Storage

[OnOff]

Storage containers................Finally tackling the "dumping ground shed" - old stable block that really needs rebuilding. Asbestos roof, sloping , crumbling walls and a couple of trees pushing walls etc.

Aside from the obligatory obscure electrical bits and pieces, amongst other stuff I have collected are small fixings that I have aquired over 30 years. Mainly nuts, bolts and washers from M3 to probably M24 maybe M30. Galv, BZP, stainless then taper & spring washers, HSFG stuff. scroll, roll and split pins and even ones with RAL painted heads. Even have machined stainless bolts from when I was an apprentice where the factory would make rather than buy standard bolt sizes just to keep the machinists busy!

At the mo it's pretty much big (growing) boxes of assorted bolts another of washers etc. Mainly metric but the odd bit of imperial in there too. It'll come in useful one day! Being the spendthrift that I am I reckon that I could do something with the myriad 1 gallon tins I've collected (yes, I know most would throw them away). Mainly contained wood preserver and the like. I like the idea of lines of the same container with say M12x45 galv in one and M12x50 galv in the next one. YES, I'm that anal.

& YES I could fill up tins with some of the sizes!

In the garage I've made a frame over one of the 8' benches out of Uni-strut and I have louvre panels with the clip on bins. BUT............need MORE storage!

Seem to remember an old neighbour did similar with the old style GTX cans. (Was also big on Old Holborn tins too).

Easy enough to cut neatly to height with a sliting disc but not sure on folding the edges over to avoid sharp edges...........

("Myriad" and "anal" in the same post.........guessing that's a first on here?)

 

[Evans Electric]

How long have you stored all the  " Might come in useful one day"   stuff .    You know its years  .....turn it into cash at the Scrappy  and move on ...you will NEVER use it .

How do I know these things ?    Because since Christmas I've dumped a load of  " Might come in usefulls "    like 400  brass 2BA  X 1 1/2  round head screws ....kept since metrication  and never used.   

 

[ProDave]

How long have you stored all the  " Might come in useful one day"   stuff .    You know its years  .....turn it into cash at the Scrappy  and move on ...you will NEVER use it .

We all know the answer.

The day you find a use for them will be the day AFTER you have thrown them away.

 

[Andy™]

ive got far too many 'spares' some will get used, a lot probably wont

as for 'storage containers', i think i would need a few 40ft containers....

 

[Blue Duck]

How long have you stored all the  " Might come in useful one day"   stuff .    You know its years  .....turn it into cash at the Scrappy  and move on ...you will NEVER use it .

How do I know these things ?    Because since Christmas I've dumped a load of  " Might come in usefulls "    like 400  brass 2BA  X 1 1/2  round head screws ....kept since metrication  and never used.   

I go through loads of these! my wholesaler charges 9p +  each!

Onoff You sound like my Grandad in a good way I would keep all these things but I have no room to store anything!

 

[binky]

We all know the answer.

The day you find a use for them will be the day AFTER you have thrown them away.

that's because in the process of throwing them away, you suddenly remember you have them. To avoid the above scemario I strted applying a ridgid rule to my spares collection:-

If I think I can use it in 6 months, it stays, unless it costs more then £20 which gets a 1 year life.  I usually run through the garage once a year aswell, and ditch anything that hasn't been used.

 

[kerching]

that's because in the process of throwing them away, you suddenly remember you have them. To avoid the above scemario I strted applying a ridgid rule to my spares collection:-

If I think I can use it in 6 months, it stays, unless it costs more then £20 which gets a 1 year life.  I usually run through the garage once a year aswell, and ditch anything that hasn't been used.

My problem is that i THINK. Everything will be used in the next six months.....and guess what?

Never happens! But i have just sold a customer some parts that i have had kicking around ,for at least 10 years, for £100 a piece....probably stood me at a fiver each

Ker-fricking-ching

 

[Marvo]

Have to admit I'm a professional hoarder, if there was a honours degree in hoarding I'd probably be an advisor to the adjudication board. 

Hoarding is great, it makes you feel wealthy because you place an unrealistically high value on what is basically scrap. It's a comfort and security thing, I started hoarding when my parents insisted I stopped sucking my thumb because it was making my front teeth grow skew and I haven't stopped since.

Problem is it only makes any kind of sense up to a point, once you're hoarding so much stuff that you either can't remember you have things or you can't find them at short notice then it's counter productive. I've made loads of small stainless steel cabinets with drawers over the years to methodically file all the weird and wonderful fixings. I have a set of drawers specially for stainless steel stuff, another for brass, another for nylon, one for left-hand threaded items and even one for high tensile fixings and so on.  

 

[Evans Electric]

Marvo ...I hearby appoint you ... Forum Horder of the year .

You are causing a world wide shortage of stainless steel cabinets .

I go through loads of these! my wholesaler charges 9p +  each!

Onoff You sound like my Grandad in a good way I would keep all these things but I have no room to store anything!

So I dumped £360  worth of 2BA screws :C

 

[ProDave]

So I dumped £360  worth of 2BA screws :C

Should have  put them on ebay

 

[Andy™]

no, dont. my dad would probably buy them. ive already got enough of his ebay purchases sitting in my unit doing nothing except taking up space

 

[Blue Duck]

Should have put them on ebay

Ebay £1.73 for 2!

Just...bringing pain to those who hoarded stuff then binned it thinking it was worthless...

 

[OnOff]

I'm of an age now when I'm finding things in the clearout and I struggle to remember what they are / were used for...........was a time when I could relate it to the job, the name of the site agent and his dog! Found two 3-phase winches in the roof of the garage the other day.....the worry is I could have sworn they were single phase!

Always worked for places that would add say 5 spare fixings to every order. Pretty much everyone never wanted them back as it would mean "putting them into stock". The ammount that builds is incredible. A lot of blokes would just dump them down a riser, a stink pipe/drain on the roof or scatter amongst the roof pebbles during construction. One place there was an open frame brazier in the middle of the car park. The guys would come back off site and simply dump a bag of "rubbish" in it out of thir van. This rubbish could include say a Telemec pendant with a cracked casing where the contact blocks were perfectly good or good lengths of HO7 that had a bit of damage one end. No use keeping or stripping as they had just fitted a new one was the mentality. When the brazier was full up someone would douse with white spirit and burn the lot. I used to look at the ash pile after a burning and you would see stainless steel fixings sticking up out of it all. This would all get shovelled up and slung in the Biffa bin.

Still, it's NO excuse not to hang on to all this tat! I'll post up some of what I think are the more obscure ones for a bit of "guess what it is"!

 

[ProDave]

that's because in the process of throwing them away, you suddenly remember you have them. 

Related to that is the other problem. Finding stuff.

You remember you have a widget somewhere that will do the job perfectly. You even remember where it came from. But you can't remember where you put it.

You spend hours searching for it and never find it. So you begrudgingly go and buy one.

A week later, when looking for something else, you find it, in  a place you looked last week but could not see it.