What could you lay your hands on easily?

[Jonathan Harvey]

I don't have any of it :-( I have a lathe though and lots of wood. :-)

[Brian J. Elliott]

I'm a hoarder and a plumber. I have lots of pipe laying around. I have lots of scrap steel. Mostly leftovers from building hoist, boiler platforms and pipe supports. I'm going to build something grand, one of these days.

[Fred Perreault]

A lot of our favorite ladies seem to know about thriftiness.....coupons, sales, etc. And some of us have a grip on the value of "used" items. When I owned and maintained 20-30 pieces of heavy equipment, saving "stuff" was as natural as breathing. Change a center bearing on the driveshaft of one of the Mack dump trucks... well, save the old bearing on the back shelf, just in case. Lop off 6" from the end of a piece of angle or channel iron?... on another shelf. 14" of leftover Bundyflex brake line repair tubing... yup, on another shelf. If you want to save something too big for a shelf, just stand it up in a corner. It was not the save philosophy, as much as the "don't throw it away mode". I have actually taken used lumber from some demolitions to build... yup, more storage for more "stuff". Every few years, when the "stuff" starts to fall off the shelves, or tumble out of the sheds, one has to clean house. And for sure, some weeks later, you find a need for one thing or another that you remember seeing a few weeks before when cleaning up. Just this morning I used a small scrap of flat steel to make a bracket, and 2 wheels and an axle from who knows what to help make a trolley to walk out some distance on the flats, and then to wheel back my clams and quahogs I dug (easier nowadays than carrying). Fresh chowder tonight, and baked stuff quahogs later this week.
The 4"x4"x1/4" angle iron I used to make the 350 lb. stand for my Nova 16/24 was from a tear down a few years ago. The 4" galvanized pipe from a demolition... that was the foundation for my 3 Robust Lookalike tool rests. The 1" post for the toolrest was from an old small axle. Before there were "municipal landfills", everybody had a dump in their back yard, or "stuff" stored in their barn.
If you have room, it's all treasure till it's deemed trash.... and you should delay that decision for as long as possible.

[Donald Barfield]

I had to check every item as I seem to never throw anything away because every time I do I have a need for it just a couple of days later. That is why with a 36 x 48 shop, my shop is too small.