Art & Inspiration coffee can storage ?

The Law of Diminishing Possibility of Usefulness:
Gradually save 15 of something because someday you probably will need 2 or 3. Throw away anything you have and find you need that exact thing the very next month.

The fact that you really do occasionally have just the right nut, bolt or fastener "for free" in your stash, is enough to keep you from ever considering breaking the habit.

 

I worked in auto parts stores from the late 60's until the early 90's( except for 71-73 when I worked for Uncle Sam) and over the years I brought home a bunch of different old storage bins when we changed or up graded fittings, nuts, bolts, hydralic fittings etc, outfits. A few years ago I spent months dumping my hoard of cans and sorting stuff. and it has worked well and saved me many trips to the hardware and many dollars. I need to sort that junk out again as I seem to have a build up again as the auction stuff has built up again. My son gets on me for having so many old containers of "junk" hoarded but every time I look around he is digging thru my stuff foe a nut, bolt or fitting.

 

My grandpa taught me to empty the can full of hardware into a dust pan. When you find what your looking for you simply dump the dust pan of remaining hardware back into the can.

 

Coffee cans become black holes to me, just never sure what's in there. I went through my 2 main spackle buckets over a year ago and dumped about 90% of it in the trash. Of the remaining 10%, it could have saved me well over $100 at the hardware counter.

 

So far, no one has said "I don't save anything, I just go to the store and buy new stuff when I need it". I am not anticipating there is such a person on the HAMB, and if there is, he or she is not likely to admit to this digusting habit.

 

I usually have any type of bolt that I need. However I have bought new bolts on occasion. The Feed store has a great hardware dept. They sell bolts by the pound. I bought a few pounds of 3/8 coarse thread nuts and 1/4 coarse thread nuts and a good selection of the ESNA self locking nuts that have the nylon insert. Once I wanted to install new blades on the brush hogg. rather than trying to save the originals I simply torched them off. And I knew I had a box of a couple dozen new blade bolts I bought at auction. After looking a couple of hours I gave up and went and bought two new ones cost over $30 with the nuts & lock washers. a week later I found the ones I already had.

 

Did anybody mention peanut butter jars. Clear. Also the big plastic jars that dog treats come in. I had to build another barn just to have room for my hoard of stuff I can’t throw out.

 

In 1970 Mom let us kids know that another brother was on the way. Dad got busy "remodeling" the unfinished basement, adding a couple bedrooms and paneling. He was no carpenter or electrician, but he didn't do too bad a job as I recall.

But, he must have over-estimated how many sheet rock nails he was gonna need, or maybe he got a deal, but he brought home a big ass box of nails, and had most of them left when he was done, because anytime anybody needed a nail for the next decade or so, well we grabbed a handful outta the box. We used to laugh about it, and the Big Ass box o' nails even made the move to the newer, better, yet not overly ostentatious digs in 1977. After he died in 2012 it was left to me to be the one to go through everything, and surprise, found a good supply of the nails, even in 2018 still have a 'backy can full of them!

 

I get the chance to work in different shops and home garages. When I ask for a certain part for the car or a bolt or two. When they start digging threw cans and little containers, I often go back to work on another section of the car cause it`s gonna take them awhile to find it. For somethings, I just bring it along the next day from my inventory.

 

My old man was a product of the depression, too and I did time as an ankle biter straightening nails etc. Sadly, some of his hoard as well as all of my own was recently fried in the great asparagus patch fire of 2017. But, the greatest hoarder I ever knew lived right down the street when I was a kid: Nick Byers. He hoarded everything, especially sticks, twigs, branches and stumps and decorated his acreage with piles that grew and grew. He had escaped from Russia before the commies turned it into a blood bath after WW1, and while my old man was a product of the depression, Nick was a product of Czarist Russia where you couldn't steal a twig from the Czar's forest, even in the dead of winter. He realized his obsession with wood was strange but the memory of freezing in the winter while the forest was full of fuel tormented him. The Cossacks actually patrolled the forests looking for thieves in the dead of winter. Those they caught were harshly dealt with, in the Russian manner.

Nick used to borrow me to help with various chores sometimes and he would unfailingly spot any piece of wood, even way out in a field and stop the old Cornbinder and painfully hobble out and get it, then throw it in the back and drive on. He taught me how to farmer-shift a standard trans: wind 'er out to about 7mph in low then flop 'er into high and let 'er buck and snort up to about 27mph or so. No man needed to drive faster than 27 mph.That's faster than any Cossack's horse yet slow enough to see those twigs.

 

.... AND... if you do buy something new and if it isn't right, do you take it back or keep it? I tend to keep new stuff even if I have no immediate use for it.

 

I have hardware bins, I use the parts store bins for 90% of my parts and hardware.

I still have coffee cans too, well, today they are plastic. These are on the bench and hold different selections of hardware, transmission parts, misc used engine hardware, etc.

In the parts washer I use them to soak parts awaiting their turn at a scrubbing, you know how bad the old ford gear oil is.

So, it’s a mix for me and I use totes for the big stuff.

As for the original coffee cans, they are in my basement, came from my grandmothers kitchen cabinet and still have all the hardware, glass fuses and stuff still in them.

Cliff Ramsdell

 

Bought these tilt out bins and made this stacking area for them. Works great, but I still have stuff in cans.

 

All of my stuff is in clear plastic peanut butter jars and the big jars that party nuts come in. They all fit in milk crates inside a cabinet I built for them and this worked very well for me. Oh yeah, One ammo box full of ods and ends...…………...

 

No coffee cans I use boxes. Most of it is parts left over from work when conversions and upgrades are done. '63 belair wagon guy wanted disc brakes front and rear. I got just about all the front and rear brake components from it in a box in the garage. Including backing plates. I also got the in cab fuel and vent lines for a behind the seat c10 gas tank to fuel pump. One I got for myself though is a 67 Th350 short tail shaft transmission that came out of a 67 step side c10 that I am going to rebuild and swap in my '63 in place of the glide.

 

Yeah, I seem to end up at the hardware store a lot. It's either A-I need one more than I have, B- I can't find the ones I have and I need them now (but I know they'll turn up like yours-right after I bought new ones) or C-I really,really don't have it. But, my first thought is always to see what I have got. This usually also results in my remembering something else that needs to be repaired.

 

I was fortunate enough to grab a couple of commercial style bolt cabinets being thrown out at work. I do still have a couple of cans for the big stuff though. I rarely keep the smaller nuts bolts and washers. They are cheap enough that I keep an assortment of new hardware.