Push Me Pull You

When I was cleaning out my shop to make room for the lathe, which involved new tool chests, rearranging tools in the tool chests, and reorganizing all the drawers in the garage shop, I purged a lot of hardware that has been traveling with me for a decade or more.  I actually had a box of cobbler tacks, among various other small lots of stray nails, screws, and old cabinet hinges, etc.

I threw away the old iron that didn't work but I was going to fix someday in order to wax my skis--the same skis that are now the bottom half of a sled for my kids and probably won't need wax.  Gone is my collection of circular saw blades that came off the saw because they were dull, but are resharpen-able (for about twice the cost of a new blade).  No more is my galvanized steel bucket full of pole barn nails, salvaged from a chicken-coop/shed in the back yard of a house I lived in 15 years ago.  My buddies and I had a grand time burning down that shed along with the original outhouse one thirsty autumn afternoon.  The knee pads with a broken strap that I paid $5 for at the China Depot--gone.  The glue-encrusted rubber gloves, grimy dust mask, welding goggles, dog leash, and cut-off ends of several baseball bats--mere memories.  I could not bring myself to discard the winter gloves that I have had since 1984, though; they are still reasonably intact and fit, so I put them under the seat of my truck for emergency use.

When I came across the Quick grip hold down clamps, I had a dilemma: I never have enough clamps, and here were two that I have been moving around for many years, never having been used because they are meant to be installed in the top of a workbench and have only one side--the other end being the work top surface.  They require a hole to be drilled the your work bench top and are fairly immovable once installed.  Just never found a good home for them.  But how could I throw out a pair of clamps?  The solution:  I welded them together.  Already they have proven to be useful in a variety of situations that I could not have envisioned.  I wonder what other stuff I threw out that I could have found a use for eventually?  Dammit.