The Virtue of Scrounge

Oh yeah, I’ve seen that too.

I recall years ago where I worked hired an engineer who was a ham. The company relocated him and hired a moving company for him. Typical 3 bedroom household is in range of 7500 pounds and large families with lots of stuff might be 15,000 or rarely even 20,000 pounds. HR blew a gasket when the moving bill was for 63,000 pounds.

Here is a guy’s man cave/wood shop that is way over the top:


Have fun.
AT

 

How the heck can he ever find anything in that shop ???? It doesn't even look like he does any work in there ,, way more organized than I am. But nice.

 

I too come from a long line of scroungers. I'm the primary caretaker for my in-laws' property, including 100k sq ft dairy barn and outbuildings filled to overflowing, plus a cabin on Lake Superior that has 80 years of scrounging. Once watch my wife's Uncle spend 3 days "repairing" a $1 air chuck. When he left to go home it didn't work any better than when he started. I threw it out and replaced it with one of my spares.

Spent 4 years at the cabin sorting useful from useless. I think I'm about caught up on that place.

This year, the heating element went out on the dryer. Took me a week to get the replacement and about 15 min to actually do the repair. I took an hour to make sure all connections were tight and corrosion free, and to clean all the dust out from accessible places. Should be good to go for another 15 yrs.

 

I have scrounged all kinds of building materials, flooring, matching windows and doors, bathrooms fixtures , the list is long. My kids scrounged their furniture in college by waiting til the end of the years and pickup what the other kids tut threw out

 

Over in Bushcraft land, there is a thread about "The wasteland" Lots of fun recycle/upcycle efforts.

the Wasteland

 

Looks like a terminal case of OCD.

 

I take my dryer apart and clean it twice a year. About a week after the very first time I did it, a house I drove by daily had a fire from lint/dust build up in their dryer. My fav place to get appliance parts is
Appliance Parts, Lawn Mower Parts, Heating & Cooling Parts. 365 day returns.
I've gotten parts for the stove, dryer and more there. Luckily I also keep & file any and all owners manuals, repair receipts, and any other paperwork that comes with buying appliances, tools, mowers, etc...
I don't work on stuff and fix it just b/c I'm a cheap bastard. But also b/c over the years it seems you can't PAY someone to do anything, without having to go behind them and fix it. Bought Wall mounted propane gas heaters in '94. First "Service Call" was $50 just for them to show up and the guy halfass cleaned them. Ever since I do it myself with a wet washcloth, toothbrush, vacuum cleaner, & canned air. MY cleaning is MUCH better!!

 

Value of the scrounge, traded some time with the boss for a Jet BD920n metal lathe "KIT", can be made into a usable one with some effort. Have wanted to redesign the base on the compound since the first time I used it 10 years or so ago. Needed a 4 in by 4 in by 3/4 inch piece of steel to machine down. Can't buy it in Tractor Supply, local steel dealers don't want to get involved in such small jobs, online is about $50 plus shipping. Go to the local welding shop, old friend, gets a piece of scrap from his pile, cuts it to size, ask him how much? He said I have several grinders that you have fixed over the years and you usually have a switch for them or brushes etc in your junk box and don't charge for them, just returning the favor.

If you are involved with other scroungers, and it has to work both ways, you can gain access to what would either cost a lot of money now or that might not even be available. The three best areas I have found are ham radio people, welding and machine shop people, and farmers. Where do you find the bearings used 40 years ago in a disc? Helped a guy "throw away" a small horse drawn disc harrow. The local blacksmith took the shafts, levers and sectors, made hoes out of the disc sections, gave us each one, the guy that owned it kept the bearings and the channel iron, a local with horses, took the tounge, metal to connect it to the harrow, the seat, the eveners etc for hitching the harness to the harrow, some of the channel iron and added an axle and wheels to make a fore cart so he could use his horses to pull tractor equipment. When we were finished he was left with a wooden box of bolts and bearings and some iron channels, the blacksmith hauled away a couple of pickup loads to add to his stash, the horse man got an "antique" looking forecart without a ground driven pto etc and it didn't cost $3500 either.

Everyone was happy, we had a very good Saturday morning sampling some home brewed beer, taking apart on old tool and sorting out the goodies, the local junk dealer would have probably gave him $25 for the whole thing, but the value to those of us that recycled it was in the hundreds and the access to other people scrounge piles is hard to set a value to. If TSHTF does happen, access to those resources, a blacksmith with the ability to make decent garden equipment, a man with a team of horse and equipment to do your fields, metal to work with, etc, would be invaluable.

 

Call it a hunch, but I'm guessing my failures to just dump things without disassembling them, even worn out ceiling fans, to keep at least the screws and bolts, ain't quite so odd after all!