can't pass up usefull trash

Yup! Just mowers will kill you quick, certainly around here! I did do pretty much anything I could to make a buck! The winters here are hard on a small shop with limited equipment. I would go from haveing two or three guys working for me in the summer, to having zero work to do in the winter. I did some welding and metal fabricating but it seemed that work also followed the seasons. Also the area I live in is heavily zoned. You don't just open a repair shop in your back yard, not one of any size anyway. I do some repairs in my shop in the evenings and weekends, but I need to keep it low key. My neighbor was turned into the city for working an cars in his garage, and so have I. The funny thing was when I was turned in I was not working on other peoples stuff, just my own, which the city can do nothering about! I spent the better part of the summer getting my grandpa's old John Deere restored for a antuque equipment show. Check out

a couple of pics. The day the inspector stopped by I had the tractor on a trailer, hooked up to a motor home, all ready to leave for the show. I was at work, but he mailed a letter and I talked to him on the phone later. He just laughed it off, said he knew what I was doing! Greg

My wife has to practically get me in a headlock to stop me .... unless she isn't there :-)

--George

for a couple of pics. The day the inspector stopped by I had the tractor on

if i lived in a real nice manicured neighborhood and my next door neighbor had shit all over the place and was making racket all night i would still walk over and talk to him before i called the zoning dept. hey, rules are rules i guess, but sometimes just talking to someone can set the record straight. Nice tractor... i love the wheels!

walt

I was making my weekly visit to our local dump/recycling center when I noticed a box of old magazines. Too bad, it was only a collection of Mechanix Illustrated, Popular Mechanics and a few Popular Science and special issues from 1941 through 1949. I already have quite a few of these, but some fill some holes in the collection.

Good stuff to the right person!

Appreciative of the supportive people at the Mont Vernon dump.

Earle Rich Mont Vernon, NH

i know a guy who has worked on cars and trucks for years. If he has an old car that's gonna go to scrap, he takes as many nuts, bolts, clips or fasteners he can find off. It's real nice having jars full of these things, hardware can add up. Now, whenever i see something like a bike or equipment laying out for trash, i do the same thing, having hardware on hand is also a huge time saver. I like watching guys garbage pick my garbage picked stuff... they look so di ssapointed when all the usefull craps gone!

walt

oooops...

That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there. - George Orwell

Walt said brilliantly:

I like watching guys garbage pick my garbage picked stuff... they look so di ssapointed when all the usefull craps gone!

Thats funny as hell !!

I think i've had that look a few times....

This is one of the most entertaining threads I've ever read, and all too true.

The amount of stuff that goes into landfill is criminal !!! I do commercial office remodeling and what gets dumped is amazing. The biggest I can remember was a real large moving file system...had to be worth $50,000 at least...taken apart and tossed into dumpsters...damn near killed me !!

I have rescued bunches of networking equipment and made some tidy money selling it off on Ebay, and the buyers got REAL good deals also.

I scored a big Bosch Electric Demo Hammer with case that was on its way to the dumpster. It needed one of the brushes popped back into place !!! Works Perfect!!

OK Now......

< Vent On >

These A**holes that guard the garbage dumps should be run out of town....along with the ones that come up with such STUPID legislation. Hearing things like this makes me wonder what the f*** are they thinking ??? We need More garbage, or what...Useless Know Nothing Bastards !!

< Vent Off >

Ahh, that feels better now, thanks....

Jeff

I agree. I keep the yard clean. I have my boat and a small trailer parked in the yard back behind the garage, thats all. I keep my work hours in the garage during day light hours for the most part, and often keep the shop door closed for noise. My other neighbor that was turned in has nothing outside either, keeps pretty low key also. We are pretty sure the person that turned us in moved out, we both get along well with all the neighbors, do a little work for them time to time to. I try to keep my neighbors happy, if they need a small job done it often gets done for free. Greg

You're thinking that he is referring to Marijuanna?

It is the box part of a tractor-trailer rig equipped with a built-in refrigerator compressor used for transporting food. Over the years, they degrade, the compressor and other refrigeration parts get closer to end-of-life, and perhaps the insulation degrades. (The refrigerator part normally runs from a matching size internal combustion engine, so it does not require power from the tractor part of the rig.

At this point, they sell them for what they can get for them, and replace them with new.

You can also get containerized cargo boxes (TEUs and FEUs -- Twenty-foot Equivalent Units and Forty-foot Equivalent Units). Good storage at the least, but the reefers already have electrics at least partially built in, so the conversion to an electronics workshop is a bit easier. Just take it off the removable wheel assemblies, plop it on a foundation, and wire it up. :-) You can even use the refrigeration for super air conditioning (add an electric motor if necessary to replace the IC one) -- a *major* benefit in the hotter parts of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico where a black iron tool left outside in the sun cannot be picked up without insulating gloves. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Hehe, hey if it's well lit it could make a nice greenhouse. ;-)

Ah, a _reefer_igeration box..

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

"Wayne Cook" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

My dad used to sell mowers, and had to carry out warranty repairs and otherwise help the customers service the things. I was (and am still, for old customers) often given the task of fixing mowers that the customers couldn't get to run properly. What we've observed is that the amount people are willing to spend on a mower is inversely proportional to the size of their lawn and the difficulty of mowing it. For some reason, those who have small, tidy, flat-as-a-billiard-table gardens buy the expensive self-propelled mowers that never develop any problems, while those that have large and bumby lawns buy the cheapest mowers available. And damned near all lawnmower buyers are useless bloody morons who should not be allowed to own anything more advanced than a scythe ;-)

The ones with small lawns and expensive mowers call in every summer complaining the mower won't start, and every time it turns out to be something silly like forgetting to put fuel in the tank or opening the stopcock. We have one repeat complaining customer who can never get her mower to start, and every time I try it starts on the first pull. It turns out that she's so afraid of somehow hurting herself or damaging the mower that she doesn't dare to pull the cord with any real force- but no way will she buy one with an electrical starter. The ones with large, bumpy lawns and cheap mowers have no problem getting the things to run, but _always_ set their mowers to the lowest setting so that they either hit rocks or overload them trying to cut 2' of grass down to 0.5" in one go. These people keep complaining that their cheaper-than-dogshit electric mowers burn out the motor windings or bend the driveshaft, and demand that it be fixed under warranty. Those few in this category who buy gas powered mowers tend to be hobby mechanics who mess the things up and return them for "warranty repair" with half the parts missing; the rest are incapable of following simple instructions and always tip their mowers toward the carb side when cleaning out grass and gunk from the underside. Most inexpensive mowers get oil in the carb if tipped to this side, and stop working as a result. Oh, and don't even mention those who put too much oil in the crankcase.

Long story made reasonably short: about half of all lawnmower repairs are laughably simple, but take so little time to accomplish that I can't with a good conscience charge much money for them. The rest would be more expensive than buying a new mower, and preferally one that is actually capable of mowing the customer's lawn without breaking. Since I can't/won't charge money for the "repairs" that are worthwile and won't do repairs that aren't, there's no money to be made from this whatsoever.

-- Aamund Breivik

Guy across the street has an interesting approach to mowing. He waits till the grass is about 8-10 inches high and it is raining lightly, he starts the mower and proceeds to cut in a clockwise pattern such that the discharge is directed toward the uncut grass. When the shroud fills up and stalls the engine, he tries to re-start it several times with the recoil starter, then takes it over to the driveway and bounces it off the concrete until enough grass falls out to allow the engine to run for a couple more rounds of the forty foot square lawn. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

One time at the dump where it has signs everywhere that you can't pick up anything one of the workers in a orange jump suit is digging in a box that he dumped over. The pile was full of nice metal stuff , I finished unloading my truck and he moved away from a brand new diamond blade so I just picked it up quick and walked away and he called me back and took it from me and tossed back in. Looked to be worth about $200 and he had a arm load of stuff he wanted.

I show up in neighborhoods for my job in the morning and am just thrilled to see that its garbage day ! I'll stick the truck in second and idle around for the hunt. I avoid digging , but if its readily available its mine. Once I found a nice Toro mover and was just about to hurt my back to toss it in the truck for the father-in-law and noticed some landscape guys down the street. Ooops almost stole their equipment. That would be hard to explain to the cops. " Honest its an addiction, it was placed just like trash, I wouldn't steal a piece of bubble gum."

Very Nice toy as well in the www there!

Good job of fixing her up.

Mart>

we all probably do.. the best laugh i had was when i stopped by the rear of a Sears Store and you could see the wheels of a new lawnmower sticking up from the trash.. had to stop and checked it out... well the wheels were plastic and broken (all four of them)..no problem... then i looked at the gas tank, split open plastic.. the i looked at the control cables, all pulled apart and the wires cut in several places... the plstic top cover of the new mower was also pulled off the broke, the heat of the engine had the fins on it broken off.... it either fell of the top shelf in storeage or the manager got mad and went to it with a maul.... a real no nothing.... but they threw it away... i could find nothing good on that mower and just passed on that one, but it looked brand new, still had the stickers from the store on it.....

On 10 Jul 2004 20:30:20 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols) vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Yup!

Fergit all the the fridge stuff.

Roll up a huge J and _fergit_the heat outside! get on with the electronics.

Put the buzz back into electrical stuff!

You have no idea.

Sorry. I actually take _any_ form of intixication and machine work as a serious no-no. That includes fatigue.

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 04:08:55 +0200, "Åmund Breivik" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Thus putting you out of work and increasing the income of surgeons?

I once "repaired" a tape recorder by replacing.....no...sorry.. ......._installing_ the batteries. Serious.

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 02:41:38 GMT, Gerald Miller vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Yer? And?