Moving and all those Nuts and Bolts???

fordy · #1 12/11/06, 06:44 PM

................I'm fully engaged in moving everything I want to keep into a storage room I've rented . It's about to drive me bonkers but I'm persisting even though I'd rather take a Beatin' that have to deal with this issue .
................So , I've accumulated lots of nots and bolts of ALL sizes and I can't make myself either sell or otherwise dispose of them . I've got a small fortune in hardware and too replace them would be very expensive . So , I've decided to just move them and all my tools into the storage thing and hope that if and when i move again I'll be strong enough to do this operation all over a gain . Am I just plain stupid for hanging "on" too this stuff and is it worth the effort i'm putting into retaining . thanks , fordy...

MWG · #2 12/11/06, 06:48 PM

Nah. Pack rats get enjoyment in keeping everything in case they might need it in the future. You will never be able to live with yourself when you need one 5/16 fine threaded nut seven years from now!

MWG · #3 12/11/06, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MWG

Nah. Pack rats get enjoyment in keeping everything in case they might need it in the future. You will never be able to live with yourself when you need one 5/16 fine threaded nut seven years from now!

I should know, I too am a pack rat!

moopups · #4 12/11/06, 06:54 PM

Fordy, just don't go 'metric' on us. Breath deep, it will be allright....

hunter63 · #5 12/11/06, 07:35 PM

Pack them up and keep them.
Strange as this may sound, right after I got married as a young man,(with out much of anything), my father called me out to the garage one day and passed on a part of his collection of nuts bolts, hardware parts, and "stuff" packed in a old .30 cal ammo can.
I did the same for my brother years later when he got his first house.

Still got it to this day, and lo and behold can usually find "a" nut or bolt that will get something back going with out a trip to the hardware store.
P.S. with the way they pack stuff today, three bolts in a pkg etc, make you wouder how they arrived at that number.

Explorer · #6 12/11/06, 08:45 PM

Fordy, you probably have very little choice in this matter. Lots of people, especially women, do not realize there is a gene most men (especially if you are descended from farmers) inherit. It is the little known and secretive gene called the hoarding gene. Go with the flow as save that good stuff.

Ken Scharabok · #7 12/12/06, 04:01 AM

Fortunately I'm not very sentimental about possessions. I've sold some items only to repurchase the equivalent a couple of years later.

Sounds to me like you are renting the storage locker anyway, so there is not an extra cost involved in retain the hardware. It is when you give up the locker you really need to make a decision. Perhaps package in such a way you have a good representative sample (say a double handful of each type and size) in one area and the surplus in another. Thus, if you move you can keep the small quantity and dispose of the rest in some manner. Or perhaps give the extra to a relative or close friend on the condition you can come and get what you need at any time.

If I needed one nut, bolt, washer or such my practice was to purchase three or four and then toss extras in a general hardware drawer. Since become a bit of a small machine shop I now have a multi-drawer bench cabinet for the most common sizes and just buy a full box when it is getting low as needed. Is that an alternative for you. Perhaps purchase four of the 18 drawer units, fill each drawer with one size of something and then dispose of the rest? I got my bench units from Northern Tools.

A packrat married to non-packrat isn't too bad as one will keep the other a bit in check. It is when a packrat marries another packrat the stuff accumulates and accumulates and accumultes. It is a bit like 1 + 1 not equaling 2, but rather 4.

I have friends you moved from New England to TN about 28 years ago. They would buy an old bus, fill it with their goodies and then bring it, followed by a car, to their new site. Drive back and repeat process. I believe they have something like seven old busses (most still with their original content), two old mobile homes, a couple of semi boxes and numerous storage buildings now. Also still has every vehicle he has owned since coming South. If you want it, he has it, but is unlikely to be able to find it any time soon. Heck, I pulled down about 120' of 6' high chainlink fence since it was beyond economical repair. Was planning on taking it to the recycle center, but no, he wanted it. By now it is laying somewhere on the side of his property, no doubt overgrown with blackberry briars.

Neighbor's daughter moved back home to care for them in their old age. Both she and husband (deceased) were packrats. She moved two of the largest sizes of U-Haul trucks and two packed IPODs, with very little furniture. Box after box after box. Husband had been in a computer-related field in the military so they would purchase each new gizmo which came out. Some of it is now say 20 years old, of no realistic value for further use, but she brought it all. I counted five old typewriters, and may have been more. She was physically upset she had to leave 'stuff' behind. Amusing part, to me, is she offered to give away a lot of it to friends but no one wanted any of it. Should have told her the value of it.

My standard wedding gift for a young couple going into their first place is a fairly complete household tool kit in a toolbox and one of those 1,001 item small hardware plastic cabinets kits. Several times I have been told it turned out to be the most practical gift they received.

MyHomesteadName · #8 12/12/06, 04:19 AM

I have been pack rat for most of my life, but I have made an educated observation about this stuff after having moved more than 10 times in 5 years. No matter how much I get rid of, I always have more, and I almost never miss what I got rid of in the first place. If I need it, I go buy it or find a way to get it.
In the case of metal parts, I always like to have new hardware on a project anyway and I like everything to match. I think a helter skelter of parts just looks tacky. Must be the artist side of me. Old hardware is frequently sticky with some mysterious fluid or starting to rust. Best to get rid of it and get new stuff when you ACTUALLY need it.

Just my $.02

After all that, I do still have a few things packed away..........must be that stupid hoarding gene.....

**fordson major** · #9 12/12/06, 06:03 AM

as a pack rat my self ,can not councel you too dump the hardware!!

we are on the receiving end from people moving too the city or old folks homes, we get lots of neat stuff !!

if we ever have too move there will be at least 2 semis involved with the shop. we have both standard and metric stock as well as electrical and furnace parts of varying desciptions! buddy is retiring from mechanical repair and machining, make that 5 semis!!

Ken Scharabok · #10 12/12/06, 06:16 AM

Consider selling surplus on eBay. You can get up to 70 lbs in a 5" x 8.5" x 11" flat rate priority mail box for $8.10 shipping to any U.S. Zip Code. Offer box lots at $X per pound. Boxes are not particularly strong for heavy weights. I would use at least three layers of white grocery bags (individually tied off at top) and then lots of clear tape on outside.

Say a price of $.50 per pound plus shipping.

WisJim · #11 12/12/06, 07:27 AM

I have gotten a number of the small storage cabinets with plastic drawers, available in a couple of drawer sizes. I have attempted to standarize on the same outside dimensions and 3 or 4 drawer sizes, and have sorted and labeled 90+% of my small fasteners and parts. If I had to move them and store them somewhere else, it would be easy to tape a piece of cardboard over the front to keep the drawers from falling out, and stacking them in boxes. When they are on shelves or hanging on the wall in the garage or shop, they make it easier to find the parts I need.

This is the kind of thing, although they are cheaper locally on sale, a few times a year:
http://www.homeorganizershops.com/STDS18.html

hoofinitnorth · #12 12/12/06, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Explorer

Fordy, you probably have very little choice in this matter. Lots of people, especially women, do not realize there is a gene most men (especially if you are descended from farmers) inherit. It is the little known and secretive gene called the hoarding gene. Go with the flow as save that good stuff.

My in-laws were farmers and the family motto MUST BE "You MIGHT need it SOME DAY!"

But I don't consider them hoarders, especially since the wife keeps the piles in check and the husband is so darned organized (that's probably a learned trait from medical/dental school) that you can't really consider his garage anything more than a hardware shop! :baby04:

mightybooboo · #13 12/12/06, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fordy

................I'm fully engaged in moving everything I want to keep into a storage room I've rented . It's about to drive me bonkers but I'm persisting even though I'd rather take a Beatin' that have to deal with this issue .
................So , I've accumulated lots of nots and bolts of ALL sizes and I can't make myself either sell or otherwise dispose of them . I've got a small fortune in hardware and too replace them would be very expensive . So , I've decided to just move them and all my tools into the storage thing and hope that if and when i move again I'll be strong enough to do this operation all over a gain . Am I just plain stupid for hanging "on" too this stuff and is it worth the effort i'm putting into retaining . thanks , fordy...

Depends...If its a journey just to acquire property elsewhere,then hold on.

For fulltimers,many by the end of 2 years have found everything they had stored was now irrelevant and just dumped it all.One way to figure it,what is the yearly storage cost vrs value being stored,at some point it will be clear if its worth it or not.

Lets see,25/month for 2 years,thats 600 dollars.If you had to buy replacement items,would you be spending 300 a year on them or less ?

We dumped the storage costs early on in our case it just plain didnt make sense,kept what we had room for,rest,Bye Bye.

BooBoo