Are You a Scrounger? I Am!

[nw_hunter]

11^th Air Assault!   

How come I never saw that avatar before!?   

Never used it before! Thought I would use my old unit patch for a while.

[nw_hunter]

I saw one once that the front was all glass, and the cave was up a good ways. When you stood in the windows you were lookin out over a big timbered bottom. It just don get no better than that. One dead end road in. Man it was quite into that cave-house. The temp never changes year round.

I remember going into  a cave near Harrison Arkansas one hot July day! (I think it's called Majestic Caverns) The temp outside was around 100 or so, and inside a cool 65. "NICE"

In Noel Mo. there is, "or was" a restaurant inside a cave. Nice place to visit on a hot day

[Clodhopper]

I was raised by my Grandmother and she was born in 1900.  Her phylosophy was that a bent nail could be straightened and a piece of chain with more than three links was useful for something.  If you broke a handle (shovel, hoe, ax, etc.) you put in another one.  She had me make an ax handle once from a piece of hickory and put in the ax.  Said it was good training for me at 10 years old.  I still have that ax with the same handle so that handle is 53 years old.  No telling how old the ax is, it is wore down a little from sharpening and the back is spawled out from driving splitting wedges, but it works.

I go for drives out in the desert and find washing machines that are dumped.  Most of them still have the tubs inside.  Ten minutes to remove one and I sell them to the RVers for $40.00 to use as fire pits.  They make great fire pits.  My wife says that when I go to the dump that I usually bring back more than I take.  As said before, one man's trash is another man's treasure!

[Victor3]

I go for drives out in the desert and find washing machines that are dumped.  Most of them still have the tubs inside.  Ten minutes to remove one and I sell them to the RVers for $40.00 to use as fire pits.  They make great fire pits. 

 When I was a boy my Dad and I used to camp in the CA high desert a lot. We could go down several roads off the main hwy to get to our favorite spots. Most of these roads were used by locals for illegal dumping.

 Dad would always look for bed frames and fold-away bed/couches. The angle iron was good for building stuff out of. I hated to see the things because I knew it meant I was going to have to help him break them down by removing multiple rivets with hammer & chisel on the way out before we went home. We collected hundreds of feet of angle iron over the years and Dad did use some of it for various projects.

 When Dad passed, most of the angle iron (along with other assorted scrounged materials) was still stacked in a shed in Mom & Dad's backyard. I had been using it on and off for years for my own projects.

 Horror of horrors, Mom decided to clear out the backyard one day and called the junkman to haul away the shed and its contents along with several short sections of railroad track, I-beam, plates, aluminum tube, even a bunch of titanium bars and sheet stock Dad bought as scrap from Hughes Aircraft when he worked there.

 All that scrounging labor down the tubes in one fell swoop...

[teamnelson]

This week I got a high back swivel bar stool for my shop ... 4 bolts, lithium grease and some simple green fixed it up. Also got an oscillating fan and a small fridge ... also for the shop. All of this on the curb. Great week!

[Dee]

This is the kind of stuff I meant when I started this thread. I have jokingly told others when talkin about scroungin: Don't pick anything up a Mexican throws away. Chances are, it is totally worn out or he wouldn't have chunked it. Those folks no how to get every penny out of a dollar.

[squirrellluck]

I am not a scrounger. I am a collector of resources for future projects!

[mrbigtexan]

i have it all figgered out! i show it(junk) to my dad and help him load it and he keeps it at his house. when i need it, he gives it to me to use to make something. keeps me out of trouble with my wife!

[HogFan]

Being military and moving every 3 years or so, I can't say I horde items, though my wife would beg to differ. Since we haven't PCSed in a while, I have collected a few more items than normally. I do have to laugh, as my wife is the one with the screws, bolts, and nails can that she keeps. When we had our house in one of the newer neighborhoods in town, it was nothing to find some nice stuff on trash day. I got a Craftsman pushmower that needed a sparkplug, numerous gas cans, etc. The kids have even gotten toys with tags still on them they found in a trash pile of a couple that was moving. Now my dad, he had a very nice collection, but I hauled most of it off after he died to clean the yard up for my mother.

[Cornbelt]

I think scrounging is genetic. My folks grew up during the depression and it took till Mom was in her fifties before we could convince her it was o.k. to use a whole kleenex if she was only gonna blow one nostril. When we finally all moved off, there was three generations of acclumulation. That's been 37 years. And just the other day I scrounged some sheet metal for a wood shed I'm fixing to build . Got it from a neighbor whose husband was just as bad as the rest of us. Turns out the very metal siding was from one of our old hog houses.    Back in the family!

[Dee]

My dad used to buy cheap wrenches. I mean really cheap. It wasn't unusual for him to have 4 or 5 9/16 inch wrenches, and 4 or 5 1/2 inch wrenches. Of course one end of each wrench would be bad, either the open end or the box end, but he kept them all. Same way with screwdrivers. Bad tip? Keep it anyway.
Yesterday I Went thru a bucket of odds and ends bolts, and screws, and matched them up and separated most. The ones without mates, I just could bring myself to throw them away.

[HogFan]

I had to laugh at the comment about their mom using the kleenex. My mother was the same way. My mom can say all she wants to about my late dad hoarding stuff, but my mom is just as bad. The only thing with mom, it's nohthing I can use.

[SHOOTALL]

I know a lady that washes out zip loc bags

[Dee]

Hey SHOOTALL. I know a lady that washes out the plastic bags her morning paper comes in, and reuses them to vacuum seal fresh vegetables from her garden, and it works. Talk about cheap.

I got up this morning and found the garbage disposal in the kitchen had gone out. When I got back from Lowes with a new one the connections have changed since I put the last one in. I went to my shop, and SCROUNGED some PVC, I had kept from a remodel on another house 3 years ago. Worked like penicillin used to, and didn't cost a thing.

[HogFan]

I know a lady that washes out zip loc bags

My mother does that, and she washes plastic utensils as well to reuse.

[Dee]

A few years before I reached 60, I too began to realize the value of the dollar. The economy has made the scarce at my house.

[Sweetwater]

I know a lady that washes out zip loc bags

Both my wife and my mother do that on a regular basis!!

[rdlange]

I'm an embarrassment to my wife and daughters.  Can't drive past a dumpster without slowing or be let out of the house on big item trash day.  One man's trash is another man's treasure as was said before.  Mostly I scrounge tools and wood.  Found two pick up loads of 12'x8-10", 1-3" thick rough cut clear walnut few years back, had to be decades old.  Two entire wheeled tool boxes - full, just locked at the dump three years ago, more bicycles than I can count, a Yamaha 250 MC with a bent wheel, two Sheridan air rifles, a Crosman Mk 2 air pistol, and a Rem Rolling block 50 cal over the last 10 years.  More knives than I can remember, mostly folding and YES... a real Samurai sword sticking out of a trash can one early morning on the way to work!!!  Too much other stuff to mention.  You get the picture... this is a disposable society. 

Glad I'm not alone.

[Oldshooter]

I know a lady that washes out zip loc bags

Both my wife and my mother do that on a regular basis!!

My dear departed Mother did too. I used to give her a hard time about it. 

[bilmac]

About half of the buried pipe for my automatic sprinklers is garden hose scrounged from the dump. One leak and some folks will throw a 50' piece away.

[mrloring]

I have found two rusty 20lb propane tanks being thrown away.  A trip to Lowe's and they were swapped out for clean filled tanks.  I used some salvaged casters and plywood to make a base for my kerosene heater.  I am a volunteer fire fighter and when we have a vehicle rescue class I clean up on fuses.  I also got a nice spare tire to mount my clay pigeon thrower to. 

[Rock Home Isle]

Do you rat hole, and pack rat junk. I do, and I'm always on the scout for discarded treasure. Example. Occasionally I take drives in the country in my Jeep. Just me, the Jeep, and of course my Winchester. The other day, someone had dumped a big screen TV in the ditch of a country road. The TV was shot, and the county was gonna eventually have to pick it up BUT! I notice on the bottom of the cabinet was four really nice coaster wheels. Ten minutes and Phillips screw driver had them laying in the floor of my Jeep. A couple days later, combined with a 3/4" piece of scrap plywood cut to fit I have my generator sitting on it, and it will roll anywhere I want it to in my shop.
 
...

Dee you gotta meet my dad...you two are scary similar. 

[Dee]

Is he as cranky and blunt as I am?

[Rock Home Isle]

Is he as cranky and blunt as I am?

...like I said, "You two are scary similar."

[SHOOTALL]

I have seen 2 lap top computers in the road in the last week , both were in padded cases . Didn't know if they were worth picking up ?

[Dee]

Probably lost off the top of a car.

[mechanic]

I have seen 2 lap top computers in the road in the last week , both were in padded cases . Didn't know if they were worth picking up ?

Depends on the case...there may be other items in there more valuable than the computer.

I once stopped and picked up one of those plastic truck tool boxes from the side of the road that I had seen going to work, and it was still there when I came back.  It was very heavy, I had to drag it to the van, and it had two padlocks on it.  I was almost afraid to cut the locks...but there was no cadaver smell.   It had a skil circular saw, a drill, a jigsaw a framing square, folding rule, tape rule, hand tools.............

Now I can't help myself from stopping when I see something interesting.  My wife at first got irritated, but the other day I found her one of those "doggie purses" from some name brand folks and now she helps me spot.........

[Dee]

The other day I stopped and picked up a 3' black rubber bungi cord. One hook was missing. A friend saw me stop, and asked me if it was worth risking my life for. It was on a side road, and and he and I were the only ones on the road. He considers such things as silly, but hey! I have a roof rack on my Jeep, and their handy to have, so why buy bungis when you can get'em free.

[Sweetwater]

I found a 12V refrigerator in the median on I-80 going to Salt Lake City. About 100 yards down the median was the cover. No power cable. Sportsmans Warehouse in Sandy had a "special order" cable never picked up for $6 - It was the right cable and I bought it before he could change his mind. The ones on the rack were for the newer model and marked $15. That was more than 10 years ago and it still works. I put the WD40 to the fan every now and then. It's in my work truck so was used daily. I had it wired to a seperate battery on an isolator, so never a problem starting the truck.

[Spirithawk]

Yep, growing up poor in the country teaches you to learn to make use of and waste nothing. Well, that and being Cherokee. LOL It's amazing the things people throw away. Too easy to go out and buy new I guess. Way too many kids these days are brought up believing just that. I'm proud to say that my son is now trying to teach his children to apreciate what you have because so many have not. Take my firearms for example. My cheap Hi Point 9mm is taken care of with the same loving care as  my very exspensive AYA 12ga. Like you guys I'm always finding uses for parts scavaged off other items that have lost their use. Heck, I've got a $700 pair of Nacoma boots that a guy tossesd because he wore a hole in the sole of one. The uppers were like brand new and very well cared for. For a measly $12 I had new leather soles put on and smile every time I look at those boots. Smile even bigger every time I slip them on and feel how comfy they are too! lol His loss my gain!