# Stuff



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Dan Anderson on hoarding....I can relate...though not a hoarder, I still have alot of "stuff". A fella can get so much "stuff" that you cannot turn around.

Regards, Mike

http://www.agweb.com/blog/in_the_shop/


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

I'll sort of take issue with the rusty bucket of bolts comment, if they are genuinely rusty they go in the scrap bin. If you have bins setup even just by diameter only, its easy to toss them in. You can back sort your collection later as you dig through it for other bolts in the future.

After having to buy some bolts lately, I must have a few thousand of hardware on the rack and in buckets now. They save my butt when stuff breaks as I live far from a hardware store. My only complaint, I always end up with about 3 bolts to every nut saved. Not sure where all the nuts go.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Pet peeve time, we have a bolt bin divided by size and length. Father will go to TSC and buy bolts by the pound, he however can't be bothered to get a different bag for each length. We don't have buckets of bolts around as instead he throws the rusty or half stripped ones back in the bin.

He also saves half wore out roller chains in case we need them later in an emergency. Personally I just keep a new roll of each size we normally use on hand.


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## urednecku (Oct 18, 2010)

Yep, I resemble that. I'm not as bad as I used to be, but still have a dump truck load of misc bolts, nuts, washers, chain, hinges, and misc fittings of any size & shape you can think of that my Daddy & I have been saving for, well, ..., he bought the place in 1943.
I just can't find it when I need it.


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## NewBerlinBaler (May 30, 2011)

Related news: according to the latest issue of TIME magazine, hoarding is now considered a mental illness. So if there are too many buckets of bolts under your workbench, now you can get therapy and your insurance will cover it !


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## NDVA HAYMAN (Nov 24, 2009)

Looks like Dan has been sneaking and peeking around in my shop again. Now I wonder what he did with those carriage bolts I had been saving?









That is one thing that I did this fall after harvest was to buy a couple hundred of those various size plastic bins and have made a good start on getting my nuts, bolts, and locknuts etc. sorted out and put away on the appropriate shelves so that I can find them easily instead of going thru the buckets. Now I have mountains of old hydraulic and motor oil buckets piled up in the barn


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

I have been mentally rearranging my shop since I read that article and considering building a new steel work bench with LOTS of drawers, and a whole wall of plastic bins. Over the years I have bought a number of drawer/bin solutions of various sizes and have them stashed all over. Now I spend more time looking for something I KNOW I have, than I actually spend using the item to fix something.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

The plastic bins are what saved me, for things like lag bolts I don't use often so they all go in together. Makes it faster to sort when ones come in to be sorted. For stuff like 3/8 bolts they are all sorted by size as I need to use them frequently.

To those who save rusted out or stripped bolts like I used to, I started to use that office organization rule, once you pick something up, don't set it down again until its in the place it will stay for good. If there isn't a place make one. I used to sort and resort, you look back and there was junk I had "cleaned" up 5 times and it still wasn't where it needed to be.

Another thing that my grandfather would hate if he found out, threw out all the collections of bent and used nails. Time waster trying to build with them. I threw out all the slotted head screws too except the brass ones. Robertson/square heads are too easy to use to bother messing with slotted garbage.


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## carcajou (Jan 28, 2011)

Slowzuki just read you post and had to laugh. Yesterday Dad mentioned " the guy that invented the slotted screw should have been shot" and earlier today i told my wife about my late great uncles quest to save every nail, even if it was from a burnt building. He even resharpened them on the bench grinder. I guess we all have a horder in the family somewhere. I save the cords of old appliances and power tools but i can't remember ever using one, maybe it's hereditary.


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## urednecku (Oct 18, 2010)

I think lots of our Daddy's started keeping things because they came up in the "Great Depression" when not many could afford to buy any thing they did not absolutely have to. Then during the WW II when you had to re-use or do without. And we all know how hard old habits are to break.
Now, I find it hard to throw out most of the old tools because of sentimental value. Used nails, bolts, nuts, etc. I have learned to throw out, or at least in a bucket to one day to sell as scrap. A 5-gallon bucket of nails, nuts & bolts would add quite a bit of weight to the trailer load of other metal junk I plan on taking in before long.

And I agree on shooting who-ever it was that invented that slotted screw.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

I'm a cord saver, but to be fair, I give my father in law all the ones with bad insulation now for copper and I actually use them once in a while. Wired most of my sawmill controls/contactors with good old cord. It runs in the family, the start of my cord collection came from the other grandfather (the one who didn't save nails)


carcajou said:


> Slowzuki just read you post and had to laugh. Yesterday Dad mentioned " the guy that invented the slotted screw should have been shot" and earlier today i told my wife about my late great uncles quest to save every nail, even if it was from a burnt building. He even resharpened them on the bench grinder. I guess we all have a horder in the family somewhere. I save the cords of old appliances and power tools but i can't remember ever using one, maybe it's hereditary.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

It's a problem with the male brain, can't throw anything away, my wife says I have a bad case, one look in my shop will confirm her accusations







. Can't stand to see old towels, socks, t shirts, etc. being thrown away, very good shop rags, although I must admit its hard to wipe your greasy hands on a pair of "designer" blue jeans, that I might mention thad holes in them when we bought them, wth, but I manage.


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## enos (Dec 6, 2009)

The wife is on about the big stuff outside. She says if it does not move for 2 years it has to go. She then got the neighbor's wife on it. So every once in a while I drag old, may need it one day, equipment over to neighbor's and he drags his over to my place.


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## NDVA HAYMAN (Nov 24, 2009)

Enos, I got a good laugh outta that one. It's the old bait and switch tactic. When a certain person asks me about a tractor or a piece of equipment, my reply is "I've had that for years"


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## enos (Dec 6, 2009)

Always stick with one brand too, same filters, same service times and same color. Soooooo much easier to hide new stuff. Little hint when your getting a new tractor, wash all of them that day so the shiney don't stand out. And resist the urge to leave it out front of shop/yard for a couple days. You know, so the neighbors can see it. Out back with it, you don't have to live with the neighbors.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

NewBerlinBaler said:


> Related news: according to the latest issue of TIME magazine, hoarding is now considered a mental illness. So if there are too many buckets of bolts under your workbench, now you can get therapy and your insurance will cover it !


Then, I must be sick, sick, sick. Both of my grandfathers never, ever, ever, threw anything away. Their thinking was like this:

First. It was a 5 mile ride (on horseback or buggy) to the local store.
Second. Money was hard to come by! Nails, bolts, nuts were expensive!
Third. It took weeks to get new parts mailed in.
Fourth, You could always scrounge parts from an old piece of equipment to repair a newer piece.
Fifth. You could always re-fashioned a part off of something into something "close enough" to get by.
Sixth. You could "help" your neighbors by letting them have parts when they broke down. And then they could help you if you needed parts.
Seventh. You can always cut it down. (I seldom throw away lumber scraps--you never know when you're going to need a little block of 2x4!)
Finally. You can get revenge on the kids for not cleaning up their rooms when it comes to settling up your estate! (This one is mine.)

Ralph


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I have a very good friend that lives 50 miles from the closest town in N.E. Wyoming.....his ranch is 14,000 acres. He still has every car and truck his family has ever owned....they have a auto graveyard. He uses them for part sources and reconstruction sources. He throws very little away....they can store things outside with very little fear of rust due to the extremely low humidity and a annual rainfall of 12 inches. He grows some wheat....round bales native grass hay for his several hundred head of beef, and grows a little alfalfa of which he gets ONE cutting a year. Kind of rolling land with flats on top of the divides where he grows wheat. The land is interspursed with Ponderosa pine. Lots of Pronghorn, Mule Deer, Whitetail, and Elk and a plethora of gamebirds. It takes him all of the month of August to bale his hay and move it to his feedings areas.....they work 16-18 hour days when baling and bale all night and half of the day. It is one of the most special places in this country. Reminds me of the "Ponderosa" from the sixties. Winters can be long in Wyoming.

Regards, Mike


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Vol said:


> I have a very good friend that lives 50 miles from the closest town in N.E. Wyoming.....his ranch is 14,000 acres. He still has every car and truck his family has ever owned....they have a auto graveyard. He uses them for part sources and reconstruction sources. He throws very little away....they can store things outside with very little fear of rust due to the extremely low humidity and a annual rainfall of 12 inches. He grows some wheat....round bales native grass hay for his several hundred head of beef, and grows a little alfalfa of which he gets ONE cutting a year. Kind of rolling land with flats on top of the divides where he grows wheat. The land is interspursed with Ponderosa pine. Lots of Pronghorn, Mule Deer, Whitetail, and Elk and a plethora of gamebirds. It takes him all of the month of August to bale his hay and move it to his feedings areas.....they work 16-18 hour days when baling and bale all night and half of the day. It is one of the most special places in this country. Reminds me of the "Ponderosa" from the sixties. Winters can be long in Wyoming.
> 
> Regards, Mike


Been threw the area a quite a few times on Hwy 212.Pretty country!!


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## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

slowzuki said:


> Not sure where all the nuts go.


Wife laughed...said same place socks go


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