treasure for some rubbish for others?

[RAPPLEBY2000]

Just wondered if anyone else does this?

On my way to work and often on walks I will purposely look in areas that have been deserted by travellers and roadside dumps.

not that a root around in bin bags..., but often stuff has been left/forgotten/dumped.

on recent trips i found:
a shovel head in bad condition (rusty misshapen, handle snapped off).

and a huge 5"x 3" Iron mallet head (the handle was cut off and stuck in the head).

well the shovel has been angle-cut square again, and old pin removed

the mallet took a while, lots of drilling out whacking with metal bolts to remove the old handle.

both are now covered in a rust restorer solution (Krust) i just need to make handles and paint them!

a saving of £30? (though it's obviously taken time to fix them)

 

[launditch1]

Yer a Womble.Remember that.

Theres usually loads of empty gas bottles as well..

 

[locum76]

Hint for removing broken handles from metal gear - chuck 'em in the fire.

 

[g4ghb]

Hint for removing broken handles from metal gear - chuck 'em in the fire.

As long as they are not hardened to take an edge!

 

[locum76]

aye, its usually shovels, picks and the like.

I have a pile of such items. does anybody want one?

 

[bhofmann]

My name is Bernhard and I too am a Womble.

I always look at junk piles and see value in items buried within. Remember also that the time you spend recovering and restoring isn't wasted time; it's the time you gain in learning how the tool works, where the weak points are and how best to fit a new handle or repair the parts that were badly designed to start with.

I enjoy making and restoring kit and tools. It gives me a sense of achievement that I cannot get from simply buying the same. I also take some delight in giving something a second chance with an owner who will care for it more.

Happy hunting.

 

[DavidJT]

I did some lay-by clearing up with a local conservation group, and we found most of a car in the hedge. Restoration costs prohibited salvage though!
Also found lots of things that aren't suitable to mention on a family friendly forum.

 

[Globetrotter.uk]

rappleby mate I saw about 6 gas bottle near the travellers site on the railway path

 

[hiraeth]

Dropping rubble of in the skip at work last friday and found an A1 condition issue patrol pack with a multi tool in one of the side pockets. Cannot walk past a skip without giving it a once over.

 

[the laird]

we have containers set aside at our recycling sites that are used for stuff to good to crush,my last haul included 2 24volt cordless drills boxed with all the bits,and I'm watching Tv on a bang and olufsenn with surround from the same place I kid you not

 

[Inusuit]

Not exactly the same thing, but about 90% of the firewood to heat my house comes from dumpsters at construction sites. I take my 1/2 ton pickup to town once a week and usually come home with a full load, say 1000 to 1500 pounds of firewood. I've also salvaged enough good lumber to build lawn chairs, book cases, tables, workbenches, garden beds, etc. Have probably $500 worth of usable redwood stored in my basement. I no longer bother with nails, or ladders, or tool belts because I have an ample supply. All this stuff would go direct to our already overburdened landfill (dump) if not taken. In the 8 years I've been doing this, I've one contractor object (liability issues, he said), and was once required to assist the police with their inquiries but naught came of it.

My next project will be roosts and next boxes for the wife's chicken house.

Other people's trash is a terrible thing to waste.

 

[Miyagi]

Dropping rubble of in the skip at work last friday and found an A1 condition issue patrol pack with a multi tool in one of the side pockets. Cannot walk past a skip without giving it a once over.

You jammy devil!!

I was walking with the dog past an old travellers site, folks use it for fly tipping these days, and found amongst piles of bricks/broken slabs etc., two working folding trolleys.

They were folding DIY type trolleys - not shopping trolleys.

Must've saved myself £60 - £70.

And yes, I'm a skip (bucket) raker, just can't escape our roots can we?

Liam

 

[dave53]

dave 53 here got agood vice out of a skip once while i was out running cant pass a skip without checking it out
regards dave

 

[Bushbuddy]

dave 53 here got agood vice out of a skip once while i was out running cant pass a skip without checking it out
regards dave

bushbuddy here got a complete bushcraft kit out of a skip a couple of yrs ago still going strong thanks to skip hire companys lol [/Quote] Be safe be seen but most of a go Green

 

[mr dazzler]

In the days when we visited france a lot, I noticed that in most derelict properties there would usually be piles of good stuff just left abandoned. Axes (good ones of all sizes!), mauls saws billhooks pitchforks barrows block and tackle chains ropes hooks buckets etc etc It didnt seem right to take them though. Over the years I must of got hundreds of ££££'s worth of good kit from the tip the most recent being my harrison billhook. I would rather have a beat up old s&j spade made C1910 than a crappy modern chinese import.....

 

[Bravo4]

Someone was nice enough to throw this into the dumpster behind my shop. Beautiful old bamboo pack rod, can take a fly or spinning reel. Eagle Claw Trailmaster,

The bench in the pic was made from salvaged lumber, the camera that took this picture was found under a bush in a public park.

I poke around old campsites and almost always come up with at least a tent peg or some cordage.

 

[Biker]

I used to be a Womble but I was "cured" of that habit. I can feel myself back-sliding now. :theyareon

I was on a job a few months ago and the builder took a truck load of rubble to the local tip. He came back with a big grin on his face and dragged a compressor off the back on his truck. Plugged it and it worked fine. Normally anything droped into the containers cannot be retrieved, by law. However he knows the bloke who runs the tip and he turned a blind eye while Laurant jumped in hooked it back out. Jammy sod. They use a lot of compressor based tools over here so he's a very happy bunny.

The Laird wrote we have containers set aside at our recycling sites that are used for stuff to good to crush,my last haul included 2 24volt cordless drills boxed with all the bits,and I'm watching Tv on a bang and olufsenn with surround from the same place I kid you not

You make me sick!

Totally agree with what Bernhard says about getting to know the tool while restoring it. A bond bond is created with doing something like that that I'm sure most of you reading this will understand. There was a time when tools were made with pride and durabilty in mind. This has been replaced with making sure the profit margin is set at maximum and reliabity is set low, thus making more sales. ANY improvement over the original has got to be a good thing.

I also take some delight in giving something a second chance with an owner who will care for it more.

Too right Bernhard!

I can feel a Womble relapse coming on

 

[Paul_B]

I know a guy who wombled a high quality bathroom suite out of a builder's skip. Apparently on a big flat development one of the builders was pulling a swift one and every so often would put a perfectly good quite into the skip complete with packaging to protect it while a mate would come along at night and take it. However a mate was walking past it and spotted it so went home got his estate car and now it is in his downstairs bathroom. He did see someone having an argument by the skip with another guy later on, obviously there was a fzll out among thieves.

One thing though, I guess that was counted as handling stolen goods. Strictly speaking since they were so obviously not damaged but were part of a scam they were not really free for wombling but he should have contacted someone on the site to let him know about it. Still, I guess it would have just been marked up as damaged and a new suite had probably already been ordered so he was a lucky bugger really.

Never been skip diving myself but always think about it when passing a skip. Mind you at work we go through a lot of waste metal, a few ppl get their own metal skips and make a bit on the side. Supposed to be for a works slush fund for Christmas P*ss-up. A bit annoying when you see hidden in corners a load of metal while it builds up to make a skip load. It seems different people stash in different hiding places around the site. A less scrupulous man than me, who knew all those hiding places could make a bit each year.

 

[Bumpy]

Can't walk past a skip/visit the tip without a good look around - have built an allotment shed complete with windows, benches, shelving etc with only the contents of skips before now...
However... a friend who shares the same obsession was actually stopped by the the police and informed that it was an offence to remove anything from a skip without the skip hirer's permission, but NOT an offence to actually put things in someone else's skip.
Which seems mad to me - The idea of paying for a skip to find it "legally" filled with other people's rubbish would annoy me considerably, whereas if I am throwing something out, put it in my skip, and then find that someone has re-homed it, freeing the valuable space in my skip again, I'd be happy

 

[andythecelt]

My strangest one was a bag of full, unopened Mach 3 razor refills in a load of flytipping in a layby.
Today, yes this very day, I walked past an outdoor equipment shop and saw 3 walking poles poking out of a binbag. When I enquired in the shop, the owner said they were being slung as faulty. An hour of fiddling and I have a brand new Brasher lightweight walking stick, a Hi-Tec shock absorbing walking pole and a Trailwise pole. All in brand new condition, 2 still with tags! They'd been overtightened in the collapsed position, a bit of carefully applied brute force was all that was needed.
My nice leather wingback chair came from a tip, my car camping cooking kit is in flight cases from the local dump.