# Repurposing.........



## woodland (May 23, 2016)

A year ago at a farm sale I bought two 8' water troughs real cheap and one of them was cracked up bad on the bottom. A thought of patching it briefly crossed my mind but never got to it. Lately the kids have wanted a sandbox and since I was bringing the wheel loader back from our sand pit I grabbed a bucket and brought it home. I called home and my wife pulled the trough out of the shed and put it where she wanted it in the garden. 







One heaping bucket fills it up. As a kid dad just dumped a bucket in the garden every spring for us. Hopefully the cats will leave it alone since they always liked burying their "treasure" in our pile????.

Lately my wife has been mentioning how she'd like raised garden beds and a gazebo over the fire pit. There's a couple old grain bins sitting around too............ just gotta find some time I guess.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Recycle, reuse, repurpose.

Thats what got a previous generation thru the depression.

I have a 18 foot grain bin we took down to make room for a bigger one, been using the sheets to build roofs over all the fans on the other bins.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Never throw anything away!

I have a bin in my workshop for scraps of wood. As I cut something off, I throw the scrap in the bin, then, when I need a small piece, I first look through my scrap bin. Haven't been to the lumber yard in years!

Same thing with metal. But it is necessary to keep it dry and out of the weather to be re-usable.

Ralph


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## woodland (May 23, 2016)

mlappin said:


> Recycle, reuse, repurpose.
> 
> Thats what got a previous generation thru the depression.
> 
> I have a 18 foot grain bin we took down to make room for a bigger one, been using the sheets to build roofs over all the fans on the other bins.


Good idea on the fan covers. I've got some that would work slick on. We used some bin doors to keep breaker panels dry and it works good


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## woodland (May 23, 2016)

rjmoses said:


> Never throw anything away!
> 
> I have a bin in my workshop for scraps of wood. As I cut something off, I throw the scrap in the bin, then, when I need a small piece, I first look through my scrap bin. Haven't been to the lumber yard in years!
> 
> ...


We've got a lean-to that's full of wood but most of our metal lives outside except for a rack in the shop. My FIL calls our place Metalview acres......... there's a couple of acres of scrap iron and tires scattered around. Between us and the neighbors we can cobble anything together ????


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## IHCman (Aug 27, 2011)

Every farmer or rancher I know saves just about everything. Never know when your going to need it.

Our sandbox as kids was an old tractor tire filled up with yellow sandhill sand. Our swimming pool was a galvanized stock tank.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Swam in a few stock tanks as well.......had one we could jump off the load ramp into, big fun...


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

mlappin said:


> Recycle, reuse, repurpose.
> 
> Thats what got a previous generation thru the depression.
> 
> I have a 18 foot grain bin we took down to make room for a bigger one, been using the sheets to build roofs over all the fans on the other bins.


Had family uncles, aunts and grandparents who lived through the great depression. Had step father who was the greatest at this of anyone I knew. Example I like and think fits here so well, he restrung seat in a old wooden chair he found in a barn with. I picked the chair up and happened to flip it over and there were knots all over the bottom of the seat in the string he used. Puzzled me. When asked him about it he said, that is the way it was.He used strings from square bales of hay as my nephew feed his horses. Bet that chair wold have sold for amazing price at a antique shop.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

mlappin said:


> Recycle, reuse, repurpose.
> 
> Thats what got a previous generation thru the depression.
> 
> I have a 18 foot grain bin we took down to make room for a bigger one, been using the sheets to build roofs over all the fans on the other bins.


I had a great aunt that did not through anything way. When mom and her bothers cleaned out her house after she died they found a bunch of old paint cans, dress that dated all the way back to the twenties and thirties. She one time had a toaster that broke, and she wanted dad to fix it. It was wore out, and she had a new one in her basement. One time she had a young lady go get her some candy, but she did not have any small bills. Dad said he would pay for it, he told the young lady that she could keep the change and aunt Ruth said she wanted it. She was very thrifty, but she did not have to be; she was worth several million.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

woodland said:


> Good idea on the fan covers. I've got some that would work slick on. We used some bin doors to keep breaker panels dry and it works good


I place the first sheet on the shop floor, then use a piece of rope the length of the diameter of the bin. One end tied to something heavy that ain't gonna move, the other around the gun of the plasma cutter, that way the first sheet matches the curvature of the bin and fits pretty tight to it.


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## woodland (May 23, 2016)

mlappin said:


> I place the first sheet on the shop floor, then use a piece of rope the diameter of the bin. One end tied to something heavy that ain't gonna move, the other around the gun of the plasma cutter, that way the first sheet matches the curvature of the bin and fits pretty tight to it.


????????


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

CowboyRam said:


> I had a great aunt that did not through anything way. When mom and her bothers cleaned out her house after she died they found a bunch of old paint cans, dress that dated all the way back to the twenties and thirties. She one time had a toaster that broke, and she wanted dad to fix it. It was wore out, and she had a new one in her basement. One time she had a young lady go get her some candy, but she did not have any small bills. Dad said he would pay for it, he told the young lady that she could keep the change and aunt Ruth said she wanted it. She was very thrifty, but she did not have to be; she was worth several million.


Do you ever wonder what drives that type of mindset? Save and save and your life gets swept away.....crazy, but it happens all the time. I guess it just gets so engrained into their makeup that they can't change their behavior.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

somedevildawg said:


> Do you ever wonder what drives that type of mindset? Save and save and your life gets swept away.....crazy, but it happens all the time. I guess it just gets so engrained into their makeup that they can't change their behavior.


Ya. I remember one time we had to drive almost all the way across Salt Lake because she had gotten a bad watermelon, she complained to the manager and got a replacement. Spent more in gas than the watermelon was worth. She was very thrifty. Both her and her husband had degrees in pharmacy, but never used them. He made his money in the stock market.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

I took over farming from a 91 yr old farmer about 4 years ago because his health was sharply declining. Guy had hands the size of a NFL lineman. He was from Germany. Anyway, I have full access to his barns & workshops. He saved everything. He has one shop framed of old telephone poles discarded by the power company. The roof is scrap corrugated metal. The "siding" on the shop is a couple dozen old wood doors he was given from a guy who tore down an old house 50 years ago. It's still standing and sometimes I park my tractor in it.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

CowboyRam said:


> Ya. I remember one time we had to drive almost all the way across Salt Lake because she had gotten a bad watermelon, she complained to the manager and got a replacement. Spent more in gas than the watermelon was worth. She was very thrifty. Both her and her husband had degrees in pharmacy, but never used them. He made his money in the stock market.


Penny wise, pound foolish.

My mother in law doesn't drive, neither did my wife when we first got married so I was the one that got stuck chauffering the mother in law around Marion Indiana when we would visit and my father in law conveniently disappeared.

That woman would have you drive clear across town to save 2 cents a gallon on gas, never mind you burnt more driving there and back than you saved.

My wife drives now, I refuse to drive her mother anywhere.

My father gets like that sometimes, we had a dumpster from a scrap company at the farm one time, cleaned out a few dinky sheds that were too small for much of anything but the property tax accessor thought they were the Taj Mahal of sheds, cleaned em out and down they came and a big yuck fou to the county.

Anyways, I was getting ready to toss something that was old, rusty and broke, Father stopped me as it was a something or another for a model whatever Uni combine and he wanted to save it in case somebody else needed it. Our Uni went to scrap heaven over 40 years ago. I told Father if he knows somebody that is still using a Uni then they better get there before the dumpster leaves as its going in.

Another older neighbor had old license plates nailed on the inside of a shed over the cracks in the ship lap to keep the snow out.


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## Fossil02818 (May 31, 2010)

It may be a simple pleasure but I don't know of many things that are more satisfying than getting a job done with salvaged materials. Looking around our place there are so many repairs and construction projects that were done just by improvising with saved materials, a little imagination and some skilled craftmanship. I'm way more impressed when I see someone has figured out a way to get something done with salvaged materials than just spending dollars on new. Lots of old timers up here were able to make somthin out of nothin. I never get tired of seeing how necessity ( and lack of money) is the mother of invention!


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

mlappin said:


> Another older neighbor had old license plates nailed on the inside of a shed over the cracks in the ship lap to keep the snow out.


In a adjoining county here, there is a barn that is completely covered in old license plates on the outside. A eye-catching look.

Regards, Mike


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## Aaroncboo (Sep 21, 2014)

It's always funny looking in the old barns and shops just to see buckets of nails bent back straight, hinges, door handles and knobs, and almost everything else you can think of just in coffee cans or buckets.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

Dad talks about when he was young grandpa he had a whole keg of bent nails, and dad and his brothers spent hours straightening all those nails. Grandpa ended up giving them away; dad and my uncles were so upset with grandpa after all the time they spent on those nails.


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## IHCman (Aug 27, 2011)

CowboyRam said:


> Dad talks about when he was young grandpa he had a whole keg of bent nails, and dad and his brothers spent hours straightening all those nails. Grandpa ended up giving them away; dad and my uncles were so upset with grandpa after all the time they spent on those nails.


I don't think my Dad has ever bought a new fence staple in his life. He has pails of them bent up used buggers that he saved from tearing down old fence and who knows where the rest came from. Used to drive me nuts when I was a kid and he'd send me out to fix fence and you had to straighten every staple before you could pound it in. After I worked for a custom fencer and finally realized they sold new staples, I've always bought a new pale when I run out. Life is to short to waste time straightening staples or nails IMO. I hate used fence clips also but I seem to always use them up.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

CowboyRam said:


> Dad talks about when he was young grandpa he had a whole keg of bent nails, and dad and his brothers spent hours straightening all those nails. Grandpa ended up giving them away; dad and my uncles were so upset with grandpa after all the time they spent on those nails.


a handyman told a story of when he went to a job and the customer brought out a pail of used nails for him to use.They were getting ready to poor cement and the handyman said here is a good place for them and dumped them out and covered them with concrete.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

swmnhay said:


> a handyman told a story of when he went to a job and the customer brought out a pail of used nails for him to use.They were getting ready to poor cement and the handyman said here is a good place for them and dumped them out and covered them with concrete.


That reminds me of something my uncle did once. Dad and my uncles were putting on a new roof for a local farmers house in town, and they sent him down for roofing nails; he came back with the shortest nails you can get because he got more per pound that way. Uncle Don took the whole bag of nails and threw them down on the ground, and sent him back to the lumber yard for longest nails. Oh and I might add they were doing this roof in the middle of winter; not a good time for short 3/4" nail.


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## Aaroncboo (Sep 21, 2014)

I will say though I do keep every single Nut and Bolt That's Not Bent or stripped. If I'm doing a project and I have extra I pour my drawer in my garage. I guarantee you if I need a nut in a bolt I have one that works. That's something my grandpa got me started on.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Aaroncboo said:


> I will say though I do keep every single Nut and Bolt That's Not Bent or stripped. If I'm doing a project and I have extra I pour my drawer in my garage. I guarantee you if I need a nut in a bolt I have one that works. That's something my grandpa got me started on.


i'll have every bolt but the one I need.


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## Aaroncboo (Sep 21, 2014)

If I go to the store to buy a couple of bolts are usually by 5 or 6 more of each just to have spares.


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