My wife or kids will give them away as they dont know what they are and dont care to learn.
old snap on alignment equipment,torch, welders, tools i have made to do something.
I could only hope a much younger friend could find a use for them.


ken

 

Now that’s funny right there

 

Scotty Russ still working on his Mustang.

 

Hopefully the family will keep the good stuff. I know you said tools but what about my B'ham Range wood cook stove ,Hooizer Cabinets & some of the other good stuff?

Yes I have an additchion & cars & tools are only a part of it, I like old stuff.

 

Don't laugh too hard at this one!!!!! True story.....when Howard Hughes was in the hospital recovering from his plane accident in Beverly Hilll's (almost killed him).... he said the hospital bed was the most uncomfortable thing he had ever laid in (almost an exact quote)! He called Noah Detrich (spelling) over at the nearby culver city plant site and had the engineers/carpenter shop build him a miniature drafting table.... one that would sit in his lap! He redesigned the bed and then had Noah hand carry the velums to the CC plant where the machine shop built him a new bed and of course deliver it to the hospital (it included electric motors to raise/lower both the upper and lower sections to multiple positions/angles! BTW, When the doctors, nurses, admin saw what he had done, they were shocked..... and yes, that is today the modern hospital bed!

 

Unfortunately most of the younger generations don't share our passion for old stuff .
when it brakes throw it out and buy new.
57 tbird in the basement all apart
66 wheelhorse tractor with48" mower, 48" ariens snow blower modded to fit wheel horse , 36" tiller and many parts to keep it running.
I have too much stuff also


ken

 

My nephew & I have a running joke about grandpa or uncle who ever died and the family says we don't want that crap so they load it all up & sell it to the scrap yard for peanuts.

It blows my mind some of the stuff he pulls out of his friends scrap yard

 

If Bezos, Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg (any you guys lurking) would give me $50 Million or whatever to help clean up the world, I would buy a portable smelter and haul it around the country to swap meets and buy up all the rusted out car parts, cheap junky used tools, holed junk radiators, Ugly as snot 1970's brass Knick knacks, on and on that litter the swap meets, etc.

Melt it, send it off to the mills to make something useful.

The carbon footprint of not hauling the same worthless stuff for years to the swap meets would be incredible.

I actually felt a little guilty pleasure one year in the Dallas area when the swap meet was hit by an unexpected wind blast, over 65 MPH according to the news, the flipped over, among other things, a group of tables that had the UGLIEST pottery and glass doo dads ever seen and there were very few survivors.

 

My father (a retired machinist) re-married to a wonderful woman but she would likely never use 99% of the things he has accumulated in 70+ years of working with his hands and while my brother is the first born, he likely never would either. I sure hope we have the problem of trying to figure out what to do with all the wonderful things our Dad used to make so many things for us and make so many other things better, even if all I ever get to do is hold them now and then and reminisce. I love you, Dad.

 

On a related note, my father (a carpenter) used to say you can always spot a carpenter / builder when you go into a church, museum, etc. While everyone else is looking down at the artwork or whatever, the carpenter / builder is the guy looking up, checking out the structure and construction of the building. I find myself doing it all the time...

 

I don't know why, but I'm reminded of this classic....

A wife asks her husband, "Honey, if I died, would you remarry?"
"After a considerable period of grieving," he says, "I guess I would. We all need companionship."
"If I died and you remarried," the wife asks, "would she live in this house?"
"We've spent a lot of money getting this house just the way we want it. I guess so."
"If I died and you remarried and she lived in this house," the wife asks, "would she sleep in our bed?"
"Well, the bed is brand-new. It's going to last a long time. I guess she would."
"If I died and you remarried and she lived in this house and slept in our bed, would she use my golf clubs?"
"Oh, no," the husband replies. "She's left-handed."

 

Same story only the husband asks if the next husband would drive his Mustang....and she answers "No, he can't drive a stick shift".

 

My 11yo son pointed to one of my hot rods and said "I get that when you die, right? That kind of rubbed me the wrong way.
I said "nope, I'm donating it to charity, unless you learn how to work on it."

 

That's funny, my daughters have been claiming my '66 El Camino and '58 Bug for years, Now we have the Mustang for my wife, I'm not sure which one wants that yet and if that changes the previous claims. It should work out ok because we have 3 daughters and 3 old cars.

 

I got a bunch of tools from the man I got my '58 Bug from. He was dying of cancer and knew his time was short. He and his son-in-law didn't get along and he knew he would just sell all of the tools after the daughter inherited them.
He "sold" them to me (forced me to take the deal even though I said they were worth more than that) just so his son-in-law couldn't have them. Good for me

 

Early Mid 1960's, living just outside New York City, the next door neighbors were Italian, and the patriarch, probably in his high 80's / early 90's, really did not speak English. He was a stone cutter. I would watch him shape stone, as it was fascinating. He showed me how to hold the tools and cut stone, even though I was not even a teenager.

One day he gave me a whole bunch of his tools, and I thanked him profusely.

He was not long for the world when he did that, apparently, the "family" did not care about the art of stone cutting.

I still have the tools.

 

For me it's books and tools. If I need a tool, I buy it. I have been buying books ever since I got my first job when I was 16. I love to read (thanks Mom and Dad!), and can't stand to throw a book away. I have hundreds of books in our home now and hope that someday after I'm gone, they get donated to a library, hospital, or wherever they can be given to others to read. The only book I think my family will want to keep is a book from the Time-Life series about Vietnam. One of the books has a picture of my father helping a wounded Marine get to a helicopter. When someone comes to my home, I can tell who reads for pleasure, and who doesn't. A non-reader looks at all my books, and then looks at me with a surprised look on his/her face and says, "Did you read all these?" A reader will look at all the books, and then get closer to them to see what titles and authors are on the shelves.

Tools...hundreds of them. I'm trying to convey their usefulness to my youngest daughter, but she's off to college now for the next 4 years. Hopefully I can pass that knowledge to her before it's my time to go.

 

@LeeFred do you have a larger / framed picture of your father from that book? Either way, I'd like to see the photo. That's wonderful.
@richardsimon52 and @Jeff351w my brother is a structural / civil engineer and he always points out various supporting structures and sometimes faults, wherever we go.
I tend to look at people's eyes, their hands, body language, and notice weapons...

 

@LeeFred do you have a larger / framed picture of your father from that book? Either way, I'd like to see the photo. That's wonderful.

I have a copy of the photo at home on my computer. I can send it to you then.

 

glad he was wearing shorts under the gown

 

Every time I see that picture I think of my grandfather on Dad's side. He had been pretty rough man in his younger years and worked as a maintenance mechanic at a Corning Ware refractory, where they melted down sand etc. to turn into glass products. He spent the last few days of his life in a hospital, usually incoherent, dying from emphysema. Many times he would be lying in his bed looking straight up at an unknown piece of equipment, hands in the air, twisting unseen bolts with an equally invisible wrench. I remember watching my Mom cringe and other people in the room snicker when he would curse what ever he was working on and demand someone hand him the %#X$ 11/16" wrench, and a &%* hammer to go with it.