The "What followed me home" thread



An old manure spreader followed me home from Vermont today. It will need some attion form my saw mill before long as the wood is a little rough but it has been really well maintained and was a good buy. Even came with a box of spare parts. That was one thing I have been looking for for a while now.

6 Likes

Mr. Heath:
What became of the Maytags?

Mr Allard:
The manure spreader is for the actual implication of manure around your farm or is this just something cool to restore?

1 Like

H i Dan,
Nice catch. What are the mountains in the background in the second picture?
Thanks,
Pepe

2 Likes

That is Rattle snake mountain. Or also know as Redstone for the quarry on the end. My farm literally has mountains in all 4 directions the Mount Washington valley here in Conway NH is narrow with mountains all around.

4 Likes

Wallace it is for spreading real manure form my grass feed beef cows. It will need some work before long but it in pretty good shape and was too good a deal to pass up.

5 Likes

it’s funny I have the same manure mill … in less good condition

3 Likes

I did a little spreading of the good stuff myself today Ha ha!

5 Likes

Curb shopping score… Lol

Not sure why there is what looks to be aluminum oxides on the compressor head… I only tried to power it up for a minute to see if it ran…it does…

8 Likes

FREE - my favorite four letter word!

8 Likes

Pot metal alloys.
This type of casting is low stress.
Probably a lot of Zinc and tramp metals that tends to be a little sensitive to corrosion.
In no way does this effect the parts because they never really get hot or have to deal with pressures above 120 psi

One time many years ago a fellow brought a motor of unknown origins to me for rewind and I did as told by the foreman to prepare the motor for burn out in the big oven.
The next day the motor frame was puddle on the oven floor.
The foreman was not very happy with me, but joked about it a little.
This motor was not aluminum as I thought and I set the temperature too high, it was a custom pot metal casting…
So we had to make a motor to replace it using a frame from one motor the end bell from the original.
A good machinist made all the parts work together…

4 Likes

I didn’t think about that. I just assumed it would be aluminium, like in your story :slight_smile: I was thinking worst case scenario, I got a tank, and some scrap aluminium, but maybe it isn’t aluminium…

I would say someone got it to do one job and then it sat in the garage, got water on it, then they pushed it to the curb after a couple of years, but I would have thought it would of had a hose with it. Maybe the pump is worn out, I have to look at it further, it is just down on the project list… :slight_smile:

2 Likes

I have a compressor like that too.
Well older but it was scrapped by the owner because it was not suitable for painting and was very old.
Its OK for me use though.

I have a hard time finding the right words to describe how I feel about all the stuff thrown away.
It will be our undoing if we do not learn how to mend and make do again.\We just can’t afford this level of waste as as society.

5 Likes

This is a curb find. I didn’t know what to expect, nor any immediate use for it. Thus it is put on the project pile for a little bit. lol

3 Likes

Why is there no hose with it? Because the people were selfish. At the dump I’ll look for appliances or tools with the cord cut off, guarantee they work excellent, but someone was making space, and wanted to be sure no one else could use it. And most often if discarded it’s a petty issue with a power switch, or similar. Urbanites hardly ever wear stuff out, it goes out of fashion, or they move.

Last year about this date I found a Honda push mower at the dump that appeared to be in suspiciously good shape, oil was clean and good, turned over well. So it came home. The spark plug wire was off. With gas added it started up with 2 pulls. Wouldn’t cut grass though, turned out the blade was removed. So I drilled holes in another blade from my stock to fit the Honda mount, and now it’s my best mower by far.

I have to admire the Honda carbs, very good starting system, should be mandated on all small engines. And that it ran great without the flywheel effect of the blade says something.

And had I not scooped it, it would have been crushed in the scrap metal pile… Very disturbing how people’s minds work.

9 Likes

I think a lot of it is they just don’t want to deal with it, but with curb finds these folks actually made an attempt to recycle it by putting it on the curb. The best “curb” find was the empty NO2 tank I found in my yard, which after bought a welder I exchanged it for a welding gas cylinder.

3 Likes

Hey Garry,
I’m with you, man. I just picked up a mower in VG condition that had
the “it just won’t start no matter what I do” syndrome! It’s got gas and spark
but I can’t get it to run, owner said. Five bucks and I drove off.
Drained the old gas (gas/water mix!!!???) from the tank and carb blew it out with air.
Drained the oil, which also had water in it ( owner must have left the dipstick out in
frustration). Added new oil and gas. 5 or 6 pulls and it started right up. 2 years later I’m still
using it. Starts 1 or 2 pulls every time. Ya never know.

7 Likes

Speaking of gas cylinders, I’ve found some thrown out too, perfect for a cylinder exchange. But the sweetest deal I’ve discovered is that people will throw out propane tanks. At the local dump they have a spot for propane tanks. I have scooped 2 100lb tanks about half full, 50 pounders part full, and last year a 25 pound tank completely full, second one of them.

Seems people move, or see the “best before” date on a tank, and then dispose of them. I haven’t had to buy propane for many years.

3 Likes

This year I brought home 2 cylinders myself that had significant amounts of propane found at the street corner.

I have quite a few now and I plan to build a new gasifire this summer from some of them.

This makes my blood boil I see it at work too.
I see Electricians that scrap stuff because they are not willing to invest a little time into repair.
Just lazy.
Things are too cheap, you waste when you do not pay the real cost of stuff over its life cycle.
That life cycle extends beyond when you are done and extends into the zombie after life we call recycle and disposal.

3 Likes

Look at the plastics recycling scam, everyone has felt so green driving their water bottles to the blue bin, (never mind the energy footprint of that, already on negative territory), but now the Philippines and Malaysia are sending our unusable garbage back. After the Chinese got fed up with it too.

It would be best to burn all that trash in steam plants (or gasifiers), and stop making so much crap and packaging.

I heard today that they are finding microplastics in people now, comes from carpets, clothing, house dust. We have really done some bad things not looking at the big picture.

2 Likes

I read about a year ago now that micro plastic can be found in all water supplies around the world. The study ofcourse didn’t actually check all the water just random samples seems it has made it’s way into our major water supplies. Don’t worry I am sure that has nothing to do with cancer rates…

You sure do have some odd people throwing away perfectly good gas tanks with fuel in them. Here my town has someone at the gate and he gets really upset when you try to leave with stuff. I do like the trash to energy plants they have their issues but all things considered I think they are our best current system of dealing with our throwaway society. That said I try to grow and can as much of my own food as possible to avoid all that waste and have better quality pesticide free food. Bottled water really drive me nuts a simply water filter would be cheaper and better for everyone.

3 Likes