Technical Am I really going to use these again?

My daughter posted this on her FB page a while back.

I bought a decorated metal box at dollar tree the other day and putting some of the band aid cans full of screws, nuts and bolts and what not in it as a starter set for her.

When I live in Texas in the 70's I heard a noise in the garage one Sunday morning and went out and there was a buddy of mine with my 110 lb shepard/border collie mix leaning up against him digging though my double wash tub of fasteners looking for the bolt and nut he needed. I never asked but think he used to slip over real early on Sunday morning and take that dog riding in his truck with him as they were pretty tight buddies.
Now I have downsized, I only have a single size wash tub full of fasteners.

Cotter keys usually don't survive with me though. I come from that school of mechanics that says you put "your cut" on cotter keys and bend them a certain way every time to be able to know if someone else had monkeyed with your work if the vehicle comes back with an issue. That saved my bacon a couple of times when one customer or another took a vehicle to someone else than came back wanting me to fix what they had screwed up for free.

 

I have well over 400 cotter keys in a Lawson drawer. Maybe more than 600 but I`m not counting them. So old ones go in the iron can. When full, it goes behind the garage, then it disappears to the scrap man. I`ll save an old one if I don`t have that size for buying purposes. My wife and kids understands me. When they need something, I have it. No need to run to the store. A few of my customers have figured this out too. I do save old hardware if not in my inventory, then gets replaced when I have many multiples of new.

 

Years ago we were helping a buddy put a new roof on his house. His dad was helping us (older guy that grew up during the depression) and my buddy caught him straightening out the old nails to nail down the shingles. He kinda chewed him out and told him to use new nails. We spent the next 5 minutes laughing. As usual he just told us to f~~k off.

 

My dad would save old nails in coffee cans any that were bent had to be straightened.

 

My grandpa used to do that aswell. If the nails were rusty he kept them in a can of used motor oil. That was kind of his universal rust inhibitor... he said his cars lasted longer than our neighbor´s because he swore by wiping them down and spray the underside with used engine oil. Fence posts, barn roof rafters , anything that could possibly rot away someday got covered in old black oil and I always got into trouble with my mom when I came back home from playing at the barn with my good pair of pants covered in old black gunk...still makes me smile everytime I find an old nail he stored away for later

 

This year I reorganized my 40 year collection of small fasteners and do-fers into categories by size and length. During the process I also ended up with a pile of ‘Why did I keep its’ and another of ‘Will I ever really use its’ most of which eventually were tossed out during the process. A guy has to be honest with himself with some of this stuff or eventually you have a pile so high you can’t climb over it.

 

If the choice is do the 1/2 hr trip to town for a cotter pin because I don’t have the right size new one or reuse an old one the choice is easy.
It’s not like they are under stress. It’s a simple judgement call. Same with fasteners depending on where they are used. On my gear anyway.

 

You talk like there's something wrong with that.

 

A family with 6 kids moved next door when I was 9. (most of us kids are still neighbors) The dad lived during the depression, and a WWII vet. He was a very kind, hard working gentleman.
The kids had to straighten nails to build tree houses etc.

 

My time is way to valuable to save and straighten cotter pins. You get a pack of 100 in any size you need from McMaster Carr, in mild steel for about $5.00 and in stainless steel for about $12.00. I have the master kit that has most of the sizes and when I get low I replenish it from McMaster.

 

My genes were passed down along with 3 generations of accumulated fasteners that occupy dozens of large steel bins that sure have come in handy over the years. Half-assed organized. Depends what the job is that determines if they get used or not. A lot of that stuff is uniquely vintage. I get calls regularly asking if I have something and more often then not will come up with what's needed. My son has called dibs on my whole hardware stash after I'm gone. Oddly enough though there are no used cotter pins that were saved for re-use. There are hundreds of NOS cotter pins, some are probably a hundred years old. I don't recall ever buying one.