Just something on the lighter side…Ok just wondering … how many of you are the kind of packrat that when you look up the word “packrat” in the dictionary …you see a picture of yourself? I myself will save things if I think I can use them in the next 25 yrs… or just because “it’s too cool to just throw away…..” I just wondered if I had found a place that is full of people like me….those who say ... "I have one of those …someplace….: and how many times have you had something for years and finally throw it away only to need it next week? heh
Mark

if something looks useful, keep it till it is;)

When you throw it out, you WILL need it in the next couple of days or weeks and its to late:frown:

Bubba

My solution is have a "pre-throw-out bin" :D

Put everything that is of questionable re-use into it and keep it for a year (or five ;) ). Then, out it goes with the junk.

Keep it all, every dang piece of anything, then when you die let your kids deal with it :D

My solution is have a "pre-throw-out bin" :D

Put everything that is of questionable re-use into it and keep it for a year (or five ;) ). Then, out it goes with the junk.


Hey, I like that. Cept my pre-bin is gonna need a secondary bin, maybe a post-pre bin.

So now I have my ten 55gal. bins, all labeled nicely. Post, Pre, Post-Pre, maybe-Post-pre and so-on. And my wife is callin the "professionals" to examine me for 72hrs. But, I'm happy cause I got all my "stuff". :banana: JRouche

I keep everything, I am terible for it, but I just cant part with whoosits and doo-hickeys. I've salvaged so much stuff at work that I am told regularly to take it home or throw it out,(ofcourse they come looking for it a day or two later in a panic) my wife says the samething when I bring it home, I am currently building a new shed 10' x 10' to store my stuff, this poll could not have come at a funnier time,
what's a pack rat to do???

I keep everything, I am terible for it, but I just cant part with whoosits and doo-hickeys. I've salvaged so much stuff at work that I am told regularly to take it home or throw it out,(ofcourse they come looking for it a day or two later in a panic) my wife says the samething when I bring it home, I am currently building a new shed 10' x 10' to store my stuff, this poll could not have come at a funnier time,
what's a pack rat to do???
how funny... I'm the same at work... they toss it out....I pull it out ...I have 12x16 shed full... top of my 2 car garage not to mention the garage full... I just bought a Maho 600E cnc mill and told my girlfriend ... she say's that's nice...where you gonna put it???... so the last week has been cleaning up my garage taking 2 of my harleys over to a friends shop and wandering around with a tape measure trying to pack things into already full spaces to make room for the mill....heh..but the price was right... and it's too cool to throw away ...........

I dont' blame you, if you can get stuff like that for a good $ , I'd be dismanteling it and squirling it away in my actic........I'm threating to buy a farm with a large barn ;)

I keep everything, the biggest problem is that I can never remember where it is when I need it, so I end up buying another one! About once a month I do a regular garage clean up, organizing stuff, and throwing out true garbage. Maybe once a year I'll throw out nuts, and bolt, and misc other crap.

Am I a packrat?....you betcha....numero uno!!!

I've been collecting "stuff" for years and the sad part about it....I know where everything is but if you looked in my basement you wouldn't think it.
I think being a packrat is part of this hobby or for that matter any hobby. Making something is part of it, collecting stuff is the other part or it. Besides, its great barter material, great way to get some cash on EBAY if you have "stuff" that you want to get rid off and if you know that your buddies are packrats, they too are a great source of "more stuff" Here is the bottom line: The one with more toys when he dies.....wins.... :cheers:

buildsumthin

yup keep everything. you know the script you see something going free but resist the urge to take it, then you lie in bed trying to find a use for it, suddenly insparation,
so you go back for it and its gone, it then turns into another project to find somthing else to do what you were going to do with what you didn't lift in the first place.
maybe iys just me....but i dont think so.
when we die the one with the most stuff wins.

Its a condition man ; : ;:::;::; I threw out something once and then I needed it. So I didn't throw out anything for a long long time :;;::;: and I finely dicided to throw something out again and I needed that too...:;:; now you can pry it from my cold dead hands :D (probably cause my wife shot me for all this junk!)

ps. she still gives me a hard time for fixing the hair dryer Ive had since highschool! (its been about 22yrs)

:;:; but the doctors say its only a nerosis not a total pschotic break ;;:;: yet!!!!

but seriously. you cant throw it out realy!!!

its a gene pool thing, think about it,people like us share common interests (mostly petrolheads & and rockets & other cool mostly bloke stuff) do a poll and find out how many cnc zoners have a motor cycle, bet its a lot! its a hunter gatherer thing c'ept
its not food anymore its tools & stuff (toolmakers being imho the oldest profession)
its the wimmins fault we get emancipated so we revert to our most basic geneticaly driven instinct , some top themselves,some change gender,some wage war we collect & sometimes build stuff recycling in the process stand proud pack rats .

XTREME packrat category, sooner or later you'll need it .

Ok I'll admit it, I am a PACKRAT. The 2-car garage is full to depth of 8 feet (12 foot side walls), the basement is full with a path down the middle, stuff along the outside side and back of the garage, in the inlaws shed and stratigically hidden at work. I can't pass a construction dumpster without a look-see. A couple of years ago I almost lost my job because of it. I was known to root thru works dumpster scrounging parts off of x-ray machines and dental chairs, just the "good stuff".

whats the ol saying one mans trash another mans treasure ............... all depends on what it is and what can be done with it

My solution is have a "pre-throw-out bin" :D

Put everything that is of questionable re-use into it and keep it for a year (or five ;) ). Then, out it goes with the junk.

That’s exactly what I did with the three printers I had. From a small Canon 100 to a Multi3000. I finally decided to get rid of them. Six month later I started to look into CNC and the first thing I read is take the stepper and driver out of the printer. :( And that is not the first time it’s happened to me. :o

Yoram

I don't save junk. Just "parts" ,,,,,,, :drowning:

In this town of 10,000 we have an anual "throw-out-your-junk" week in the spring. It gets really quite busy with many (including me) circling the blocks and finding treasures. It's kinda funny. After residents put all their stuff out, they immediately wander the streets by foot or vehicle and check out other's piles. Quite an "exchange' system goes on. Then, after a week the city comes by and picks up that which nobody wants.

Bloy

P.S. Nice thing too is that different areas of the city have offset schedules and residents are allowed to cross territories. :)

Everytime I throw something out I end up needing it 2 days later and I have to go but it. So now I hide all my piles of gold in piles all over the place.

You have to take the stuff apart, and throw part of the carcass away. This is very important. Otherwise you become just another pack rat tweaker collecting junk. In order to maintain status as a design engineer, you have to take the stuff apart. Believe me, Ive been doing this for a long time, I know. You have to have it in parts, somewhat organized and seperated from the original junk that first came out of the back of your truck. This also allows you to pack more into a smaller footprint.

I have worn out 6 otherwise perfectly good wives as a result of my hoarding instinct. They just couldn't understand why I had to dismantle and squirrel away hundreds and thousands of wonderful little "treasures." Last time I counted, I now have 4 warehouses (40 ft x 60 ft) crammed to the gills with every conceivable sort of gadgets and widgets, scattered through 4 states. And yes, I know exactly where each and every item is. Problem is when it comes time to dig something out of its safe stowage, so I can use it in some new project. As I dig deeper into the pile, I find something I didn't remember having, and a new idea pops into my mind about what I can do with the new prize.
So the original prize goes on the back burner while I trundle off to my other stashes to locate more pieces for the new project, and the whole, vicious cycle starts all over again !

Here in Hawaii, the local rubbish dump has a reuse and recycling center, where people can drop off their stuff that is too good to just pitch into the landfill. If you see anything you want, just grab it and run, before some other packrat gloms onto it. Now all I have to do is clear out another half acre of jungle so I can build another warehouse. Maybe I should make that a full acre ?

Aloha, Steve

Oh yes, I throw things away !! if there is absolutely no use i can think of. (this is _very_ rare)
I also stopped taking things appart. I found it mutch easyer to find the needed parts, if it is still in
the original equipment. i just know where a certain pice of electronics is used on a TV board,
and can yank it out with my eyes closed.
jaap.

Well, I had this dilemna, throw the junk away and finaly have a garage or just die knowing I had a shop and did'nt use it... So the good junk goes... in the basement...

Hey, I was'nt to throw it all away...

Para

If I decided to throw something out, it is because I might never get to the project it was intended for.

Having a friend in the scrap business tends to be far to much pressure to let it get melted down. I bring it home, store it for a few years, then take it back to make room for neater junk I may never get to.

The most valuable lesson I learned about having hoards of cool stuff is when I needed to move it to the new place. Some things I had to part with. The problem is that the portion I saved is still in boxes and I can't recall what I held on to and what got tossed out.

That can wear you out searching for something, not knowing what happened to it.......until the day you don't need it any more, only to find it was always in plain sight! Or worse never find it and wonder........

A guy can lose sleep over this condition! Not that I would know anything about that, ZZZzzzz, Huh, what? eh, Never mind! LOL!

DC

My boss gives me hard time at work cause every time I finish a job I may have several partial sheets of material I want to keep for a project. He finally made me through away a dumpster full. Couple weeks later he wanted me to make some samples for a customer and he had to buy 10 sheets of particle board just like the stack he threw out cause we would never need it.

I even save files and emails, 'cause you never know when you might need it. I have a tendency to put stuff in a safe place and then wander around trying to remember where that safe place was. On the computer, I actually created a folder called "A Safe Place" so that when I need a file or an email, at least I know where to look. If and when I find that physical safe place where all my neat stuff I might need it at, it'll be like hitting the mother lode.

Dave

I think our society would do good to slow down on the throwing-away-rage. I keep my junk 'cause I'm financially-challenged and I help the environment (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). :)

Our doodads cost more in labour and parts to repair than to get another one. I just saw DVD players for $39, and that's in Canadian funny-money too. Who's going to spend $60/hour on a tech to fix that?

Sometimes I wished people would not look at it from a financial point of view, but more as a social thing; give mother nature a break. At least recycle parts if not all of it. I rip power cords, buttons and just about anything from old VCRs.

Robert
:)

Heh, i even keep viruses I've found on files that never got on to my PC- I got about 30 of them isolated on floppy that I keep in a wallet pack. I open it up now and again feed them and let them out for a bit of exercise :)

And the "taking it apart" thing I totaly agree with- if it's no use, strip it, keep all the little screws, ball bearing races, copper shielding, springs, circlips etc lol :)

PAAALEEEEZE!!!! Like you really had to ask this bunch a question like that. :D

i think its genetic.my great grand mother was a packrat,my grand fother was a packrat,my mom is a packrat and i am a packrat.i know this because i have stuff that was my grand fathers,he didn't know what to do with it but thought i might.
so if you leive it to your kids what are their kid going to do with your stuff.

My grandmother threw away everything,hated clutter, my mother didn't like clutter either , but was more conservative about the pitching. .....So there goes that theory unless you can prove it skips a couple generations

must just be a state of mind then.kind of a zen thing.

yeeeeeh! that's it, a zen thing, a path to enlightenment, or in our case enheavyment!!! :bat:

I even save files and emails, 'cause you never know when you might need it. I have a tendency to put stuff in a safe place and then wander around trying to remember where that safe place was. On the computer, I actually created a folder called "A Safe Place" so that when I need a file or an email, at least I know where to look. If and when I find that physical safe place where all my neat stuff I might need it at, it'll be like hitting the mother lode.

Dave

Bwahahahaha!

dude, that it the best idea I have seen all week.

when someone asks me "have you seen X" (where X is something usefull) I always say "you put it somewhere safe so you wouldn't loose it".

That idea rocks.

why not put the location of "a safe place" in your safe place folder on your p.c.
(kinda wish i'd thought of that a while ago.)
mike

hey the system works, keep it till you use it. I just recently made use of a small servo that i pulled out of a photocopier damaged in an office fire when i was TWELVE!!!
I am now 35. Do I win a prize???

I grew up around 2 uncles and their Grandfather my Great Grandfather that collected metals and things (packrats). I leaned from my uncle’s about metal scrap yards and buying good materials and selling metals for scrap. I will never forget one visiting to my Great Grandfather when he made me some ninja throwing stars when I was twelve. Which is totally politically incorrect thinking today. He was always making or inventing something I was told by my uncle’s.
I think we all had the same gene or trait for making, repairing and inventing from the stuff we collected or could find. Even when we get together today we end up in the workshop of the home visited and we talk about what’s being done. It is more comfortable for us there than in the living room.
I spend every spare minute in my basement shop making something for myself or repairing something for our house.
I am a packrat and proud of it but my wife doesn’t understand it. For some reason she thinks I am collecting this stuff just so she’ll have something to do getting rid of it when I die.

hey the system works, keep it till you use it. I just recently made use of a small servo that i pulled out of a photocopier damaged in an office fire when i was TWELVE!!!
I am now 35. Do I win a prize???

I still have some pieces of steel I salvaged when I worked in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1970 and now I live near Vancouver, B.C. Canada. I claim the prize for space and time. :D

I forgot the cooling fan I picked up in Ottawa in 1969.

I can save something for years and will have no use for it until the moment the garbage truck is down the street.

Used to keep everything. Then I learned that if I sold my extra stuff on Ebay, I could use the money to buy the extra stuff others were getting rid of. My stuff is new to them. Their stuff is new to me. No one has to get rid of their stuff since it's not old.. Problem solved.

This whole thread reminds me of the George Carlin bit about "A place for my stuff". Anyone else remember seeing that about 20 years ago on Comic Relief? Other people's stuff is s**t, and your s**t is stuff. Hilarious.

I'll throw it away when I have a better one to replace it.

:cheers:

I'll throw it away when I have a better one to replace it.
:cheers:
But you won't know which one is better until you found a use for it, and then you only have one left anyway :-)

over the last year ive hard a few heart breaking dump trips , i need room to do things so it was :look at it,, have i used it in the last couple of years , if not ,it was GONE !
thinned out the first time and got evermore ruthless the next couple of dump trips ,
you know what, its all BACK ! i can t pass a good deal and if something looks usable i'll keep it and pack it away ,

when i moved we had a dumpster full of stuff , and thats not counting the stuff for pickup in the front yard of wood, adn metal .... so , yeah i think i got the bug , but the bug is limited by the space you have in which to 'stack'/ pile things.

George Carlin as ai recall had two versions of that routine , the stuff version and the one that used one of the "seven words" ...;) :D

Always save what you think may come in handy in the future. If the little woman says to start throwing stuff out just ask her, "How many pairs of shoes do you have"? :cheers:

tobyaxis :banana: :D :idea:

I prefer to think of it as being a collector of things, and it's not junk they are assets.
My DW is also a collector. To quote (can't remember who) "If the police came to our house they would say there was definitely signs of a struggle." :rolleyes:

Nah. forget genetics it's like a virus and you catch it by seeing other peoples "stuff". Some have cool stuff and some have junk. And one day you see someones junk pile and ask them about it and they won't get rid of it no matter what, don't you just hate that!

Always save what you think may come in handy in the future. If the little woman says to start throwing stuff out just ask her, "How many pairs of shoes do you have"? :cheers:

tobyaxis :banana: :D :idea:
Now thats a nice one :cheers: I voted "somewhat" but lately i've been getting lucky in finding people who can make use of my "extras" I cant bear to see good stuff go into the landfill :(

Why does this question come up everywhere I go?

Keep it all, every dang piece of anything, then when you die let your kids deal with it :D

HEHEHEHEHE!!!!
My daughter-in-law says she'll "Torch the Place!!!" (flame2)
then bury my ashes in with the Houses ashes so I'll take it all
with me.

I got it from my mother; just passed in Sept (06), and she had
cancelled checks from the early 60's!!!! ;)

Bill
"The Inventor"

.... when you drive 400 miles to wade through someone else's pile .... and pay for the privilege. There was a business in Iowa ( might still be there ) that offers business's a tax breaks to donate their un-sold inventories so they in turn can sell memberships to churches and other tax-exemp organizations to come and brouse and load up at their whim. The church would pay $4oo.oo per annual membership and could make 4 trips per year and fill up a truck with all you could carry. I made one of those trips from Indy. Whew...... the warehouse was huge and just to give you an idea ..... boxes ( like 6ft. x 6ft x 4ft tall boxes) of old .... unused ... 300 baud acoustic modems .... slightly damaged but unused sliding glass doors ... rolls of carpet ... ( ugly as sin carpet ) ... tons of the little plastic write protect rings that came on backup reel tapes from old main-frame computers..... you get the idea ...... people would actually back up to this building with a truck the size of a large u-haul and load it to the top with this .... " stuff " ....

I wish I lived next door to that place. It'd be like that warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones 1.

Anyway, yes, me packrat. I bought a 1972 V12 Jaguar when I was 24 and many years later bought an identical car sight unseen for spares. Turns out the spares car is a low milage minter. I couldn't scrap it so I built a $16k garage to keep these two cars worth $1500 in. The garage has filled up & I can't walk round it anymore so I'm renting a 500 sq ft lockup which is also filling up. Ce la Vie.

I'm clearing out some cupboards in my house to put stuff in the lock-up and I found a Hewlett Packard HP98751A colour RGB monitor. It's off of a dedicated CAD/CAM system from the 80's. Its a beautiful monitor but its damn heavy & I can't use it. If anyone wants it they can have it for free.

You need to come and get it or have it shipped. I'm in Paisley, Scotland. So only any good if you're in the UK. wilson.logan (at) ntlworld.com

I would have mentioned this in a 'for sale' section but didn't see one on CNCZone. Bit of a strange omission.

Cheers,

Wilson.

The pack rats are the survivors. I;m in Australia and come from a fine line of pack rats. I'm presently in the acquisition phase and hopefully I will reach to making something phase, before I die.

Packrat Survival Rule # 5:
If you have to blow the dust off to see what it is, TOSS IT!

I got it from my mother; just passed in Sept (06), and she had
cancelled checks from the early 60's!!!! ;)

Bill
"The Inventor"

Sorry But I Think I got ya beat on that one, I got it from my
Dad who got it from his Mom. Found out the other day he
STILL has his first Tax Return (he is 80 years old).

Heh, the tin cup in my lab (for me coffee) was a present form my 16th birthday when I started work :)

Saturday, I saw an HP LaserJet 4L laser printer at a church rummage sale.

The price? A whopping 5 dollars!

Thought to myself, "there has to be something wrong with it (in addition to the missing parallel cable). Still, might be able to find a usable stepper motor or something..."

Bought it, took it home, plugged a cable in, hooked it up to XP and ...

Works like a charm. Now who would get rid of a perfectly good printer ???

Yes, I am a packrat. Yes, I have an Amiga 1000 in my closet...