Art of Salvage Chronicles – Volume 1 – Issue 1

[ETsC10]

This is thread for all of us completely hooked on salvage.
(I guess we are basically pack rats but...oh, well....)

YOU ARE ALL INVITED to brag on your finds!
No rules except this is NOT a for sale thread.
(collect your own crap)


Here we can showcase the nifty “rich man’s junk/poor man’s treasure” items
we have always needed or, for that matter, did not need at all but it/they
were just too cool to pass up.
Also, there's a lot of endeavors that really don't need a lot of individual
posts, so here's a place we can all post piggly-wiggly and let our
imaginations run wild.

Find something nifty? Have no reason to store it but just can't give it up?
Perhaps someone else here has a great idea on what you can do with it OR
the knowledge to help you bring a dream project to fruit.

Be it truck parts, goofy bling and man-cave stuff (or, in my case, gal-cave),
rusty/broken/un-loved tools with no value until hung on the wall or unlikely
materials for common projects, tucked away for someday.

Here’s one of mine…
A few years back I saw a free leather couch on CL. Photo looked good, fairly
late model and appeared very well kept. I’m on it like

Yup, it was in the back of the truck within an hour…very nice but
missing a cushion. Oh, what the heck.

Took it home and stuffed the leather in boxes, pulled the fiberfill (clean!!) in
boxes, took the carcass to the dump ($18), sold the fluff to some lady on CL
for crafts (for $50)!
Basically got paid $32 and a box of ivory leather for my time!!

What eventually became of the leather? For $28 I bought a gallon of
contact cement for my cars carpet…used half of it. Understand, my olds has
way more wrong than no carpet though. It’s got the dreaded plastic-rot
of nightmares! Console sucks and the camel color gives me the creeps.

Rotten plastic trim + glue + leather…
You guessed it; a luxury interior for labor alone!

So ... what's your salvage/ re-purpose tale??