Garbage in …
Whats the best thing youve ever pulled out of the trash and turned into treasure? Ive talked before about recycling and re-use of old woodworking stuff, using it for raw…
Whats the best thing youve ever pulled out of the trash and turned into treasure? Ive talked before about recycling and re-use of old woodworking stuff, using it for raw materials or turning it into something new and good. Id like to take that theme a bit further and extend it to outright trash, stuff that someone has literally tossed out because it was, to them, garbage.
What got me to thinking about this is a post I saw on one of the woodworking forums in the last few days. The poster found a sheet of good-quality phenolic material in a landfill that was large enough to make not one, but two router extension tables for his table saw he installed one on the left and one on the right. This strikes me as an incredibly lucky find.
The closest Ive ever come to this was a half-dozen discarded (or maybe they were just forgotten) shelves from a utility closet at a previous job. Its been a few years, but I seem to recall that someone decided to use them to change the purpose of the closet to storing something tall. They removed the shelves in the thought that theyd never be used again, and thus labeled them with a Post It note that said something like, Maintenancetake to dumpster. I decided to do the poor maintenance guy a favor and tote those things to the dumpster for him. However, since my car was parked on the way to the dumpster, I dropped them off there instead. The aim of the discarders note was disposal, and it seems to me that putting them in the back of my car accomplished that goal.
These were top-quality, 3/4 Baltic birch sheets with solid-wood edges, already finished on both sides, and each measured about 3x4. Do the math on that and its clear that I scored 72 sq. ft. of great stock. Ive used these for all sorts of things over the years, and still have one left.
So my question to you is, whats the best score you ever made from someone elses trash?
Till next time,
A.J.

A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.