I am fairly new to this forum. I've started a few builds years ago but time constraints have slowed down my hobby time considerably. I've been checking out all of the really awesome builds here and realized that for years I have been scrapping some really awesome "junk" that could be used for builds. I have a regular 40 hour a week job but I also do household and estate cleanouts. About 3 months ago I did an estate clean out that included 3 barns from a working farm. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) I scrapped well over $1000 in old farm implements and parts. There was not much value in trying to sell the stuff as parts because of the condition of most of the stuff but there was some serious value in build material. Something I realized after the fact... I started thinking that a lot of the field drags and plow parts could have been used to make springs for seats and or forks, frame extension parts and extended drop outs, forks and steering parts. etc., etc. Looks like I have been looking at all of this "junk" from the wrong perspective. Needless to say, I will be looking at everything I scrap in the future in a different way. Hopefully I will be posting some interesting ideas in the near future.......
The stuff I've scrapped...
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Don't worry about the past. Your eyes are open and now you see stuff differently. For the longest time I would stick my nose up at single speed stuff. But now I know I can do some really neat things with them. Perhaps some of the things you find you will want to share with the forum members. The most important thing I have learned is to place more value on the stuff shared.
Farmers are notorious hoarders, because we are frugal and push lots of machinery well past its design life. We also operate under time constraints - weather, growing season, etc, so jury rigged repairs are necessary as you cant wait around for parts.
Just like we like to see old bikes get saved to live on by members of RRB. I feel bad when some farm machinery that could provide repair parts gets scraped out to China.
Just like we like to see old bikes get saved to live on by members of RRB. I feel bad when some farm machinery that could provide repair parts gets scraped out to China.
Tis bad when things like you said happen. I'm not a farmer but I do understand making home made repairs done that a lot of times. I worked as a missionary in backwaters of Panama. Repaired a lot of outboards with parts from other things just get them to run. We live in a toss out America.
Unfortunately I don't have the storage to keep everything I clean out. When the owners, estate executors or realtors give you X numbers of days to have these places cleaned out there's not a lot of time to decide where things might be best served. The really good items are usually dealt with first to make sure that they are saved and the lesser condition stuff is the last things that leave the premises, typically in a hasty manner. I had 3 weeks to clean out the 3 barns on the farm estate and was able to find homes for some of the implements but there was so much broken, damaged or over used parts that I had no choice but to scrap some of it. As previously stated, I will keeping my eyes open for things that can be repurposed for bikes on my next farm job. It's ironic that in all of the years I've been doing this I've never found a good bike in any of the places I've cleaned out. It's been mostly 70's or 80's girls bikes I've found. Just a few decent parts bikes....
I hear what your saying, it is a tough job having to go through an estate. We did my brother in laws this year.
You do have to sort thru a lot of stuff... We held an auction, seemed the best thing to do, lots of things went cheap, but they found a home and the $ distributed to the heirs. As a heads up, next time you come across farm implements, you may want to make contact with a Implement junkyard and see what they offer. May give you more than scrap $ and parts can stay available.
You do have to sort thru a lot of stuff... We held an auction, seemed the best thing to do, lots of things went cheap, but they found a home and the $ distributed to the heirs. As a heads up, next time you come across farm implements, you may want to make contact with a Implement junkyard and see what they offer. May give you more than scrap $ and parts can stay available.
