a junk drawer

[randyt]

wasn't sure where to post this, a couple categories would have probably been appropriate. I was digging through the kitchen junk drawer earlier and thought of my grandfather. He was a scrounger, I think that was developed from the 1930s depression. He was a self employed fabricator. In his shop he had a shelf 4 feet wide by 7 feet tall. On this shelf he had boxes and boxes of nuts and bolts, many of them used. The 30s came and went and then the war came. To my granddad "the war" was world war 2. He had departed from the 30s and it was just as bad in the early 40s. He had to scrounge everything to fabricate. He made a roller from flat roller chain, gears and pipe. I asked him what the roller was for, he said he made it to make gas tanks. During the war a gas tank could not be acquired. I wish I had kept that roller. He went as far as building his own welder, not really from scratch but he bought a armature and coupled a model a engine to it. He later put a wisconcin engine on it. I think the 30s and the war shaped who he was. My junk drawer and all its goodies reminded me of his shelf of bolts. I have a bunch of his bolts on a shelf in my shop and I dig through it once in awhile. He never threw anything out.

here's a few things I found in some family photo boxes, not really to do with nuts and bolts though.

 

[randyt]

this one didn't show up

 

[randyt]

I think the 30s and the war affected me as well, I'm a scrounger like he was. I think that trait was passed to my father and then to me. There are things scrounged and saved because what if it can be found when a time comes it is needed.

 

[Sparky_D]

My grandfather (Pe'pe) had shelves and shelves of baby food jars, mayonnaise jars, peanut jars, and coffee cans chock full of nuts, bolts, nails, hinges, latches, and just about any other piece of usable hardware you could imagine.

The only jars he didn't have in his shop were canning jars. My grandmother (Me'me) would have skinned him alive if he used one of her canning jars for anything except Iced Tea...

Same as above, both my grandparents survived the 30's and WWII and were very thrifty.

Green Stamps typically bought the Christmas presents for my sister and I in the 70's. Me'me had books and books of them saved up. She only shopped on double coupon or double stamp days.

 

[randyt]

my granddad could do so much with so little he could practically do anything with almost nothing LOL

 

[Bacpacker]

Both of my grandpas were much like that. One was a farmer and welder. He built all kinds of stuff including hay trailers/car haulers. Almost everything but the rods were salvaged from something else. The other was also a farmer and worked for the railroad for some 35 years. He was constantly bringing home old lumber he had salvaged. His barn and my step dads was built mostly from that.
I must have the gene myself. I can't throw much out. Everytime I do I end up needing it 2 weeks later.

 

[Spikedriver]

This post reminds me of my grandma who was born in 1918. Her father struggled with the bottle and they often had nothing to eat but biscuits and lard during the depression. She and my grandpa never made much money but they were pretty good with what they had. After he passed not she never lacked anything but she still had a bunch of old, barely useable pots and pans stashed away in the garage because "you never know...might need them someday". She always got all the goodie out of everything she had. And yes, she had coffee cans full of "stuff" in the cupboard, just because "you never know".

 

[Caribou]

The only thing new about prepping is the word. Most people were farmers or ranchers. You had better have a years worth of food if you wanted to eat regularly. The country store, if there was one, didn't really have much.

 

[hiwall]

We threw nothing away on the farm. I think I was 14 before I found out you could actually buy new nails that did not have to be straightened before use.

 

[Weedygarden]

We threw nothing away on the farm. I think I was 14 before I found out you could actually buy new nails that did not have to be straightened before use.

Those nails that have already been used and straightened just want to keep bending when you use them.

 

[Bacpacker]

All the salvaged lumber my grandpa got was full of nails. Guess had the job of driving them out and straightening them? Yep that was me. Old nails though could be reused mostly even after straightening. Better metal i guess. New nails not so much

 

[Neb]

My story is similar to most of the previous postings in this thread. But the junk drawers and coffee cans of my forebears always drove me nuts.

"If I can't find it fast I can't claim I have one."

Confession Time

I am extremely anal retentive.

Many years ago I set up saw horse for 4X8 sheets of plywood and spent 2 weeks sorting all of coffee cans and jars "once but NOT for all". That effort yielded this ...

And a close up of the nut department

Eventually that set of drawers was expanded for electronics and mechanical widgets.

Plumbing supplies

And a few others that I will spare you.

This work is never ending with the way I am. As I tear apart widgets I keep the hardware sorted.

Those piles go into small zip lock bags for type of screw etc.
The zip lock bags go into larger bags of each class of part screws, nuts, bearings, etc...

And then those bags go into my"to be stored pile".

I never go looking for wigets in that pile because it would be like sorting through a junk drawer.

In closing...

My father used to refer to my shop as a hardware store because he could easily find what he needed.

Take care,

Ben

 

[Tootsie]

Love these posts. I needed some very small nails today and knew just where I’d find them. The old glass coffee jars beneath the homemade bench. Thanks, Dad. My parents were born in ‘22 and ‘27. I learned so much from them. And all the neighbors, the same. ‘‘Twas normal. I say it’s the rest of the world that’s ‘different’ today.