Never throw anything out

I am sure I am not the only one who hates to throw anything out. I have three very heavy five gal buckets of nuts, and bolts from different tractors, and motors I have taken apart. I will never use most of it, but just can't part with it. So I just keep adding to bucket number four, and move the other buckets around as they get in the way. Maybe I'm a border line horder? What do you have you just can't part with? Stan

You sound like my dad. Couple half round up drums with bolts and nuts. Half rusted out other half heads nearly striped. spend half day digging round trying to find a nut that threads on a bolt. Offcuts of steal of all sorts can be handy to make a gusset when you are in a hurry but most of it is to short to be much use or can never find what you are looking for. After digging around looking for something the other day i managed to find his umbilical cord packed up on a shelf

They say it's an illness and I think I believe it...... Back your truck or whatever up and say "gonna clean this place out and get rid of everything not being or gonna be used and see how far you get... If you're like me, you'll end up uncovering more junk that is just too good to throw away.... It's no fun....

Chief, best if you come clean out my shop and I will go clean out yours !
LOL Sam

To me, retrieval is the issue. No way you can retrieve anything as small as bolts and nuts out of a five gallon bucket! In my mind, you are considerably past a 'borderline hoarder'!

Like U I saved & collected bolts nuts brackets
pieces parts for everything I've worked on..
a Few years ago I built a bolt storeage bin
on the wall of the shop. On Warm summer nites
I started going throught the coffee cans, mason
jars, 5 gallon buckets & wood box's sorted
every one out, saved what was good & Junked
what wasn't. I created a bunch more room & got
around 50.00 out what was left.....

Scrap em. Use the money to buy bulk new hardware. 90 per cent of what you will need will fit in 16 coffee cans for about 20 dollars.

When I set and read stuff like this and think logically about it, I say I'm just gonna rent a container and just dump everything in it and start over... The "start over" part is what scares me tho cause I know it'd happen again.......

When I first started in the service business, the fellow who trained me had a box of small junk that he carried on his truck to hunt through when he was short something. After six months or so I figured out that it was a lot faster and easier to just go prepared with the right parts, assemblies and so on. I cut out the "hunting" altogether. Now working on old stuff I admit is different, and you can't just keep all the parts as new on the shelf. I do save a lot of old parts and fasteners, but they still need to be sorted into categories periodically and a lot of stuff dumped, because digging through bucket after bucket just takes way too long. Another necessity arose about twenty years ago: Sets of bins/drawers of fasteners O-rings, elec. terminals etc. to have on hand and replenish as they get low.

I've got some of those buckets. I've spent a day or two sorting into bolts bins and suddenly they become about 1,000$ of hardware. A 5/8" bolt is about 1.50$ to buy now. A lockwasher is about .20$ each etc.

I just sort by diameter for most sizes. The ones I use a lot I've got the nuts, washers, and lengths all separate.

Toss it and buy new. That 1K worth of used stuff will cost many hours of sorting and cleaning, to me it's about time. If it's new it's there, just grab what you need and go instead of loosing field time when I've got hay dwon and rain on the way.

Rick

What do I have that I cannot part with? Used nuts, bolts and washers! About 37 years ago, I was given an old thirty drawer heavy duty letter cabinet..: Used one drawer for nuts, one for washers, one for lockwashers, each diameter bolt has it's own drawer. Metric bolts have their own drawer.... Makes it easy to find things fast. The bent and rusty stuff gets scrapped. Some of this hardware is tuff to find, even new from a dealer.. I can't blame anyone for not tossing good useable hardware, But Chief; you have got to control yourself!

I have a couple of buckets worth of bolts, I have gone through and thrown out all that are too rusty or are damaged, so the ones left are good to use, and I do use them from time to time. Probably will never use them all but that's okay.
Zach

I pretty much toss it if broken beyond repair other wise I keep,my nearest dealer is 70 miles away.
One man's junk is always anothers treasures.
Wife always comments on my checking out my friends and neighbors junk piles and fence rows.

Bill

If you work for the army, federal government, yeah, thro it out. Even multinationals look at inventory as if it has a value- which it does. I needed a 5/8 NF for a fergie- I'm in a fix- tractor split in 3 directions, too much else to do than go shopping for a nut- 'if' -I got one... I did... the absolutely last place I looked, and it was still on a torch cut bolt. Back in business, worth the effort. Anyone who can stock up on new hardware ahead of time has a crystal ball I would like to have. The big plastic pails is your drawback. Even cigar boxes is better than fishing in a bucket. On the long winter nights... with a heater in the shop... I sort it all out. With my tap and die set right there. If they are rounded off, into junk pail, after sorting out sizes and thread, into a little bin. When everything in the pile is sorted into bins- grab a bin. Funky threads in that size are chased, now back in the bin. 2-3000 nuts bolts and washers are... 4-500 bucks? A pair of nice tires? A fresh battery for the fleet? What is scrap? a couple buckets-100 pounds... $12? Argibiz, wannabees, yep- ship shape shop. I never met a real old fashioned farmer who threw anything out, it is part of the 'calling'?

I don't throw out much. Usually just move it farther from the house.
I did finally snap this past fall and realize that there wwere some projects that I'd never get to before I die of old age,and even if I did,the stuff I was gonna fix was obsolete,so I hauled a bunch of stuff to the crusher.
We'll see how long it takes now for me to want any of it. I'm guessing I'll be cursing myself by June.

Its always fun to debate this, as you can equally argue both sides, and be right! LOL

There is no doubt about wasting time sifting through buckets when you are in a bind, or need to make time. Same with tools and all that, it is a huge waste of ones time when searching.

Reason I say this is that our place had this problem, some darned reason, things get out of place, buckets get full and tools scattered. I spent some time and one of the hired help did too, we found some plastic bins and similar things, had some shelving and organized it within reason, can find things much easier, use what we have or found, don't buy unless you check first, but without tipping over buckets.

I like keeping things too, and often times do use various things that have been hanging around, the part I hate is the clutter associated with it, you would be surprised at how you can condense, organize, and still keep some or all of it.

I like the old nuts and bolts, if not damaged, worn or stressed, better quality, just need to have em sorted, in bins etc. I do have one bucket from the parts room of our old dealership, heavy and a real pain to sort through.


The thing on wasting time is reality, can cost you too. Last Sept, power company drilling sub contractor provided a nice excavator for us being helpful, allowing some bow hunting for one of the guys, so here we have a machine for a weekend, no cost, just fuel. We have a water line crossing an aisle to a non freeze hydrant, problem is it freezes, and the hydrant has a leak at the connection. I'm there before 7am, hole is dug, pipe exposed before 9am you said you(dear ole dad) have the fittings, yeah ok, here's a bucket ful, sift through all that, nothing that works or fits, I have one I have one, now noon time, I need a darned 3/4 street elbow in brass for one of these hydrants, by the time I looked through a bunch of crap, went to 3 different places, I had wasted 5 hours for one lousy fitting, if that had been a paying job or machine on rental, there is the money aspect of it. I was just annoyed as its not often you have a chance to use a machine like this and the place needs a ton of work, knowing it sat there for any amount of time, when it could have been working, just not right. All started with a bucket full of the wrong parts. Finally back filled after 3 pm, should have been done way before noon.

Here's the idle machine and guys standing around it looking at a hole LOL Darned buckets full of junk, well actually was just starting to backfill, but that bucket is in the photo, should have buried that too ! Well at least it works and that line won't freeze there now.

I'm the thrird generation living on this farm.

The shed walls are lined pretty deep.

Just helped clean out my mother in law's place yesterday, my father in law was pretty handy & wood worker.

I got a pickup and trailer sitting outside the house right now, trying to figure which wall to add another layer too......

--->Paul

What it rally is, is burning $1,000.00 bills to save pennies. UNSORTED used stuff. Do you not know of anyone who fights for hours to start his skid steer when it is cold when he has a heated shed that is full of junk? Or fights for hours with his baler or chopper that sat out all winter because the shed was full of junk?

Kinda funny but I've got a friend who buys buckets of old bolts at auctions. He isn't much of a mechanic and I refuse to help him. I just get frustrated holding up finishing something for 2 or 3 hours (BTDT) over a buck and a half bolt.

As fars as that long winter nite thing....how many hours? Whats your time worth? How much you spending to heat the shop while yer working? Now whats the cost of that used bolt?

Rick

When I worked for GM, it drove me nuts what they would throw out. Basically, they considered everything as having a carrying cost, that was the cost of having sit on a shelf, plus the property tax they had to pay on it every year. Every spring, they had a house cleaning, and tried to get rid of anything that hadn't been used in the previous year. I still think it was nuts, but I was never more than a peon.

I got home from Army service, in 1946, and my Father got me a job working for Gulf Oil, in a service station.
One day at work, while carrying cases of oil to the storage room, one case fell off the pile and broke the air line from the compressor, that ran everything in the place. It was too late to call the repair shop, but i called my cousin, told him to go to my home, and in the cellar he'd find a 5 gallon bucket full of pipe connections, and some short pieces of pipe, and bring the things to the station.
It took several hours to finally fix the pipe. It looked like a Rube Goldberg repair, but it worked. It was still in use when i quit a year later!

I save and sort everything in the heated shop but I'll be danged if I can remember what I did with it.

No one wants to pay for warehousing anything the last few years. Tell me spook- ever do inventory with them? A shop I worked for years ago had a scale. Put one tiny nut on there. Set a needle, then dump all the nuts in a tray... it would tell you exactly how many nuts were in the bin. It was a hundred years old and had like 3 moving parts. But that place never thru anything out! In the 1980's they still had all the tooling for pre-lend lease British and French anti aircraft parts they made there. Boss told me just incase the jerrys got yancy again... they were ready to bid on a contract...
It was such a cold wind this afternoon, I did a nut and bolt sorting, just for an excuse to not go out there....

(quoted from post at 14:49:52 01/13/12) I save and sort everything in the heated shop but I'll be danged if I can remember what I did with it.

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That's the next thing... just no winning..... Was looking for something the other day and found that tank heater you sent me along with all the stuff I had put together to use it in a bag hanging on the wall where I'd be sure to find it. When I wanted to mount it, I couldn't find it, got warmer and I didn't need it. Forgot about it and sold the tractor...... Marked the bag now and thinking about what to use it for....

That dumpster is looking better and better.... My thing isn't so much nuts, bolts, & parts as it is house fixing stuff.....

I hoard a lot of stuff; all kinds of steel, aluminum and such that I "might" need for "some" future project.
I was born poor so I have a tendency to not throw out anything I "think" I might be able to use.
It works for me and I rarely have to buy anything when I"m building something.
I am pretty good about saving (and buying when they"re cheap) bolts, nuts, washers and screws.
When I find a little time, I "semi" sort the stuff so It doesn"t take forever to find something if I need it.
Washers: 1/2" or larger or smaller than 1/2"
Bolts smaller than 1/4" all in one bucket
Nuts smaller than 1/4" all in one can
1/4" bolts NF and NC all in one bucket
1/4" nuts sorted by NF, NC and all locking.
1/4" washers and lock washers individually.
5/16" thru 9/16" Bolts sorted indivdually by size and thread type but not by length.
Nuts 5/16" thru 9/16" by size and thread.
All Bolts larger than 9/16" go in one bucket.
All nuts bigger than 9/16" go in another bucket.
I also have cans for brass bushings, steel bushings and nylon bushings as well as for "unusual" washers.
Once you establish the containers, its not a big deal to put stuff where it belongs!For me, it"s worth the effort and if I didn"t have my own "stuff", I"d have to drive 10 miles or more to get it.
Oh....and I have other buckets for all Gr.8, all SS, all brass and all Metric bolts and nuts.
I guess I am a hoarder!! LOL

About 5 years ago I finally had enough. Spent three weeks listening to the radio and sorting bolts. Now I have them in drawers sorted by size and I keep them that way. I had quite a bit of scrap too. Should have done it 30 years ago, sure is handy to find what you want easily.

I don't throw it out, I just rearrange it from time to time. If you throw it out you will need it tomorrow.

Some of the best days I ever had is when you find what you need without going to store and spending any money or burning gas. Today doing brakes on jeep, needin 18 mm socket because it broke. Found 11/16 mismarked that was exactly 18mm. Hooray, what a rush. Dave, now you know never throw anything away.