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Name some outside things you made.......

2K views 21 replies 18 participants last post by  pamintexas 
#1 ·
Probably one of the most useful contraptions I put together was a chicken plucker. I found an old cabinet with a side door. For the top I nailed on sheet metal and cut out the middle to accomdate the grate and spacing for the rubber plucking fingers on the rotating drum. A simple motor with belt ran the gizmo and did the job well.

Another odd thing I have is the inside of a dryer that is mounted to rotate. It's great to throw in peat or compost to filter out small particles for toping to seedling soil mix. A wheelbarrow underneath as it roates catches the droppings out the holes of the dryer drum. It's odd looking, but it works.

For a turkey sized scalding tank, I took a used inside of a hot water tank. With a reciprocating saw, I cut the top, and the tank is about 3' high. It's ideal to put over a fire pit outside for scalding anything up to the size of about a 50 lb. turkey!
I didn't make it, but have seen meat smokers made of the inside of a hot water tank. Pretty versatile way to recycles these tanks. One could also cut one lengthwise to fill for poultry or animals.

The big blue plastic 55 gal. drums I cut them lengthwise and leaned against the fence in the coop with a brick at the front so they slant without toppling. These are great for ducks water, and easy to change for refilling.

What resourcefull useful gizmos did you make to use around the homestead??
 
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#2 ·
:) Do birdhouses and wind toys count? LOL I use power tools and build all of my duck pens and houses too but I know those are not "gizmos". :)

LQ
 
#3 ·
built from guardrail a large corral with cattle handling facilities
Scuppernong trelis with 6 varieties
Purple martin housing to accomodate 24 pairs
Planted several hundred trees as a buffer
redirected the creek to reduce erosion
created several acres of "new ground"
make a back rub and duster for the cattle
spent entirely too much time here
 
#5 ·
Dh made a wonderful chicken coop out of a large shipping crate he got at salvage for $1.00. We added a roof, window, old screen door, roosts, linolium floor, and nesting boxes, and for about $20.00, we had a 4x8 coop that we could stand up in and was warm and easy to clean.

He also made a cold frame using some 2x6's and an old storm door.

Used some old picket fencing someone was throwing away to make a stall in the barn for the goats.

Made a versitle farm vehicle out of an old riding mower and a large trunk.
 
#6 ·
The single most useful thing I've made for homestead use was a "carryall" that attaches to the three point hitch of my tractor. Involved a bit of welding then bolting up the sides, ends, back, and bottom. Back end is a lift out for long or odd shaped stuff.

I use this thing virtually daily and it has hauled firewood, compost, trees, bears, even my bride. Ugly it is, but oh so useful!

bearkiller
 
#7 ·
we make stone boats by cutting furnace oil tanks in two . hold enough wood for a week and slip on the fork of the tractor . great for soil or any load we have to leave in place but don't want to dump on the ground .made all our lambing pen sides and our head gate / sheep,goat stantions. we use hiway gaurd rail as grain troughs cheap and near indestructable! reworked our skidsteer quick tach so our loader tracter and it can swap attachments.made a nontip mineral feeder base(top is comecial feeder)chicken feeders out of fertilizer spreaders this spring we are making alow rider steerable axel trailer list is almost endless (so's the junk yard!!!)
 
#8 ·
Built compost bins out of rolls of wire my dad had discarded

Spray painted two old wrought iron gates I found in dad's junk pile and set them in the ground with t-posts which I also spray painted. I am going to plant cape jasmine (or as we say here cape "jessamine") plants in front of them. My dad has been in the bulldozing business for years and he has brought home enough "junk" to make just about anything out of. I am always raiding his junk for things I can recycle. I found some more wire and an old chest of drawers that I am going to line and use for planter boxes. :haha: :haha:

Made tomato cages out of scrap wire

Took some scrap lumber and hardware cloth (wire) and made a garden sieve for sifting out this nut grass that loves my garden
 
#9 ·
Little Quacker in OR said:
:) Do birdhouses and wind toys count? LOL I use power tools and build all of my duck pens and houses too but I know those are not "gizmos". :)

LQ
Bluebird houses and garden signs I've made from leftover cedar siding or roof shakes.

Use the old metal kitchen counters in the shop. The new counters where the sink is cut out, I use those for cutting boards outside to chop up veggies to feed fowl. Of course this is done by using a used resharpened cleaver when a new set was replaced as a gift.

From the old hospital job I got lucky bidding in their old equipment auctions and got such things as a baby scale to accurately weigh vegetables and stuff, an actual baby incubtor I want to use to hatch large exotic eggs (like Emu), large plastic containers to use for keeping worms, maternity heat lamp used as a brooder heat lamp. Picked up oddball stuff at garage sales to use such as a humidity guage from an old airplane to monitor room such as cold storage, old bamboo cane fishing poles for pea or tomato stakes.......
 
#10 ·
NativeRose said:
Built compost bins out of rolls of wire my dad had discarded
Yup.I took down old woven wire fencing and made simple round composting areas next to each garden. And with the old posts attached the old fencing maked good dragging behind the garden tractor to smooth over areas to reseed, like over the new septic field.

I used to hang out near the cedar sawmill to pick up scraps of long 1/2" x 3" pieces. These were cut up to use for sides of onion seeding trays that worked beautifully. I had enough to make slats to put together 4 greenhouse tables that were 2 x 8' and excellent rot resistant.
One time I bought a stack of 2 x 8 worm hole damaged cedar boards. Dirt cheap and were good for making planters and made raised beds atop horizontal laying cedar posts to make an excellent hardening out area next to the greenhouse and later planted with annual flowers.

And let's not forget the large stump brought up from the woodlot to use as the chopping block to butcher turkeys. Two 12" spikes driven in about 4" and criss crossed to have a head hold. very handy for the homemade burlap bag with the corner cut out to poke the head through and bale string to tied up the bird in the bag.... :yeeha:
 
#11 ·
i forgot our super laying box! got a stand up non working freezer from a friend and nailed 2x3 acoss the front . it takes longer for the eggs to freeze as it's insulated.also removed the door.we also rebuild a lot of smaller machinery and are forever rebuilding the broken bits ,have a heavy duty work bench built from hydro towers(there were a lot of these and hydro poles around 8 years ago )compost bins are poly water tanks that split(before being sold)that i cut the top out of
 
#12 ·
I made a hayfeeder for my goats out of wooden pallets. Just the right size for their heads, and they can't easily pull the hay out.

I made a small goldfish pond out of an old satellite dish. Used an old waterbed mattress as a liner for it. Placed rocks in it, built a small rock wall around it, and ran a pipe from a mountain spring to keep it circulated. The pond is tilted slightly to allow the water to spill out of it like a mini waterfall.

A friend of mine once made an air conditioner for his company truck that didn't have air conditioning in it. He took a large 5 gallon water jug. Cut a hole in it about 5 inches by 5 inches near the top... Attached a fan to the inside of the screw on lid... Filled the jug with ice, plugged the fan into the cigarette lighter - and bungeed the jug on the passenger seat right next to him with the 5" x 5" hole pointed right at him.......... :worship: He was a genius! IMO.

My neighbor grades his gravel driveway with this contraption he built out of railroad ties. He attaches it with chains to his 4 wheel drive truck, and drags this railroad tie beast along his circular driveway... Another genius!
 
#13 ·
I have built many trailers and quite a few trailer mounted bar b ques from old propane tanks, well practiced with torch and welder. The oddes item I have made is a ground cutter that is hauled behind my 14 horse lawn tractor. Think of a towed 'T' made from 2 inch square tubbing. Mounted on each side is a 12 inch disc that came from a manufactured disc, they are mounted on trailer wheel stems that allows motion horizonally. Both are linked to a slide that goes both forward and backwards on the tongue piece, there is a group of bolt holes on that slides pathway, you can adjust the cutting angle by moveing the stop pin in the bolt holes.

If you hit a rock or stump which stops the tractor's traction, simply back up and the cutting disc will return to parallel, start going forward again and they will reopen. This tool throws about a one foot wide, 8 inch high furrow, ideal for potato beds. This operates best in soft ground in sand as we have here.
 
#14 ·
I built a device for lifting/setting logs for the log home I built.


I call it a log dolly hoist. It features one of those cheapie electric hoists ($80) and a set of log lifting tongs. I spent under $200 on it.

It proved invaluable in lifting the logs on my house. The logs were far too heavy to be lifted into place manually.....even if I could have rounded up another worker. I was able to do all the logwork by myself.
 
#16 ·
Lets see,
DH made an old Ugly Tin Cow shed, into a more secure miniature horse and donkey stalls. Its still Ugly though. :rolleyes:

Right now, he is just building more fence.. but soon he has to build a Hen house out of an old metal car port..that should be interesting. Still need to get more siding for that.

None of what we are doing is near as interesting as what you folks are making!! Will have to show DH this,, thanks for the ideas!
 
#17 ·
I built a biological filter out of a 70 gal. Rubbermaid stock tank to keep the water in a small pond clean. Besides the tank, it used some 1" PVC sheet, a 5' long 4" section of lucite tubing, and light weight aggregate for the filter material. Water pumped out of the pond was sprayed into the top of the lucite column so it fell into the bottom of the tank picking up air and then flowed up through holes drilled in the PVC, passed through the filter aggregate and then flowed out through a drain at the top back to the pond through a small waterfall. The pond never had a problem with algae.
 
#19 ·
Planters and garden beds out of everything from recycled lumber to landscape timbers to tires tiered and covered with rocks. Fences, lots of fences, lots of deer around my place. Compost bins out of pallets, chicken tractors out of cull lumber, Home Depot sells short lengths for fifty cents, also have gotten mendable trellis pieces for a dollar, and plywood for that as well, I love cull bins! I built two decks last year. Right now I am building two small chicken houses outside with a connecting porch room that I can store feed and water in, and I'm also going to start building a bigger house and run for my silkie bantams. I'm actually planning to build that in panels in the living room, but it will go outside when I'm finished, and the living room is temporary, once daylight savings gets here I'll have light after work! I built a two level brooder last weekend, it's in the kitchen but will go out on the deck when the babies can take cooler temperatures.

My entire front yard is full of flowerbeds made of the big rocks that are everywhere on my place, does that count as building? My back would say YES!

Also can get playground equipment crates sometimes and built one of my chicken tractors out of one, a small banty house out of one, and part of my kids' play unit out of pieces of another one.

When I lived in Montana I helped build one almost completed house out of scrounged materials, and one partial one, and lots of sheds made out of slabs. Built an outdoor kitchen (ROUGH) with the help of my teenaged son, and a greenhouse out of strawbales, PVC, and heavy plastic, that was my favorite place!
hollym
 
#20 ·
I built a smoke house out of old boards we tore down off of the enclosed back porch that we opened up. There was an old cement slab already poured that used to be where an old chicken house was years ago. I built the smoke house on the slab. it is 5' x 8' and even has a little porch on the front of it with gingerbread detail from leftover pieces of wood that I took the scroll saw to. It has shelves inside and a small bbq pit with a smoke stack on it that we use to build fires in for the smoke. It has a small window in it to adjust airflow and circulation. I also built a yard bench out of treated log siding left over from our house. I bought some thick foam and material and made a long cushion for it. It is long enough my husband can lay down on it and take a nap. Built shelving units for use in the portable building and built a small table. Also built my son's toddler bed out of cypress boards and cut out letters to spell his name and put that on the headboard and a decorative design on the footboard (an heirloom to be passed down) I built it the size that his crib mattress would fit in it and it has casters on it so I can move it easily to vacuum. (BOY wish my bed had those).
 
#22 ·
Right after we had our pond dug I planted bermudagrass on the banks and made a "drag" out of a metal fence post and some chain. Attached it to the riding lawn mower and drove over the seeded areas to cover the seed. Guess it worked well because we got a good stand.
Converted an old non-running freezer into a storage place for chicken feed and things I use to clean the chicken coop and feeders. It's out close to the coop, near some trees, so I spray-painted it camouflage colors so it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. :D
Built 2 compost bins from pallets. Planted potato slips in hay inside of old tires.
Made a garden bench from 2 big stumps and scrap lumber. Built 2 chicken tractors out of scrap lumber and chicken wire. Made an old cast iron barbeque pit base into a planter.
My next project will be turning an old camper top for a truck into a mini-green house. I'm going to cut 2 large areas out of the top and install plexi-glass then raise it up on 4 x 4's (based in cement). Put scrap lumber siding about half-way up and cover the rest of the space with clear plastic which will be easy to replace as it deteriorates. Put in a gravel floor and build 2 potting benches inside. I need to scounge up a used door somewhere. Any tips on accomplishing this will be highly appreciated. :)
 
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