The repurposing thread

[don long]

I needed a base for a nickel slot machine that I picked up and restored last year. I needed something heavy enough to withstand the pulling of the bandits arm so I went on the hunt for something with a large base.

I came up with a Mobil curb sign base


Next I found a broken vintage light standard that was broken into 3 pieces lying in a field in a friends yard



I used the largest piece for the base of my trolley stop light, The pole for the pole of my Foster Freeze sign and the smaller section of the column I cleaned up for this project.
After sand blasting and priming, it was time to smooth out the ruff casting



After a lot of bondo and sanding the column was good enough to fit over the shaft of the Mobil base and bolted down. A little primer more sanding and the base and column were ready for color. A mounting plate was mounted on the Column and the slot machine was ready to mount

 

[don long]

Here is the big base mounted to my trolley light and the pole on the Foster freeze sign

 

[IMCA38]

Don
Absolutely masterful work on those pieces!

 

[M.Brane]

The Fosters's sign conjures up childhood memories.

 

[Skyman]

All three of those are very, very cool, Don.

 

[Beerhippie]

My favorite tool for repurposing, the Ram Mount system:



Ram Mounts are primarily used for mounting cell phones and small "adventure" cameras in vehicles, but they have a thousand uses around the shop. Here, I'm using it to hold my dust collector while drilling. The "claw" is for mounting to handlebars of motorcycles, ATVs and bikes. It comes in handy for a lighting support for desktop photography, a third-hand for welding/soldering, helping support long knives when sharpening... etc.

 

[Beerhippie]

I just thought of another great use for the Ram mount in the shop!

Gettin' tired of knocking your be.. uh, coffee over when working on the bench?



Problem solved.

 

[ChefRex]

I have a few RAM products hanging around, no magnets unfortunately.

 

[Beerhippie]

I have a few RAM products hanging around, no magnets unfortunately.

The magnet is pretty damned strong. I can't lift it directly off the bench plate without lifting the bench plate--3/8 X 23 X 18".

Unfortunately, RAM mounts and parts are not cheap, so keep an eye out for them second-hand. You can have mine when you pry them from my cold, dead second hand.

You can also buy cheaper knock-off from The Jungle and similar places. I have a few pieces of those and they're not bad.

I actually do use some of this stuff for its intended purpose, like my wind shield mount for my Go Pro and that cup holder that normally hangs from the dash.

 

[Beerhippie]

Here's another kind of repurposing: Using something made for a specific purpose as raw material for an entirely different purpose.



Plastic (UHMW PE) cutting boards find their way into many builds around here. The UHMW machines easily and cleanly and will accept threads for light-duty uses. For heavier uses, I use T-nuts inset into the material. The cutting boards come in several thicknesses--mostly 1/2 and 3/4" but can be found in 1/4 and 1". They're a godsend for a tinkerer who lives far from a good source of raw material.

That's a jig I built for drilling centered holes in those wood badges for our tap handles (pic above). I have a gross (144) of them to drill out today, so I made the little jig to ease things along. I put it to use a couple or three times a year, usually cranking out between one and two hundred finished tap handles.

 

[mikeinri]

Thanks for reminding me, @Beerhippie!

I used one of those cutting boards to adapt a seat to fit on one of my tractors a few years ago. The old seat was torn and separated from the steel frame, and I found a new one on clearance at TSC ($45 vs $180). Just needed to add sliding rails ($30), and make the mounting holes match up to the hinged base plate of the original.




I can't find pics of the original, but it had a molded-in solution to make it adjustable. I found the slider bars on Amazon, just needed the cutting board to make spacers to provide clearance for the slide lock. I did have to drill holes in the base plate to mount the slider bars.

At the time, my boys were short enough to make the adjusting feature desirable. Of course, we don’t really use that anymore.

Oh, and a new seat from Sears at the time was over $200, and not as nice.

Mike

 

[Beerhippie]

I think the first thing I used cutting board plastic for was making risers for our Telemark ski bindings so the sides of our boots didn't hit the snow ("booting out") when turning.

If you like tool/gadget pictures with white backgrounds, a new, white cutting board will work incredibly well. The texture will show through a bit in the shadows, but it does an amazing job of spreading and diffusing the light falling on it to nearly remove shadows.

Took a while to find an example:

 

[zanyad]

If you like tool/gadget pictures with white backgrounds, a new, white cutting board will work incredibly well.

Huh, that's really neat! I'll have to file that away for future use....

 

[Beerhippie]

Huh, that's really neat! I'll have to file that away for future use....

Looking again at that picture, I could easily have hidden what shadows were there behind the tools. The white cutting board would be ideal with a large soft box. Unfortunately, I have no more virgin white cutting boards around the shop--everything has been pretty well used. I need to get some more.

Also unfortunately, you'll need a real camera where you can put it in manual exposure mode for the white BG trick to work. The trick is to over-expose the white BG by 1 2/3 or so stops. That should give you a well-exposed picture with a nice, uniform white Back Ground.

 

[budget76]

15x20x1/2" cutting boards are $9 at Sams Club. I just used one for a fuel pump cover on my truck project

might order a couple to have on hand for various other usage. Or just stick them in the kitchen, then use the rattiest one for the project when I find a need

ResturauntSupply has some very cheap ones too up to 1" compared to other sites, but you'll get hit with shipping charges unless you spend whatever their min was. Still seemed like a cheaper source of UHMW or whatever plastic is than I was finding elsewhere

 

[Beerhippie]

15x20x1/2" cutting boards are $9 at Sams Club. I just used one for a fuel pump cover on my truck project

might order a couple to have on hand for various other usage. Or just stick them in the kitchen, then use the rattiest one for the project when I find a need

ResturauntSupply has some very cheap ones too up to 1" compared to other sites, but you'll get hit with shipping charges unless you spend whatever their min was. Still seemed like a cheaper source of UHMW or whatever plastic is than I was finding elsewhere

The restaurant (might want to spell it right in for the link) supply tip is great--we order a fair amount of stuff from them for the pub kitchen.

I find the 1/2 and 3/4" the most useful for projects, but the 1" would be good to have on hand.

Here's a piece of 1/2" used as a spacer for a drive nut:



3/4" would have been perfect, but I didn't have any so added a piece of 1/4" Al plate.

 

[budget76]

restaurant

I'll never get it right without spellecheck. it's just one of those words

 

[Beerhippie]

I'll never get it right without spellecheck. it's just one of those words

How do you think I'm able to spell it?

 

[R_C]

Only recently found this thread so here are a few of my contributions. Most of my tape measures with a split, kink, or scraped paint occur in the first foot. I was building a new miter station so I used a length on the fence. The edge of the sliding stop is very accurate but I'll probably add an adjustable pointer to accommodate different saw blades.



I made this bathroom vanity long ago when I built our log cabin. After remodeling the bath and building a new vanity, it's now my table saw's outfeed table. It's on wheels and attaches to the table saw with two bolts. I replaced the original round wooden knobs with knobs and pulls from a large bag of hardware I found at a thrift store.


Not sure what this flywheel came from but it was in a box of engine parts when I bought a 4-cylinder Toyota engine on Craigslist. It's not a flywheel for that engine so it's now a garage clock. The shiny disc in the center is a platter from a vintage 80s PC hard drive.

 

[Beerhippie]

Only recently found this thread so here are a few of my contributions. Most of my tape measures with a split, kink, or scraped paint occur in the first foot. I was building a new miter station so I used a length on the fence. The edge of the sliding stop is very accurate but I'll probably add an adjustable pointer to accommodate different saw blades.



I made this bathroom vanity long ago when I built our log cabin. After remodeling the bath and building a new vanity, it's now my table saw's outfeed table. It's on wheels and attaches to the table saw with two bolts. I replaced the original round wooden knobs with knobs and pulls from a large bag of hardware I found at a thrift store.


Not sure what this flywheel came from but it was in a box of engine parts when I bought a 4-cylinder Toyota engine on Craigslist. It's not a flywheel for that engine so it's now a garage clock. The shiny disc in the center is a platter from a vintage 80s PC hard drive.

All great, but the clock... puzzling Gen Z for twenty years!

For the tape measure on the fence, is that a standard molding?

 

[R_C]

All great, but the clock... puzzling Gen Z for twenty years!

For the tape measure on the fence, is that a standard molding?

Along with analog clocks, cursive handwriting is also a mystery.

I made the molding on the router table.

 

[Beerhippie]

Along with analogs clocks, cursive handwriting is also a mystery.

I made the molding on the router table.

But I can't decipher the majority of cursive writing I encounter, either... that's why I call it CURSive.

 

[Modern Garage]

I've been ditching round door and drawer pulls for a while now. I find they grab my cargo pockets on work pants and just about throw me to the floor. The long ones (if they don't have open ends) are safe to use.
Joe

 

[InsanePyro]

I present to you, the short story of how Cargo Bob came to be...

I found myself in need of a cargo trailer, but not wanting to pay (much) for one.

So enter one free boat and trailer from Facebook Marketplace


A completely legal and safe disposal of the boat and the bunks



Lastly, add a free truck bed from a upfit job your cousin recently did...and you get...Cargo Bob



This is actually a pretty recent photo of it. It was fairly nice when put together but I use it regularly for yard work and scrapping so the last 5 years haven't been to kind to 'er. I'm actually on the hunt for a new bed for it, as the hole from the fifth wheel has gotten quite bad and bed sides are separating. If you've got a cheap long bed in southern WI let me know

 

[WoodsTruck]

My dad was in the same "boat". He wanted a small utility trailer to tow around behind his ATV for slash removal.
He had a boat trailer that was deemed too small for his boat so he upgraded and left the old trailer behind the shop.
Quick look I told him he had good bones to work with so he shortened the tongue down and reused the pieces to square up the front corners.
Plywood deck and sides and he's been using it for almost 20 years now.

 

[Beerhippie]

I present to you, the short story of how Cargo Bob came to be...

I found myself in need of a cargo trailer, but not wanting to pay (much) for one.

So enter one free boat and trailer from Facebook Marketplace


A completely legal and safe disposal of the boat and the bunks



Lastly, add a free truck bed from a upfit job your cousin recently did...and you get...Cargo Bob



This is actually a pretty recent photo of it. It was fairly nice when put together but I use it regularly for yard work and scrapping so the last 5 years haven't been to kind to 'er. I'm actually on the hunt for a new bed for it, as the hole from the fifth wheel has gotten quite bad and bed sides are separating. If you've got a cheap long bed in southern WI let me know

By "legal and safe" you mean "pushed it off a cliff"?

That's what it means around here.

 

[InsanePyro]

By "legal and safe" you mean "pushed it off a cliff"?

That's what it means around here.

I plead the fifth

 

[zanyad]

I plead the fifth

I usually plead the tenth. It's twice as good as pleading the fifth!

 

[Beerhippie]

On second thought, looking at your avatar, "Lit it and pushed it off a cliff."

 

[InsanePyro]

On second thought, looking at your avatar, "Lit it and pushed it off a cliff."

View attachment 2296164

 

[rharman]

@R_C - I'm probably going to have to steal that trick with the cove molding for the tape measure.

 

[mikeinri]

By "legal and safe" you mean "pushed it off a cliff"?

That's what it means around here.

I plead the fifth

I figured that parking lot pic was showing us the last place he saw the boat before it "fell off" the trailer, LOL...

Free trailers aplenty around here too. Almost always with a hazmat boat stuck on top.

Mike

 

[R_C]

@R_C - I'm probably going to have to steal that trick with the cove molding for the tape measure.

I never looked but if you find a standard molding with a profile that fits, let us know.

 

[InsanePyro]

I figured that parking lot pic was showing us the last place he saw the boat before it "fell off" the trailer, LOL...

Free trailers aplenty around here too. Almost always with a hazmat boat stuck on top.

Mike

I promise I did not make it someone elses problem

 

[PugetDude]

I promise I did not make it someone elses problem

"One man's trash is another man's treasure..."

 

[Beerhippie]

A dual-tool repurpose:



RAM mount to hold a heat gun to heat-cure paint. The heat gun is having no problem keeping that plate @185 F. Should be done soon and I can get on with painting the handle.

 

[BlueBomber]

I'm a little late on the many possible uses of cutting boards, but a few years ago I used some cutting boards as skids to help me unload my 2-post lift by myself:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/blue-bombers-garages.368034/post-7146462

 

[Beerhippie]

My simple repurpose job today:

@Old Radar posted a picture of a handle that accepts the threads of gun-cleaning bore brushes elsewhere today. I decided I needed one of those. No gun shops around here--at least none that carry much in the way of tools, so:



We've had a long Allen-wrench mounted in a driver handle knocking around the shop forever. It's never been used, to my knowledge. A minute in the vise and a few taps with a small hammer, and the handle and key were two parts. I got a #8-32 threaded insert for wood and drilled the hole in the handle to the minor dia. of the external threads of the insert, heated the insert a bit and screwed it in. A genuine five-minute job that took five minutes!

This will be great when using bore brushes for cleaning internal threads, etc. It'll also be good for things like chamber brushes for firearms.

 

[atch]

My simple repurpose job today:

@Old Radar posted a picture of a handle that accepts the threads of gun-cleaning bore brushes elsewhere today. I decided I needed one of those. No gun shops around here--at least none that carry much in the way of tools, so:



We've had a long Allen-wrench mounted in a driver handle knocking around the shop forever. It's never been used, to my knowledge. A minute in the vise and a few taps with a small hammer, and the handle and key were two parts. I got a #8-32 threaded insert for wood and drilled the hole in the handle to the minor dia. of the external threads of the insert, heated the insert a bit and screwed it in. A genuine five-minute job that took five minutes!

This will be great when using bore brushes for cleaning internal threads, etc. It'll also be good for things like chamber brushes for firearms.

The above is a great repurpose idea. I'm a bit lazy in my old age so I got some of these brushes that snap into a drill/driver. Yeah; I know I didn't repurpose anything but had to share in case any of you other folks are as lazy as I am.

 

[Beerhippie]

The above is a great repurpose idea. I'm a bit lazy in my old age so I got some of these brushes that snap into a drill/driver. Yeah; I know I didn't repurpose anything but had to share in case any of you other folks are as lazy as I am.

The brass bore brushes don't last long at all when used in a drill.

Do you have a link for those brushes?