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So. I know all of us have other interest, besides our Oldsmobile's, Golf, gardening, fishing, bowling, motorcycles etc...
In retirement ( and before) I need something to keep my butt out of that recliner, I enjoy woodworking, I am at best a amature and while I have accumulated a number of tools that assist with my projects, I would consider them hobby grade tools since most of them are table top models ( I don't have the space or money for pro series stationary tools) that for the most part serve me well.
My children and grand children seem to be the recipients of most my projects, I thought I might post a few pics of some of my projects. while I don't consider my self a hoarder I do save things I think may be used in future projects. I love to repurpose things :example we had a old water bed while it was made of pine and not some fancy hardwood I saved all the wood and it eventually turned it in to a wall clock, a hamper and window treatments for our bedroom.
I am currently working on restoring a 120 year old blanket chest that I found at a Habitat for Humanity store. I will post a few pics when its complete,
I would love to see some of your projects ! furniture, metal work, glass work, sheds, games ETC..
I will start with this, as I said I love to repurpose, the neighbor threw out a cheap chest missing a lid , seemed like a perfect start for a toy box for my 2 year old grand son, he loves his cars !! if you look closely you will see a pic of him and I in the doorway the auto parts photo was taken at Walmart and the Camaro on the lift was lifted from the internet , most of this project was made from scrap wood accumulated from other projects. its complete with pump hoses, water and air on the side. you do have to remove the parking ramp to open the lid, the center piece says Axels Garage.(he's already a little gear head !!)
So here we go, post your projects. I know you have some !!!
"Repurposing" is really a perfumed word for recycling. Not to mock you, though. I do likewise, since new furniture is nothing but ground up old furniture glued and pressed together and then covered with some form of plastic veneer.
I've learned through the years that sooner or later after having discarded something, one day you'll need it. However, one can overdue it. The hard part is calculating what you will actually need.
In the following example, I cut apart a damaged bicycle basket, in order to fabricate a pebble- and bug screen for protecting my radiator.
My daughter has a license. However, she doesen't like modern traffic here, because of the lack of mental as well as maturity screening. In other words, the general lack of discipline and road rage mentality on our roads makes her feel uncomfortable. She learned to drive in one of those modern cars where the visibility is compromised for "safety" reasons. However, if she one day changes her mind or if law enforcement is once again introduced, she might one day inherit my car. My son hasn't got his license yet
Since my car has an automatic transmission, I couldn't remove the harmonic balancer bolt by shifting the transmission into fifth gear, before applying the breaker bar. I ended up fabricating my own special tools from a luggage rack and a brake backing plate from an old moped:
Last edited by Killian_Mörder; October 15th, 2020 at 10:58 PM.
The Queen would say that I repurpose cash into muscle car....stuff.
Chasing Grandkid's soccer games is always a challenge. The Queen is up to her neck in trying to get all of the planets to align for our youngest daughter's wedding, in May...(pandemic notwithstanding). But, our escape is to the lake house. But, even at that, there seems to always be something that needs fixed, replaced, upgraded, etc.
Oh, yeah...and a business to run. At 67, retirement is nowhere on my radar. I am letting "Life" dictate that.
Last edited by KW5413; October 16th, 2020 at 06:26 AM.
When i do decide i need to part ways w something, i generally part it first. I recently stripped my second parts snoblower ( i still have the first parts snowblower) andbesides keeping all the good condition fasteners and levers and rods i kept on of the heavy steel parts that form the side of the bucket.
i used that steel piece a fence post and a 14” ss2 to make a pedestal stand for a polisher.
As I always say " Its better to have It and not Need It than to Need it and not have It "
My Wife calls me a pack Rat
As we have systematically remodeled the houses, over the past three years...the master bath is the final phase just starting at primary home next week. The cost of which, is well, mindboggling these days. Anyway, The Queen forced me to purge the shed a couple of years ago which was painful, at the very least. Decades of nuts, bolts camping, fishing, yard maintenance stuff. I can't even begin to explain all that was in that thing. Then I mildly er, um, "rearranged" my 2/3rds of the garage (three car). Now she is on me to repair the cosmetics of the shed, or, replace it so I can purge the garage stuff or move it to the shed.
She is beyond being impressed when I can find something that I haven't needed for 20 years. Yet, she refuses to shed rid of her "Do everything" Cuisinart gizmo whiz-banger that has been sitting on a shelf...in the garage...over that same 20 year period...untouched by human hands.
When i do decide i need to part ways w something, i generally part it first. I recently stripped my second parts snoblower ( i still have the first parts snowblower) andbesides keeping all the good condition fasteners and levers and rods i kept on of the heavy steel parts that form the side of the bucket.
i used that steel piece a fence post and a 14” ss2 to make a pedestal stand for a polisher.
Love them all !! If I had that pub I may not ever leave it to complete my other projects !!!!
Lol, the pub is definitely not helping me get my cutlass done. At that time I was going to build a 25 x 40 shop in the back yard but, the boss said she wanted the basement finished first. I will probably do the shop next year or the year after depending on how much building materials cost.
So this was one of my projects for the granddaughter. The orig plain nondescript doll house was discarded by a pre-school and salvaged by a friend of mine who thought it would make good fire wood at the next camping trip, I said no way it has potential !! I added all the siding (tongue depressors) and shutters and added the porch, also tongue depressors, when trying to determine how I was going to reproduce the old farm house tin roof look I wanted I remembered I had saved a set of old vertical blinds so I cut them down and used them for the roof . making the stairs got a little tricky. Here are the before , during and after pics. one mans garbage is another mans treasure. she loved it and plays with it daily.
I really like threads like this and I'm really surprised that this thread hasn't gotten more traction than it has.
Thanks Gearhead, the doll house was a labor of love it was for my grand daughter, but I think my favorite was my Grandsons toy box.
This forum was kind enough to provide the Cubhouse forum so I figured I'd share in hopes to see some of the other forum members projects and interest outside of their Oldsmobiles, its been my experience that car guys usually have multiple interest.
I had a friend who's Grandfather and father were Chicago firemen ( he broke the tradition) so he had a interest in fire fighting equipment,among his collection was a pretty extensive collection of fire extinguishers, many of them brass, he would sometimes come across some that mat be slightly damaged and had no antique value so he would repurpose them sometimes into drink dispensers. He had a basement bar and one of the coolest things I ever saw was a pair of matching wall hung lamps that illuminated from the inside that he made from two vintage fire extinguishers, one on each end of the alcohol laiden shelves, they were awesome I wish I had photo's
I would like to see more projects I know there out there.I will post my latest project.
Hope chest/ blanket chest are family traditions most people have seen them or know what they are,
our family has one that was my great grandmothers a beautiful cedar chest that will be passed down, but my youngest daughter complained that of my 3 daughters she was the only one that I didn't make a toy box for and left her emotionally scarred (yeah right) and she pisses and moans constantly about it so I found a 120 year old cherry wood chest at Habitat for Humanity and restored it, it had no value any longer as a antique as hit had been worked over as many times as a street hooker, the trim was all split and it had been refinished about 10 times,
I stripped it re-stained it made my own trim lined it with cedar and returned as close to original as possible, for the finish I hand rubbed with tung oil. here are some before, during and after photo's
My latest project was to do a mild restoration on a 87 mustang convertible that my dad bought new in April of 87. He bought it his way (2.3 auto) and I rebuilt it my way (5.0 T5). It took me about 7 months.
Here's another one I'm about to get going on. Now that the little one is getting bigger, I think it's time to start on my grand daughters second hot rod. This will be a half scale 23 t bucket replicated as close as possible to a real car and powered by a KTM 250sx engine....this should be very quick and hopefully reach triple digit speeds when geared appropriately. Too much fun, this kid is!
The top firearm is a Parker DHE #2 frame 12 gauge about a 100 years old. Not a common shotgun and a pleasure to shoot. The other two I put to gather from parts I traded for or bought ,took quite a few years to assemble. The middle one was a Ballard #5 38-55 but though it looks original it is patterned after a businessman's model rifle and really is a one of none but it served me well as my black powder cartridge rifle in some of the shooting sports I played in. The third rifle is a Highwall Winchester chambered in a antique bench rest cartridge 219 Donaldson wasp with a single set trigger and a 3200 Remington scope 20 power. It still shoots better than I can hold. That is the third barrel that I have put on it and has probably shot a pickup load of prairie dogs and ground squirrels. I'm a fan of antique single shots rifles and double bbl American made shotguns but I have strayed into other style of firearms if the need be to be completive
... Tedd
October 15th, 2020, 10:14 PM
