My re-use projects--- and yours as well

The benches below are built from western red cedar from the beach. The bricks are from demolished chimneys. Walkways are 9 years old and my first attempt. The benches are 8 yrs old and will probably last another 15 yrs. The one in shadow has a built-in trellis. I sold several of these for prices ranging from $200 to $350. Not a bad little hobby, gathering wood on the beach, meeting chicks and selling them benches.

The livingroom shot is the only photo I have from a house I moved and saved from demolition. I had 3 days to get it out of the way of a new bridge. The yard was filled with plants salvaged from other demolitions. It was heated with salvaged oil from tanks that I charge $100 to remove.

My daughter Jasmine is modeling a dress that she bought for $20 because it needed a minor repair. Having lived there for 14 years, she was not pleased when her mother sold it. But after a week living in town with easy access to her friends, she said it was crazy to live way out in the boonies.

The brick and stone patio is in the city of Victoria.

The rural shot is part of my road on a property I will eventually live at. There are several spots where the trees make tunnels like the one here. The perspective in the photo is decieving. The tunnel is high enough for dump trucks to pass without touching the branches. The road is 1.2 km long. That's about 5/8 of a mile.

I got the whole thing graded and about 5000 saplings removed from the edges at no cost as part of a deal where the owner of the excavator will:cool: live on the property. Future rent will be paid in machine services. That's got to be some sort of frugality record when it comes to road building. 3 days with a big excavator for 6 months rent on land that needs a watchman. :cool: Randy the excavator guy is near retirement age and it is quite likely that I will buy his machines in the future, possibly for several years worth of rent.

Gorgeous work you guys! I am impressed!

Thanks Marcella. --- The following is an example of vehicular frugality. Two of my van tires were leaking and all 4 needed replacement. Searching the ads produced nothing. So I ran a tires wanted ad on Used Victoria. 5 minutes later a call came and I got 4 almost new tires for $140 installation and balancing included. The deep rain channels are perfect since winters are wet and seldom snowy. --- I've always found that wanted ads are more effective than simply waiting for the right product to surface.

Some resources that we need are as far away as your keyboard. You simply need to advertise.---------------------- I never run those "pathetic plea ads" , asking people to give me stuff as some sort of help the needy program. I see them all the time."Single mum needs,poor family desires, desperate student requires"... There ads are fine if you're collecting futons and baby clothes but I'm after stuff I need or saleable stuff. Everybody knows the world is crawling with free futons.

I try to structure my ads as a service being offered. Want pipe for your rocket stove--- "Basment clean-up and scrap metal removal, chimney demolition" , Looking for firewood--- "Landscaping, tree pruning and rubish hauling". Lots of good grabs available while you get paid.

I also follow the free ads. Tomorrow I'm picking up stone for a customer's raised beds. Charging $35 per hr. and there's always a chance that there will be other stuff in the pile. I never get off the phone or leave the property when calling on a free ad without asking "Are you getting rid of anything else." The items in the ad seldom represent all of the loot. "One Man's Junk..." All of the items pictured below were collected while on paid business hauling stuff.

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS
The tree was finished with this stump. It fit the curvature of my customer's hot tub perfectly. It is now a step. One step for taller people and kids walk up the slope toward the root end. It's big enough for three people to use as a bench between soaks. Sold it to a very happy customer.

This load of absolutely perfect soil was the byproduct of a foundation job. People scrounge through free fill piles for dirt while the good stuff awaits the frugal contractor.

A scrap metal ad produced some money and these pipes that I need for a RMH.

I built this floor from re-claimed Douglas for 2x10 .

I hate messing with floor sanders in tight spaces and I really hate using an edger . So l sanded and finished the floor before building the cottage on top of it.

All of the bad ends of the lumber were run beyond the floor so that they provided support for the sander. I cut them off just before staining.

I was careful about dropping tools on the shiny new floor. It rained during the project and the wood was protected from water and mud staining.

The photo seems to be rotated 90 degrees. Kneel on the floor and twist your neck so you can see it . That's what It's like to use an edger. Just add noise and dust.

We got some second-hand oak flooring for one of the bedrooms in the extension we're building. Thankfully, I kept every piece - this corner will go under a toilet so it won't show.



This is the finished floor :

Nice work, Dale and Irene!

Here's a small project of mine. Both windows were salvaged from old homes. The outer frame and sill on the right came from an old fence in town as did some of the ceiling. The bottle above the right window was a Christmas gift to us from neighbors several yrs prior. It had kahlua in it. The door to the right came out of an old horse barn. The window frame on the left also came from a fence and the lintel above from an old bridge constructed in the early 1900's. The round glass thing above the left window is an insulator light. Salvaged the vintage insulator from a farm junkyard.

The floor is made from an old picnic table left behind a foreclosed home. Everything else was salvaged too but I can't remember its origin.

The pot is a .50 cent thrift store wicker basket I covered with earthen plaster and rimed with thrift store jute. The blue bottle window came from my neighbors trash.

Great fun giving new life to "junk"!

Don't disreguard those futons, their frames can be taken apart and make good trellises for growing vines. I have parts of two futons frames waiting to support cucumbers and pole beans when the weather get warm.

When doing those brush clearing, remember wood carver would pay for large pieces of hard to find find wood and BBQers/smokers want nut and fruit wood, especially smaller pieces.

I have transplanted many seedlings found doing landscaping and flowerbed clearing. I have even gotten some seedlings while cleaning out gutters.

R. Peacock wrote:Don't disreguard those futons, their frames can be taken apart and make good trellises for growing vines. I have parts of two futons frames waiting to support cucumbers and pole beans when the weather get warm.

Great ideas, R. Peacock! Speaking of futons, the legs on the outside work bench in the pic are from a broken futon. They're just turned up on edge. The fish sculpture I call "futon dowel eyed". The dowel came from the same futon.

Whilst on the subject, the top of the bench is made from planks I found on a river bank. The rest of the wood was salvaged from one place or another. The doors in the background were from dumpsters, the piece sign ring from an old whiskey barrel, the ceiling from a cedar fence, the light from an old barn, and the shaving horse from salvaged lumber.

Last but not least is the tail on the little dude climbing the log chain (it's just above bench mentioned before so thought I'd include it here too); it's from a road kill squirrel salvaged on the street I live along. I also made rawhide from the same squirrel but tossed the rest (I'm not as thrifty as Eustace Conway. He would have eaten it!). I wonder what my neighbors think......

Speaking of futons; don't forget, most futon mattresses can be thrown on the compost pile.

I need to get some pictures up but right now im on a gas grill kick you can pick them up for free all the time. I have built a chop saw table out one and a miter saw table and a work bench. Thay all ready have wheels on them and when working with limited space this can be a blessing this weekend when im at the house ill take a few pictures of them.

This summer im going to show how I build a shed out of trampoline frames and 2x4s I finallly got a video camera might use it to do the walk threw.

Im looking into using old chest type frezzers to build a solar batch heater

Thecheapguy

I like how every little scrap went into that floor. I get houses where the bedrooms contain oak shorts. Peices under 2 ft. long have no market value so I give them to industrious people who are willing to spend the time. "Pick your own" isn't just for strawberries.

I'm totally stealing the basket trick, but you'll be mentioned in the credits.

The smaller bowl below is carved from Douglas fir bark. The larger one is 40 inches long and made of maple. I've carved about 500 bowls from drift wood, most of them one summer when I sold $4000 worth.

I presented myself at the carving tool store and explained to the salesman that I had never carved a bowl before but I needed top quality tools for a commercial venture. He laughed. The next day I sold my first bowl. A week later I was up $700 and I carved periodically until the next year when the tools were stolen along with the van they resided in.

I have tried a lathe but I find it tedious. And lathes have a favorite shape - round. With drift wood , every item is unique. Nature provides the shape so l only had to hollow it out. Big bowls are serious exercise. Using an adze and gouge is a quiet, dustless process.

Dale Hodgins wrote:I like how every little scrap went into that floor. I get houses where the bedrooms contain oak shorts. Peices under 2 ft. long have no market value so I give them to industrious people who are willing to spend the time. "Pick your own" isn't just for strawberries.

I'm totally stealing the basket trick, but you'll be mentioned in the credits.

The smaller bowl below is carved from Douglas for bark. The larger one is 40 inches long and made of maple. I've carved about 500 bowls from drift wood, most of them one summer when I sold $4000 worth. I presented myself at the carving tool store and explained to the salesman that I had never carved a bowl before but I needed top quality tools for a commercial venture.

Cool bowls, Dale! Re the basket, yes, have at it! I used cattail down in the earthen plaster rather than straw then finished it off with warmed linseed oil followed by beeswax cut with 100% citrus solvent. They're fun to make and easy.

Rusty, I edited just as you posted.

In the thread about gabion dry stone siding I mention your rain splash solution with the chunks of concrete.

Here's more: The first photo shows what I'm using for insulation in a little out building; strips of old thrift store fleece blankets.

The second photo is a walkway I built using a salvaged redwood deck. The owner was tired of the "maintenance" so let me have it. It was ~15 yrs old when I salvaged it and has been used as a walkway here for about 18 yrs. "Maintenance" is a matter of perspective, I guess. I tighten down a loose piece here and there and have applied no oil to it but it still looks like it'll last another 20 yrs with minimal input. At any rate, it's set on salvaged bricks. The railroad ties on the end are from an old farm junkyard. The only cost I have into it are the screws.

The little wooden thing with a roof on it, against the lightly colored plaster, is a cover for an irrigation timer and manifold. Zero cost. All salvaged "junk"...except for the few nails and screws it took. I even reuse those things when practical.

Sad to think of all the useful things that are discarded or burned daily....

"SATURDAY IN THE PARK --- felt like heavy lifting that day ..."

I do quite a bit of volunteer civil engeneering --- That's a fancy way of saying that I maintain clear beach access and driftwood steps in the area surrounding downtown Victoria. I'm self appointed, so you could call it "Guerilla Earthworks".

Yesterday, I took a walk and found the little roadway that I built last spring plugged with logs. After helping a really tough old girl of about 85 crawl over the logs to the stairs, I set about to move some pretty big logs and then I filled the voids with wood, bark and gravel.

The photos: 1. The before photo

2. Almost done with one more big one followed by some levelling. This is the largest log, a specimen weighing 700-800 lb. It sat quite high over the path but the skinny end was burried and wedged. Strong levers made its extraction possible.

3. The finished product --- until the next storm. In April I'll clear the three sets of stairs and accesses. They will remain clear until November, when storms will make a bloody mess again. You can't fight nature.

Dale Hodgins wrote:"SATURDAY IN THE PARK --- felt like heavy lifting that day ..."
After helping a really tough old girl of about 85 crawl over the logs to the stairs

I know that referring to an elderly woman as "old girl" is a very S. Ontario type of expression, but the last time I used it around my mother (now 79) she gave me a swat. I won't be using it ever again. lol

My brother refers to people as "darlin" if they exibit ignorance or an unwillingness to listen. They hate it. When they argue he quickly says "Maybe ya didn't hear me."

But of the 10 kids I am by far the most outspoken and I pride myself on delivering well timed zingers. My favorite well worn phrase that I use upon hearing about a really dumb idea or activity is "There's nothing weird about that." or "There's nothing stupid about that" . The variants are endless and include silly, dangerous, bone headed, risky, ...Another favorite is saying " well that's flawles" or " I can't see how that could fail". All must be delivered deadpan.

This type of humour is underapreciated on the west coast.

Along the same theme, I've suggested that they "Get a patent" on the idea.

well i hope you like the way we repurposed these old gas grills

In this link you'll find several tutorials for craft projects, 3 of them are for making stuff out of old tshirts. Baby bibs, women's panties and yarn from which you can knit or crochet heavy duty rugs, bowls, baskets and bags. You'll need to have some sewing and/or yarn work experience or a willingness to try them out at least . In the rest of my sets there are a couple of quilts and a LOT of toys made from old clothes too.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/craftylittlemonkey/collections/72157617048573992/

Not a lot of salvaged wood in my life but between the 3 of us we manage to generate lots of old clothes, ha ha.

This is the best bowl that I have carved. I call it an angel wing. I hollowed out the center. Nature provided the shape.

SCOOTER COLLISION REPAIR

This project started with me finding and saving a 3 ft. long by 10 inch strip of rubber. The rubber sat in my shed for a year waiting for the right project to come up. I thought it might come in handy if a car floor needed patching.

Then I bumped into China (that's her real name) a lady who I've met while she sells her post cards at the Sunday market. Her most valued possession is her shiny red mobility scooter which she got 6 years ago. We have a long rainy season but we seldom get snow, so she uses it more than 300 days a year and it has allowed her greater freedom than she ever had before.

Unfortunately, she hit a light pole pretty hard a couple years back and really mangled the bumper. There were several cracks in the bumper and some pieces of the hard plastic chunks are totally missing. Plastic rivets held it to the red body of the machine and several little chunks of the red portion near the bumper were cracked out with the impact. A repair shop wanted $1,500.00 to fix the bumper and even then the other cracking wouldn't have been addressed. Her budget made repair impossible. This particular model is over $9,000.00 new. Enter our hero, me

THE REPAIR- I coated the rubber and the bumper with a generous amount of contact cement after cutting it to fit. A newspaper pattern was cut first since I was afraid of buggering up the rubber. While the cement was wet, I put in lots of little screws. Everything on the scooter is curved so the rubber had to be forced to conform. Heavy scissors were used to get the final curvature right on the outer edges. The original bumper is totally missing on the left side, so the screws were place to bend the rubber to aproximately the same shape as the right side which had bad cracks but still held the original shape. Then it was time for a very thick layer of calking which was done in 2 coats 2 days apart. It was finished this morning. A very fine bead would have worked in some areas but the calking does more than run the rain. It glues the body and bumper together and fills cracks and holes. One area about a foot long had a half inch gap between torn bumper and cracked body material. About 3/4 of a tube went into it.The original plan was to paint the calking either red or black but China has decided that the white looks like a smiley face and that it goes well with the white speckles in the rubber.

The total cost came in at $27.oo for supplies from Capital Iron. We conducted the repair on the street before moving to a good spot under a tree in the Capital Iron parking lot. All of the glue and calking has locked everything together, so there is no rattling. It was a very successful little project and China is very pleased with the result.

Trouble loading photos - crappy wifi at this location. Later

I ran into China and her mom at the grocery store a few months back. The repair has held. I was afraid that the cracks in the red portion would creep up with use, but all is well. I didn't get around to collecting the $27 last year, despite China's insistence that she wanted to pay it and feed me dinner. They had me over for a great meal and China retrieved the money from her dresser. It had remained there for 14 months.

China's mom is in her seventies and uses a wheelchair. Mother and daughter have one good leg and 3 good arms between them, but together they are quite good cooks and housekeepers. They make jam and other preserves. Their condo is set up perfectly for their needs, with sliding doors, special height counters and safe bathroom stuff.

I delivered a few bags of the apples and plums that I wild harvest. They made jam and jelly. Next year, they are interested in producing large quantities for sale. I've been seeking others who would like to process my fruit on a split basis. China is already a very good salesperson. People have trouble saying no. She has already sold something to thousands of people in Victoria, most of it without permits. I'll get a good picture of her and copies will be glued to the jars. She plans to sell it from the scooter. This city permits pan handling, drug dealing, busking and all sorts of other street trade. Even if they one day get tough on it, they're unlikely to stop this pair from hustling a buck with wild berry jam.

The scooter needs another repair. The doors come off during summer, since it gets hot in there. I saw China downtown on Sunday and she told me that they have warped and no longer fit. She's been using it during freezing weather. I will go there tomorrow and figure something out. I may put blocking under them on a floor and then use books to weigh down the edges to regain the original curvature. I haven't seen them yet, so it could go in many directions.

This is the scooter in August, with doors removed.

I made a wonderbox out of two pairs of trousers one pair of Bamudas and an old tea towel
Just need to find something to stuff it with .
Cost a couple yards of cotton

David

David Livingston wrote:I made a wonderbox out of two pairs of trousers one pair of Bamudas and an old tea towel
Just need to find something to stuff it with .
Cost a couple yards of cotton

David

I have no idea what a wonder box is. Google images did nothing to clarify. OK, what is it.

https://permies.com/t/8127/cooking/Haybox-Cooking

Its mentioned in here

David

Dale Hodgins wrote:
I have no idea what a wonder box is. Google images did nothing to clarify. OK, what is it.

Here's a photo, with a link to the page it's from that shows how to make one - Wonder Box Cooker Tutorial

On our homestead, for irrigation we use soaker, water-wand, and some overhead, depending on location, crop, etc. We had a sprinkler stand that was of the welded-steel H-pattern bottom style. It didn't stand up well after I changed the sprinkler head atop it to an "impact" type - the force of the spray pulsing out laterally (to one side at any particular moment) would always knock it over, if not sooner then later. We'd had the same problem with double-spike bottom stands too, because wet soil gets soft.

The store-bought base of the stand that I modified was, as mentioned, an H pattern made from 5/16" steel rod welded together. For quite a while I solved the toppling problem by wrapping some heavy steel chain around the stand, resting it on the base. But the chain (aside from its actual virtue of weighing about 20 pounds, giving weight to the bottom) was floppy, and had to be re-wrapped every time I moved the sprinkler. A real nuisance!

I was at a yard sale and saw a pair of 10-pound dumbbells for sale, at $4 for the pair. The dumbbells appeared to be made from forged steel. I bought them for re-purposing.



I put two 1/8" x 2" steel straps across the rods on the base and welded them into place. Then I welded the dumbbells onto the strapping. I used my MIG welder, loaded with .035" flux-core wire for the welding. Now the stand has a 20-plus-pound base that does not come apart every time I need to move the sprinkler!



Second little project: A shop is an essential part of any homestead. In my shop, I store a lot of small parts (screws, washers, nuts, hooks, etc) in jars and bins. I made this device from a cornbread-type baking pan, bought very cheap. It's sheet metal, and about 8x8" square and a bit over an inch-and-a-half deep.


You can dump a jar or small bin out into the pan, spread out the parts, search through to find what you need, and then return the leftover parts back into their container easily. I cut a sort of "bird's mouth" shaped hole in one bottom corner of the pan - you can hold the pan in such a way that you get the parts to slide to the lowest corner and funnel back into the jar, bin, whatever.

I marked out the hole using a paint-marker pen, cut it with a small disk on a die grinder, smoothed the edges of the hole with a cone-shaped grinding tip on the die grinder.

I like this lots better than picking up clumps of parts with my hand and trying to get them all back into the container - more efficient, easier, and you don't get stuck with any pointy little ends!

That pan looks very handy.

I'm going to put this hot tub to use soon. My tenant, Randy has grabbed two of these free tubs for me. I've now run an ad. Disposal of hot tubs starting at $150. Calls to two spa dealers confirmed my suspicion that tubs advertised for free usually don't get picked up. I will glass over jets and turn them into ponds etc.

I don't think you've got the growing season but I could grow a ton of water chestnuts in those spas!

Water chestnuts are possible here, with some management. My hugelkultur mounds are much hotter than the surrounding forest. Tubs will be planted on top of them like crater lakes. Algae bloom will be encouraged since it provides more Nitrogen than anything else.

Awesome! Mt. Chestnut, I like it!

Feel badly I haven't had the time in recent months to post on Permies. I see that it has expanded. Anyway, just got on to post about my land for sale. Then, I remembered this thread so decided to hang out a bit to post pics of a recent project: An outhouse for my yurt in the Pioneer Mountains of Idaho... near Craters of the Moon National Monument.

It's a pit-less saw-dust composting privy...a hodgepodge of various scraps and salvaged pieces. Built it round to keep the yurt theme. The roof is a skylight from another yurt, headed to the landfill. Gave it a little TLC, capped it with a metal garbage can lid then poked a solar LED landscape light through. No headlamps needed for this loo! The roof/skylight is supported by an old wooden drum ring.

The floor, door, and trim are redwood and cedar fencing...the floor structure an old pallet, and the wall studs and door frame from a burn pile. Perfectly good lumber someone tossed. Resurrected now! Pieced together a cover from a section I cut out of the yurt during repair.

The rear/sides of the wall roll up for extra ventilation on hot days/nights. Screened to keep the bugs out. The interior handle is an old walking stick, with sculpted face, the latch is a log chain hook with Alder I cut from an experimental replica harpoon.

The door decor is a broken butt from an old lever action rifle I found at an abandoned farmstead. The sheet metal crescent hanging from the rifle butt was totally unintentional. Came out that way while cutting a circle for another project.

The only new items for this project was a 1x4 and brackets for the skylight rebuild, and some screws. The rest is "junk". Have a total of $15 into it.

Here's a few more pics:

Thanks, Rusty. I really enjoy seeing stuff like this.

I'm in a logging-industry region. Chain-hooks like that are common. That's a nifty repurpose!


Keep 'em coming, people.

Thanks, Joel. Here are a couple more from a project last winter. I used salvaged redwood fencing for a wainscoat on this earthen structure to protect against splashing from the tub. I used the same fencing for skirting around the tub steps and the privacy wall. The paddle, found along a river yrs ago, was shortened and is now used to stir the tub water. I made the towel hooks from an old rake handle.