Folks Of Interest Anybody Else have a Bolt hoard or Bolt hoarding problem?

My uncle is a retired electronics engineer; but stuff keeps finding him. He currently has 1200 bins of various fasteners, fittings, and connectors. Pretty impressive sight to see that take up one wall of his shop.

 

Yes I have a problem. In all my hoard I NEVER have what I totally need. If I need 4 bolts I have 3, 7 I'll only have 5. Even clamps, I need 3, I have 1 or 2. The forces of nature are such I "act like" I need more than I do but that doesn't work either...

 

Yes, but I can stop any time I want to!

 

When I moved to my new shop from a place I'd lived for 68 years between what my dad had saved and what I had saved we got rid of 5 5gal buckets full of miscellaneous unsorted bolts. Just sent to the scrap iron people.

 

Quite a lot of my hardware collection came from the scrap yard. Some in buckets or boxes, some dumped out in the dirt and mud, some of it brand new.

A lot of military here and a lot of oil field work. You never really know why the military throws stuff in the dumpsters. But the oil field stuff, when they lose a contract, finish a job or move a camp/shop to a different location they often auction off the big equipment and all the consumables end up at a scrap yard. The next contractor or job site gets all new stuff.

Haha, works out fine for me except that I know most of what goes to the scrap yard gets run down into the mud or shipped out before I can find it.

 

Personally, I think you've gone too far when you need a guard dog for you stash of nuts and bolts

 

Haha, not these dogs... someone shows up when I'm not around I'm sure the first thing the dogs would say is, "Hi! See anything you like? Can I help you load it up? Got any snacks?"

 

Well, when I looked at those pics, I thought to myself "at least he has room for the dog's bed"

 

I call it collecting,not hoarding! Have a five gallon bucket full of nuts, bolts,etc. Saved me a few times.

 

No problem, move along.

 

I also farm, we have opportunity to use a generous amount of hardware- nuts, bolts, nails, staples and on and on. I buy them at farm auctions, swap meets and yard sales- I pay a premium if they are sized or in original containers- some of these may have been liberated from the various assembly plants in the area. I try to keep them organized. About 10 years ago I bought a wooden bolt bin with the bolts for 2 bucks, now I use it when I get new ones. For important/ critical stuff I go to town for the right fastener. For just bolting stuff together I go to the bin.

 

Okay, had to figure out how to make my phone with the pictures talk to my computer that knows how to get on the HAMB, whew, haha.




Anyway, like I said all the drawers were full and lots more hardware to get put away. Sometime in the 90's my dad found an old, old truck van body in the back yard at the scrappers that was filled to the doors with drawers. Mostly 6 x 6 x 18, but some 9 wide and some 12 wide. Scrapyard office wanted 10 bucks a gross, or almost 15 cents apiece. Cheap enough, haha. We hauled home a couple pickup loads of them. Some went to his shop 600 miles away, some to my shop, some to friends and a pretty good pile went in the shed for future use. Well, 20 years later we were about out of drawers so we went back to that truck box, but the snow load had caved in the roof and mashed a bunch of what was left, then let all the rain water in on them. Most were still in cardboard cases, what a rusty mess. We should have bought every one they had when he found them. We did manage to get a hundred or two out that weren't in too bad condition and got them home and safely stored in the shed.

Shelves are no problem, we've been gathering them up from the scrap piles a few at a time and have a pretty good supply along with backs and corners. Lots of different brands apparently, because I had to do a lot of re-drilling on the shelves. Anyway, I figured out about how many drawers I had to work with and how much shop space I was willing to devote to more storage and decided to build 4 ten shelf sections. I had rounded up corners and backs enough to work with last fall before it snowed and staged them outside the shop. A little after Christmas I decided it was time to build some drawer cabinets.




Surprising how much effort is required for one guy to bolt that whole thing together by himself, haha.
Then I cleared out a space for it, stood it up, scooted it into position and started hauling in pallet after pallet of drawers. Cleaned them all out of the woodshed, not nearly enough, dang. Checked in a 40' container, good, another 50 or so. Still short, got another container full of mechanical and electrical stuff, found another 40 or so there with just odds and ends of junk piled in them, almost enough. Had to dump a bunch of nails that were in the garage attached to my house into coffee cans to get the last 4, haha, just enough.




I'm still in the process of de-rusting, straightening and painting the faces. Some were pretty rusty.


If they were all 6 x 6 x 18 I'd have needed 240 of them to fill the darned thing. Seems like a lot, but hopefully when I get my latest accumulation of hardware sorted and put away I'll still have 30 or 40 empties, because if history is any example I'll have more showing up pretty soon, haha.
The nicest thing is, I have a lot of fittings and widgets that just aren't available in this town of 100,000 and I have them right here where I can get my hands on them in just a few minutes... usually.

 

Well, after that, I might as well scrap my pile!

 

My wife will always pick up stray washers, bolts etc for me ( she's a keeper) I never walk past any either and I always pick up cable ties and file them.

 

When my dad was still around he a whole shelf full of old Coleman lantern fuel cans with the sides cut off, and Hills Bros metal coffee cans full of nuts and bolts. I don't think he ever used any of them, but just in case he needed one it was there.

 

I know you're joking, but that's not funny... well, yes it is (chuckling).

Once the guys around you get used to the idea that you've got some hardware and how damned valuable it is for them to come get a few items once in a while they'll start bringing in stuff they find or taking things apart for the hardware before they throw them away. It's surprising how much stuff accumulates like that.

It goes like this, "Hey man, Me and Tom was helping his neighbor's wife clean out her garage now that her husband is dead and he had some cans of stuff I grabbed. Can you use these brass fittings and look here, there's several boxes of wire nuts almost full."
Well, not today, but let's get a beer and put this stuff away."

One of my guys was driving truck for the John Deere dealer and they got a new parts room manager one time that was making space. He had some flunky kid going through the bolts and hardware section with a computer inventory printout pulling any item that hadn't sold any in some length of time. The kid wound up with a pallet piled a foot and a half deep with boxes of new bolts, good ones too, about all grade 5 and 8. Kid asked what to do with them and the parts boss said put 'em on the flatbed and Dave can haul them to the dump when he gets time. Haha, well Dave hauled them away alright, but thankfully they didn't go to the dump.

Another time, my dad and I were hunting around at the scrap yard just looking for stuff too good to leave behind. He hollered, "Holy Shit, come look at this." Must have been the Air Force, or the Army helicopter guys had hauled in a dumpster or two of their broken down old junk jacks and used switches and just about anything you could think of. Clean up time around some shop no doubt. Anyway, the old man was standing in front of what looked like half a wheel barrow worth of new aircraft hardware that the scrap guys had been driving into the mud and dirt with their loaders for at least a week or two. We hurried up and grabbed anything nearby that would hold dirt and bolts and picked up every piece we could see. On the way out the scrap office guy said, "What the hell do you want all those dirty old bolts for?" We got home and scattered them out on a sheet of plywood a batch at a time then carefully rinsed the dirt off with a hose so we wouldn't lose any of the tiny little washers and stuff. Here's what we got. Must be worth a fortune if you had to buy them.



Always amazes me how little value some people place on hardware. This is why I need more drawer space.

 

I very much regretted having to get rid of my hundreds of pounds of old hardware. I value the old hardware nearly as much as the projects and parts.

 

Wanted to add this.
The highest level of respect for hardware that I ever witnessed. Third grade. Visiting a classmate at his house. He was building a go kart, mostly of wood. I was helping. His dad hadn't provided him with new nails. Much to my amazement, Tim showed me how you could pull old nails and straighten them to be used again. And I got some practice doing that. LOL

 

I hate rusty hardware. Unless its unique, it goes on the garbage. I buy new grade 5 hardware and keep it in some bins so I can find what I'm looking for when I'm looking for it. Nothing more irritating to me than trying to thread a rusty nut onto a rusty bolt.

 

Agreed. Pretty much how I feel about slot headed screws too, haha. If they're not specifically for a Model A dash panel or oval head with nickel plate or some such, I pitch 'em.

 

Worked on a 39 Merc 4-dr convertible for a guy a few years ago. He wanted all slotted screws. I have been on the hunt for a while. I now have #4 - #12 in size. All lengths. Maybe a 3 or 4 thousand. Now on the lookout for slotted counter sunk bolts. Also, I`m on the hunt for square headed bolts. We do work on old stuff. With old style hardware. Not found at Loew`s. I do have about over 400 castle nuts. All sizes and threads. You can never have too much aircraft hardware. It`s also on my to get list.

 

My old boss and mentor, used to have the 5 gallon buckets of nuts and bolts, as inventory in his shop. Every time we needed something, he sent ME, of course, to find it. Got to the point where I hated wasting so much time, I'd walk to the auto parts store and BUY what he needed!
Today, I have a full Vidmar cabinet full of nuts and bolts, all organized. Grade 5 minimum, also Grade 8, fine thread, stainless, allen, brass and SS fittings, sheet metal screws, machine screws ( organized in plastic organizers, in pan, hex, allen, flat, and oval head) As well was trim clips, springs, Orings, barrel clips, sheet metal nuts, small head sheet metal screws, etc. etc.
Since I worked a full time day job, up until a couple years ago, if I didn't have something I needed, at night, I couldn't get it until the next day or 2 and it frustrated the hell out of me!

 

That's pretty elitist against a hot rod background! More frustrating than rust is not having what I need. I live in the country and save anything that might be used someday, and it often is. I'll toss a bad drive slot/cross,etc and if the threads are messed up,sure. With the overall quality of stuff today, your new parts are going to be like my rusted ones sooner than you think. Plus, my supply in the barn is open 24-7.

 

Yes I do also, no excuses though, you’re better off looking at it than looking for it!

 

Steve, is that drill bits I see stacked in that electrical box?






Bones

 

just scored a 5 gallon bucket of bolts , nuts , brackets for free....puts a smile on me face...

 

Good deal, hope you get a lot of treasures out of it.

 

Just a couple of wood auger bits.... The panel isn't connected yet, there's no power in it.

 

I have a military hardware hoard going. At work they did a lot of retrofits and the old hardware would get chucked, one guy had boxes of it on his cubicle. When he retired, he said, take it all. So I did. Lots of fine thread nuts in there, real expensive bolts too. I have to do a major league sort on that. Some of it went into my Ford during the build.

 

Body bolts and U=nuts are expensive if you have to buy them new. Local salvage yard pulled in a rusted out '76 full size Ford, so nothing metric. I got a gallon paint can full of body bolts and nuts off that car before they crushed it.