The repurposing thread

[gleman]

I had this old, metal cabinet from a kitchen back in the day that I recruited for tool storage and the like. It was white with a fair amount of surface rust.

10 years later, I did the same thing with the same cabinet!

$10 @ Habitat for a steel cabinet

 

[simnil]

Progress: (old post https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/the-repurposing-thread.209475/post-9663144)


So, finished the frame and moved it to it's intended place. Stumbled upon an old gentleman who was clearing out an old barn before selling the property and bought some home cut 2" planks from him, those planks made a nice floor.



This past Friday the screws I ordered finally showed up so Friday night and Saturday resulted in a roof. The roof is old reused galvanized steel roof sheet that I got for little or nothing a few years ago.

Until now the total bill is somewhere around 800 USD, and that includes purchasing the stick welder and a big angle grinder I needed for the projekt, (my own hours are not included though =) ).

 

[harley jim]

Until now the total bill is somewhere around 800 USD, and that includes purchasing the stick welder and a big angle grinder I needed for the projekt, (my own hours are not included though =) ).

That's a great looking shed.
We never get to include all of the hours that we burn on a project or the price would be astronomical!

 

[simnil]

Until now the total bill is somewhere around 800 USD, and that includes purchasing the stick welder and a big angle grinder I needed for the projekt, (my own hours are not included though =) ).

That's a great looking shed.
We never get to include all of the hours that we burn on a project or the price would be astronomical!

True, and the value of these sort of things can be more than "somewhere to park the old JD". I have a "sit down job", Mechanical engineer/product developer, doing some hands on physical work at home is my relaxation.
....And I have a ton of "relaxation projects" =)

 

[Wiz02]

True, and the value of these sort of things can be more than "somewhere to park the old JD". I have a "sit down job", Mechanical engineer/product developer, doing some hands on physical work at home is my relaxation.
....And I have a ton of "relaxation projects" =)

Don't we all!

 

[jives]

My son had a leftover roof vent boot . . . I installed it under my table saw where it now serves as a dust collector and dumps into a box. Fit almost perfectly, just used some tape to close up a seam.

 

[WoodsTruck]

Daughter had surgery on her ankle. Knee scooter comes with a little basket but needed something better to rest the foot on for trips to the bathroom. It needed to swivel and slide to allow the steering to function and not cause movement to the splinted foot.
Repurposed a seat back carpet, computer shipping foam, plywood cutouts, entertainment center drawer slide, roller thrust bearing, all fasteners and some dumpster diving metal. Ended up using plenty of tools for the various products, but only cost me some time.

 

[mikeinri]

Wow, that's interesting. Sports injury? Hope she heals quickly!

Mike

 

[WoodsTruck]

About 10 years of volleyball took its toll on the outer ligaments around the ankle. 2 weeks non-weight bearing, then off to PT and a walking boot. We'll see.

 

[mikeinri]

Yuck. Hope she's not in too much pain. Nice job on the scooter.

Mike

 

[fartymarty]

Daughter had surgery on her ankle. Knee scooter comes with a little basket but needed something better to rest the foot on for trips to the bathroom. It needed to swivel and slide to allow the steering to function and not cause movement to the splinted foot.
Repurposed a seat back carpet, computer shipping foam, plywood cutouts, entertainment center drawer slide, roller thrust bearing, all fasteners and some dumpster diving metal. Ended up using plenty of tools for the various products, but only cost me some time.

Not meaning to step on any toes here (bad intended pun) but, you do realize that even with the blurring, Pines has already saved that second shot of your daughter into his personal Favs folder. Right?

 

[simnil]

Final update:
Did the finishing touches on the roof Friday evening and "Little John" could finally move indoors =)

Some electrical installation left but otherwise it's close to finished. From scrap to tractor parking in little over two months worth of weekends and evenings, I'm happy with that.

(old post https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/the-repurposing-thread.209475/post-9708762 )

 

[mikeinri]

Wow, that's incredible!

Mike

 

[willy3486]

My wife and I are setting up a portable building for a retirement business. One of the things I wanted to do is to reuse a hay trolley as a light holder. I looked for some old gas station lights and gave up so I thought I would have to go with reproductions. But about a month ago I got lucky and found a set of them. I rewired and removed all the latex paint someone had painted the lights with. I then polished them and repainted the hay trolley and rails. I made some new hangars for the trolley and used some wire I already had. I just got it up and I really like it. The bar is 12 foot long and thats how long the hallway was in the shop. I plan to restore old amps and other old stuff on my side and she plans to do sewing on hers.

 

[Ricky Joe]

Very impressive. How did you clean out debris from the tank after drilling out the old fitting?

Mike

That’s what the fuel filter is for.

 

[ez-duzit]

That’s what the fuel filter is for.

Definitely NOT! The fuel filter can only protect against debris that gets past the intake strainer "sock" at the fuel pump pickup. This sock is very small in relation to the capacity and area of the fuel filter. So you want to be fairly meticulous in preventing debris from clogging that sock. Otherwise you will have to remove the fuel pump to clean the sock.

 

[Ricky Joe]

Definitely NOT! The fuel filter can only protect against debris that gets past the intake strainer "sock" at the fuel pump pickup. This sock is very small in relation to the capacity and area of the fuel filter. So you want to be fairly meticulous in preventing debris from clogging that sock. Otherwise you will have to remove the fuel pump to clean the sock.

I may not have been as serious as you might think.

 

[mikeinri]

Ha! Had me wondering, too...

Mike

 

[cpttuna]

This used to be the old soda machine at the local post office. The bottles were in rows. You put your money in and slid the bottle to the end of the row and up and through the catch latch. they finally put in a Pepsi machine with more selections. I took the guts out it, put new springs on the lid and painted it. It is in the basement now as the emergency fridge/ cooler for use as needed.

 

[atch]

This used to be the old soda machine at the local post office. The bottles were in rows. You put your money in and slid the bottle to the end of the row and up and through the catch latch. they finally put in a Pepsi machine with more selections. I took the guts out it, put new springs on the lid and painted it. It is in the basement now as the emergency fridge/ cooler for use as needed.

Those were SO cool. If you wanted, for instance, the only Grape Nehi and it was in the middle or end of the row and away from the "crossover" you had to move bottles around until you could get the one you wanted. I'd love to run into one today that was working and filled with bottles of pop. Thanx for bringing back the memory.

 

[harley jim]

We had a machine like that in the church fellowship hall, it cost 10 cents for a bottle!

 

[isb cornbinder]

I don't believe I've seen a thread like this so I thought I'd start one.
Show off your repurposed items.
Prefer "useful" things versus scrap turned into "art".

I'll start with my plasma cart made from an old pressure washer cart.
Welded some shaped round stock around various places to hold the torch, ground and power cord. Made a big U bolt to hold the cutter on there which is secured by wing nuts for easy removal.

Quincy QR series compressor: how old is too old?

I'm looking at a used QR series compressor (350 model) for my home shop. If I get it, I'm undecided whether to put a VFD on the existing 10 horse motor or for now get a 5 or 7.5 horse single phase and let it chug chug chug at a nice low RPM, and use the 10hp motor it comes with as a base for an...

www.garagejournal.com

 

[harley jim]

Well isb cornbinder that sure took me down a rabbit hole with a left turn in Albuquerque!

 

[nadogail]

Repurposed materials are the first choice for every job that gets done in my workshop. When I buy Steel or Aluminmuum I ahop the used metal yards.

 

[isb cornbinder]

Well isb cornbinder that sure took me down a rabbit hole with a left turn in Albuquerque!

I do not know what went wrong. I do not see what I thought I posted. It was nothing controversial. Maybe I will try and post again. I think what I wanted to show was I am another person who repurposed a pressure washer cart. Well, Here goes again.

 

[harley jim]

I do not know what went wrong. I do not see what I thought I posted. It was nothing controversial. Maybe I will try and post again. I think what I wanted to show was I am another person who repurposed a pressure washer cart. Well, Here goes again.

No sir, it was a link to a thread where they were discussing 3 phase converters and VFDs, I found it very interesting.
I'm one of those that could have had a lot of 3 phase equipment very cheap but lacked the ability to make 3 phase power back then.

 

[Miss the Pontiacs]

This used to be the old soda machine at the local post office. The bottles were in rows. You put your money in and slid the bottle to the end of the row and up and through the catch latch. they finally put in a Pepsi machine with more selections. I took the guts out it, put new springs on the lid and painted it. It is in the basement now as the emergency fridge/ cooler for use as needed.

Years ago my buddy owned a laundromat and had that same type of machine. When he opened the lid some kids armed with straws had sucked up all the pop.

 

[555]

This used to be the old soda machine at the local post office. The bottles were in rows. You put your money in and slid the bottle to the end of the row and up and through the catch latch. they finally put in a Pepsi machine with more selections. I took the guts out it, put new springs on the lid and painted it. It is in the basement now as the emergency fridge/ cooler for use as needed.

I worked in a small home town grocery store when I was in Junior High. We had soda boxes exactly like that one. One quit while I worked there and the replacement box had a mismatched color bottle cap opener/collector. The owner taught me to wet sand and I sanded it over the weekend. On Monday he took me over to a body shop and taught me to paint. Later on I helped paint his car. I learned a lot at that little store.

 

[Toxictom]

Those were SO cool. If you wanted, for instance, the only Grape Nehi and it was in the middle or end of the row and away from the "crossover" you had to move bottles around until you could get the one you wanted. I'd love to run into one today that was working and filled with bottles of pop. Thanx for bringing back the memory.

This brings back my memories of how my friends and I would take straws to our Boy Scout meetings at the local firehouse so we could **** the soda out of the bottles while they were in the cooler.

 

[willy3486]

Here is another repurpose,sort of. I had a corn sheller that was my dads he never got to fix up like he wanted. My wife and I grew some popcorn this year and I needed to get it redone. I got the sheller redone but needed something to attach it to. I looked around and found this old metal stand that was used with some type of AC device. I also had some lumber I salvaged from my inlaws house before it was torn down for a road project.


I first made the bin for the corn to drop down into from some aluminum siding roll left over from another project. I then cut up the lumber to fit the sides and cut the top part of the stand off. It was a perfect fit. So now when we shell the corn we can put a 5 gallon bucket under the bin to collect it. All I have in the project is the paint, Other than the sheller all the rest was salvaged or leftovers from other projects.

 

[Lorydr]

This was supposed to be a video! My old Shovelhead pistons are now hemi-rams to crush cans when the floorboard is mashed upon. Then they fall into the bucket when it's released. The milk jug full of sand is the recoil on it's own cable.

It took waaay too many hours to get there. The rule was to only use stuff I already have. No new purchases for this contraption. Function before form.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

This was supposed to be a video! My old Shovelhead pistons are now hemi-rams to crush cans when the floorboard is mashed upon. Then they fall into the bucket when it's released. The milk jug full of sand is the recoil on it's own cable.

It took waaay too many hours to get there. The rule was to only use stuff I already have. No new purchases for this contraption. Function before form.

Link no good

 

[harley jim]

This was supposed to be a video! My old Shovelhead pistons are now hemi-rams to crush cans when the floorboard is mashed upon. Then they fall into the bucket when it's released. The milk jug full of sand is the recoil on it's own cable.

It took waaay too many hours to get there. The rule was to only use stuff I already have. No new purchases for this contraption. Function before form.

Try that link again

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Try that link again

Nope. Still not working.

 

[PugetDude]

Link not working on Chrome.

 

[Lorydr]

Possibly this link https://photos.app.goo.gl/9gX4CXphuNR1oSrU9

If not, I'll take a still photo. I can usually get those to work from google photos.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Possibly this link https://photos.app.goo.gl/9gX4CXphuNR1oSrU9

If not, I'll take a still photo. I can usually get those to work from google photos.

That worked!

 

[mikeinri]

The newest link works for me! Neat idea.

I need to invent something that breaks down cardboard boxes before they go into the recycling bin. Because, out of a family of four, I seem to be the only one who cares enough to bother...

Mike

 

[y'sguy]

^^ I agree! Also invent something that shreds the endless supply of weird and odd plastic containers we acquire. Including mmilkjugs. Does anyone have an affordable solution.

 

[Lorydr]

^^ I agree! Also invent something that shreds the endless supply of weird and odd plastic containers we acquire. Including mmilkjugs. Does anyone have an affordable solution.

I used a 1/2gal milk jug full of sand for a recoil effect. I do keep some of those on hand that I can slice up to spec when I need a slippery surface. Not exactly a solution to your idea, but re-purposed somewhat.