Packrat victory

[JohnRoberts]

1. A person who habitually saves items, even those unlikely to be useful.

I am a chronic "packrat" and have been for as long as I can remember. I still have obscure tools and parts from the 1950s. Now in my dotage I have started worrying about the poor soul tasked with cleaning up my mess after I move on. I have accumulated a lot of "stuff" in almost 4 decades at the same address. Since shutting down my drum tuner business (3+ years ago) I have been more aggressive about discarding odds and ends that won't be useful.

Now when I find some odd item that proves useful I feel like doing a packrat victory dance (not really a dance but a mental celebration). My most recent packrat victory was doing my laundry last week. I realized that my full jug of laundry detergent was actually fabric softener that I purchased by mistake. I never used fabric softener before. To wash that full load of dirty clothes I fished out a free sample laundry detergent pod that came with my new washing machine several years ago . It was exactly what I needed, enough detergent to clean one wash.

I suspect I may not be the only packrat here.

JR

PS: I expect to generate a huge pile for this months town wide curbside junk pickup. I have a few baseboard heaters I retired with my new bedroom heat pump. I also have gallons of empty beer bottles that I no longer have any use for since embracing kegging my homebrew.

 

[scott2000]

Had a bag of rear brake springs sitting around for almost a decade....finally get to use them this weekend...
And it only took me 5 minutes to find them ...

 

[sahib]

Well. I think I can challenge you to that John even if I can not beat you.

I think the earliest stuff I can come up with would be my Elektor magazines from the mid to late '70s. I have plastic biscuit containers that are full of metal and plastic hardware that are either left overs from my previous company or removed from parted-out equipment. When I sold my building in 2014 I had no choice but to get rid of truck full of stuff which included around 400 kg of mains transformers.

However, here is something that I have been still holding onto since early 1990 thinking that it may come in handy one day.



This is a reel of over 3km long missile wire. Overall diameter of the wire is 0.5mm including the fabric shrouding. It has four individually insulated and copper clad strands of steel wires.

Would anybody guess why the strands are made of steel and copper clad?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Well. I think I can challenge you to that John even if I can not beat you.

not a competition but join us as a fellow hoarder...

I think the earliest stuff I can come up with would be my Elektor magazines from the mid to late '70s. I have plastic biscuit containers that are full of metal and plastic hardware that are either left overs from my previous company or removed from parted-out equipment. When I sold my building in 2014 I had no choice but to get rid of truck full of stuff which included around 400 kg of mains transformers.

When I moved down south from my (rental) house in CT in the mid 80's I tried to hire a half sized dumpster to discard trash into. They gave me a full iszed dumpster for the half dumpster price. I filled it up the full sized dumpster once, then half full again. That was after only living in the house for < 10 years. I have been living in my current house for almost 40 years.

However, here is something that I have been still holding onto since early 1990 thinking that it may come in handy one day.

View attachment 127957

This is a reel of over 3km long missile wire. Overall diameter of the wire is 0.5mm including the fabric shrouding. It has four individually insulated and copper clad strands of steel wires.

Would anybody guess why the strands are made of steel and copper clad?

Strength...There are steel core power lines with aluminum surrounding the core. Skin effect currents travel on the outside of such cables. Aluminum and copper are much lower resistance than steel.

JR

 

[sahib]

Strength...There are steel core power lines with aluminum surrounding the core. Skin effect currents travel on the outside of such cables. Aluminum and copper are much lower resistance than steel.

JR

Spot on. I do not remember the tensile strength but it is very strong. I'll test it at some point.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

I have received a double dose of the packrat gene which runs strong on both sides of my family. In fact, I have fairly recently added to my accumulation from my late maternal grandfather's 60 year stash. Sadly much of it was dispersed in an estate sale.

When I was ready to drill my latest set of logs for mushroom plugs I could not find my 5/16" drill bit. I remembered that I had several boxes full of various tools and things from my grandfather's shop clean out and that there were many drill bits in there. Yep, found a 5/16" and used it on my 2024 logs.

I've also been reassembling my ~60+ year old 6' 20x18" disc harrow the past week. Found 8x 3/4" x 2" galvanized bolts and 8x heavy washers as well as 16x 1/2" stainless nuts, split lock washers, and flat washers that match my needs. Saved me a bunch of money.

I still use various hand tools from him, my father (and his father who passed before I was born). Don't get me started on the electronics component stash...

 

[pucho812]

I am trying to avoid being a packrat and failing miserably. But I have found that true to the laws of Murphy, the moment I get rid of something, something will come up that I needed it for.

 

[Recording Engineer]

Maybe one of you packrats wants to take an old Ampex VR1000 transport off my hands then? Come get it for free or have it trucked! I’ll even thrown-in a never-used custom Norelco 2-inch, 24-track head-stack for it; plus logic-chips and plans to make a 24-track recorder!

 

[scott2000]

Maybe one of you packrats wants to take an old Ampex VR1000 transport off my hands then?

Some kid could take that and turn it into a little facade for his pioneer ddj rig...

 

[Brian Roth]

Some kid could take that and turn it into a little facade for his pioneer ddj rig...

That kid would have to be a very large kid:

https://cool.culturalheritage.org/videopreservation/dig_mig/images/Ampex_VR_1000-B.JPG

Bri