Scrounging, Buying, Finding Materials – 3/19/2013

12 thoughts on “Scrounging, Buying, Finding Materials – 3/19/2013”

1. Huh, this is nice. Posting this now so I can download it before I sleep means less thinking when I’ve just woken up tomorrow. Nice.

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2. If anyone is in Sydney Australia, there is a place like SCRAP called Reverse Garbage.

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3. An important tip on dumpster diving: avoid dumpsters that also contain food waste.

   I used to dive for old computer parts. My best find is a functional CRT to an Apple II c that I recently had signed by Woz. I play pac-man on it.

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4. Ahh Tuesday morning coffee and and the boys. Another great show, as always many thanks.

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5. Scrap and Urban Ore are such great resources for when you are just browsing for something unexpected.

   I was surprised to see Adam not mention eBay, although he has covered it in the past. Its obviously hit-and-miss both in terms of what you can find and what it will cost, but its often your only hope if you are looking for certain vintage/found objects.

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6. I’ve been trying for years to manage to actually have a real Mcmaster carr catalog. They are a maker’s best friend. Having worked in a hardware store for ten years off and on made very aware of what you can and cannot find. The better store are the ones that have been around. The hardware store is also a good resource to ask who else might have something if they don’t. I had to keep an enclyclopedia in my head of local plumbing supply, exotic resources and commercial supply places so that I could point people in the right direction. Unfortuanately Home Despot and circumstances have shrunk the number of real hardware stores around.

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7. Great show today. Been parts picking for years. How else would a college student repair a car. When I got my first introduction to McMaster-Carr it was overwhelming. It’s a rare thing when the catalog does not have something. But their call center works great too.

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8. Another place for scientific supplies are universities. It took my brother, for example, all the way until his junior year at MIT to find out that there was a biological supply shop hidden in the bowels of one of the campus buildings.

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9. Anyone in MLPS MN go to axe man lovely store for this sort of stuff. They get surplus stuff from any and every industry. i have found everything from old airplane dishes to really nice chemical glassware to stoplights to potentiometers there.

   sadly i do not live in minneapolis anymore

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10. Dumpster diving – with my Mom! We would “go for
    pick-up” as we called it, to a quilt manufacturer. We would grab all of
    the end cuts that we could stuff into our station wagon, floor to ceiling,
    front to back; who needs that rear view mirror. The women of the church would
    use the quilt material to make oven mitts and other crafts to sell at the
    Bazaar. As was warned above, the dumpster diving ended one day when my Mom came
    face to face with a huge raccoon. She went to the owner of the factory, told them
    what they were using the material for, and sure enough, he started to set aside
    several industrial size garbage bags of “pick-up” for them. Fun
    memories.

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11. The dumpster anti-apocalypse happens annually in nearly any city/town right around May/June so long as there’s a university nearby. Find the university neighborhood (bonus if there are fraternities/sororities) and you’ll find countless pieces of furniture, appliances, etc. that students dump before leaving town.

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12. I’m sorry, but at 9:00 in, it really sounds (to my deaf ears anyway) that Adam says he “pulled them out of a vulva”. Ouch. Maybe I’m just immature.

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