don't want, but there is a LOT of good stuff available for free to anyone with a little imagination.
It is a wonderful skill to be able to look at cast away items and see value in them. My mind has a similar way of working, but I live in a very rural area and as such have little opportunity to find free items. I often peruse stores looking for alternative uses on discount items to try ideas on. Keeping find new uses for old bits, you give me many ideas to unleash my creativity on.
Several years ago I pulled a wheel chair out of the dumpster, took it up to my apartment and examined it. The only thing mechanically wrong with it was a missing nut and bolt for one of the front wheels. It cost me $25.00 for the replacement parts which included shipping and handling for what would otherwise be a $1500+ dollar wheelchair. I purchased a hover board on sale for $100 from Walmart and will be making a jig to attach the two together. I don't have an auto so it'll be a nice little electric ride when I want to go 2 miles down the sidewalk to a store.
I am also a womble, I see the potential in everything I find and I rarely buy new things these days, on the rare occasions I do buy things they are generally second-hand for example tools, especially hand tools, are insanely cheap from charity shops/car boot sales etc and often the quality is superior to many modern equivalents. Abandoned stuff is so abundant that I have actually found stuff that I have specifically been looking for within days of deciding I wanted it. 😅
car boot sales, I rarely go with any idea what I want, yet have come away with perfectly good old machines, I have a 6" powered hacksaw (1950's era) a small 4" hand shaper (1930s era) all for just a few quid at the boot fair- recently I was looking for walking aids for my parents (now in their 90's) and within 3 boot fairs had found 2 for under £5 each. its all out there if you are willing to look and keep an open mind for what you are looking for. sometimes for free, sometimes for few pennies.
In Florida we had bulk trash pickup twice a year on the curb and we would always find great stuff. Here in Tennessee people are not ok even as a homeowner just looking to recycle stuff from remodeling companies dumpsters they tell you they will call the cops. Even at work they burn broken pallets instead of letting us take them.
One of the reasons I think people toss perfectly good things is that they don't know what it took to make those things, and they didn't work hard enough for the money they spent on those things, so out of laziness it's much easier to toss something than find a new home for it. Students who get money from their parents, are even less likely to see the value in anything they discard. Here most dumpsters have a lock, preventing poor people from recycling cans and bottles that shouldn't be in the dumpster to begin with, and also preventing them from recovering anything useful they could resell to survive, so all that stuff is guaranteed to end-up crushed and dropped in a landfill instead. It boggles the mind.
Hi - Guitar repairer here - The Epiphone SG guitar is a modern Far East made worth about £150, but the Fender bass could be worth several thousands depending on age.
I agree that it appears to be a waste of materials and energy to throw so much away instead of repairing and reusing. On the other hand it does provide more jobs to many people who manufacture all this stuff. It does result in a net waste of energy but the the alternative is an increase in cost to support the unemployed.
When I moved to the coast of British Columbia from rural Saskatchewan I found endless amounts of everything that I needed to build a new house all for free. I have lived in it for almost 30 years. I also am an endless recycler/repurposer. I have found endless supplies of metals and aluminum which I have used in my many creations. We have so much STUFF that much of it has lost its value to people so they just throw it away. And then they wonder why they have no money and are struggling with debt. The main take away from this for me is that most people have no IMAGINATION and are only users. Much like drug addicts. Just get more stuff. When it doesn't satisfy the craving just throw it away and get something else! An endless cycle of waste.
Nothing is thrown out like that where I am from but I have serious issues if I go to the tip I want to Go through the gear to see what's repairable. I have a slightly fun hobby of making Jacob's ladders & things out of old CRT gear & I occasionally get a tingle if I'm stupid but what fun
I remember when I was young we would go out and find bike frames usually with wheels and with a little money get them up to usable condition also old prams and convert them into "gambos" or go carts
2:10 ....... and here we see the lesser Skip Wratcher in his element! ;o) Seriously, it's been a while since I went Skip Wratching. Amazing what you find isn't it. Also amazing how much stuff we "chuck away" ........ and as a side note also amazing how much "stuff" gets recycled nowadays!
Hey Robert! Do you find many used laser ink kassetts!? If you do you can make Newman-motors for small kenetical battery driven by static electricity! This is a real free energy force! /Mikael
Keep your eyes peeled and you'll be surprised Watson available. You're a lot like me, don't be afraid to have a good root around. I have the good fortune too have a skip hire company as one of my customers 😊 and my son ( who is only 11) calls my daddy skip rat 😂😂😂😂😂😂
"I'm not a hoarder. I'm a 'REPURPOSER'." ~ paraphrased. Me too. LOL. I found an old, beautiful 'powder table" (A thing for women to do makeup in their room) that I cut the legs off and have a nice hardwood coffee table for the living-room and I put rollers on the bottom from some other free object. It's been over 35 years and we will never part with it. The list goes on with me. Perspective minus commercial programming=sanity. Great wisdom shared yet again. Thanks!
Sad part is that this stuff might go in a landfill. Amazing how much of it can be repurposed.
Holy moly, you know I’ve been in search for months to find a violin 🎻 I can afford for my daughter, and you just pull one right out of the trash. Simply amazing. We still watch you almost everyday in our shop. Thanks for your content.
If there isn't anything near where you live, go around to the yard/garage sales in your town at the end of the day. Most people just want to get rid of the stuff. And rather than haul it off, they will give stuff to you. You might have to haul off some stuff you don't want, but there is a LOT of good stuff available for free to anyone with a little imagination.
It is a wonderful skill to be able to look at cast away items and see value in them. My mind has a similar way of working, but I live in a very rural area and as such have little opportunity to find free items. I often peruse stores looking for alternative uses on discount items to try ideas on. Keeping find new uses for old bits, you give me many ideas to unleash my creativity on.
Must be something in the water there for people to throw away an electric guitar.
Several years ago I pulled a wheel chair out of the dumpster, took it up to my apartment and examined it.
The only thing mechanically wrong with it was a missing nut and bolt for one of the front wheels.
It cost me $25.00 for the replacement parts which included shipping and handling for what would otherwise be a $1500+ dollar wheelchair.
I purchased a hover board on sale for $100 from Walmart and will be making a jig to attach the two together.
I don't have an auto so it'll be a nice little electric ride when I want to go 2 miles down the sidewalk to a store.
I am hip deep in cool stuff that I have collected and will probably never do anything with, I can’t stop. People throw away such good stuff.😝🤓
I am also a womble, I see the potential in everything I find and I rarely buy new things these days, on the rare occasions I do buy things they are generally second-hand for example tools, especially hand tools, are insanely cheap from charity shops/car boot sales etc and often the quality is superior to many modern equivalents. Abandoned stuff is so abundant that I have actually found stuff that I have specifically been looking for within days of deciding I wanted it. 😅
car boot sales, I rarely go with any idea what I want, yet have come away with perfectly good old machines, I have a 6" powered hacksaw (1950's era) a small 4" hand shaper (1930s era) all for just a few quid at the boot fair- recently I was looking for walking aids for my parents (now in their 90's) and within 3 boot fairs had found 2 for under £5 each. its all out there if you are willing to look and keep an open mind for what you are looking for. sometimes for free, sometimes for few pennies.
In Florida we had bulk trash pickup twice a year on the curb and we would always find great stuff. Here in Tennessee people are not ok even as a homeowner just looking to recycle stuff from remodeling companies dumpsters they tell you they will call the cops. Even at work they burn broken pallets instead of letting us take them.
One of the reasons I think people toss perfectly good things is that they don't know what it took to make those things, and they didn't work hard enough for the money they spent on those things, so out of laziness it's much easier to toss something than find a new home for it. Students who get money from their parents, are even less likely to see the value in anything they discard.
Here most dumpsters have a lock, preventing poor people from recycling cans and bottles that shouldn't be in the dumpster to begin with, and also preventing them from recovering anything useful they could resell to survive, so all that stuff is guaranteed to end-up crushed and dropped in a landfill instead. It boggles the mind.
Hi - Guitar repairer here - The Epiphone SG guitar is a modern Far East made worth about £150, but the Fender bass could be worth several thousands depending on age.
I agree that it appears to be a waste of materials and energy to throw so much away instead of repairing and reusing. On the other hand it does provide more jobs to many people who manufacture all this stuff. It does result in a net waste of energy but the the alternative is an increase in cost to support the unemployed.
When I moved to the coast of British Columbia from rural Saskatchewan I found endless amounts of everything that I needed to build a new house all for free. I have lived in it for almost 30 years. I also am an endless recycler/repurposer. I have found endless supplies of metals and aluminum which I have used in my many creations. We have so much STUFF that much of it has lost its value to people so they just throw it away. And then they wonder why they have no money and are struggling with debt. The main take away from this for me is that most people have no IMAGINATION and are only users. Much like drug addicts. Just get more stuff. When it doesn't satisfy the craving just throw it away and get something else! An endless cycle of waste.
Nothing is thrown out like that where I am from but I have serious issues if I go to the tip I want to Go through the gear to see what's repairable. I have a slightly fun hobby of making Jacob's ladders & things out of old CRT gear & I occasionally get a tingle if I'm stupid but what fun
I remember when I was young we would go out and find bike frames usually with wheels and with a little money get them up to usable condition also old prams and convert them into "gambos" or go carts
2:10 ....... and here we see the lesser Skip Wratcher in his element! ;o)
Seriously, it's been a while since I went Skip Wratching. Amazing what you find isn't it.
Also amazing how much stuff we "chuck away" ........ and as a side note also amazing how much "stuff" gets recycled nowadays!
Hey Robert! Do you find many used laser ink kassetts!? If you do you can make Newman-motors for small kenetical battery driven by static electricity! This is a real free energy force! /Mikael
These days, ironically, stuff is plentiful, but the knowledge of how to use it is scarce
New Zealand try to recycling all of it goods, i have made lot of good thing from the dump shop
awesome! do you play music?
those are great finds!
Keep your eyes peeled and you'll be surprised Watson available. You're a lot like me, don't be afraid to have a good root around. I have the good fortune too have a skip hire company as one of my customers 😊 and my son ( who is only 11) calls my daddy skip rat 😂😂😂😂😂😂
I love repurposing things. I think this is a good thing to teach children.
Hey rob, do you have a local "by Nothing" type platform, where you can list any surplus items for other tinkerers and makers?
There are no many places like that in the world , as I said before...
hope you and ur son are ok
OK, so I "found" it at the hardware store. What's your point?
🤔