A wombling thread :)

[Toddy]

Time for a wombling thread

Most of us do it; we come across something that's just so obviously right for something or other.

My latest was a cut off bit of fence wire that was just the right shape to be shoved through a short length of elder branch to make a hook to twist grass ropes

Now I'm eyeing up a broken brolly and wondering what to do with those fold-upable spokes.

What have you wombled ?

atb,
M

 

[Dannytsg]

Picked up a load of old scaffolding boards recently for nothing, planed them down and made a small rustic book case for the girls bedroom.

 

[feralpig]

I womble old washing machines and dishwashers, central heating boilers, and anything with a bit of metal in it. My customers are often chucking such things out. Some I repair, the rest I strip down of their useful parts.
Come Xmas, I chuck all the bits in the van, and weigh them in. Nice little Xmas bonus.

 

[Stringmaker]

I'm about to womble some old fence panel boards to make little pitched roofs for our latest bug boxes.

Great thread!

 

[John Fenna]

I recently wombled some old pine shelves from my wife's workplace.
They used to hold files ... but the cellar they were in is prone to flooding and they became redundant as the files were moved else-where.
At the moment the boards are awaiting a full time use but some are keeping some of my firewood (overflow from the wood-store) off the ground ... I may even use the boards to make an extra wood store!

 

[Zingmo]

Yesterday I came across a skip with a pile of old overalls in; all different colours. In a trice I had chopped the legs off a few pairs to make colour-coded bags to keep stuff in. It keeps me sane!

Z

 

[Toddy]

I'm about to womble some old fence panel boards to make little pitched roofs for our latest bug boxes.

I'm going to steal that one We had to cut a panel short to fit in against a wall and I kept the offcuts. I came across them last week in one of the sheds and nearly tossed them out.
Thank you

M

 

[British Red]

Improvising and recycling stuff is pretty much a way of life round here

Recycled Bath (well you are supposed to keep coal in the bath)


Old Smokeless by British Red, on Flickr

Recycled veg harvesting crates


Barn Firewood by British Red, on Flickr

Chicken Coop!


Landy coop by British Red, on Flickr

well, you get the idea

 

[Nemesis]

Loving the Landy coop BR.

 

[British Red]

My mate's coop (although I've been sorting them for the last three weeks). Its a neat design - the electrics for the fence run through the Landy wiring loom

 

[andybysea]

Opps sorry cant download from photobucket again, bascially been with my middle daughter to one of beaches down the road and collected sea glass lots of colours and sizes filled a long glass flower vase with it and its now sat on a table under a corner light. sort of wombling and looks nice,well my wife likes it.



got it working but sorry for HUGE PIC!

 

[ganstey]

I have a house, garden, and garage full of stuff wombled just in case Wood seems to be the material of the moment: Boards from two 6x6 larch lap-style fence panels that will probably be chopped up as kindling, many lengths of 4x4 and 2x4 lumber that were a shade house until a couple of months, and a growing pile of 18mm ply offcuts that will become jigs of one sort or another. In fact one offcut of ply will be going back to whence it came from as a replacement windowboard for the one that is currently doing a good impression of a sponge!

Several years ago I held on to a 2ft long piece of gutter downpipe. Everyone said throw it away, I was convinced it would come in handy one day. Last year I needed to make a two-chamber raingauge for my university course, and hey presto!

 

[VANDEEN]

Recently :-
I wombled a limpet shell which I will try out for use as a bearing block for bow drill.
A rubber sealing end cap from a cable to make an oiler funnel for my speedo & brake cables. (have put it somewhere safe though :-( .....)
4 x 8ft 100W tubes which were being thrown out of a local office building that is being re-fitted so I've now got some spares for my garage.
A hank of brand new blue nylon rope from the outside lane of a busy road, must have fallen off the back of a lorry.
A piece of rubber from the roadside, & made a spacer for my helmet visor to keep it very slightly open at speed & stop it misting up.
Some of The fancy gold wire that was wrapped around SWMBI wine bottle, it's now in my fly tying box for Gold Ribbed Hares ears.

Everything is a resource, I sometimes just have to wait a while to find the necessary task....

 

[Man of Tanith]

Wombled a massive pile of lime (at my nans funeral she would be proud )collecting it tomorrow

 

[Toddy]

Funny things funerals; it's sometimes easier to be a little distracted to keep the emotions under control.
We were at the burying of Great Aunt Annie, she was 96 and she was going into the lair with her Father and his brother who'd been in even older when they died. My cousin's busy making comments about how I'm going to live forever and all I could see was the beautiful section that the gravediggers had made You could have recorded that stratigraphy it was so clean and perfect

Sorry, no where near as good as a load of Lime, Sam Sorry about your Nan too.

M

 

[Swallow]

Constantly womble "For Sale" signs (once disposed of). A six foot bit of 2x2 never goes amiss.

 

[Macaroon]

One of my best-ever wombles was about two years ago: I spotted a big tub of rotten 3/4" cane drain/chimney sweep rods in the local junk shop (now defunct :-( ), and the guy let me have them buckshee. Half a day later, I had 40 two-part solid brass threaded joints which I've been using for loads of stuff. They're superbly built things, very good brass and really strong, and extremely nice to look at.

The main thing I've done with them is to take back various sticks I've made for people over the years, cut 'em in half and insert a joint that can be undone in an instant and the stick taken on an aircraft; I had no idea that so many people had been so upset at not being able to take their own stick away when flying off to see family and friends.............Not any more!

Womble is a word I've always found abhorrent and would never use, but in this context it's perfect, eh?

 

[Toddy]

No offence intended Macaroon, but why is womble a word you dislike ? I think of it along the lines of The Wombles, tbh.

cheers,
M

 

[Tengu]

Yes, a pretty nice connotation, even with the grey hairs

 

[Macaroon]

I can't explain why I've always disliked it, Mary. I've never in my life had a TV so don't have any idea of the programme so it can't be that......I think it's just a weird combination of letters and/or syllables that don't suit my tongue or my eye, it's totally irrational, I know! Perhaps it was that awful song they were all singing when it was all such a huge thing...................

But it's all fine and dandy now that you've planted a new connotation in my mind, I like it now because of the good vibe behind it's new meaning! You can now add Word Redeemer to your list of accomplishments, and I
thank you for it...................