One "Person's" trash is another "Person's" treasure

Don Taylor

Former Member (by the member's request)
Messages
1,287
I have seen a great deal of response here to the idea
of converting found, salvaged or rescued items to adequate,
useful or even treasured status.

I think it would be great to see what you have rescued from
the curb, yard sales, building sites, dumpster diving, renovations
(work or otherwise), or any other of the many places that seem
to elude me right this minute. :huh:

Let's see restoration/conversion ideas. :peek:

This is an old military table I rescued from the dump. I painted it
and filled in the huge handles with wood plugs to extend the work
surface. I also raised the center section with one thickness of 3/4"
plywood.

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My intention was to build a drawer box on the left side and a
cabinet on the right. (I even cut the plywood to size to do this.)

On the outside of each box would be a length of 2X3 the
length of the depth of this table. Attached to the cabinet sides,
perched on two lengths on 3/4" electrical conduit, they would
slide up and down to provide support for the miter saw.

The bottom would house a box with a lip for cut-offs.

I still think it was a great way to put that clunky table to use
However, space being crucial, it went to a friend who said, I
want it if you ever get rid of it.

I needed a multi-use work station for lumber sizing and came up with this:

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The base cabinets are trash and the top is my first mistake laden
attempt at a glue-up. Hopefully, you won't recognize it when I finish with it.

Ok, whatcha got?

(I am posting this in two forums)

Don
 
Let's see restoration/conversion ideas. :peek:
Don

Interesting thread topic, Don. Here's my contribution: A few months ago, a friend/coworker offered to sell me her old Singer treadle sewing machine, and I bit on it, as I've wanted one for years. When I got it and brought it home, hubby took a good look at it and said that the cabinet could not be salvaged and that the machine itself (a 1913 model) was missing so many parts that it would cost more than it was worth to fix it. So....we gave the actual machine to a dealer here in town to do with what he wanted; we trashed the old cabinet; and turned the old treadle base into a casual table. I needed a bedside table in the bedroom anyway, so we put an oak tabletop on it and it now holds my jewelry box and a couple of other things.

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Just a little clean-up and Rustoleum on the base--and I have a new table.

I can't get him to try to recycle pallet wood---he's very stubborn.

Nancy (41 days)
 
About 6 years ago one of my neighbors installed new doors (and jams) in his house. He left the old ones on the street and I picked them up. LOML really let me have what for (if you know what I mean). A few weeks later she was singing a new tune and let me start buying better toys (and wood). The sides are glued up panels from teh old white pine jams. The tops and bottoms are cut down from the doors. The trim is also from the small trim pieces that rest against the coor when it's closed. The carcases are also from the jam material. I milled the moldings and feet (another glue up) from the original door moldings. The only "new" wood in the pieces are the drawers. I made the drawers from poplar, and the false fronts are spalted beech. Both obtained from a guy that has a personal saw mill.
 

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Interesting thread topic, Don. Here's my contribution: A few months ago, a friend/coworker offered to sell me her old Singer treadle sewing machine, and I bit on it, as I've wanted one for years. When I got it and brought it home, hubby took a good look at it and said that the cabinet could not be salvaged and that the machine itself (a 1913 model) was missing so many parts that it would cost more than it was worth to fix it. So....we gave the actual machine to a dealer here in town to do with what he wanted; we trashed the old cabinet; and turned the old treadle base into a casual table. I needed a bedside table in the bedroom anyway, so we put an oak tabletop on it and it now holds my jewelry box and a couple of other things.

Just a little clean-up and Rustoleum on the base--and I have a new table. Nancy (41 days)

Nancy that is a beautiful table. I have seen other things made from treadle bases but none so nice. :thumb:

DT
 
About 6 years ago one of my neighbors installed new doors (and jams) in his house. He left the old ones on the street and I picked them up. LOML really let me have what for (if you know what I mean). A few weeks later she was singing a new tune and let me start buying better toys (and wood). The sides are glued up panels from teh old white pine jams. The tops and bottoms are cut down from the doors. The trim is also from the small trim pieces that rest against the coor when it's closed. The carcases are also from the jam material. I milled the moldings and feet (another glue up) from the original door moldings. The only "new" wood in the pieces are the drawers. I made the drawers from poplar, and the false fronts are spalted beech. Both obtained from a guy that has a personal saw mill.

I think I would let you get more and better things to work with too Billy! :eek:

If you can do that with trash, what would you be able to do with a truck full of nice wood? :huh:

DT
 
Don, I'm sorry to inform you but from the pictures and the lack of dust it is obvious that you don't exist. For a shop w/o dust is a figment of someones imagination and sense a person is an extension of his shop and with the shop being a figment and you the extension of the figment and not even a total thought or imagination. Sorry to let you down but .... May the dust be with you....
 
Don, I'm sorry to inform you but from the pictures and the lack of dust it is obvious that you don't exist. For a shop w/o dust is a figment of someones imagination and sense a person is an extension of his shop and with the shop being a figment and you the extension of the figment and not even a total thought or imagination. Sorry to let you down but .... May the dust be with you....

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I try VERY hard not to make saw dust Bill. I simply cannot breathe it any longer. I am in the last stages of hooking up my cyclone now.
I can't do much as far as hooking up the machines right now. I would be in the way of the guy working on the new sky hook.

DT
 
Sure if you go out and buy dust to scatter about..... :rolleyes:

Okay so you do exist... I do envy you in your cleanlyness (or should I say that my wife/mate and caretaker of my heart wishes I were as clean as you). As for the Singer, We have a couple of fine Singer Cast iron bases as well as a complete unit I did for my daughter, Replaced the Treddle machine withan electric that fits the case.

Nancy, I fail to see why any Singer case is beyond recovery, Too bad if it is already gone. A lot of work, maybe , but beyond help, I doubt. Few are too far gone to recover. Just not ready to do the sacrifice of hard labor.

I use mine with some Marble slabs form old High school bathroom stalls as table tops, out on the Patio. Still have the drawers...
 
I though I have to be tall enough to run my lathe even if it kilz me. So I salvaged the Kilz cans to make me tall enough to run my mini lathe while it was clamped to my Delta lathe bed. Will that work for you Don???:rofl::rofl::rofl: I also salvaged the concrete block for the base & 2x4's that I laminated up to make the top for the Delta lathe bench, it & the lathe weight in at about 420 lbs.
 

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Now that's funny, Bart! I'm not sure OSHA would approve though. :D

Nancy knows how to recycle too! I like it.:thumb:

Thanks, Don, and you can add me to the envy list. I just can't seem to keep mine clean... or organized... but I know where most everything is. Or at least I used to. Then I started reorganizing (an oxymoron for me) just before Spring and remodelled three rooms before I got half finished so everything is... well, let's just say somewhere.:eek:
 
I though I have to be tall enough to run my lathe even if it kilz me. So I salvaged the Kilz cans to make me tall enough to run my mini lathe while it was clamped to my Delta lathe bed. Will that work for you Don???:rofl::rofl::rofl: I also salvaged the concrete block for the base & 2x4's that I laminated up to make the top for the Delta lathe bench, it & the lathe weight in at about 420 lbs.

And it all works doesn't it Bart? :thumb:

An idea though, you could put some small bolts on the edges of those Kilz cans then fashion a leather strap or two with buckles on them.
Then they could follow you around? :huh:
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

DT
 
Thanks, Don, and you can add me to the envy list. I just can't seem to keep mine clean... or organized... but I know where most everything is. Or at least I used to. Then I started reorganizing (an oxymoron for me) just before Spring and remodelled three rooms before I got half finished so everything is... well, let's just say somewhere.:eek:

I have always been a bit fanatic about putting things in their place.
My father was an auto body man.
He had what would be a fortune in tools today. He once told me that if you have a 49 cent screw driver and a $200 job, and cannot find that screw driver, then it becomes a $200.49 screw driver.
That and several years with two different Navy "aviation" squadrons being in charge of tool control.... (In an aviation setting, if at ANY time you are caught not knowing the exact location of EVERY tool, you are in deep, deep trouble...)
I come by my fanaticism quite honestly.
Quite bluntly, when I reach out my hand to pick something up, I expect it to be there.

In the house is not "Quite" as bad, however I do live alone with no one to pick up after me. I have learned that it is just as easy to turn something lose where it belongs as it is the first flat surface I come too. :eek:
(Yes! I am Male!) :rofl:

DT
 
I regularly drive around to the back of our local Fred Meyer store, groceries/clothes/garden/electronics etc, to see what I can scavenge. I've gotten several nice racks and parts bin units for my shop. Day before yesterday I found a couple of interesting racks, disassembled them, put them in my baby Benz and brought them back for the shop. One has a larger stand with 3 ring assemblies. The other is a stand with a single large ring. Both are stainless steel, have casters and the legs are adjustable using spring loaded pins.

Here is the one with the single ring. There are spikes at the top of each of the 4 legs that go into slots in the ring, but I used 4 "C" clamps to firmly hold the ring to the base. They are rack for holding clothes....but make great clamp racks. :thumb:





Now I have to gather all my clamps and get them organized on the rack(s). I will probably cut a circle of melamine and screw it onto the ring. That will make a little more gripping area for the clamps and give me a little table top at the same time.

Nice freebie that I really needed.
 
.........I think it would be great to see what you have rescued from the curb, yard sales, building sites, dumpster diving, renovations (work or otherwise), or any other of the many places that seem
to elude me right this minute. :huh:

Let's see restoration/conversion ideas. :peek:

Don, probably not exactly what you had in mind but nearly all my machines were rescues. I am sure you have seen photos of some of the restorations I did so I won't repost them. But here is photo of the best rescue I will ever have made. Everything in this photo was headed to the scrap yard if I had not stumbled up on them. The only reason they were not gone all ready was that the scrap yard wouldn't come pick them up!

I refer to it as the Winona Blessing. Since they came from Winona Mississippi.

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I was at the base dump a few years ago and ran across this old pantry. I just couldn’t let it stay there. :rolleyes: I don’t know how old it is but it was well made with clear pine and dadoes throughout.
I added the peg board doors.
 

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Is that for real Burt? :rofl:

Back when I was teaching, there was a young man in my shop who was excited over the lathe but he just wasn't tall enough to safely approach it, so I fabricate a auxillary floor from 2X6s and plywood to lift him to the occasion. I kept it in the back of the shop for years and had severl shorter students use it to help approach adult sized machinery.
 
Here's my best salvage. The bench top is from two laminated maple bench tops that were being thrown out at work. The base is from old poplar doors from an apartment complex.

 
Don, probably not exactly what you had in mind but nearly all my machines were rescues. I am sure you have seen photos of some of the restorations I did so I won't repost them. But here is photo of the best rescue I will ever have made. Everything in this photo was headed to the scrap yard if I had not stumbled up on them. The only reason they were not gone all ready was that the scrap yard wouldn't come pick them up!

I refer to it as the Winona Blessing. Since they came from Winona Mississippi.

That is a save and a half Jeff! :thumb:

Of course it fits here, you just found a much better trash heap than we find most times. :rofl:

Please post these pictures along side these tools when you show us the results of your restores.
I can't wait to see them.

Don
 
I regularly drive around to the back of our local Fred Meyer store, groceries/clothes/garden/electronics etc, to see what I can scavenge. I've gotten several nice racks and parts bin units for my shop. Day before yesterday I found a couple of interesting racks, disassembled them, put them in my baby Benz and brought them back for the shop. One has a larger stand with 3 ring assemblies. The other is a stand with a single large ring. Both are stainless steel, have casters and the legs are adjustable using spring loaded pins.

Here is the one with the single ring. There are spikes at the top of each of the 4 legs that go into slots in the ring, but I used 4 "C" clamps to firmly hold the ring to the base. They are rack for holding clothes....but make great clamp racks. :thumb:

Now I have to gather all my clamps and get them organized on the rack(s). I will probably cut a circle of melamine and screw it onto the ring. That will make a little more gripping area for the clamps and give me a little table top at the same time.

Nice freebie that I really needed.

Yep, that's a keeper Greg!

Why not cut an insert that will fit inside the circle then bond two thicknesses of 3/4" plywood together (larger than the top of the rack) and bolt it to that insert.
Slot it all the way around and slide the clamps in there butt first.

Less work to hang a clamp?

Pardon my 2 cents. :eek:

Oop's I had another idea :rofl:

If you made one of these 30 minute roll around platforms and put a hunk of 2X4 in each corner with a hole to stick the legs in, you would have more stability and a place for the "C" clamps, extenders etc.

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Don
 
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