Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

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I buy them by the 5 gallon bucks at garage sales..... and then my oldest son is a scraper/garage/house clean outs...
When I was young and spent money foolishly I bought several of those little drawers from KAR products when they came to the shop I worked at. Had one with zip ties, another with electrical fittings, another with nuts and bolts. I can’t remember what the 4th one held. I eventually sold the whole works cause I didn’t need most of the stuff.
 
It’s in my list of things to do to sort by size transfer from coffee cans to largemouth mason jars so you can see what’s in there.
I sort mine into the heavy freezer zip lock bags and write on them with magic marker then put them in a box. Won’t break like a jar, you can still see in them and take up less space in the box than jars.
 
Does anyone else scrounge for bolts like this? I probably have 25 cans worth of goodies from dad and grandpa.

View attachment 759043
Only 25?
Coffee cans just waiting for something to go into them. And cans with valuable stuff in them. Never know when you'll need an antique hand cut nail or a nut to a cell tower base.
20190912_143322_001.jpg 20190912_143554.jpg
 
Replaced 1 firebrick and cemented in a couple small cracked angled peices. Guess the stoves good to go again.

The door seals really made some difference. Can really snuff down the fire. I used a low density flat 1/4" seal vs 5/16" round rope hoping that will last better.

Might replace the bolt that's holding the latch. Its looking thin and probably was a pin originally. That should be found in a coffee can or cookie tin eh?
 
I also have the baby food jars - still used when my kids were small!

That is what I remember the 'old farts' having when I was a kid: coffee cans and baby food jars.

Philbert
I have baby food jars with brads and small bolts/nuts. And some film containers too.
 
Does anyone else scrounge for bolts like this? I probably have 25 cans worth of goodies from dad and grandpa.

View attachment 759043

Did I not post 6 weeks ish ago about my brother and I clearing out dad's garage for mum? A LOT of old and useless nuts and bolts (whitworth, BSP, AF and such long since gone threads). The upsetting bit was we made several large sack fulls of old tools to scrap. High quality (in their day) spanners, taps, dies and so on. The sort of thing that dad had once upon a time as he was an engineer, and had kept for many years as to buy if needed would hve been prohibitively costly, but...well...thankfully we are metric everywhere these days.

by all means squirrel.....but do ask yourself if you have any real likelihood of using it first.
 
Did I not post 6 weeks ish ago about my brother and I clearing out dad's garage for mum? A LOT of old and useless nuts and bolts (whitworth, BSP, AF and such long since gone threads). The upsetting bit was we made several large sack fulls of old tools to scrap. High quality (in their day) spanners, taps, dies and so on. The sort of thing that dad had once upon a time as he was an engineer, and had kept for many years as to buy if needed would hve been prohibitively costly, but...well...thankfully we are metric everywhere these days.

by all means squirrel.....but do ask yourself if you have any real likelihood of using it first.
Amen. But then the hoarders might have been the wise ones after all, prepping for an apocalyptic mad-max style post-brexit. When the sky caves in on November 1st, if you listen very carefully you'll hear them saying "see, we told you it will come in handy one day".
 
I’ve got another half dozen jars on since this pic

View attachment 759076
There is talk here about going back to glass jars and bottles. Allegedly it is the greener option. Funny how the old timers might have known more than we ever gave 'em credit for at the time.
 
Does anyone else scrounge for bolts like this? I probably have 25 cans worth of goodies from dad and grandpa.

View attachment 759043
NNNNOOOOO!!! I was on my farm in WV. My cousin brought his Kubota with belly mower and light grading blade.. My Massey 135 has a 9', 500 pound grading blade, but I had it at home, not on the farm. He mowed my rifle range and some of the trails on his place. Then said we had to pull the mower or the rear blade would not go all the way down. He's 8 years older than me, so I jumped down on the ground. More like fell, because I had just had my knees replaced. The mower is supposed to have push pins, but the first one I could see had a bolt in it. I asked him if he had a ratchet and end wrench so I could pull the bolts? He said yes, and handed me a pair of pliers and an adjustable wrench. I asked where the 9/16 socket and end wrench were? He said if he did it that way he'd have to get a whole set, like the way he does it, he only needs one set of pliers and one adjustable wrench. So, cussing under my breath I climbed under. The first bolt was a standard bolt with 9/16 head and nut. The one on the rear of that side was a counter sunk, phillips head, wood screw with a square nut on the other side. The rear on the other side was a round head phillips with a brass nut cross threaded and the front on the other side was a standard bolt with half inch head and nut. All of the holes were egged out from having the wrong diameter bolts in them. I bought a set of the correct size push pins to fit it at TSC for something like $4.99, and gave them to him for Christmas. In the spring I asked if the push pins worked better? He said no, he took them back to TSC and got his 5 bucks, he had plenty of bolts in his cans.

When I got my MD Tree Experts License in 1999, he offered to sell me his business, he was ready to retire. He had 4 crews making between 3-4,000 a day each. That's almost $4 mill a year, and he can't buy the correct pin for his tractor? He has to use a rusty old bolt out of a can? He drove 10 miles and took two hours to return $5 dollars worth of pins?

After that weekend, I went home, and went through my shed. Threw all of the tins of bolts I got from my Dad's shop, all of my wedges, broken malls, old chains, and anything steel I could find in steel buckets. Got like $110 dollars at the scrap yard. Went out and bought a $105 bottle of Eldorado Rum, and toasted every one of the wood screws, sheet metal screws, brass screws, and miss matched bolts, that were in his tractor.

I used to hoard screws and bolts. Now I say screw a screw, I can go to Ace and buy the right one faster than I could find a close one. And why do I need a box of 500 screws where I use 2 a year. I even threw away the nice neat little pull drawers they were in.
 
I used to hoard screws and bolts. Now I say screw a screw, I can go to Ace and buy the right one faster than I could find a close one.
Use them all the time. Even when the hardware store is closed. Sometimes for a 'test fit' to determine length, diameter, thread, etc., even if I go buy some new ones for the final fit.

If you have an old house, sometimes the old finish fits in better than something new and shiny.

Philbert
 
Use them all the time. Even when the hardware store is closed. Sometimes for a 'test fit' to determine length, diameter, thread, etc., even if I go buy some new ones for the final fit.

If you have an old house, sometimes the old finish fits in better than something new and shiny.

Philbert
Gotta admit, when I used to restore old furniture for an antique shop, I had jars of vintage screws and fixtures. Same with my saws. I just don't keep the big tins of stuff I used to. After I drank that bottle of rum, just the sight of a tin full of bolts makes me heave.
 
Gotta admit, when I used to restore old furniture for an antique shop, I had jars of vintage screws and fixtures. Same with my saws. I just don't keep the big tins of stuff I used to. After I drank that bottle of rum, just the sight of a tin full of bolts makes me heave.
I'll only show you my box of old Stihl screws when you come Joe. Don't want to have to get the oil dry out for some barf in the shop.:laugh:
 

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